The Miserables
Occasionally - and only occasionally - a person that has become unaccustomed to reflection will take time to comment on the theater of life that continuously unfolds before him. If only it were a theater, and merely that; then maybe its poignancy might be removed. Perhaps the things that destroy us would only be the subject of laughter and entertainment. Such sentiments are forbidden to us, however; we are bound to a cruel - and sometimes felicitous - reality. It is a theater, but the stage is cruel; it is merciful; it is a place of both joy and despair.
Within the duration of the last few months, I have seen both sides of the coin, so to speak. The extreme case of the dual nature of reality is expressed well by Victor Hugo: "Love, at that height where it is absolute, is associated with an inexpressibly celestial blindness of modesty. But what risks you run, O noble souls! Often you give the heart, we take the body. Your heart remains to you, and you look at it in the darkness, and shudder. Love has no middle term; it either destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and, alas! most night."
If we are one of the blessed to be saved, then what joy we have... But what of the destroyed? What are they to do? Do they stamp out the noblest of things that ever did reside in their hearts? The idealistic notions that predominantly govern our emotions would respond with a shout of "No!". But what is ever the ideal? We suffer the greatest of pains in the course of life, and we seek to be justified, but no justification is necessary. Justice is that we rise from the ashes of our ruined selves and find the happiness that we were truly meant to have but could not formerly obtain. Somehow we need the pain, but we do not want it. And in the order of Love - that highest order - we inflict ourselves with loss. It is death. But we die so that we may live again with a more perfect love in our hearts. The answer then is a "yes", but a somber yes, the saddest "yes" ever uttered in the heart. Then, and only then, will the love that destroyed us become our savior.
Within the duration of the last few months, I have seen both sides of the coin, so to speak. The extreme case of the dual nature of reality is expressed well by Victor Hugo: "Love, at that height where it is absolute, is associated with an inexpressibly celestial blindness of modesty. But what risks you run, O noble souls! Often you give the heart, we take the body. Your heart remains to you, and you look at it in the darkness, and shudder. Love has no middle term; it either destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and, alas! most night."
If we are one of the blessed to be saved, then what joy we have... But what of the destroyed? What are they to do? Do they stamp out the noblest of things that ever did reside in their hearts? The idealistic notions that predominantly govern our emotions would respond with a shout of "No!". But what is ever the ideal? We suffer the greatest of pains in the course of life, and we seek to be justified, but no justification is necessary. Justice is that we rise from the ashes of our ruined selves and find the happiness that we were truly meant to have but could not formerly obtain. Somehow we need the pain, but we do not want it. And in the order of Love - that highest order - we inflict ourselves with loss. It is death. But we die so that we may live again with a more perfect love in our hearts. The answer then is a "yes", but a somber yes, the saddest "yes" ever uttered in the heart. Then, and only then, will the love that destroyed us become our savior.
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