Until the Holy Beauty inhabits us
I look forward to the resurrection of freedom, sensitivity, and humanness, but above all of love and affection.
I look forward to “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”, precisely as professes the Nicene Creed. That is, I look forward to the resurrection that the Athenians of all times and of every Athens mock. “And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said “we will hear thee again of this matter” ”. The resurrection of the absurd and the paradoxical, the folly and the scandal of the cross. A resurrection that shatters every simple existence and creates cracks in the systemic certainty of a narrow and empty world. A world that surrenders to the violence of stillness, habit, and silence. I look forward, or otherwise, I believe. I believe and at the same time, I doubt. I doubt and I change, I believe and I change. As long as I believe I look forward and as long as I look forward I believe. I keep moving. I hope. I beat death.
After all, what is faith? The substance of what is hoped for, and the unquestionable assurance of what we do not see, but suspect. From the here and now, we viscerally suspect the hereafter. From the here, the elsewhere. For, in the end, everything lies elsewhere. An elsewhere that does not underestimate the here, does not diminish it, but fills it with meaning; gives it substance. Embraces it with love and makes it live with it. “My love has been crucified”, said the saint of the Church. He was crucified for me, He was crucified for each of us, He was crucified “for the life and salvation of the world”. The life here and now, and the life to come at the end of it. Where the end meets completion, fulfillment.
“Now all things are filled with light”. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, but also to the resurrection of the living. Resurrection from the death of greed and hypocrisy. I look forward to the resurrection of freedom, sensitivity, and humanness, but above all, of love and affection. Of actions and dreams. Where there will be no room for the loveless and the purely operational. I look forward to the resurrection of the broken and the defenseless, the weak, the powerless, and the excluded. The resurrection of responsibility, so that the scattered life can be rebuilt. “Someone has to loudly say that we will build the pyramids. It doesn’t matter if we don’t build them.” I look forward to the belief of otherness, of every otherness, not just the tolerance of it. “Give me this stranger”. The belief of what I am not, of the weary and the suffering. Let the poor become the altar of our modern life. “When you see a poor believer, believe that you are looking at an altar”. Let us listen to “the voices that seem worthless”. I look forward to the resurrection of every sense, the resurrection of surprise. To see the world differently, with fresh eyes, with an undying flame. To set fire to misery and unfulfillment.
I look forward to the resurrection of that one thing we need. The resurrection of pursuit and gratitude. The recourse to the weak force that allows for the poetic transcendence of introversion, the sensation of the exploit of questioning that gives birth to a recollection of manner, an honest encounter. I look forward to that feeling, that gaze that will stare at each moment as being the last. “And the meaning of that saying is, that as we rise day by day we should think that we shall not abide till the evening, and again, when about to lie down to sleep, we should think that we shall not rise up.” I look forward to the resurrection of hunger and thirst. The resurrection of mindfulness. The welcoming of the torn, the defeat of the ill-conceived, and the radiance of beauty. I look forward to the resurrection of query, struggle, and resistance, until we inhabit beauty, until the Holy Beauty inhabits us.
Chrysostomos A. Stamoulis is Dean of the Department of Theology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
