« experience and boldness | Main | the significance of a work of art »
September 10, 2007
the saint
Wherever there is someone who gathers himself together, some solitary person, for example, who wants to rest roundly upon his whole circumference, day and night, he immediately provokes the opposition, the contempt, the hatred of those degenerate objects which, in their own bad conscience, can no longer endure the knowledge that something can actually hold itself together and strive according to its own nature. Then they combine to harass and frighten and confuse him, and they know they can do that. Winking to one another, they begin the seduction, which then grows on into the infinite and sweeps along all creatures, even God himself, against the solitary one, who will perhaps endure: the saint.
..........
But then, when he didn’t look up, they began to think. They suspected that in all this they had been acting as he had wanted them to; that they had been strengthening him in his solitude and helping him to separate from them for ever. And now they changed their tactics and picked up their final weapon, the other form of resistance, the deadliest of all: fame. And at this noise, there was hardly a single one who didn’t look up and let himself be distracted.
..........
I could imagine that long ago such things had happened to saints, those overhasty zealots, who wanted to begin with God, right away, whatever the cost. We no longer make such demands on ourselves. We suspect that he is too difficult for us, that we must postpone him, so that we can slowly do the long work that separates us from him. Now, however, I know that this work leads to combats just as dangerous as the combats of the saint; that such difficulties appear around everyone who is solitary for the sake of that work, as they took form around God’s solitaries in their caves and empty shelters, long ago.
..........
Fate loves to invent designs and patterns. Its difficulty lies in complexity. But life itself is difficult because of its simplicity. It has just a few elements, of a grandeur that we can never fathom. The saint, rejecting fate, chooses these and comes face to face with God.
Rilke - The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Posted by amin at September 10, 2007 9:25 PM