Written In Invisible Ink

Just keep looking…

 

I can’t believe in a historic God. I can’t, on the other hand, believe in the tale told by an idiot, in ‘tant de bruit pour une omelette’ (all that noise to make an omelette).”

“I believe in something beyond the human brain, beyond the range of frequencies visible to the ear; a message written in invisible ink, of which fragments become visible when one is listening to music, standing on a mountain, praying, reading poetry, being in love, contemplating a beautiful math solution.”

“Fragments of the message have been copied in mutilated versions of the scriptures, the Vedas, etc. But those copies are as inadequate as ignorant monks’ copies of antique texts.”

~ Arthur Koestler, Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic

It’s a wonderful book about an exceptional, fascinating life. I recommend it highly.

Koestler confronted his doubts. He found a way to make peace with them.

 

Doubt is a personal thing, as is faith.

I don’t know how to feel sometimes, the way our world is now.

I want to believe that God was right there with those people trapped in the Twin Towers, with each fireman trudging up the stairs as those buildings collapsed.

I want to believe He was standing right beside those children and parents killed in Manchester Monday night, that He stayed inside that club in Orlando until the end, that He was huddled with those little kids in their first grade classroom in Sandy Hook.

I want to believe He’s in the chaos of the barrel bombs and sarin gas in Syria, that He’s inside the boats with each refugee desperate for survival, for freedom from fear.

I struggle to see Him calming the wounded and dying inside the Bataclan, or on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

I struggle to see Him alongside the children who will die of starvation today in South Sudan.

I even struggle to find Him as I drive past the homeless holding their signs, hoping for help, reaching out for hope.

 

We are told that God is love, and that makes sense to me.

Pure, perfect love, without any bias or condition, freely given to all.

But if God is with us when we suffer, why did Christ call out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” as he was dying on the cross?

Why did he feel so alone when he most needed God there?

 

I don’t have answers.

But I think I occasionally glimpse flashes of the message which seems to have been written in invisible ink.

I just need to keep looking for it. I know it’s there.

 

Can pure love share the same space as pure hatred? Could God be right there as the bomber pushes the button that will take so many young lives?

Can the faintest glimmer of light be seen amidst absolute darkness?

Yes, I think it can.

I need to search always for that light.

Light throws darkness back. Total darkness is not possible in the presence of even the dimmest of lights.

I just need to keep looking.

 

Love means to learn to look at yourself
the way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills…
       ~ Czeslaw Milosz, “Love”