1/30/2020
By Leonard Swidler
Updated 1/26/21
I don't know: If there is “Something” out there that is so super-wonderful, but reveals Her/His/It/self only to a rather select few, “It” doesn't seem to be even as loving as I am – and have many shortcomings therein.
Maybe, however, there is a sort of Alpha/Omega that is evolving in Existence ever “greater” (not in the quantitative sense, but qualitative), an infinitely ahead of me/us Source/Goal of all Energy, Power, Consciousness, not static but dynamic – Be-ing, ing, ing…...?
After all, we know that our Cosmos started out 13. Billion years ago tinier than an atom (!), exploded (Big Bang!) and is still expanding-ing,ing,ing…. at the speed of light (186,000/miles per second!!!).
However, while we are here – now! – why don’t we each – individually and together – work as intensely as possible to make ourselves personally and communally, as loving as possible.
For my part, rather than looking “over there,” I prefer to put out my hand and heart to the ones I can reach, touch, somehow, here and now.
In my youth, in the monastery, and afterward, I strove mightily to attain some inner taste of that Alpha/Omega. Now at age ninety-two, I am no longer excited by the prospect of grasping/being-grasped-by “Being/Goodness/Truth/Beauty.” Rather, I am content with, each moment, being the recipient of all the being, truth, beauty, goodness in the now increasingly touchable global being. I embrace the persons I meet and engage, both those in front of me, and those also truly present to me via the internet, and whatever else is being developed in the coming cascade of ever more rapidly newly developed means to embrace each other in love: in Philia, Agape, and Eros – each in her/his individually profound ways.
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I don’t know. But I do feel there is Being out there, and here – super wonderful, who reveals Her/Himself to all beings capable of loving. She/He seems to be much more loving than I am since Love is what He/She is said to be. She/He is called the Source of all Being, who says, “I am who I am,” or, newly understood, “I will be who I will be.” Thus, when I embrace the persons I meet, and engage those in front of me, I somehow touch and feel Alpha/Omega that is all-loving. I somehow enter into Being, into Agape, Philia, Eros, Love. I can sing, dance (now, only haltingly), shout, praise, give thanks with the whole universe…
Agape,
Friend!
Leonard Swidler, dialogue@temple.edu
