Hilarion said what?

2.5.13

Rain.  It’s been a long time.  So clean so fresh I leave everything behind when it rains.  A few days ago I imagined the perfect way to spend the rest of this life and the rain leaves me imagining other ways.  The young couple who have been volunteering at the middle school are from Latvia.  They prayed before they ate their omelets and I don’t know but when they arrived I was reading a story about Russian monks on Mount Athos.  “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner”.  Who wouldn’t love to sit by the city gates discussing the holy books with other learned men.  Ok, tell me Tevya when “Jesus Christ appeared on a mountain bathed in light, were the rays that emanated from his body created or divine?”

“In any philosophical system in which the starting-point is the radical, primordial distinction between the Creator and the created, a hard question arises. To which side of the line should words, images or phenomena be assigned that belong to earthly reality but also pertain to God? And is it ever possible for something or someone to be on both sides of the line at once?”

At noon the rain hasn’t let up.  White soft clouds drift through and over valleys.  Suraksha occupied my computer when I brought it up for tea and then for the rest of the morning it was used by Laxman and his cousin Ram to set up a website for Ram’s guesthouse.  I stomped around with two pairs of socks, unable to shake the chill and finally took the socks off and we will acclimatize or it’s rum for lunch.

Here’s a cool job; Kuwait Airways.  I would have to wear business suits and remain clean shaved and how about all the flight attendants I’d have to teach.  Ok, Layla let’s practice:

Layla:  Would you like coffee or tea, Mr. O’Neil

Jack:  Honey, I’d like an Irish coffee.  Do you have buffalo milk and Jamesons?

Layla:  Of course, sir.

What kind of cover letter do I need for this one?  They’ll want photos and a skype interview where I look professional and that means no Peruvian hats, Pashmina shawls, no microtec fleece and wooly mustaches. 

There were three brothers, one ancient story tells us. One of them decided that his mission would be to bring people to reconciliation, the second decided he would visit the sick, while the third went to the desert to live in silence. The first, finding himself constantly between conflicting sides, did not succeed in bringing about peace and therefore was himself in distress. He came to the second and found him also in deep despondency. Together they went to the third brother and asked him whether he had achieved anything in his desert. Instead of an answer, the hermit poured some water into a chalice and invited his brothers to look at it: the water was so turbid that nothing could be seen in it. After a short time the hermit invited his guests to look again: the water settled and became transparent enough for them to see their faces reflected on its surface.

The hermit then said: “Someone who lives among the passions and cares of the world will always be perturbed by thoughts, while a hermit contemplates God in stillness.”

I am perturbed and often despondent by thoughts of what I am supposed to do and the direction I am supposed to take.  Contemplating absolute silence in nature’s stillness is more attractive than wearing a tie.  How does, a question raised, a hermit eat?  I suppose the mere thought of provisions question’s God’s ability to care of those who seek communication.    

Ram concedes and takes a cup of tea with rum.  His last venture into the world of rum was videoed.  Huge clouds race from the west, hail for a minute, fog pounds, pounds? the dining room windows.  Lay down Ram if you need too, oh thank you brother, I no need, sure take a cigarette.  Maya concedes the day and crashes in her room.  Rain and no business, stay out of the kitchen, ok you can wash the dishes. 

We are social animals we need to be with people and social media meets some strange need but it doesn’t satisfy.  The wind picks up and tosses a sign into a mustard field.  True, I need people but the silence, the kind you’re checking the ears it’s so still, I don’t fear that.  God, Om, whoever the hell you are and I say this with all sanctity, ever true, ever mysterious, were the hermits selfish?  Cutting off everything and everyone to communicate, to go into the divine and be in that presence, how does, how did, it bring joy and compassion to the world?

Too many questions, too much thinking, distractions around me and in my head leave me spinning in one place and nothing has been accomplished.  Whatever arrow points the way I’ll only be sure the moment it’s happening that this is right because I initiated it.  A man plans his course but God determines the steps.  I desire, I plan and whoa those steps never end.  Where’s the hammock, dude?

After a hot plate of spaghetti with yak cheese Maya emerged from her room and asked me to fetch milk from the homestead.  The rain had stopped but that didn’t last, thank goodness for wool.  I shared a cigarette with Beem while he warmed his hands to the fire that heated the milk tea and we drank.  A guide with four Chinese sloshed passed, I wasn’t able to persuade them to stay at the Lodge, they’re were headed to Pokhara and they will arrive there in the dark. 

Maya and Suraksha are out, Laxman has retired to his bed.  I stand and type this at the rotund counter in the dining room, my socks are soaked and my feet are itching.  God be praised it’s quiet.