Agape

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then I have built a super highway to speed me on my way. My intentions were pure as I initially stepped on the path that I hoped would lead me to God. I prayed, meditated, contemplated,read all the mystics, followed their advice of mortification, purgation and detachment. Never looking to the heavens for my God but searching inward, ever inward. I started to revile my body as an inadequate vessel for the soul. No matter how much I lash and starve my body into submission the lustful,sinful temptations of the flesh remain. No matter how much I pray and center my mind I am denied entry into God’s presence .

I love so much and yet am denied the object of my love. Is it because Eros’s arrow still pierces my heart, blinding me to that other love which is agape. I know that God loves me, ” God so loved the world that he gave his only son”. In those few words I have written proof of God’s love for me and I have striven to return it. God isn’t listening.

It’s mid-night, I stretch my arms and stifle a yawn as I try to concentrate on the words of “the Living Flame of Love: St. John of the Cross.” Glancing into the mirror beside my chair I see a grim, ghastly, gaunt apparition staring back at me. But it is only a body. My body may be emaciated but my will is still striving to stir my soul. I fall to my knees and cry out to receive God’s grace, for God to have mercy on me, to release me from this dark night, to ease my soul so sorrow laden.

“Tell me truly I implore. Is there balm in Gilead. Tell me , tell me, I implore. ”

So here I sit in despair. Recognition dawning of my wasted years of searching, knowing that I will nevermore find the grace of God if I continue on this path.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dreamed before.

A splash of color entered the darkness, a caterpillar was crawling on a branch, munching hungrily through the leaves, trying to assuage its voracious appetite. The caterpillar stopped eating for a moment, turned its head in my direction and winked.