The Relationship Between God and Man
1. THE ULTIMATE most holy form of theory is action.
2. Not to look on passively while the spark leaps from generation to generation, but to leap and to burn with it!
3. Action is the widest gate of deliverance. It alone can answer the questionings of the heart. Amid the labyrinthine complexities of the mind it finds the shortest route. No, it does not "find" - it creates its way, hewing to right and left through resistances of logic and matter.
6. Our profound human duty is not to interpret or to cast light on the rhythm of God's march, but to adjust, as much as we can, the rhythm of our small and fleeting life to his.
7. Only thus may we mortals succeed in achieving something immortal, because then we collaborate with One who is Deathless.
10. We struggle to make this Spirit visible, to give it a face, to encase it in words, in allegories and thoughts and incantations, that it may not escape us.
11. But it cannot be contained in the twenty-six letters of an alphabet which we string out in rows; we know that all these words, these allegories, these thoughts, and these incantations are, once more, but a new mask with which to conceal the Abyss.
15. We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence.
16. But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic.
22 I do not care what face other ages and other people have given to the enormous, faceless essence. They have crammed it with human virtues, with rewards and punishments, with certainties. They have given a face to their hopes and fears, they have submitted their anarchy to a rhythm, they have found a higher justification by which to live and labor. They have fulfilled their duty.
23. But today we have gone beyond these needs; we have shattered his particular mask of the Abyss; our God no longer fits under the old features.
25. Let us stoop down to our hearts and confront the Abyss valiantly. Let us try to mold once more, with our flesh and blood, the new, contemporary face of God.
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| Iraklion - Grave Site of Nikos Kazantzakis (1878) |
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How difficult for one who has failed,
for one who has declined, to learn the new
language of poverty and new ways.
How will he go to the wretched strange houses!-
With what heart will he walk on the street
and when he finds himself before the door
where will he find the strength to touch the bell.
How will he say thank you for the abject need
of bread and shelter!
How will he face the cold glances that will
indicate to him that he is a burden!
How will the proud lips now
start to speak humbly;
and how will the proud-spirited head bow low!
How will he listen to the speech that rends
the ears with every word-and in the meantime
you must pretend that you are not aware of this
as if you are simple-minded and do not understand.
Cavafy "Whoever Has Failed"
