A Walk Around a Lake

'Sooner or later it will be over, she said, 'and nothing will be left.'

I tried to bring her to recognize that the transitoriness of life does not detract from its meaningfulness. I was not successful so I tried a Socratic dialogue. 'Have you ever met a man,' I asked her, 'for whose achievement and accomplishment you have great respect?' 'Certainly,' she answered, 'our family doctor was a unique person. How he cared for his patients, how he lived for them...' 'He died?' I inquired. 'Yes,' she answered. 'But his life was exceedingly meaningful, wasn't it,' I asked. 'If anyone's life is meaningful his life was,' she said. 'But wasn't this meaningfulness done away with at the moment at which his life was finished?' I asked her. 'In no way,' she answered, 'nothing can alter the fact that his life was meaningful.'

But I continued challenging her: 'And what if not a single patient ever remembers what he owes to your family doctor,' due to lack of gratitude?' 'It remains,' she murmured. 'Or due to lack of memory?' 'It remains.' 'Or due to the fact that one day the last patient will have died?' It remains...'

Every obstacle in life requires an act of will and vulnerability, the capacity for binocular vision and choosing good, and true courage over complacent laziness and stupidity. Naivete isn't the deep evil. Staring bold-faced into the eyes of your deepest sense of soul and taking a large bite out of the apple... laziness, stupidity. Evil. It veils itself, it consumes.

Lord grant us serenity. Grant us wisdom. Grant us hope.

The problems that life presents to us require will and vulnerability. They require heart, depth. "It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." There is no courage in ambition or vision. The still small voice remains. It speaks, but you have lost the beautiful wildness and are left with gutless "passion." Come back.

Where is that which was beautiful and true? Alas, the corruption of the heart, the revelation of its subtlety, the disarming charisma of Evil's will. Has it veiled everything? Is all that is left is desire?

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around a lake."

The trouble with life is that it is most real. There is no sidestepping the responsibility that true beauty requires, true goodness, true wildness. The equation of life cannot be hacked; it must be faced. You yourself must be true, true to the vision seen while the light still shone brightly. In the dim stillness of chaos, you have lost the uncorrupted light. You have lost...

"They must learn that the entirety of one's adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions. If they can accept this totally, then they become free people. To the extent that they do not accept this they will forever feel themselves victims."

Do not confuse the wildness of the flesh with that of the heart.

True beauty and goodness requires will and vulnerability. It requires relationship; it requires community. The meaningful life need not be lost to the rigid requirements of living in this fallen world. The meaningful life must be chosen. A vision once overwhelming must penetrate and consume to cleanse the light corruption has choked out. The meaningful life is real. It need not be lost or given up on. Despair is not inevitable. Responsibility is inevitable. And if a vision is lost, it can only be found by will and vulnerability.

"Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find it. Knock, and the door will be opened to you."

General quotations taken from the following authors:

M. Scott Peck, Thomas Moore, Victor Frankl, the character played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins (what's her name again?), Wallace Stevens, & Jesus Christ

Introductory excerpt is from a story told by an anonymous patient of Victor Frankl