What else can I do?

Last updated on: September 5, 2015 at 9:31 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

What else can I do? 2015-09-05T21:31:26-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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As a student, I was taught to read and began to see beauty in texts. I learned to wonder, to question, to learn by being real about my ignorance. And then I had a horrid thought: what if I were smart enough to love the way of questions, the dialectic, but not good enough to do it?

I went to my very wise teacher and expressed my concern. I am sure what I wanted was a reassuring compliment. Given my depressive nature, such praise would have been like aspirin: the pain would have vanished for a moment, but then returned. What he did say has made me wonder, and reassured me for decades. Oddly, I cannot be sure exactly what he said. Instead, I know the gist: what difference does it make?

Sweet comfort!

Dr Geier was right. If you love a thing, what else can you do but pursue it?

I loved the way of wonderment, Plato’s dialectic, and I had to keep reading and thinking. What else could I do?

Tonight over a quarter of a century later, Dr Geier is leading a session on Republic in my house with some of The Saint Constantine School teachers. They are seeing new things and so am I! (Glaucon may be a man of the city and Adeimantus of the port…brothers separated by loyalty to different polities. What happens to a family so divided?) I still do not grasp most of the text, but I still love learning and so must keep trying. If I fail, the failure is sweet because the failing takes place near Lady Wisdom. My intellect may not be enough, but it still functions and that is enough.

I love Wisdom even if she can never be mine.

Wonderful Light

How much more has been my delight in God! He was there as a little boy and is there now. Not so much felt as desired… I see Him dimly, I am not sure. Skeptics question and I have some answers, but they are tentative. What if I am wrong? What a pity, but there is nothing I can do but love Him, because the dim vision is so beautiful that I love Him. I hope He is real, and thankfully the arguments against His reality are unpersuasive. I can be reasonable and love Him, but even if I could not reasonably love Him, I would love the shadow. The hard truth of atheism, if it were true, I would assert, but my love would remain. Thank God, God is. My head and my heart can stay united, but my love I cannot control in any case.

Oddly, my two loves have become more united… The way keeps leading me to the “being beyond being” (Republic VI) and a love of God is Light that is uncreated beyond light … A goodness beyond existence is the Good and the Good is God. This is a wonderful truth and does not stop thought because it increases wonder. Here is a simple truth: love brings desire and desire finds the beloved or at least keeps trying. God is so great that our desire for Him cannot die even if we deny our love, pretend God is not real, or let false prophets confuse our love with their lies.

So love is for me tonight: I cannot tell, cannot be certain, but the dialectical way is the way of the Logos. The Logos lives and is Jesus: the very son of God full of grace and truth.

Thank you, Dr Geier.

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