Tonight while watching the 'Live Nativity' at our church I was struck by the utter simplicity of it all; how concrete and REAL it all was. And I recalled reading (many times) Czeslaw's poem, A Theological Treatise.
In particular, these lines
"Let reality return to our speech.
That is, meaning. Impossible without an absolute point of reference."
This is our point of reference; this moment eternity when God decided that what humanity needed most was...Humanity.
How did we get HERE from there, that moment when God became man; not to exalt himself among us, but to exalt humanity.
Will we ever figure out "how to live in a phantasmagoria"
A Young Man
From: A Theological Treatise by Czeslaw Milosz
A young man couldn’t write a treatise like this,
Though I don’t think it is dictated by fear of death.
It is, simply, after many attempts, a thanksgiving.
Also, perhaps, a farewell to the decadence
Into which the language of poetry in my age has fallen.
Why theology? Because the first must be first.
And first is a notion of truth. It is poetry precisely,
With its behavior of a bird thrashing against the transparency
Of a window-pane, that tells us
That we don’t know how to live in a phantasmagoria.
Let reality return to our speech.
That is, meaning. Impossible without an absolute point of reference.