“...one might speak, in all perversity, of the possibility
of a kingdom of the kingdom-less, a kingdom where no one reigns- or, if they
do, they have no power- an unkingly anarchic kingdom, a kingdom where the only
power that is permitted is the power of powerlessness, where the very condition
of power is that it be without power.” John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God, p. 26
On vacation in Vermont our extended family lives a mild
version of such a kingdom.
No one is in charge, although many experts are at hand to
repair an outboard motor, discuss a dog, or prepare a meal. The weather
influences us most, along with the dogs, and the youngest children.
Passionate about what we do at work, we discuss or projects
and our problems: “When I worked for state government we had a new commissioner
on average every fifteen months,” says my brother-in-law. “We just did our work
and waited.”
While in Vermont my boss and friend calls to say he is
leaving, going to be the Dean of a famous cathedral. With this news, all
semblance of an ordered future disappears for me, leaving inside a shrunken
self, a fishless, future-less, potentially jobless relic of a priest and man,
shrunk down like drought-stricken Lake Champlain that surrounds our peninsula
on three sides. When I look inside
myself, I see only absences: our absent children, who are busy elsewhere with
their own good lives; my long-dead parents; and my absent self.
I go fishing with my brother and his son. I am familiar with
these three- they have fished together many times before, as boys and men. The
youngest, Benjamin, has grown into a master angler, one who looks at the Lake
and feels fish moving through the boat’s hull. I watch this triumvirate as if
from some vantage-point along the shore. “Those three must be very close,” I
observe, and think I remember how that must feel.
The wordless process
of casting and retrieving makes a sort of mantra, a rosary-like ritual of
repeated movements and sounds from which a thought emerges and hovers,
unsupported, in the air: “the blessing has departed from us,” is what I hear,
imagine, suppose.
And, as if making a liturgical response, a fish strikes my
floating lure and bores strong and deep against the drag. It is a heavy bass, a
grandfather and a chief who fights hard and deep and then succumbs to a scurry
of net and cell phone photos. Inside of me, a twelve year-old boy revives and
swells to fill the empty space as we hoist our heavy fish for our father to
admire. A strange, unbidden serenity prevails as we release the bass into his
own anarchic kingdom.
“The kingdom of God as discussed in the New Testament is an
anarchized field, produced by exposing being to the proactive name of God.” John
D. Caputo, p. 14.
No comments:
Post a Comment