THE LAST GASP
To extinguish the last possessive trace of the heart... A thought to reflect upon from one of my teachers that melds well with my ongoing ruminations on kenosis. I've lain awake all night wondering what self-emptying really, truly means and am again reminded of the rich, young ruler who - although good and observant in every way - could not relinquish everything to follow Jesus. Following the exchange, Peter says they gave up everything for him. That I mourn the loss of everything illustrates the sad truth that they were, in fact, impediments to discipleship. This mournful struggle is a consuming darkness.
And yet, somehow a small light still shines in it. Sometimes I see it. It's in me, and it hasn't forgotten. It hasn't been extinguished. It remains...small, steady, glowing dimly in the dark. Somehow it lives on. Somehow it knows it will not be extinguished, that instead, somehow my possessive heart will succumb first. And what is that heart? It’s the persistent illusion that my experiences are mine alone, the lie that in my temporal specificity I'm merely the isolated, finite creature I see in the mirror. I see it in its specificity, which is why I'm so possessive of it, why I still care so much about what happens to it. When I think of death, even that is an exercise in the same possession, a final lament that this sad, separate self cannot find a way to save itself.
What is the answer then? The answer is clear and unambiguous: I am not my own. The undying light within me is not my own. It’s not my responsibility to explain the world, why I was born as I was or why things transpire as they do. All I'm doing is living God's life through the specificity of my own. What I seek to possess is a lie, an image of a thing that doesn’t really exist. There's no sense judging my life in terms of either worldly success or tragic, meaningless loss. In the end, increasing our capacity to love and be loved is why we exist, why anything exists at all. Sometimes this is accomplished through gentle, tender moments or ecstatic bliss, and other times through failure, rejection, or loss. It is not up to me to judge what's needed or when. I'm not up to that task. All I can do is assent to stand witness to the unfolding with gracious receptivity and not run from anything the Life that lives in me, through me, and as me places in my path.