Love in the Cold

"Many false prophets will arise, and many will be deceived by them; and the charity of most men will grow cold, as they see wickedness abound everywhere ..." (Mt. 24.11-12)

Having visited all who will with plenty of time to spend, Love turns her face to the lilies, for at least they will never turn their bright joyful heads away from her.

The cold doors of stone towers are invisible to her, their secrets forgotten. The walls of cities do not discriminate, and Love is lost in the tumult of passions good and ill.

So frequently do we strive for honor in the great effort of ecstasy, pushing outward against the senses that at once bind and make us onto more liberal frontiers -- seeking Truth, Goodness, Beauty. But what marble pillars. What frigid stones, though mountains, of thought.

Truth, Goodness, Beauty -- noble ideas to be pursued. But constantly we forget the force that drives us toward them. Too often we forget the cabman, the selfless rickshaw runner who silently bears us to and fro.

Goodness: why certainly it contains Love. But why "Goodness" and not Love? Does not Love contain Goodness? Justice, the favorite of Aristotle -- does not Love fulfill it, complete it, make it bear fruit?

And Love abounds more than these. It is Love in the artist that makes him sing bright colors onto barren sheets of white. Love culls melody from fiddle and flute. Love tears forth the tears of Whitacre's David: "Oh, Absalom!"

And Love quiets with a mothers soft forgiving arms the first sorrow of newfound sin.

At the end of Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Krzysztof Kieślowski depicts the lovemaking of the wayward, mournful beloved and he who loved and pursued her throughout her pain. Preisner's soundscore comes soaring through the scene with lyrics from 1 Corinthians 13.1: "I may speak with every tongue that men and angels use; yet, if I lack charity, I am no better than echoing bronze, or the clash of cymbals."

With the deadly egotism of savored sorrow, she had used him in her need. She had fled his warmth and honest generosity of soul for the tower of the dead. Felix culpa. In the coldness she found Love.

What simplicity.

How easy to let the power of the sea strip away the last timbers of our sorry rafts; how comforting to relax our grip.

How true and good to die.

How beautiful is art that crucifies its maker. The testament of his great love -- blindness for Monet, for Raphael. An early death for Rilke, Keats.

A desert for Teresa of Calcutta.

How many names would be added to the history books if we forsook the scales that make the dirt look like the sky, make our soiled feathers seem to fly with wings of bonded wax.

The mother stands there with a washcloth waiting and soft forgiving arms.

Goodness waits on Love.