A Letter

 

A 15th century Icon of Wisdom

Dear sojourners in Persia,

We live in a state that provides frozen peace atop a raging river. And we know underneath the ice are fish looking for a meal to devour. The Living Water gives Leviathan his dwelling place even when he refuses to see it.

This state, who is ever hostile to us and the Country we serve, wants us to ignore its reality and feed it until the King of Kings has been swallowed in its darkened belly. This spiritual beast of an egregore is encapsulated by the United States of America - the epitome of modernity and a pillar of so-called culture. It's such a subtle demon that most people (including our travelers of a kindred spirit) don't see it lurking behind every consumeristic and political act. The "progress" it feigns is the perversion of us as Icons - the idol calls us and lures us into an apotheosis of the flesh embodied in the rape of Lady Wisdom.

Invisible Infinity seen through the telescope of finite visibility.

In Thunder, Perfect Mind, a text you may be unfamiliar with, a female figure (here I read the Divine Feminine, Wisdom) lives in the oscillation movement of two paradoxical proclamations. For an example, the whore and the virgin. The reason I mention this poetic playfulness is to show that the juxtapositions aren't contradictory per se, rather they are different modes of perception describing the same phenomenon. To the fleshly, Wisdom is seen as a whore to be played and manipulated with (as the Sophists exemplify in Plato). To the spiritual, Wisdom is the pure essence of divinity that bridges the gap between the Thrice-Holy God and His poetic utterance of Creation. She herself is the eternal sunrise anticipating the day where theosis (divinization, sanctification, choose your term, pilgrim) is fully realized and we grow into the image of Christ forever.

The hidden wholeness behind man's veil of sin.

I write to you my dear friends, brothers and sisters, to remind you of our true vocation. Since the beginning, we have been called to be priests of our fellow Creatures. As the gentiles’ saint says, Creation is a groaning mother anticipating this birth with pangs. This groaning anticipation shields the Philistines' eyes from death, even if they fear the fire of stolen Glory.

We must pierce the temples with Jael and sing Deborah's song. The glory of the Lord cannot be hidden forever nor was it meant to be. As the Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant from place to place, so the Divine Presence is to be seen in every place. Lift up your arms Christians and make known the tearing of the veil and the splitting of the sea! The tablets of stone written on the sacred mountain have always been transcribed in our hearts by the Almighty! His voice always sings out as poetry: from the beginning of heaven and earth - the process we call the creativity of Nature.

His grandeur truly charged in the world and the dawn's blushing in the sun's flame.

The Word sang out words ("Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee…") and made manifest his Wisdom so that his Eye could revel in the light of her beauty. He wants to surrender himself fully and does so! He makes himself lower than the angels. She wants to unite once again ("His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem..."). It is the destiny known by the snake and grasped too early by Eve.

Petition to the Lord to open the eyes of your heart so that you may see her as well. And by seeing her, you will perceive He Who Made Her and you will know Him because perception is the seat of knowing and the King sits upon his throne forever.

This is why marriage is a sacrament - it is the Symbol of this reality. And by symbol, what do I mean but the participation and incarnation of such a romance? The vegetation sways with us and the birds and the beasts sing the glorious wedding hymns!

Our Savior, born of The Ever-Virgin, comes to dwell with us! O Emmanuel! How beautiful are your servant's feet that even the lowliest can come and offer true worship!

Christ Emmanuel Icon 

I fear, not that the Church may fall, but the beast of Babylon will be (truthfully, can be) found within her walls. The Temple won't be profaned, but her people will turn to merchants and sell themselves to the logic of this present world. The church can't fall because She is the Lord's Bride - the Virgin whom the world sees as whore - the magnificent yes said to the Spirit and perverted into a consent of flesh. A true desire for love converted into lust's deathly kiss.

Even so, the Blessed Mary still conceived and bore the God-Child Jesus. Into the manger he came: wrapped in the prophecies of old and gifted by the magi of the east. His Innocence never leaving him - even into adulthood where his glorious shine blinded the man who asks, what is truth?

Elizabeth sings, Who am I that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

And who is she but the bearer of God,

Icon of Mary

The wedding garment of Wisdom?

Though we may find ourselves amongst the Persians of the West, please don't confuse them with the magi. Turn from them and repent of their ways. They see stars without seeing heavenly hosts. The gifts they bear resemble nails, thorns, and piercings. We accept these treacherous torments as a woman accepts the penetration of a man: as a gift of a future child - the God-Man of Christ. To bear our Cross is to proclaim His Glory forever with all the saints around. We'll have to drink the blood and water that flows from his side. For they are the Living Water and cleansing sacrifice (do not animals do the same when we hunt them?)

Pick up your cross and follow me.

Leave behind your nets because I am the net that catches everything.

I plead with you to hear the words of Creation and take heed of God's calling to live life poetically - doing as Christ does and following in His Way of Resurrection. I pray unceasingly for you and ask God that the construction of Babel is stopped before the Ark is once again lost. May the God who breathes his Spirit be heard in the Wind of a Breath. And may the Lord Jesus come quickly. Amen.

Christian