Free Measure of My Days by Florida Scott-Maxwell

less would we belong together?”
    D o I know what I mean?
There is no notation to help one say these things, which both thought and feeling distort. But I must be as clear as I can. The experiences of the deep unconscious that came to me forty years ago were numinous, convincing proof of order and meaning in the universe. I knew I had a place in that order, and I felt contained. But not assured of protection orsafety. Suffering was as likely as opportunity. Indeed suffering might be opportunity, or opportunity suffering. Logic and Tightness generally lie too deep to see, chance can seem a near miracle, or the irony of life can show me how naturally I blunder, or how fortunate I am. Behind everything my conviction of meaning, as well as mystery, remains unchanged.
    What do I mean by this new sense of simplicity, of it seeming clear that Christ was God and man, and that he symbolized the oneness in each of us? If oneness is what we seek that we may have roots to nourish us, at the same time knowing there is a division in that oneness, then where, where am I? It is not Job’s acceptance of what was unfair because God was God. Is it that humanity has reached a place, perhaps a new place—how to say it—some words are too literal while others are so big that they sweep me into the air like balloons. I must stop generalizing. I, just I in my ignorance, would find satisfaction and relief in saying inside myself, at the dim, dumb point which is the best I can manage, thereI feel impelled to say to God, “God and man have begun to seem like fellow creators. You created us, but we create you. Over and over again we create and recreate you as you are for us, and in us. It is our central task. We destroy you too, it is happening now, horribly. So that once again we have the terrifying task before us of creating you. It is happening everywhere, whether known or meant. You know all this, you may cause it in a way we cannot understand, but let me go on, let me be as clear to myself as I can. We are trying more and more to create ourselves, many think we can do it without you, but we are destroying ourselves too; we can’t see our road, or ourselves, or you. Grant us this avowal, or recognition, yes recognition, as fellow creators, our small beside your great.” No! It feels impious to claim, I can’t go on.
    I went and did some baking
as it all seemed beyond me and I felt frightened. As I worked I saw thatI had been rightly frightened, for I had thought it simple to say that God and man—in my childish, arrogant view—had become fellow creators, each of each; then as I remembered what man is making of himself I felt a sick recoil from humanity. But out of my need I assumed a myth that God had split himself in two, God and Lucifer, Heaven and Hell, and that this was so that consciousness could emerge. It was for man’s sake, and the birth of man’s insight. But as man attempts to stand alone, the split is more than he can endure and God is revealed as the power that binds us together. Man’s independence has made the acknowledgement of God indispensable. On that let me rest.
    I n some central part of us
mankind must always be trying to understand God. In that poignant core where we call out our questions, and cry for an answer. It is in each of us, even if question and answer are both despair. We are always talkingto God even while we argue him out of existence. It is not easy to commune with that great force. Can we do less than speak as creator to creator since that seems the role given us, and in our seeking we honour the honour done us.
    I suppose
this is what religion is about, and always has been ever since man began to suffer and to care why he suffered. I’ve taken a long time to feel it as very truth. The last years may matter most.
    W hat frightens me
is modern man’s preference for the arid. He claims to understand, yet knows himself so little that he dares dispel mystery, deny the depths of the human psyche, and