Seeing God

By no means am I any sort of mystic, but there are certain moments that give the inimitable impression and overall sensation of presence.

"Aaron is eight years old when he sees God. He is on a night flight home from his grandfather's funeral, a man he never met while living. He has a window seat and has spent the entire flight staring at the tiny lights below which, intellectually, he knows correspond to buildings but which seem more like sequins on an endless black blanket. When the plane flies into a cloud, Aaron's sense of unlimited span and distance disappears. His window is swathed in white. A pulsing red light emanates from the cloud's whiteness. Aaron stares, awestruck. With each pulse of light the cloud is transformed into something magical. Aaron wonders if God lives in all clouds, or if his plane just happened to pick the right one."

-- Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

Junior and Senior year at St. Ignatius the Jesuit Preparatory School of Cleveland, Ohio is a special time for one specific, distinct reason: the Kairos retreat. The fact that this was an experience that occurred so long ago makes the memory a blurred one at best. So when I think of it, there are only several significant things that come to mind. The retreat is a four-day escape to the Jesuit Retreat House in Parma, which is my de facto hometown. On the expansive ground of the retreat house, there are two distinct landmarks that fill one with the feeling that only the sublime can proffer. The one is a tall and oppressive stone statue of Christ, with palms open. The other is a clearing in a wooded area where a Jesuit cemetery lays, in the middle of which stands a large, wooden cross. As often happens, in the daytime, these two respective landmarks lose their mystic, sublime qualities. Imagine for a moment, though, the experience of walking with a close friend and coming to a clearing where the sky and its endless stars open themselves onto you. The moon, large and full and seemingly within reach over the cross, provides a soft glow to guide your way.

When I was a junior, I went on Kairos for the first time. We had all heard the stories and early reports of mystic happenings occurring at the Christ statue. Rest assured, we would have senior guides to aid us in this unofficial part of the Kairos programme. We would later learn that the Jesuits generally frown upon such behavior, but that really is not enough to stop a precocious bunch of adolescents from amateur pursuits in mysticism. Every night, we'd sneak out and stay out late exploring the outside grounds of the complex. A group of us would begin gathering around the Christ statue for prayer. Spontaneously, one of us would be so moved as to approach the statue and climb up onto its base. Some would gather near as well and place their hands in solidarity about his feet. All would continue in prayer. Some would be admittedly distracted from their prayerful state by the seemingly random happenings around them. The young man standing at the base of that statue would then grab the hands of Christ and stare deeply into His eyes.

A lot of people would immediately identify this as some sort of idol worship. In a lot of ways, that may be true, but there was a definite sense of presence. Also, this is what young males are supposed to do. Look at Knowles' A Separate Peace. This really was like Phineas climbing out onto the longest tree limb overhanging a river and jumping. For all intensive purposes, this seemed to be where one could prove his ultimate worth as an Ignatian. I look back on it now as a sort of rite of passage.

One by one, I watched them all hop up onto the base of that statue and feel the emotional shock of His presence. Some would say that they could see tears in Christ's eyes or feel warmth from his hands. There always seemed to be some sense of being displaced, feeling as though the statue was welcoming the young retreatant.

I went up timid and shy, and didn't feel a thing. I was disappointed, but I wasn't really surprised. Looking back, I realize it was because I was still innocent, and I didn't hurt from anything. I would soon realize the connection, after conversation with thme, that they hurt from something and that they needed that presence to be felt. That period of adolescence is an awkward one, because the small things don't fill you with the same sense of awe and amazement anymore.

I would go back to that place my senior year as a retreat leader. I remember walking around with my friend Michael at night. We went past the statue, where a new host of Ignatians were getting their fill of presence, and we came across that clearing in the woods. I hadn't noticed it on previous occassions. The sky just seemed to open up out of nowhere and sent down upon us a very soft glow of moonlight. Maybe that's what let him release his hurt. He told me stuff that I would have never been able to guess on my own about him. I never realized how much stress he was under. He went through the pain of having lost his virginity and then of having that same girl tell him she was pregnant. The rub was that she really wasn't pregnant, but she had kept up the charade for awhile. She made it all up to get back at him for breaking up with her. Later she claimed to have had an abortion or maybe a miscarriage. But it was certainly a host of lies and undeserved pain.

Secretly, I was jealous because I had never known pain. I never felt a real need to cry and let out emotion. I would feel it later and realize how naive I was to think like that. I tried to be there for my friend, but I never know the right things to say. I never will. But at the same time, he got to experience a closeness to that presence which can only be made possible by a painful separation. I wish I had understood more clearly, for Michael's sake.

Michael was the one who would introduce me to Lewis Black. After school one day in the weeks before graduation, we rode around downtown Cleveland and then made our way towards Parma while listening to Black's White Album. I laughed so hard that I cried. I've listened to it so often since then that the humor seems to be a part of me. The jokes are like old and reliable friends. I look back to that now and wonder if I had an innocent laugh that he was jealous of. I wouldn't even know if I had lost that. I laughed a lot then, and I still do today. I wish I knew, because it would clear up a lot. I can only suppose.