LEAP!
LEAP!
In Unfading Light, the highly creative and influential Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov, after a prolonged period as a Marxist atheist, beautifully describes his return to Christian faith as a leap to faith — a description first used by Søren Kierkegaard:
“In my theoretical strivings and doubts a single motif, one secret hope, now sounded in me all the clearer — the question What if? And what began burning in my soul for the first time since the days in the Caucasus became all the more imperious and bright; but the main thing was all the more definite: I did not need a ‘philosophical’ idea of Divinity but a living faith in God, in Christ and the Church. If it is true that there is a God, this means that everything that was given to me in childhood but which I had abandoned is true. Such was the semi-conscious religious syllogism that my soul made: nothing…or everything, everything down to the last little candle, the last little icon. And the work of my soul went on nonstop, invisible to the world and unclear even to me. What happened on a wintery Moscow street, in a crowded square, is memorable — suddenly a miraculous flame of faith began burning in my soul, my heart beat, tears of joy dimmed my eyes. In my soul ‘the will to believe’ ripened, the resolution finally to carry through with the leap to the other shore, so senseless for the wisdom of the world, from Marxism and every ism resulting from it to…Orthodoxy. Oh, yes, of course it is a leap, towards happiness and joy; an abyss lies between both shores. I had to jump.”
Thirteen years before I read Sergius Bulgakov’s account of his leap to faith, I had a similar experience. I had reached the point in midlife where I was either going to yield to spiritual complacency or I had to make some decisive and risky moves to live a life of passionate commitment to Christ. During that time, I wrote a poem I titled “LEAP!” When trying communicate the nature of a spiritual experience, poetry is sometimes a more reliable vehicle than prose.
LEAP!
And shall I go on being casual and numb?
Pretending
Pretending that I know something about this being I so glibly call God
Or shall I dare to encounter Him?
Him
The One with whom I have to do
The One who can never be an object
Forever and always the eternal subject
Is it grammar or a much deeper truth?
The object is acted upon but the subject acts
God is not in my story—I am in His
How is it I can be unaware of this?
Did I think I invented this story called being?
Surely I’m not that crazy
I belong to His story
History
But there is my story
Mystery
God is no object—only and ever a subject
The Subject
You cannot trivialize The Subject to ology or ism
You can only be aware or oblivious
Of the One who alone possesses innate beingness
The most obvious of all truth
But all truth inheres in subjectivity
Oh!
Subjectivity
Where passion is permitted
Where we are in the story
Where we care
Instead of aloof and comfortably numb
Subjectivity is passion
Faith is passion
Life is passion
Sanity is passion
Objectivity is numb
Empiricism is numb
Death is numb
Madness is numb
Passion saves
My soul
From numbness
Prose
Prozac
Prosaic
Ordinary
Medicated
Unimaginative
Passionless being
Passion saves
Poetic prophetic extraordinary imaginative
Passionate being
Passion saves
To believe is to be passionate
Passion is found in the instant of the leap
When you leap beyond the fence
(Objectivity)
Into the Lion’s presence
(Subjectivity)
Will He kill you or let you live?
Either way you are alive in that moment
You are not cool or “cool”
One is dispassionate the other is self-conscious
In that moment you are neither
You are passionate and engaged
LEAP!
The security barrier of objectivity
Into the presence of the Being Himself
It’s the only hope you have of saving your life
Leprosy is not what you think it is
It doesn’t eat you
It’s only numbness
But numbness will destroy you
LEAP!
Before it’s too late
Before the leprosy takes your legs away
Before the creeping numbness takes your soul away
LEAP!
The Leap to faith
That jumps the objective
To encounter the Subject
Where passion lives
Because now there is nothing between you and the Lion
And you know you live because you feel your heartbeat
And you know you live because He lets you live
No more numbness
Passion saves
LEAP!
* * * * * * *
(This is an excerpt from When Everything’s on Fire. The artwork is The Leap by David Brayne.)