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told him on the way through the swamps to Mordor? “The Dark Lord can only mock and
deform. He has no power to create.” Behold the piss-Christs and bejeweled skulls of our
day.
In defending the sacred traditions, the difficulties of Reiff's exposition are like bulwarks
and battlements protecting the city on the hill from the relentless assault of the barbarians.
Yet, there's a rigidity, almost a fundamentalism in his defensive stance. This would not be
pleasant city to live in. It's as if he is afraid that the baby would not survive if any of the
stagnant bathwaters were to be discarded. Personally, I've had enough of homophobia and
lapidation. Still, we are fellow travelers from the same tribe, one orthodox, one reformed.
I'm happy to have him as a workout buddy during my long month in the cardiac ward. We
are both struggling in our different ways to hold open a space in which the experience of
the sacred can be received and honored in our day.
ItrytoimaginePhilipmarriedtoSusanforeightyears.Didanycouplehaveamorepitched
battle of worldviews in close quarters than these two? Mark Tansey's marvelous painting
of Derrida and de Man waltzing on the edge of the abyss should have featured Philip and
Susan instead. What a fencing match that must have been!
***
Susan, forgive me, but I have begun to contemplate my illness as metaphor, whether you
like it or not. I do it not because I believe I can vanquish
streptococcus mutans
by keeping
a dream journal. I do it for the sake of my soul.
I begin with the idea that my heart is infected. And, in the time that I am spending here
in the ward, there is some kind of healing taking place. There's an infection that's being
cleansed. There's a daily peacefulness that I haven't known in a long time, if ever.
In a sense, my heart has always been defective. I hold the thought for a moment: the truth
of it seizes me by the throat and brings me to the edge of tears. I had considered a career
as a therapist while working toward my masters in psychology, but I eventually decided
to take an academic rather than clinical degree. I knew myself well enough by then to re-
cognize my limitations. I was gifted in being able to discern the ways in which people tied
themselves in knots; what I lacked was the patience and compassion to help them untie
themselves. I have always been strong in understanding, and so much weaker in love.
***
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