the cloud the sea

Was that him? My gaze was rapt, unbreakable. Conversation with my roommate had ceased abruptly. He followed my gaze to the man.

“Are you watching that man?”

“Yes.” Stone serious. A silence ensues.

“Do you want to pray for him?”

“No,” I say. Without hesitation.

“You…don’t want to pray for him?”

The man walks with stumbling steps, a grey tattered jacket, brown pants, brown dress shoes – not in a state of disrepair – under a matted grey mane. Can’t see the face.

He stops at a doorway. Looks inside for a good fifteen seconds. Our taxi is still stopped in traffic at the light. He examines. Considers? Whatever he was thinking, he goes inside. A woman, young, talking on a cell phone, or texting, she emerges. She hurries a few steps, a look of something like good-natured alarm on her face. Did he disturb her? Did he smell? Most likely she just found his presence undesirable. She’s going to tell her friends about it this moment.

Was he my angel?

I do my best to describe to my roommate what has come over me.

Why don’t I pray for him? Why eschew prayer, for anyone? I can do no harm, only help.

But I prayed for magic, for adventure, for the inexplicable, and he’s the one God sent. How can I pray for him? He is my teacher, or angel, or legend.

–

‘What have you done with it?’

‘What? With what?’ I ask him in return. I am suddenly fearful. What if he is simply delusional? Does he believe that he’s given me something, which he now thinks I’ve lost?

‘Please, sir,’ I want to say, though no words emerge. ‘Don’t shatter.’

If I could, I would add – ‘That’s why I’m afraid to pray for you. I’m afraid that your legend will shatter into reality. I don’t want to see the trick, or the smoke and its light and mirrors.’

‘I’ll address your thoughts first, before responding to your question,’ he says. His voice is that of the wise mentor I’ve always longed for. He knows the answers to the questions I cannot yet bear to ask.

‘You must never fear the truth. Should your image of me shatter into what you call reality, it will not be lesser, though you unwisely deem it so. Truth must always be sought out, no matter your fear. Abide in the perfect love, which erases fear, and long for the truth.’

[The shattering is inevitable. The “moment of despair.” How else would the reign of Pride be broken?]

‘Chase it. To embrace what you know today is to worship an idol, an illusion, tomorrow. There is more for you to hear, but you cannot now bear it. If you do not continue on the journey to the True Heart, you worship the crumbs of your own journey.

‘Next, I address your question. You asked me, With what? in response to my question, What have you done with it? My answer is this – my gifts! You prayed and asked, and to every heart that longs, the True Heart answers. I was your answer. There is more Magic, more Unseen, more inscrutable, unsearchable mystery than you can imagine. You were my purpose, that day, to deliver you that truth. What have you done with it? Have you believed it, truly, and gone on to even greater depths? That purpose accomplished, it may be that I reappear to you again a a homeless man; profane though I appear, it is the message that is secret.

‘Don’t cling to yesterday’s manna. Remove its truth and discard its shell. [The high one pulls us out of brokenness and into a holy life. Our purpose is to put his beauty on display.] My purpose, and yours, now you are called, it is to hear the voice of the shepherd, and in knowing that voice which knows us, to follow.’

He leaves me in silence. Perhaps I leave him there, come to think of it. Either way I’ve left the chamber, and I’m in the church, and the saints sing of breaking chains, of being set free. It has become a familiar and altogether beautiful refrain.

How will you know glory upon glory if you live in the world where joy is known only in comparison to sorrow, to pain? Live in the world that comes, where joy is known in comparison to the previous joy. Know the truest evolution, where our understanding springs from yesterday’s joys and understandings. Thus, you grow, O man.

For behold, we stand on the edge of something new. Step forward, and meet Beauty. Leave your husk and know Majesty, and the Truth.

[Blessed is he who brings good news from afar, though in truth he is not far from any one of us.]

–

It has been some time now. I struggle with the choice – ought I chase him down, at the last place I saw him, or should I leave it to Providence?

I want to talk to him about writing.

‘You aren’t a writer who will sell books,’ he’ll tell me. ‘In fact, the number who will read your words will be few. Dozens, perhaps.’

‘That’s alright,’ I’ll say. This is precisely what I wanted to talk to him about. ‘That’s alright, because there are so many different types of writers, as many as there are types of flowers. Some flowers and writers are meant for the masses, with beauty meant to be shared, enjoyed; some teach and guide and illustrate; some are hidden – like the once-in-a-decade blooms in midnight jungles, meant only for one explorer; other flowers are imperfect and bloom because that is their nature, and it has nothing to do with being seen and shared – these are the blooms in the sidewalks and in the grottos. I must write because of what I am; I am a writer because I am what I am. I will not be seen, I need not be shared; but bloom I will, write I must.’

‘You’re onto something,’ I hope he’ll say. ‘But what you lack is this, and this, and that – see how your growth has opened your eyes to see this and that beauty, such and such next peak to be longer for and attained.’

I know not, truly, what he will say, and less still what I will say upon having our first encounter, which I do not consider a reunion. Will I kneel before him, and thank him? Will I pass by, giving him no heed apart from a sideward, enquiring glance?

I hear a hint of his voice: ‘Never be afraid of the truth. Even if you shatter magic, you find the greater, deeper joy of science. In my case, perhaps you may even find my name, and in knowing me, know something more of God.’

–

”I tried to follow you, you know.’

‘When?’

‘That day after church. When I saw you go into that hallway.’

‘You didn’t find me. We didn’t speak again until later.’

‘I didn’t find you. It was an elevator to the subway beneath. That’s the door you’d gone into. I didn’t take it down. Going back to that place was taxing enough, and knowing you, you could be anywhere. Another part of me didn’t want our next encounter to be in the MTR.’

‘A dangerous game, trying to best Providence.’

‘Providence I’d tested enough in following you. I’d never expected to see you again anyway. I trusted Providence more then, if anything.’