would have its culmination. Like all great art, we are directed to what the artist is saying, the poem itself, the painting itself, always pointing to ‘the other.’ But here all of art points to its Maker because here it is perfected. The poison of subjectivism, all the nonsense of the state of the artist’s mind when he wrote, is finally engulfed in the light of pure truth. All that the great artists were plying pointed here. Ah, the wonder. Truth, beauty, goodness, all right here. But enough about that. Wisdom, peace, and that elusive joy is what you seek (which you will all find here, you have noticed glimpses). He sent me to encourage you in your journey, not talk about me. I understand there is much pain, a rift between you and your beloved,” Clerk said.
“Yes, this is true. How. . . how did you know? The king of this land told you? I heard he knows all. My wife doesn’t love me any longer it seems. Or we’ve gotten bored. The curse of decadence the ennui and acedia of our age that we suffer. Or she resents me for working all the time. I don’t know, exactly,” Nicholas said. “But I have wandered as well.”
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. Do not harden your heart toward her. She may love you yet. Unless it is a selfish love not remembering the other, giving to the other as Christ loves His church,” Clerk said.
“But why does loving another bring pain and such suffering?” Nicholas said. “I’d rather be about my business, reading, star-gazing, writing than have to deal with the tragedy love seems to move toward—an end.”
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. In that darkness it will become unbreakable. The only place where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell,” Clerk said. “Agape is the best of loves. It forgets itself. Yet it makes the receiver (you and her) more than yourself. Agape: when the true God arrives, only then do the half-gods remain. Without God who is divine love (agape), the half-gods become devils or vanish. And it is us, you and me, we are God’s greatest achievement in creation—human beings made in His image and likeness—male and female. God’s divine love is what moves us to love others.”1
“’Batter my heart three-personed God. To break, blow, burn, and make me new.’ So it is the King who transforms the heart from inwardness to becoming like Him, in loving others as Christ loves,” Nicholas said.
“It is as Paul said marriage ought to be. It is the image of Christ and His church. Loving one another as He loves us—a broken, marred, wounded person. It is not one plus one equals two. It is one times one equals one with the mystery of individuality nonetheless. To love brings suffering, not because it is punishment, but because it cries out ‘something is wrong here.’ Christ makes us aware of our own shortcomings, our sin, and we can only fall at His feet and be restored—admitting our fallenness. Yet, like the King that He is, He welcomes His subjects back, ‘rise and sin no more,’” continued Clerk.
“How do I love her again—there is nothing left to give or to receive. My selfishness has engulfed myself—my whole being. I have worn her down with insults as the rain erodes a hardened stone over decades. Until it cracks and is split in two,” Nicholas said.
“You have confessed and must be restored. You are being restored as you journey on toward the city. You have been washed in water—leaving your dross behind as an oil slick. You are made clean, but there is fire and blood yet. As Elijah built the altar of twelve stones and the meat and blood were consumed in the fire on the mountain of Carmel, so your sin, pain, giving insult was burnt on the altar; you are being refined in this land—as small slivers fall from you: hatred, covetousness, self-pity, insult, slander, lust, sloth, acedia, fear, hatred, idolatry. These fall from you as you near the city. But your completion will not occur until fire and blood renew you in the room set aside for you.”
“What do you mean by all of this?” Nicholas said.
“I will lead you to the city and to this room. You will understand when we arrive,” Clerk said. “For now let us enjoy what is around us and what we will come upon in only moments.”
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