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Praise and Curse

As I was playing Manha do Carnaval, melancholic notes fluidly and timidly poured through my fingers. Images and post cards in my soul flooded my memory in my small office. Books on the floor, pieces of a chess set on the shelves, pencil sketching of friends on the wall, files to put in order, blue curtains hanging, leaves on the sidewalk; desiring to escape in melancholy, away from the roughness of the day. Another day! A life of acceleration, chatting virtually with the laptop, the Microwave, the remote control never at hand, the cellular phone in the pocket, a fax to read, a SPAM to delete, an e-mail to send, fast food to swallow, fast track for the DVD, fast forward, a.s.a.p. I am melancholic in the office because of the busy day. It is a particularly gray day, that hates and fears that kind of constrictive mood stemming from the obsession of a superficial frantic life; signs of depression, at the notes of the Brazilian music, resounding in the office. The ancient called it, ‘umore melancolico’, a heavy head, looking to the ground, slow to speak, incapable of decision and action, a sense of blame, to look back, a fear of the future, rebellion today, a diffused sadness. This, they say, is the prologue of the solitude at the end of life, masked in the quickening daily routine.  

Looking back that day, years ago in 1980, going through Arkansas with Mark and John, with my head resting somewhat uncomfortably on the humid and slippery window of the car, half asleep, with heavy eyelids. John was at the wheel, not going over 55 mph. Just furtively, I caught rivers of migrating black birds in the gray sky carving with precise curves and waves, the foggy air and going South towards Mexico.  Black rivers of birds instinctively knowing where to flow, but us…not knowing our destination; just monotonously driving - God forbid we should go over 55 miles… the three of us, toward the Mexican border; our routine overturned and governed by a relentless searching…Once more I had been laid off at old Amatec, the plastic factory. Not enough seniority to collect unemployment, the puppet game of the culture of displacement for immigrants; my pregnant wife left behind and Mexico in sight. 

Sitting in my office - then driving towards Mexico - regretting the past! Much that had been conceived, wished for, dreamed of and what the fantasy had perceived as truth had not been fulfilled. I was nostalgically reaching back to the sweet light, putting aside bitterness and shadows, redeeming the isolation of the present. Painting in my mind the flocks of sheep in rugged Sicily, the friends of the traveling group, Paul, Vital, Pedro, Eya and the comforting smell of kerosene in the prayer tent, on the cold evenings in Catania. We were moving harmoniously, as the river of black birds in Arkansas, from city to city. Now once more, as then, the burning desire to get somewhere, to a place I had never seen before; because ‘there’, no suffering in sight, ‘here’ indescribable passion, the longing to stop where nobody had ever rested. The deep and perennial nostalgia of those dwellings never inhabited, of celestial cities not yet reached, under blue skies never before admired.   

In the office, in autumn, I am thoughtful: leaves covering the streets, a gray sky and cold feet: my melancholic spirit born out of my vulnerability. Many chances stored in the drawers, countless colored collections of past years of never ending experiences, together with the ruthlessness of life with its inevitable suffering.  Out of all this, a great sense of boredom in which melancholy finds its ally: the painful perception of what is defective, unfinished in all things, the sensitivity to disappointment and a sense of emptiness…my vulnerability. Not the suicidal music of Laslo Seress, ‘Gloomy Sunday’, but nostalgia. Nostalgia for what is lasting and not decaying, going beyond the routine; surpassing what is volatile and transitory, landing on everlasting shores. The desire for the absolute…a feeling of mysterious nostalgia for the supernatural: the Augustinian anxiety of the soul mindful of God. Mexico on the horizon, but foggy air in Arkansas and dry leaves in windy Sheboygan. On our way to Mexico, just perceiving something new!  

Then, tired from the long trip, we left dreary Arkansas and headed towards Texas to clean, glassy, shiny Dallas. At the outskirts of the city we found time for a stop at one of John’s friend’s house. Clean air, sparkling images from afar, the pale sun starting to dim, fading lights sliding away on the high geometric buildings. We rang the bell, tired, hesitantly waiting at the door. This was our last outpost for the weary, a home to rest in, hoping to be restored in ‘no-man’s land’. A sort of last chance to hang on, holding tightly and without letting go of those thin securities, but dreaming and longing for the comfortable unknown: Mexico in sight. ‘These are my friends from Wisconsin. He is from Italy and this other from Sheboygan…’ timidly whispered John from Orlando. Just a simple home, kids around, the wife embarrassed, the cat disappearing and us standing at the door hesitantly moving in. I’d never seen these people before, Texas, only in Western movies; John’s friend, just like any other sudden acquaintance. I’d never been in the Southern States, and for that matter, in the USA, still poorly mumbling English, one year in Sheboygan and John’s friend surprisingly said to me, before even taking my jacket off: ‘I heard that you love the Lord!’ I stood numbed thinking to reply with… ‘…ehm…Thank you!’ How stupid! What do you answer in these circumstances? No reply! They had taught me in previous schools how to receive Christian compliments and say, ‘Thank you’. I was speechless. Still hanging around the door…magically carving in my soul, the soothing words satisfied my longing for never ending shores. No more need to get to unknown Mexico, no insatiable desire to follow rivers of immigrating black birds, just resting, knowing that the struggles do not pass unnoticed. ‘Where water comes together with other water’, as the American minimalist poet Raymond Carver put it, my insatiable soul finally gets in touch with God’s soul. At the last unexpected outpost, in an atypical place, in a no land territory, in a liminal transition, Jesus surprised me: nostalgia of fresh air, finally breathing and no more heavy eyelids! Fleeting melancholy and the sense of being loved, found and remembered. Words carving the soul and warming comfort! Finally in an ample and broad place, like King David hoped for, after a stormy adventure.  

In clear Dallas, ‘I have heard that you love the Lord’, opened my soul and put a landmark there.  

Furtively, I have cherished these precious words until years later – from another corner of the world, from who knows where - I read a discrediting e-mail reported:  ‘…we are unable to commend this brother and his ministry to the Body of Christ in general’. How could it be that, ‘I heard that you love the Lord’ in shiny Dallas and, ‘I do not commend this brother for the Body of Christ in general’, years later, could coexist? I cherish Dallas, but I coldly relegate somewhere far away, the late e-mail. Old biblical Shimei, as he was throwing stones at the humbled fugitive King David cursed him saying: “Begone, begone, you man of blood, you worthless fellow, the Lord has avenged upon you all the blood of the house of Soul”. A time to flee for David, his head down in shame, heavy eyelids, a heavy head, looking to the ground, slow to speak, incapable of decision and act, a sense of blame, to look back, fear of the future, rebellion that day, a diffused sadness. Nostalgia of past mighty acts, melancholy invading, the severed head of Goliath only a dream reposed in the forgotten tassels of life. But, <<Let him curse>> said humbled King David to his devoted fiery friends ready to cut off the head of Shimei, <<…the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David’>>. Time elapsed and dying King David leaving his heredity to Solomon reminded him: “Hold Shimei not guiltless…you shall bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol”… Enough with the Jeff’s, who are only poisonous ‘Fountains’ of curse! I relegate him and those like him to the mighty hands of God. I remember and I cherish shiny Dallas; I wait to go to a ‘broader space’ and in another ‘no-man’s land’ I hope to see Jesus in sight.