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“To live not for one’s needs but for God!”
“How does he remember God? How does he live for the soul?” Levin almost cried out.
“You know how: rightly, in a godly way. You know, people differ! Take you, for instance, you won’t injure anyone either…”
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
While the novel is named for Anna, Constantine Levin is as central to the story as she and the novel ends with Levin’s confession of faith – a re-discovery (as he abandoned the Orthodox faith of his childhood) that was prompted by a discussion with a peasant.
The words the peasant had spoken had produced in his soul the effect of an electric spark…
This spark brought together many disjointed ideas he had carried through his life.
“Can I possibly have found the solution of everything? Have my sufferings really come to an end? … I have discovered nothing. I have only perceived what it is that I know.”
This realization showed him one thing: he had lived well (that is to say, rightly, in a godly way), but he thought badly.
“Whence comes the joyful knowledge I have in common with the peasant, and which alone gives me peace of mind? Where did I get it?”
He spent much time examining many worldly philosophies and ideas in search of the truth that was offered to him from the time of being an infant, as if drinking the truth in with his mother’s milk.
“Can this really be faith? … My God, I thank thee!”
Sobbing, tears filling his eyes.
Yet this joy, this realization would run right up against his old habits. Yes, he regularly treated others kindly; he could also be quite short with them – including his wife. Was this joy just a momentary thing, something that would pass soon enough?
He reconciled with his shortcomings, while holding on to this newly embraced faith. The entire book closes with his confession:
“I shall still get angry with Ivan the coachman in the same way, shall dispute in the same way, shall inopportunely express my thoughts; there will still be a wall between my soul’s holy of holies and other people; even my wife I shall still blame for my own fears and shall repent of it. My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.”
Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
ReplyDeleteof things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have turned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.
Let's be more like the legend-makers with their kindled fire and less like those twice-seduced looking for an artificial Circe kiss to provide all their earthly desires. I think we know which will find more meaning and true happiness in their pursuits.
The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship one he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact.
If we want to regain our lordship and our freedom, we must remember there is something beyond this world. It is only leverage from outside the circles of this world that can be employed to bring worldly power back into alignment with the true, the good, and the beautiful. To bring the state to heal, we must earnestly call upon the assistance of God.
Yes, something beyond this world. It has truly been a blessing for me how meaningful this reality has become for me.
DeleteMy faith is in Christ. I can add nothing to that statement, and need not add nothing to that statement.