Chapter 5. The Omnipresent God.

March 5, 2022

“…At the midnight hour, when the storm blossomed,
Caught unawares, the young pilgrim, prisoner of burden,
Longed to find a dwelling,
For spirit, heart, and for the flesh:
Many a weary night
Had flown before his youthful face,
In the desolate fields, in the barren steppes –
And guilty were those azure eyes,
Whose flesh had bathed in shining light.
In darkness stood a shapeless figure –
With soul, where feeling was the fortress,
With sacred mystery of the augur,
Healing in the name of sufferings,
He gave himself to song unbroken,
That glorifies the lineage of God.
And then, in but a single instant, as in a fable,
In the blackness he beheld a faint light –
To go towards it in the dark was peril,
But not to go was death itself!
Summoning courage of soul and spirit,
The youth set out upon the thorny path –
For if you thirst for peace in this world,
First you must learn to weep!
With every moment drawing nearer
To that which was so dear to sight,
Revived by hope so pure,
He saw in that light a temple bright.
Crossing the thresholds of the temple,
Finding there shelter and a roof,
And bread and wine in measured portions
Ordained by Christ’s own act,
He marveled at the saturation,
The ornaments of gold and silver –
How, in a spirit full of surfeit,
Could one claim that modesty is virtue?
Having received roof, comfort, food,
Through such a simple act of grace,
He yearned to study that abode –
By no means blind,
Nor worse, ungrateful
To those who were sons
Of the God-bestowed Church power –
Where much is good, yet ruins too,
Founded upon contradictions plain,
That cannot ever be concealed.
And at the moment when from the pulpit,
With zeal to uncover
What hides within the hearts
Of heaven’s flock, whose faces
Mask their sins with humble mien,
And with their tears conceal intrigues,
The pastor, heavy in thought,
With clever spirit spoke aloud:
That gold shines vainly,
Though he himself in incense clouds
Consumed the gold for his own flock.
He sought to prove to all around,
That there is no sin worse than passion,
Even while his gaze would water
The meadow with desire,
For the tender, youthful flesh:
Without his cassock he was not impartial,
And under it he bore the same wounds,
The same pains and the same trials,
The same sense of good and evil,
As any one of us
Whom fate has thrust into the world.
Calling gently to prayer,
To open sorrows and true fears,
To share one’s soul and one’s thought,
The holy father, as though he were God,
Learned of every man,
His secrets, and his sins –
Exploring rivers of the soul,
He harvested a mighty catch,
Within glowing endlessly,
From the power entrusted to him,
By others’ truth, pure as the moonlight:
Yet is not such truth but a yoke?
Then came the turn of the young man
To confess his sins before the one
Who was not the Creator,
And so, lowering his eyes,
He plunged into the depths of silence,
And then into the depths of being:
For him whose hunger is true,
From the stream of repentance
To drink of tender water pure,
No costly means are needed,
For God requires no boldness
To welcome prince or wretch alike.
The young pilgrim, prisoner of light,
Suddenly sank into darkness –
As though a hero of the Covenant,
In a single instant in another land,
In other realms he found himself:
In one of a thousand caves –
It was but dream to which he yielded,
Exhausted like a hunted beast,
Long pursued by life itself.
Exploring soon the wide expanse,
Where he gave himself to quiet,
He raised within himself a tale,
So vivid and so true:
That God was more abundant here,
Than in the splendid, gilded bounds,
Where proud the organ sings its hymn.
In rugged stalactites,
He saw the forms of saints,
In simple rays – the lights of heaven,
In streams of water – Eden’s hymn,
In silent, barren, meager dark –
The radiance of life, the joy of bliss.
Thus, seeing without the false signs,
Rituals, symbols – masks of masquerade! –
He beheld the One who named
The world itself His temple.
In the pilgrim’s soul delight awoke,
Watered by the sweetness of the streams,
Of the plains, of space, alive.
And making of the cave a temple,
Seeing God in strength and action,
In every work of His creation –
Whether stone or human form,
The young pilgrim, inspired,
Recalled his former life:
He remembered how, with feeling
That words could never seize,
He saw in a youthful maiden
The wondrous, tender, mighty temple,
A refuge fairer than all others
To him who was outcast in life –
Who had been abandoned,
Who had recreated himself alone.
He saw in her the essence of God,
Whom men had named Alexandra –
Resolutely, without disquiet,
That knot which long was woven
By spiders of his soul’s numbness,
Of orphaned hours –
Was severed in a single instant
By the gaze of her eyes.
And in every lock of agate hair,
Whose color glimmered with straightness,
He saw a gentle healing patch
For that soul, bare and naked,
Which before his essence stood,
Revealing God’s own wondrous gift,
From birth, from the beginning,
When the fire of life arises.
He counted every glance of hers
A creation of highest art:
Her smile, laughter, every motion –
For Apelles, a carnival!
Her lips – the scarlet of the rose,
Her lips – the clouds themselves
That sketch their poses
On heaven’s evening canvas.
Her eyes – two burning fires,
Whose flames consume more than wine,
Two azure earthly spheres,
And her skin – a veil of Cosmos!
Her lashes – branches of forsythia,
Her wondrous form – the flesh of willow!
And how, tell me, O orators,
Could one resist oneself,
At sight of her, most fair of all,
At sight of her, most wondrous?
Then do we burn more fiercely,
When we no longer see the prose of days!
The young pilgrim was convinced,
With sobs of his afflicted soul,
That no matter how he longed for her,
He would find God only in the wild.
Thus, waking at last with effort,
And recognizing the count of hours,
He returned to reality’s loss –
For building of a temple in a cave.
In simple, mortal matter,
He sought both God and self,
But found instead in illusory,
Enchanting forms of being,
Only earthly goods:
The slender cut of stones so fair –
In them no soul resides.
Till now, and evermore,
They are but strokes of mortal brush.
The young pilgrim, who endowed her
With sacred sanctity divine,
Though unloved, yet loving still,
Made the dead to live!
For this he paid a bitter price:
Reality, grown starved,
Left him with nothing of that
For which he yearned – only cold ashes!
Then he understood at last,
That everywhere, beneath the moon,
Upon the earth, God dwells only
In those who cleave to simplicity!..”