In meditation, one seeks to suspend one’s beliefs, feelings, judgments, attachments—everything that the meditator holds dear. The man or woman who truly meditates in openness to the Unknown God enters into a dark abyss of unknowing. In this condition, what one has known, thought, loved, may indeed become a hindrance to the descent into the divine spring.

Over the years, I have had to deal with a few Muslims, with their unquestioning attachment to “holy Koran.” And I have had to deal with many Evangelical Christians with this unquestioning attachment to “the holy Bible.”  During the past thirty years of functioning as a priest-monk in the Catholic church, I have had to deal often with “devout Catholics” who hold an unthinking, unquestioned, unexamined attachment to the Catholic Church—to “holy Mother Church.”

As Plato tells us in the Apology, Socrates was accused by Athenian officials and brought to trial on three false charges: “denying the gods of the city,” “introducing a foreign divinity,” and “corrupting the youth of Athens.” He is found guilty of all charges, and his prosecutors ask for the death sentence. By a close vote, Socrates was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. And so he died. Before he walked out of the court room of some 500 jurors, Socrates exhorted them in many moving words, often summed up in one of his memorable phrases: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And then his final words before leaving the court:  “Now it is time to go—I to die, and you to live. Which of us has the better fate is unknown to anyone, except to God.”  In condemning Socrates to death, democratic Athens has condemned itself to an unjust existence.  

The problem of not examining ourselves, our beliefs, our lives, is endemic to all of us, and to some more than others. Among church-attending Catholics, one can find a phenomenon that is difficult to understand, in part because it is unseen and largely unknown even to those with the problem. On close examination, one finds in many Catholics now and over the centuries an unquestioned, nearly unbreakable attachment to “the holy Catholic Church.”  It shows up recently as some of the hierarchy’s evil deeds and cover-ups have come to light, and yet “the faithful” remain blindly loyal to the institutional church. Why?  

Theologically, it is as if the Church stands in the place of God or of Christ. Hence, despite seeing real problems, they pretend that the Church is really holy anyway—even while clergy and lay persons commit heinous crimes and sins. Psychologically, the attachment of many Catholics to the Church is foundational in their lives. The Church is for them an extension of their own egos, just as the Mother was first experienced as an extension of the infant himself or herself—as part of oneself. As these children grew older, most of them learned to differentiate themselves from their birth mother, and became relatively independent and functioning adults. But many Catholics psychologically have failed to undergo a due and healthy separation from the institutional Church. In some ways, the Church became a new mother, a Big Mother, often equated with Mary, then interpreted as “next to God” or even as “divine.” No few Catholics in recent centuries have treated the Church as though it were “the Kingdom of God on earth”—the true and perfect embodiment of God Himself. Of course it did not help that many clergy furthered this idolatrous belief, priests even declaring themselves to be an “alter Christus,” another Christ. Who is the real Christ?

What we have in these many Catholics is not only an undue psychological attachment, but in effect, a form of idolatry—just as so many Evangelicals in effect worship the Bible as unquestionably true and holy and good. In shortest scope, neither the Church nor the Bible is perfect nor a completely true or good embodiment of God. To tell Evangelicals and Catholics this simple truth would incite many of these folks to declare one a “heretic,” or “an unbeliever,” or in terms used by Muslims today, “an infidel.” In truth, “humankind cannot bear very much reality” (Eliot, “The Four Quartets”). In reality, all of the churches are highly imperfect human societies. The Catholic Church is not fully holy—indeed, far from it—and the church is surely not “divine.”  Scholars even provide persuasive reasons to assert that the Church was not founded by Christ, but developed by his disciples soon after his death-Resurrection. Indeed, we should all do well to consider words of St. Thomas Aquinas: that the body of Christ is not a particular institution, but all of humanity in history. Christ is far too big for an institution. We human beings are the body of Christ—imperfectly so, often unjustly so, but together we, and not a given denomination or political society, is the “body of Christ” in time.  

                                                            ***

Now for a practical question—a “pastoral question”: How is one to relate to Catholics who cling devoutly to the institutional Church, regardless of what its leaders and representatives do? As a pastor, teacher, or parent, how should one deal with Catholics who refuse to grow up spiritually and “let go of the sides of the pool”—let go of their ego-attachment to Mother Church? How can one help remove blindfolds from the willfully self-blinded? This attachment to “the Church” is in reality a very strong attachment to one’s own ego. How difficult it is to let go of self in all of its forms.

This problem still faces me, even in retirement. I still deal with Catholics in pastoral roles from time to time, and more often then not, while trying to guide them towards the Unknown God, there remains a huge obstacle in their hearts and minds: it is their ego-attachment to “the Church,” and to the “God” and “Christ” of the Church’s creeds, and sometimes to “Church teaching,” “the priest,” “the bishop,” “the Pope,” “the Bible.”  In all of these cases, I have to challenge these undue attachments. And the inevitable result, not unexpectedly, is intense psychological resistance.  Adult Catholics do not like to be told that they need to grow up spiritually and think for themselves; they would rather bury their minds in “the Church,” or in their particular priest, and so on. We are dealing with extreme ego-attachment, or what now is often called “an addiction.” Many Catholics are addicted to the illusion of the perfect, divine Church, that psychotically stands to them as their mother did in infancy. Spiritually, these Catholics resist growing up.

What is one to do? Keep silent? Not challenge these “true believers” whose attachment may well be hindering their way to God? If one challenges them, as I have experienced on no few occasions, some become agitated, belligerent, highly critical, declare me “unCatholic” or worse, begin to carp and mock me. They grow impatient, restless, irritable, and often nasty as I move them to see that the Church is not God, not perfect, not nearly so holy as they dream. Many of these Catholics would rather silence the challenging voice than take up the hard task of examining themselves, and letting go of illusions and undue attachments. They must come to see that the Catholic Church is a highly imperfect human institution that has often masqueraded as “the perfect society,” as “the Kingdom of God on earth,” as “holy and divine.” These Catholics must give up their illusory beliefs and their iron-clad attachment to “the Church” in order to begin afresh the journey of their soul into God.  

Presently, I am not sure that most Catholics are willing to die to themselves, to renounce their illusions, to let go of “the Church,” and to seek the living God in humility, with a strong awareness of their own ignorance and lack of genuine faith as childlike trust in God alone. An essential step forward can be made when these Catholics cease muttering busy prayers, and sit silent and still in meditation.


—Wm. P. McKane
    07 June 2020

​The previous blog led me to introduce several themes:  that the “I” or oneself is never completely alone; that I experience within myself a real emptiness, a void caused by lack of enduring friendship; that Aristotle claims that true friendship is grounded on proper love of oneself, which means loving one’s highest or noetic self, the intellect, or the soul’s participation in the divine mind. I am seeking to understand my own soul before assuming that I am truly ready to “seek God” in the monastic sense. As things stand, I consider myself neither capable nor worthy of truly seeking God. But I can also add: That is true, but one must be careful. For the divine that a human being seeks is that which is sought as a response to being sought by God. The ever-present one who is experienced as “shining in” to consciousness is understood to be the divine Mind; and this divine Mind or Intellect shines into our minds whether one is worthy or ready or not. God is God and the light of our minds, whether we acknowledge his Presence or not.  

In short:  A man’s search for God is fundamentally a response to the experience of being sought by God. And the God who seeks is experienced as an undefinable Presence to the soul or consciousness. This claim is not meant to be “theological” or “doctrinal,” but experiential:  it is grounded on concrete experiences presumably available to every human being precisely as human beings. What is required could be called “faith and love,” but for the present, I see it as obeying the Delphic inscription so beloved by Socrates: “Know thyself.”  The self that is known is not a separate “I,” but consciousness participating in the Whole of reality, from the divine First Cause or Creator down to physical matter that lies all around us. We are partners in the mystery of being, not separate “egos;” this insight informed philosophy and all spiritual writers of whom I am aware from the most texts available into the 17th century, to the French philosopher Descartes, who begins with a radically separated self or ego, and then proceeds to “prove” the existence of the world outside of consciousness, and to “prove” the “existence of God.”  In a more grounded, proper sense, not only does God not “exist,” but human being does not just “exist” (stand out in space-time), but participates through consciousness, through psyche or his soul, in the whole range of being, in all of reality in which we share by “body” and “soul.”  This participatory experience will be explored subsequently. For the present, I return to the experience of the void within the soul.  

I concretely experience in myself a deep vast void, an interior emptiness that is largely unknown and hence unloved by anyone—including myself, and such friends as I have. We shall explore this stressful or distressful reality, but also suspend from it at times. For the emptiness within is not the entire picture, nor the most important part, although at times it surfaces in personal trials and storms, and presents itself as all-important.  Even in times of tension, one should do well to recall that the human soul is not only a wasteland, a void, as taught by so much of modern thinking since at least the seventeenth century (Descartes, Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and many others).  In exploring the psyche or consciousness, one should not begin with oblivion:  with forgetting the whole of which one is conscious (again, Descartes’ and modern thinking’s fundamental spiritual-philosophical mistake).  Rather, the explorer must not forget, but remember what s/he has experienced throughout life. Hesiod (c 8th century BC) and Greek thinkers after him wrote of the importance of Mnemosyne, remembering, as a primary duty of the human soul. (Here I simply point out that in Greek myth, as in Hesiod, the Muses—modes of divine Presence that inspire human beings—are the offspring of Father Zeus and Mnemosyne, divine Remembering.  I shall explore this fascinating insight at a later time.  And I hope and trust that the Muses will inspire me to remember to do so, singing to me of the wonders of the gods in reality, if I be permitted to write mythically.  (But then again, in our age of scientism and factualism, myth is often taken too literally.  For examples, listen to how Christian and Muslim fundamentalists approach their myths.)

It should be helpful to bear in mind fundamental reality as experienced by everyone who refuses to forget what has been experienced. Regardless of whoever one is, however wounded or deformed by sufferings (whether inflicted by others or from one’s bad choices is not the issue) the truth of reality remains indestructibly: that which is usually called “God” is radically Present. And this “God” is radically present and available whether one likes or not, attends or not. God is present whether one lovingly responds, defiantly rebels, or blindly forgets.  Divine Presence, the I AM, is the substrate, the ground, of all of reality, including human consciousness.  In other words, what we call “God” is ever-present, always available, loving the unlovable, healing the wounded, lighting up the darkness of the human heart and mind.  Whether you and I are present with and to God or not, the divine is present to and with us.  To forget this truth is, as noted, the foremost spiritual-intellectual disease of modernity:  the refusal to remember, and to apperceive, fundamental reality.  It is as if a man placed his hands firmly over his eyes, and said to you, standing right in front of him: What do you mean you are there? I see nothing at all. And such is the fundamental spiritual response that is so characteristic of what is called “modernity,” from about the 1600’s to the present. The game has gotten old, and in its wake is death: death of the spirit; death in concentration camps; death in abortion clinics. We refuse to admit what everyone knows well enough: human being is by nature a partner in God.  

Hence, I experience two realities simultaneously, or back-and-forth, and I understand this to be the human condition, to one extent or another:  On the one hand, I am consciousness of a void within me, of being a spiritual wasteland, empty and unlovable in myself; but on the other hand, the living and all-good God is freely present in me and with me. The unlovable is loved by divine Love. It would be untrue and ungrateful to refuse to acknowledge and to accept the divine Lover. Rejecting God’s loving Presence leaves one empty in the void of emptiness—in other words, living in the hell of one’s own making, or at least of one’s own being.  That is a road not worth taking.

The abyss of emptiness that I am (the “ego”); and the divine that is present in me and with me.  Both and.  Not either or.  

A practical example of how the balance in consciousness may be forgotten: This past week we studied chapters 5-6 of St. Matthew’s Gospel, beginning with the antitheses:  “It was said of old….but I say to you,” and continuing through the Our Father, the warnings about “not laying up treasures for yourselves on earth,” and to the injunction “not to worry about what you will eat…Do not be anxious about tomorrow,” and so on.  These are majestic, magisterial teachings, in which Matthew’s Christ takes the place not only of Moses, but of Yahweh-God who spoke through Moses. After the class, I felt disturbed, thinking that I had not done a fair job. Carol and Steve said that it was “fine,” a nebulous word that usually means, “Just okay,” or “Not so good, really.” Well, it was not so good. The interpretations of Christ’s teachings were reasonably accurate, but there was a major problem: taken out of context, with all of that heavy-duty divine law, God’s mercy and love easily get overlooked. I should have reminded them of the beatitudes again, or assured them of God’s love. Why? Because it is not balanced to present Christ as the Law-Giver, without also presenting him as the one who bore the cross for us, and who says at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “Behold, I AM with you always, even to the end of the age.”  Unintentionally, I fell into the trap of the law-giving Christ, without balancing it with Christ the Suffering Servant, the bridge between us sinners and the all-good God. I spoke as a scriptural exegete (one of Matthew’s “scholars,” perhaps), and not as one in union with Christ. At least I sensed that something was wrong with my presentation. For how long have the Catholic faithful been presented with the Law-Christ, and not at the same time encouraged to take confidence in the Merciful One? If one hears only the Law, one becomes—or should become—painfully aware of one’s failures; that is a beneficial effect of “preaching the Law,” as Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt chapters 5-7). But to be true to reality, balance is ever necessary. I will correct the imbalance this coming week, lest I continue the injustice to those present.  

So Christ’s law makes us aware—painfully aware—of our shortcomings, our failures; but Christ’s love makes us aware—gratefully aware—that even in our unlovability, Christ died for us, and loves us, and is present with us and for us.  As the Apostle Paul writes, “Christ shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5).  The Apostle is saying in his words the same thing I sketched out above: God loves the human being even in our radical unlovability, even in our sins, failures, blindnesses. God loves the unlovable; and agape-love means that one in Christ seeks to do the same:  love the other even when s/he is far less than noble and good and lovable. Finally, I think that it is much less difficult to misrepresent Christ using the letters of the Apostle Paul than using St. Matthew’s Gospel, unless the whole Gospel is kept in mind as the parts are studied, and that is difficult to do. There is nothing wrong with Matthew’s Gospel as such; on the contrary, it masterfully presents Christ as Master, Teacher, God-with-us, and the Suffering Servant who died to return us to awareness that I AM with you.  

In short, even in our unlovability, Christ loves us. Christ is, remember, a magnificent symbol of the Presence of God in and with human beings. Hence, even in our unlovability, God utterly loves us and is present to us, with us.  That is his nature, and his joy. As Julian of Norwich reports Jesus on the cross telling her in his agony, “if I could suffer more, I would suffer more.”  Infinite and undefeatable is the abyss of divine Love.  

Gladly will I descend into the void that is myself if it induces me to trust more fully in the unwavering, undefeatable Presence of God as love, mercy, peace, truth—all good, all at once. I will not descend into the abyss that is my soul without exercising faith as conscious awareness and trust, because then I find myself imprisoned in the hell of my own unlovable self. In a word: Not for me. I much prefer to live in the light of God’s loving goodness than in the darkness of my own unlovability. The Apostle Paul wrote, “When I am weak [in myself], then I am strong [in Christ].”  I say: When I am unlovable in myself, then I am utterly loved in and by Christ. That formulation is truer to reality than the one-sided preoccupation with human sin, or just with divine love (“God loves everybody…”) without realizing how unlovable in ourselves we are, yet utterly loved. Once again, the balance of truth must be kept in consciousness, less than fall into despair in oneself or presumption that “I’m really a just and good person, as I am.” The miracle and power of God’s love shows up more fully in light of our genuine need for God. The awareness of our need for God requires that we are aware of the emptiness and unlovability within our own souls. If we admit our spiritual emptiness in ourselves, what happens?  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God” (Mt 5). Blessed—supremely happy—are the ones who know how much, how deeply, they need divine mercy and love. Woe to those who are rich in themselves. As one man once proclaimed to me after refusing the sacrament of reconciliation before marriage, “I am a just man.”  His poor wife, living with such a blind and self-satisfied man, which is another way of describing a fool.  

And so into the abyss of my own soul I descend, not to remain there or to wallow in myself, but to become more aware of the awesome wonder of God’s loving, self-giving Presence. One must realize just how great is his need for God. If you want to become more aware of your need for God, consider how empty you are in yourself, how unlovable even you are apart from the divine Presence, which is sheer “grace.”

A prayer: Christ, light of my soul, illuminate me. You who are ever near, make me strongly aware of my need for you, and at the same time, give me firm trust in your eternal goodness and love even to me—that I am not only “a sinner,” but a badly wounded man from the battles and trials of life. I thank you, LORD, for my wounds, for my brokenness, because through interior suffering you teach me to draw on You, the divine healer, and to surrender myself ever more fully into your merciful, peaceful, indwelling Light.  Amen.

—Wm. Paul McKane, OSB
            17 January 2020

​Having just written on the tension in the soul between the emptiness within oneself and divine Presence, I was about to report and examine a concrete experience of divine Presence when I was a young man.  I shall postpone analyzing that experience until the next section, because I feel nudged from within to give the Muses their due. I titled this series of short blogs “On seeking God in solitude and friendship.”  Evidently, I work and write in solitude, as I live alone; but I am never fully alone, as previously explained: through remembering, others are present to consciousness. I have mentioned and will subsequently develop in sections the divine Presence, the great gift of God to everyman.  But I also feel that it is just to honor the Muses, which in my case are concrete persons that have and do inspire me. When it comes to those Muses still living on earth, I shall not name names out of respect for anonymity. But for those Muses who died, and who still affect my consciousness through remembering, I may mention names. I do not wish, however to present a list, but more simply to adumbrate, to hint at a few of the Muses singing in my soul these days.

Out of gratitude, the first Muse I must mention is Fr. Daniel Kirk, OSB, whom I called “the midwife of my soul’s rebirth” in a poem I wrote many years ago.  Fr. Daniel died in 2008, shortly before my mother. I am not conscious of his presence in me or to me, except through remembering his words and actions. I still revere him as a true man of God, a genuinely saintly man. Through Fr. Daniel, I know well what holiness is, and what it is not. Often Catholics will label someone as “holy,” but if you ask them what is meant, they are not much better Euthyphro. A holy human being is open, flexible, attentive, gentle, kind, meek, utterly self-giving, self-forgetting, and profoundly aware of the Presence of God in them and to them. A truly holy man or woman does not insist on his or her ways (I Cor 13), however dressed up they are as “church rules” or “the law.”  And a holy person is not religiously fixed or “dogmatic” at all, but moves through symbols into ongoing divine awareness.  Hence, one who is growing in holiness, or holy, is truly tolerant of others’ spiritualities, knowing well that the Spirit has many ways of working.  Holiness is so humble that one cannot insult a saint, however much one may try. The holy person absorbs evil from those of us who are far less holy, far more full of holes in our characters. Through the saintly Fr. Daniel, I received more good than I can ever express. I show my gratitude by seeking to put up with the weaknesses and failures of others as Fr. Daniel endured my flaws for so long. He is a true man of God, and although not married and with no children in the flesh, can truly be called “a manly man,” who was so utterly courageous, self-restrained, able to endure much suffering without any complaint. I do not mourn his death at all; he was in God as long as I knew him, and I have no reason to think that such a union perished with death. And so I thank God for Fr. Daniel in my life, and will ever sing his praises until I die. Here is to a true, humble, utterly reliable, saintly man of God:  to you, my beloved Fr. Daniel, and to the Christ you carried so humbly.  

One who also comes to mind may not be the most prominent Muse in my consciousness, but s/he sings fairly loudly and clearly these days. In reality, this Muse may well be a composite of several persons, fused into one in my mind (as in my recent efforts to write tanka). This Muse seems to have opened up my heart through kindness and acceptance, through agape. In all honesty I am intensely aware that it is the Risen Christ working in and through this particular Muse, as it was with Fr. Daniel. If we could be said to be friends, it is only because each of us lives in a faith-union with Christ. Otherwise, we have little or nothing in common, so friendship in the sense of shared common interests hardly seems possible. All that really matters between us is our personal free-responses to Christ; the rest is passing. This Muse may have quietly touched my heart in ways that I do not fully understand; I am ever a mystery to myself. Or it may be that several Muses together throw my little gold into the fire to encourage writing; I do not know. It is odd, but God has his skilled craftsmen, and his physicians. And surely the divine Master has ways of working on each soul, as that soul requires, in order to lift it into heaven—that is, into a living awareness of the Presence of the I AM in the soul. What has strongly contributed to any effect this Muse has on me is magnified by retirement, when I do not have to produce essays, lectures, written works for parishioners, or some eight homilies a week. The Spirit used the gift of time to help me write, I think, and may have allowed this amusing Muse to aid in the process through the most sacred mystery of divine agape.   

Several other Muses still play in my spirit; although they have also died in the body, they live on through their writings, and in me through what I have absorbed from their written works over time. Foremost among these Muses are the Apostle Paul (whose name I was given in the monastery), the philosopher Plato, the philosopher-scholar Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), Willam Shakespeare (the foremost poet and dramatist in English), and many others.  But at least these four must be mentioned by name. Only one of them did I meet in person—Eric Voegelin; our three-hour meeting on my twenty-fifth birthday remains a highly influential event in my spiritual-mental formation These thinkers inspire me daily. Until my mind no longer works in this life, I plan to draw on them for inspiration, insight, wisdom. And on those to whom they lead me, too.  Wisdom is shared, and generously leads from mind to mind. The true lover of wisdom embraces wisdom in all forms presented to the mind. That is one reason I genuinely appreciate the Buddha, “the enlightened one.”  Wisdom is known in her children.  

One more Muse must be mentioned: the master musician. The very word “music” comes from “Muse” in Greek. The master musician, the composer who has had an enormous effect on my soul since I was eighteen, is Johann Sebastian Bach. And his name fittingly means “brook,” or a “stream.”  Through Bach’s music, streams of divine music pour into me. As I have written elsewhere, my powerful conversion to Christ was largely prepared by the music of Bach. Often when I write, Bach sings in the background—whether on speakers or within my memory.  Many have been led to Christ through the music of this foremost craftsman. If my spirit is down, listening to Bach nearly always restores joy and peace in my soul. He is a supreme Muse in my life. (How often I thank God for the German people and their highly skilled craftsmanship in so many arts and sciences.)  

Having mentioned some particular Muses at work in me, it remains to consider how they actually operate on consciousness. “Say, what?” That means: I wish to understand how these Muses affect my thinking now, affect my soul. It is not enough to “name names,” and give short descriptions. I wonder: How is my consciousness move / affected by these Muses?  

I do not consciously imitate any one of these Muses in any coherent way. Each human being is unique, and trying to imitate another in that person’s particulars seems foolish to me. I can no more be another Fr. Daniel Kirk, or in any way like him, than I could be like the Oracle at Delphi or the Virgin Mary, or like some rancher-cowboy with a guitar. We are too different in life experiences, in our temperaments, in our moral and intellectual characters. God respects and uses our differences—and does not seek to remold us in someone else’s image. It would not work anyway. Each one’s unique identity is a magnificent gift of the Creator, and needs to be discovered and improved within its particular characteristics and gifts. Imagine if the Apostle Paul had sought to spend his life in leather-working (tent-making), or had taken up his hand at sculpture. I doubt that anyone would remember his name. Christ grabbed him and used Paul with his unique, intensely emotional, lively personality, and active mind. The Apostle Paul was so much himself (“in Christ Jesus”) that a foremost Greek scholar could write that after Plato, it took nearly four hundred years for anyone writing in Greek to come across as truly, as personally, as alive as Plato in his writings; and that man was not a philosopher, but the Apostle Paul. His Greek is unmistakable, although he had disciples and partial imitators (possibly in the Letter to the Ephesians).  

And through the Apostle Paul more change was wrought in history than through nearly anyone else. All political and military leaders pale in comparison to the “Apostle to the Gentiles.” Paul was the foremost carrier of the Risen Christ in the apostolic generation, and his letters written for particular occasions have in turn moved and inspired major spiritual outbursts to the present. Socrates had his Plato, and Jesus had his Paul. “I have been co-crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I (ego), but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith-union with the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2).  Not much in human history compares with such words for their transformative effects.  

I would add for a young person who talks naively and vaguely about wanting to “change the world” (mindlessly quoting Karl Marx): Do you want to “change the world” (as if one could do so)? Then change yourself by opening up your spirit to the Risen Christ, and allow him to work in you and through you, as did Francis of Assisi for one—and as did the hidden saints, such as Fr. Daniel Kirk. “Not I, but Christ in me.” Such is the essence of genuine Christian spirituality. Very simple: Not doctrines, rituals, or sacred books, but the Risen Christ in a human being who responds wholeheartedly. Or to state the same experience in more philosophical, less specific terms: what matters most is that a human being keeps responding to the divine Presence as he or she is moved to do. God has many ways of working on a human soul. (And the Muses are among these ways.)

“This above all,” as Shakespeare wrote, “unto thine own self be true.”  The self to which one must be true is not one’s private ego, one’s particular and self-centered existence—as is promoted by contemporary American culture.  (Listen to the singing of pop musicians, and you are very likely to hear ego sounding large.) Rather, one must be true to his unique gifts in God, to the person or “self” that God restores in union with Christ. One must spend himself / herself as generously as possible. These Muses of mine make me aware that the Spirit of the living God uses each of his instruments uniquely. Our task is to surrender ourselves to the divine Presence within, to discover our talents and gifts, and then to pour them out generously until death. The greater the death to our own ego, the more fully Christ can employ us for good.  

When I sit to reflect, to pray, to write, these Muses of mine are often at work. Translation into more typical symbolic language: the holy Spirit—divine Presence in and to a human psyche—often brings to mind words from one of these persons who has profoundly affected us:  one’s “Muses.”  Usually I do not have to search for “the right words,” although there are times when thoughts must be polished. Generally, as I reflect, some insight, symbol, phrase from one of these or other Muses comes to mind, and “out jumps this calf.” I have often wondered about how and why words come into consciousness. The process is mysterious and fascinating. However the process works, some of the words from one of the Muses mentioned, or from other Muses of mine, come into consciousness, and the words flow. I cannot imagine my writing if I had never studied Plato, the Apostle Paul, Shakespeare, Voegelin, or others. They have become a part of me; while thinking, their words may take new life in me. Thank God, these foremost thinkers took the effort to write, to share their own experiences and thoughts in a form which could later influence other minds.  

One’s task is to “stock the pond,” as I have often put it: Study closely the best thinkers and writers, and then in time, these writers will have an affect on one’s thinking, way of living, writing. A person immersed in popular culture will strongly reflect popular culture, however superficial and transient it is. Listen to the speech of many people, and you hear bits of entertainment swirling around, like pieces of tin foil blowing in the wind.  

One must discover and study closely the best writers, the greatest works of art, the finest musical compositions, if he or she wishes to embody and reflect the best. When I asked Professor Voegelin, “What allowed you to accomplish so much philosophically?” he answered, “I read the right books, I guess.” I have long interpreted his response as richer than it appears. Yes, Voegelin “read the right books,” and after responding, he placed into my hands a copy of Edward Norden’s Agnostos Theos, The Unknown God (as referred to by the Apostle Paul speaking in Athens according to his disciple, the evangelist Luke.)  But the “I guess” in Voegelin’s response—a very untypical phrase for him—hints at a deeper answer, in the same way that Socrates and Plato could imply far more than they stated. Voegelin dedicated each of the five volumes of his masterwork, Order and History, not “to the best books I read.”  On the contrary, these well-labored books were dedicated “Coniugi Dilectissimae,” “to a most delightful union.”  Voegelin used the Latin phrase that hinted at several meanings. Literally, “to a most delightful union” or marriage indicates that he dedicated his works to a personal Muse, to his beloved wife, Lissy. But there is another meaning, as is typical of mystic-philosophers such as Plato, Plotinus, and Voegelin. The “most delightful union” is what allowed Voegelin to accomplish so much in philosophy. And that union was with what he often referred to as “the divine,” or “divine Presence,” or simply as “Presence.” Voegelin’s union was with the Muse of Muses: the living God himself. He was intellectually too humble to say it so directly.

—Wm. Paul McKane
    17 January 2020

​Note:  In the following section, I shall attempt a response-search for God. It will be limited in length and scope  

As I begin, LORD, I call upon the beginning of all that exists. You are far too vast, too deep for my little mind to comprehend. What I ask is more modest: not to understand you, and surely not to comprehend you, but for you to allow some light of your intellect to radiate into my mind. Without your divine assistance, there is no way I would attempt to seek you out. Unless you are already within me—albeit in ways unknown or not clearly understood now—how could I possibly seek you? On the contrary, you are radically present as you revealed to Moses at the bush: ehyeh asher ehyeh—I AM WHO AM. I know that I “cannot see your face,” for you have no body, and cannot be seen by bodily organs. My intellect and love must detect your presence, as you are sheer intellect and love, at once and together, if I understand St. Thomas.  

I call on you out of my depths, out of what feels like an empty heart. Although not truly alone I often feel lonely in the world, an experience within my soul since early childhood. Can you, LORD, ease the pain, can you enter into the abyss of my heart? If you cannot do so, who could? Or does this abyss belong to our common human nature, and last until death? I have learned that trying to have close friendships ease the pain of isolation in the soul is like putting a bandaid over the Grand Canyon. Our human loves are far too small for the abyss in each of our hearts—a seemingly infinite void at the center of our being—which drives us to you alone, it seems. Can you descend into this void, this abyss?  Or is it perhaps wrong to ask you descend into the hell of one’s heart? Or are you already here, and I’m not acknowledging your  presence?  If I trust that you are present in this wasteland within my soul, will it ease the psychic pain?  Surely you are here, for you penetrate and fill all things. I do not feel you, or sense your goodness. But I do not have to keep staring into the abyss, either!

 I have not done well, LORD, on loving those you have given me to love. I am bothered by my shortcomings. My loves, our friendships, have fallen far short of you. You overcome our human weaknesses and failures, for you are the supreme Good. Help us to cooperate with your grace that liberates from selfishness.  

How much easier and more joyful it was to write about you in nature, in the planet Venus, in the kindness of a close friend I use to have.  How difficult to write to you, about you, out of such a sense of desolation, out of the depths of my inner emptiness. There may be a reason for this, and I need to discover it. Aristotle says that friendship for another is grounded on friendship with ourselves; what in me, other than you, Lord God, is worth befriending? You are what is good, and true, and beautiful in me. The rest is so wounded, so pus-infected, that it shrinks before your light. If it were not for you in me, LORD God, I may well have ended my life decades ago, or been in a mental hospital, or been forced to live on mind-altering drugs. The mental anguish in myself by myself has been too great to carry gracefully; or I carry this emptiness and pain only by the help of your grace—your free and loving presence. You truly do lighten one’s burdens, as we call on you.  You are my sanity!  

                                                            ***
Dear LORD, I ask you to stir up the gifts of your Spirit in me, and above all faith, hope, and charity. Faith, that I may utterly trust in your loving and merciful Presence in me.  Hope, that I will in your time (presumably beyond death) attain to full union with you in love. And charity or love, that I may truly love all whom you’ve given me to love by letting you love them through me. And love, too, that I will seek you unendingly, regardless of the cost, and attain that most desired oneness.

You are present; you are Presence itself. I would not be spending time sitting here seeking you in prayer if you were not with me already, and moving me to search out your abode. No one can call on you, or turn to you, unless you are at work in them. It would be impossible to do so. Lord, I know not to look off far, nor to look at abysmal myself, but to be attentive to your free movements in the Spirit. You move by not moving, you stir us up without stirring yourself. You baffle me. Why it is, LORD, that I see so much beauty in your world, but do not appreciate you as Beauty Itself? Why do I see so much goodness, but not acknowledge the source of all that is good?  Why do I love truth, and yet often not realize that you are eternal truth itself?  “O slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”  

Lord my God, Christ himself, move me to ask the right questions. I know which question immediately comes to mind, the great question of my life:  Who are you, LORD?  What are you? I love these questions, because they focus my attention on you alone, you in yourself.  And I sense that I know, to an extent before I ask, or why would I bother asking?  Surely I trust that you are supremely good, or why would I be curled up with you now as I think, write, pray? Who are you, that you should come to me?  How merciful of you to stir up this little creature. How merciful for you to be patient with me despite my selfishness. (And Lord, tears begin to come, as you know, when I call to mind someone whom I have hurt by my selfishness, by wanting more than that one can or wishes to give. I am truly sorry, LORD, and I ask you to help me crucify my desires and needs, and let you love him through me.)  And when I speak with you, LORD, I believe that all whom you have given me to love are in some ways with me, whether they are alive on earth, or died, and now abide solely in you. What I do, I do for all whom you have given me to love, as well as for myself. We really are in this together, and not as alone as I often imagine.  

You console me now, and encourage me, through Bach’s Great G-minor Fugue, which I hear playing, performed by Karl Richter. (Ah, these talented Germans!) It does not ruin my prayer to listen, but lifts my spirits. Such a man of God was Bach, so trusting in you, our Lord Jesus. And Lord, you know what I’ve told you: Bach’s Jesus is my Jesus, too. Our conception of you seems to be profoundly similar: real, intense, personal, joyful.  You are intensely real to both Bach and me. Of course he’s in my heart and mind forever, because the divine Bach, the Brook of God, is forever in you. How many souls he has led to you, strengthened in you, converted to you. No wonder Bach has been called “the fifth evangelist,” because of his praise for you, Lord Jesus Christ, and for his most generous service of your people. All praise indeed to you for giving such gifts to men, and giving them the energy, drive, and intellect to use these gifts so astonishingly well to your glory!  Thank you for my dear friend, Bach, Lord. Herr Bach, who worked harder than them all, and used your wonderful gifts to bring us to God. What a model of true Christian life you are, Johann Sebastian Bach!  

                                         A significant break-through for me

LORD, I will not seek you out in the abyss of my heart. This is a break-through for me, LORD, and I credit you with showing me. As you said through the anonymous prophet we call “Second Isaiah,” “I did not say, seek me out in an empty waste” (Is 45:19).  And what an empty waste is my heart, or at least a large part of it, without seen boundaries. According to the priests who wrote the great Creation poem of Genesis 1, before God said, “Let there be light!,” the world was “tohu wabohu,” waste and void—empty, meaningless, a realm of confusion. So is the abyss in the heart, and although I shall acknowledge it, no longer do I think it prudent to seek God in such a wasteland. It will survive until death, and then “death will be no more,” and “God will be all in all”—and that includes taking over the Big Wasteland within. I will seek God in whatever has been formed and structured by God, the God of creation. As for the abyss in the human heart, let it be what it is: an empty waste. Again, to remind my all-too-empty-head, “I did not say, seek me out in an empty waste.”  OK, LORD, let’s get to work!  And I can go back to marveling at your beauty revealed in the planet Venus-Aphrodite, goddess in the night sky, goddess of love and beauty. This mode of searching for you, adoring your presence, brings me joy and energy; the descent into the abyss within my heart makes me depressed and sorrowful. Therefore, look up, little man, and be in awe at the works of your Creator!  

Reflection:  If I understood an important point Eric Voegelin makes in his final volume, In Search of Order, the divine Presence is known only through structures in reality, through what is formed (and not sheer waste).  Voegelin reflected much on knowing you, LORD, through structures in the mind, in consciousness, and he sought to explore these structures common to us all: intellect, reasoning power, anamnesis (recollection), intentionality and luminosity of consciousness. This is probably all beyond me, and I prefer to work with what is familiar to me—or to what I can discover through diligent and focused study; but that awaits. I’m more eager to read again Plato’s two great dialogues on Love (éros):  the Symposium and the Phaedrus.  

In what structures in consciousness is God present to me now? Where are you LORD? In memory, for one. I recall the reality of God by remembering. In reason or intellect, and intentionality, as I direct my thoughts towards the divine Present. Surely you are helping me understand now, LORD, as I realize not to seek for you in the abyss within the soul, but in your creative activities all around and within You are not directly present in feelings, although my feelings can respond as I sense your presence by faith.  And indeed, feelings do respond, as I have felt intensely during some experiences of your presence: peace and unspeakable joy. You are present right now as I hear Bach’s chorale, “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,” which is so highly structured, and hence an imitation of your creation.  (Every real work of art is an imitation of Creation, a little world (cosmion) of its own, as I realized years ago.)  And are you not known in our genuine questions, provoked by the Spirit?  

One final request, LORD.  You have given me some human beings to love. I ask that I would keep my self out of the way, and let you love them through me. By myself I get too attached, too desirous. I get so entranced by beauty, superficial fellow that I am! Letting you love them will through my words and actions will offer them a much purer stream of love than my ego could ever do. Amen.  


                                                                 ***

To you alone, LORD,
     I give all I have and am;
With you alone, LORD,
     I shall arise to seek you 
     More diligently.  Amen.


Hear Herr Bach!  The melody of the chorale is now very widely known:  “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.”  

     Jesus bleibet meine Freude,                   Jesus remains my joy,
     Meines Herzens Trost und Saft,                          My heart’s comfort and sap;
     Jesus wehret allem Leide,                                  Jesus guards from all suffering,
     Er ist meines Lebens Kraft,                                He is my Life’s strength,
     Meiner Augen Lust und Sonne,                           My eyes’ delight and sun,
     Meiner Seele Schatz und Wonne;                        My soul’s treasure and bliss;
     Darum laß ich Jesum nicht                                 Therefore I will not let Jesus
     Aus dem Herzen und Gesicht.                             Out of my heart and sight.

​
—Wm. P. McKane
    25 January 2020

​I do not intend to try to explore what I’ve termed “the abyss within me,” or “the void,” in order to search for God there. Not engaging in such activity was the insight that dawned while writing the prayer-meditation of section #8 above. The best one can do is not deny the reality in oneself of this void, but not wander into it, either. For years I thought that I had to descend into the void, at least at times, to search for God; the void attracted my attention. Then I recently read in Voegelin the assertion that the divine Presence is known only through structures—an insight which I shall search out again, and more fully integrate for spiritual growth. Hence, I do not intend to imaginatively place my consciousness within the void, then seek for God there.  What I write in this section, rather, is to ask a question: What is this void or abyss that I and others have long felt, and that one occasionally hears mentioned?  

An acquaintance in Montana told me that on a spiritual retreat recently, someone (perhaps a Catholic priest) mentioned that each person has “a little hole” in them, where they try to stuff things such as a new car or a lover, but in reality the hole can only be occupied by God—or words to that effect.  My immediate response was:  “A little hole?  It’s a gaping abyss!” And I still hold with my claim. I find it superficial to assert that human beings have “a little hole” within their soul, which means, as he applied it, a little need for God—which only God can fill. On the contrary, boundaries of this “hole” are not consciously known; hence, I term it an “abyss,” or “the void.” The reason only God can be the answer to the abyss in the human heart is that only God is unbounded, infinite; and this abyss is not a finite hole, which anything really could fill, but a region which either has no boundaries, or at least borders on the infinite, on God, and so is unknown. There is no “little hole” within someone’s heart; it is unlimited.

I will put the matter differently. The void or abyss is an infinitely vast longing, that nothing in the entire cosmos (universe) can possibly fill or satisfy, but only that which is itself infinite, unbounded:  and that is what traditionally is called “God.”  In other words, this emptiness in the human being is so vast, so seemingly measureless, that only the Creator himself can satisfy it. That this void is indeed felt as a longing, an enormous longing for the infinite, the unbounded, virtually anyone except more superficial adults realizes. By no means is it a problem unique to me, or to you.   

When two persons originally fall in love, they often assume that the other can fill that wasteland, that void, that intense longing for the infinite; but then in time, they feel disappointed with the other, once they must face reality that no human being, and no other being or being-thing can possibly fill what is essentially unfillable except by the In-finite, the non-finite. No spouse can fill one’s emptiness. No new car, vacation, experience.  Fulfillment comes only from the non-being that is traditionally referred to as “God.”  Indeed, how would one know that a person or thing or any given experience is not in itself “God,” except by comparison? One compares to this infinite void whatever presents itself (spouse, friend, car, whatever) as desirable. And what is discovered? The human being who is not superficial or spiritually blind compares that other, that being or experience, to the void within, and quickly realizes: this person, this experience of joy, this cruise I’ll take, or this island I’m buying cannot and will not fill the void. It is impossible for a finite being-thing to fill the vastness to which the human being is open, or on which our conscious mind and feelings border. And yet, most human beings live trying to find that “someone” or “something” to fill the void.  It cannot work—any more than a bucket full of water could fill an empty ocean, or air released from a balloon could fill the vast starry heavens of space.  In a sense, it is comical to think that many live trying to stuff some finite being-thing into this void; but it is also tragic, because it cannot turn out well, it cannot produce happiness or peace.  Nothing can or will satisfy this infinite human longing.  

This problem of things or experiences to fill the infinite abyss in the heart characterizes humanity, and certainly has been visible in the American culture with our obsessions with power, success, wealth, getting “stuff,” having “experiences,” and the like. As a people in history, Americans are spiritually immature, and our entire subset of western civilization can be seen as an attempt to fill the wasteland within with things, wealth, affairs, entertainment, drugs, and so on. Let’s be honest: Americans do not like to grow up, but always want to find that “something” or “someone” to satisfy our humanly infinite longings. And it does not work, cannot work.  Accepting reality is a major step forward to spiritual growth. 

God alone can satisfy—but not within the limitations of present existence—the human heart, which opens up to the infinite, which is conscious of the abyss. I repeat this point because it is so important to keep in mind: Not even God can or will satisfy the human being’s infinite longings in present existence. Apparently, it is contrary to nature or reality, impossible, and would end the human search for fulfillment beyond death. What one calls “God” cannot fill this void because God as experienced is always a limited experience for the human being. No single divine event completes the human being, but rather leaves him or her wanting more.  Consider, as an example, the Apostle Paul’s extraordinary vision of the Resurrected Christ. Paul did not write, “Now I am fulfilled, now I am satisfied; I have seen the LORD!” On the contrary, the Apostle writes: “I have not attained; rather, forgetting what lies behind, I press on to what lies ahead…” (Phil 3). He knew well that he had just tasted the Infinite God, and had by no means a final, ultimate fulfillment.  

I’ve known a number of rather naive folks (spiritually immature) who have experienced love, or God’s peace, or a vision, and thought that “that is it,” that now they are fulfilled. “Hey! I’ve arrived!”  I say:  “Not so fast, sweet-heart. You are misinterpreting reality. It does not work that way.”  And it does not work that way, because the abyss is too vast even for the best gifts that God can present in this life. If a single experience or “faith in God” could satisfy the heart, who would ever welcome death when it comes?  Death would be seen only as destruction, and not as a means for fulfilling the infinite longing of the heart for completion. Death is the door into infinite happiness, infinite completion—death and only death. In other words, nothing, no one, can complete a human being in present existence—not even God’s presence in and to a person. There is no ultimate satisfaction of the human heart’s longing in present existence. And that reality feeds the longing and hope for death as release from finitude, and emergence into that which alone can complete or satisfy; and that is what is called “God,” or “union with the One,” and so on.  

Hence, one of the salient characteristics of present existence—of human life in this world—is its essential incompleteness. Based on the proceeding analysis, we can say that human existence is essentially incomplete and unfulfillable in life, and that this truth opens one up to the possibility that there is fulfillment, but only through / beyond death.  Death is the only hope that one can be completely fulfilled. That union with God for which peoples of various religious faiths are taught to long is itself possible only beyond physical death, beyond extinction of all of one’s present existence. This suggests that if a human being wishes or desires to keep his or her own finite soul beyond death, then he or she would remain essentially incomplete, unfulfilled.  As long as one clings to finitude, to oneself or another, in any way, completion does not occur.  To be fulfilled, the human being must surrender everything it has and is into the infinite abyss of divine love. Then and only then is fulfillment found. 

 “The greater the death, the greater the life.” Only complete death to all that one is, has, and knows can allow “God to be all in all.” On this we shall ponder in another meditation.  

Infinite abyss,
     Void of nothingness within,
Most profound longing
     That the human heart can know,
     Desire for the infinite--

Nothing in this life:
     No divine experience,
No revolution,
     No peace and joy forever,
     No perfect spouse or lover--

Nothing can fulfill
     The abyss that’s yours within;
No, not even God
     Within present existence
     Can fully satisfy you.

Only through full death,
     Complete extinction of all
You are, all you have,
     Removal of all you love,
     End of your own existence

Can fulfillment come:
     Finite yields to infinite,
God is all in all,
     Nothing limited remains,
     Creator and creature oned.

​
—26 January 2020