On Theory and Practice

“Cease, anxious world..”

Georges Etheredge

This year I feel my soul and my body crack and give way in a terrible clash between facts and imperatives; theory and practice; law and love; things as they are and things “as they should be”.

“You should not be doing this”

“I don’t want you to feel that way”.

“It shouldn’t be like this”

This is the kind of expressions I just quit, as one quits a boring and tiresome job. Any idea of “how it should be” is necessarily a brainy generalization based on partial experience and partial knowledge, on cultural and family conditioning; rooted in our personal psychological limitations, blind spots, pitfalls and other manifestations of the original sin. These generalizations are simply security supports to a mind that is, for the above mentioned reasons, struggling against the reality of life instead of accepting it simply as it is.

Now, of course we can not see anything “as it is”, ultimately – everything that is perceived is perceived through our minds, our psyche, our senses, which mediate the reality in a way that, paradoxically, reveals and conceals it at the same time. Reveals, because the glorious creation is made to receive truth; conceals, because the glory of the creation is partially disabled, darkened, weakened by sin*. Given this mediation through the corrupted mind and senses, the reality of life, human beings and situations cannot be fully perceived and known; and therefore, to pretend that we can decide “how it should be” is wishful thinking.

This is why to me the intense plea “it shouldn’t be that way!” begs a dispassionate shrug. I am not interested in virtualities and imaginary worlds – unless they are clearly fictional “secondary worlds” of a good novel, of course. I know that the ultimate knowledge of life is beyond my scope, because I am only a finite human being. I am ready to accept making mistakes and erring, in the darkness of my partial knowledge, because what I desire is not a comforting  conformity to the imaginary rules, but full and unconditional acceptance of life as it is – a unique paradoxical experience given to me here and now, within the frame of my own limitations and those of my partners; an experience that is not to be grasped  by imperatives and definitions, but perceived, received, and known, however partially, by love.

*Sin here is not being understood as a fault to be punished for, but as a pathology to be healed of. Significantly the Hebrew word “sin” means literally “missed target” -- not a sound about guilt, so dear to our Churches.