Anam Cara

Death casts a white shadow. It is the shadow of light bleached by Nothingness. All our days, actions, words, and finally our very bodies, vanish into the light. If death had the final word, then beauty would be reduced to a transient, ghostly presence. The heroism of the contemplative endeavour is the attempt to reach through to that final threshold and enter that fierce conversation between Death and Beauty. The irony is that death brings out the fire and fibre at the heart of beauty. Within the white shadow, the gentle eyes of beauty can out-stare the unravelling eyes of death.

T

O

W

ATCH A

P

ERSON

B

ECOME

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ORE

B

EAUTIFUL

AS

T

HEY

N

EAR

T

HAT

K

INGDOM

But is that beauty, is that beauty death?

No, it’s the mask by which we’re drawn to him,

It is with our consent death finds his breath;

Love is death’s beauty and annexes him.

DENIS DEVLIN, ‘The Colours of Love’

THE CONTEMPLATIVE IS THE ARTIST OF THE ETERNAL: THE ONE who chooses to listen patiently in the abyss of Nothingness for the whisper of beauty. Only at that severe frontier does it emerge in the knowing in the bone that yes, Love is stronger than Death. It is overwhelming sometimes to watch a person become more and more beautiful as they near the kingdom of death. Though the body is worn, the countenance becomes infused with radiance. The words and the silences are enveloped in a new dignity and freedom. You begin to realize that already the graciousness of the eternal is infusing the last remnants of a life. Below the vicissitudes and vagaries of loss and transience is the primal affection, the Divine Beauty which holds everything. In that embrace, memory is always new possibility and all possibility comes finally home to memory.

Ultimately, the contemplative journey discloses that there is no need to be afraid of death. When the heart finds its contemplative radiance, the darkness of death shall have no dominion. The beauty of God is that sure embrace where eternal life is eternal memory.

10

G

OD

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S

B

EAUTY

Indeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle . . .

LUCRETIUS

K

INSHIP WITH THE

B

EYOND

: L

OVE OF

B

EAUTY

OUR VALLEY OPENS OUT ONTO THE OCEAN. AS CHILDREN walking to school each morning we often wondered at how the ocean seemed to rise up towards the line of the horizon. Out there fishing boats seemed higher up. This elevation into the beyond only made the ocean more mysterious. The sea was always treated as a mystery. The old people used to say: everything that is on the land is in the sea; if you ever saw a mermaid on the shore, you had to be very careful because she would try to get you to come between her and the ocean, then she would drown you. There were also stories about lost treasures and secret villages under the sea. All this mystery was echoed in a memorable poem we learned in school. It had the unforgettable first line: ‘Tháinig long ó Valparaiso’: a ship arrived from Valparaiso. The very sound of the word ‘Valparaiso’ conjured up images of all that was foreign and exotic, a dream-world which had mysteries and wonders beyond our wildest imaginings. Somewhere on the other side of our ocean its waves were breaking on the magical kingdom of Valparaiso.

The human heart is always drawn beyond the here and now. Human presence never finally gathers anywhere; we are never simply or clearly here. No-one stands up straight and direct in the world, each of us is leaning forward into the future that is rising towards us. In its very structure, the body strains towards the beyond: the eyes and the hands reach out, the voice and the words, the Eros and the listening are all drawn beyond. Thoughts are of course the ultimate pilgrims; this means that the beyond is also within us and this is the source of desire in us. At the centre of the mind’s mirror there is a splinter of horizon that never allows us to see anything without some trace of desire in it. The beyond is constantly beckoning us in dream, thought and feeling; it protrudes into the present and into presence. This is what makes us urgent, passionate and open. This ardent kinship with beyond is at the heart of our love of beauty.

Beauty addresses us from a place beyond; it captures our complete attention because it resonates with the sense of the beyond in us. Beauty is the ideal visitation; it settles at once into the ‘elsewhere’ within us. It is as if we are in exile and home comes to visit us for a while. This is some of the completion and satisfaction we feel in the presence of the Beautiful. When the ship draws in to the pier, we discover that it has brought the treasures of Valparaiso along with it!

T

HE

H

EART

: P

RISM FOR

B

EAUTY

If we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess

exactly what we desire.

SIMONE WEIL, ‘To Desire without an Object’