longing

“Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.”  Thomas Merton

Ouch, that hurts. I’m used to more comforting words from brother Thomas. 

My son an actor and writer had given me a copy of the play “The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot” by Stephen Adly Guirgis to read. In the play Judas Iscariot is on trial. The trial takes place in Purgatory. Mother Teresa is one of the witnesses . A trial in Purgatory, Mother Teresa a witness, I know, I know, just roll with it. She is old and hard of hearing. The lawyer for the prosecution flirtatiously flatters her. The play is funny and scathing in style, profanely snarky. Mother T. Has been called as an expert witness on the nature of despair. She suffered through the Dark Night of the Soul in her waning years. She shares the Merton quote as an informed description of the cause and nature of despair.

The Merton quote encapsulates the heart of the play. Reading the play brought to mind these drawings I had done a number of years ago. I was drawing my way through the book of Jonah. It was an assignment I  had given myself. People like the Book of Jonah, there’s a whale in it after all. Maybe I can create a picture book? I got some nice drawings out of it. One drawing ended up in a juried show and even sold, but no book. The real reason I was drawn to the story of Jonah was his prayer from the belly of the whale. He was isolated, utterly alone in the black merciless depths of the sea. His bone crushing despair resonated in me. These drawings aren’t exactly what you would expect in a picture book. I don’t know, who would want to look at them? I put them aside and forgot about them.

The story of Jonah is also very funny, his anguished prayer aside. God commands Jonah to preach in the city of Nineveh, the great enemy of Israel. Jonah knows God is merciful and will extend mercy to the Ninevites. Jonah will have none of it and hops on the first boat leaving town. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and God as possible. Where exactly does he think he is going? A super storm comes up and threatens the ship. The crew reluctantly throw him overboard as a sacrificial offering, at his requests mind you. A fish swallows him, which doesn’t kill him. He bobs about in the fish’s belly for three days before the fish vomits him out; hilarious. He gives in and preaches in Nineveh and God forgives the Ninevites, just as Jonah had feared. God’s loving act sends Jonah spiraling down once again into deep despair. So God sends a worm to eat a bush, still hilarious. This is too much for Jonah, in anger he desires death. God takes the opportunity of Jonah’s anger to explain the nature of his love. That’s where the story ends. Jonah’s reaction to God’s gentle words, if he had one, isn’t shared. Did the prophet even hear God?

The drawings I did of Jonah in depths don’t work as illustrations of Jonah in belly of the great fish. In some way I connected with Jonah’s deep despair and isolation. I read his prayer as a twenty first century man of the West. To what extent did I impose my individualism on his words? The world happens around me and what matters is how I apprehend it. Faith in Western Church tradition is an individual experience of intellect and emotion. In a sense it is outside of us and isolating. I have been told that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition faith is connected to community. Restoration with God can’t be understood apart from community. 

My renderings are more self portraiture than illustration. I have never experienced the deep isolation and hopelessness of Jonah’s cry. So why does it resonate with me? Jonah’s anguish is not about being under water, he isn’t afraid of death. Jonah had been intimate with God but he cast it away, that is the cause of his Dark Night of the Soul. My desire is to have a relationship with God that is so intimate that its loss, like Jonah, would crush me, not in the hereafter but now. So I think my drawings are a longing for more.

I like the drawings, which as far as drawings go is what matters, no matter why I drew them. They’re just drawings.