"The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin
is the law," writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:56. Yet Paul also writes in
Romans 13:10 “…love is the fulfillment of the law.” Paul’s latter text might be
seen as shedding liberating light on the puzzling dilemma of the former
statements, especially for those who might be put off by them. So how long will
man have to labor in thrall to sin and law – and (fear of) death? But does Paul
propose a viable resolution? Maybe it is just another lifeless metaphoric formula
apt to insinuate itself into fallen man’s mind without meaningfully reshaping
the circuitry of the brain, plastic as it is? Under what conditions can it reflect
harmony within man?
The formula is an invitation to recapturing the wholeness – though on a higher
level of development – man lost in the process of individuation, which, as Rene
Girard posits, actually is interdividuation, because man is so powerfully
mimetic. This recapturing leads man from an unconscious “organic” mutual
mimesis, through a warped, mostly one-sided mimesis effected by man’s mental faculties,
where one can only try to sidestep it by acts of conscious imitation of a worthy
religious model, and onto a grace-bestowed or regained wholeness lending itself
to a holistic mimesis of love. For the Christian the latter is only possible by
a putting on of the mind and body of Christ.
Now the law and love of the foregoing quotations might
be interpreted as representing two different stages of man’s evolution, moral
and otherwise. While sin
(transgression) may be seen as representing the principle of change, retrograde
change in this case. Change might be lethal, as Paul writes, unless it is
effected in and through love. Now obviously change is inevitable and called
for. So, what has it been for man? And what is it going to be? Sin – and death?
Or, love – and life?
Man used to be mimetic as a “whole,” relying on his mirror neurons. The
empathy-tending, care-concerned circuitry of his right brain balanced that of the blindly-grasping-yet-conformist, utility-preoccupied left brain. When as a social creature man became conscious (i.e., truly literate),
he ceased being a “whole” to himself, just as others ceased being “wholes” to
him. He immediately stood in need of a codex of law (duly “handed” to him in
various cultures) to regulate his suddenly unruly, menacing-social-peace and disjointed
behavior dictated by his now “literate,” and preponderant to boot, left
hemisphere.
His mimesis could no more be that of a whole person. He was literate, he
was conscious. So? He “chose” to deceive himself, not seeing that fragments of
him, guided now only by some of his senses, and to varying degrees, were engaging
in a kind of (predominantly left-brain) mimesis that was contrary to what he (and
his law codex) officially stood for.
With the rise of mass media, that disjointed left-brain, suddenly very
powerful, mostly verbally-mediated mimesis opened him wide, and en masse, to the influence of theories
and ideologies. The results turned out to be disastrous.
So where are we now? With the social media holding sway over us we are
in yet another place, more “un-whole” and discarnate still, more disjointed and
all over the place. Our mimetic behaviors do nor abate, but take on new forms,
apparently now more broadly-based in our sensorium, though not necessarily truly
holistic or more wholesome. Yet there is a new phenomenon abroad that we may refuse
to pay heed to only at our peril. We are pulsating with desire for wholeness.
We are craving for the touch, that most basic sensory experience. Human
touch, God’s touch. Many people are drawn to contemplation seeking (and some
finding) God’s presence. How is this presence apprehended, if at all? Isn’t it
a sense of touch of the divine, experienced directly (or only imagined or
visualized, as the case maybe)? Our craving for contemplation is a craving for
wholeness, while contemplation itself tends toward and has many of the marks of
holistic mimesis.
Girard made (some of) us mimesis-literate (rather than truly “conscious;”
that requires hard work.) Knowing the mechanism is never enough. But it is a start.
And there is a solution, though a tough one. It is a mimetic act as it must be
for man. We have to recapture wholeness, that is first of all we have to become
truly incarnate again. Love must be a guiding principle and energy on the way
to this-lifetime re-incarnation of ours, as well as the crown of glory striven
for. Love guides change, nay, prompts it.
There is no other model/mediator for the Christian than the man Jesus,
who is also the Word become flesh. To have any meaning whatsoever, our mimesis
of Jesus has to be holistic, that is bodily first. What does that mean? We must
follow in His footsteps when He tends the needy and the sick, the
underprivileged and the rejected. It is
a physical act before it can become a spiritual one. Otherwise not only will it
be false, but we will be forever disembodied somewhere is the stratosphere of
our deceitful, falsely pious imagination. Not amounting even to true
prayer.
It is a gradual process. Before it can become holistically mimetic, it starts
as a willful imitation of Jesus the man. He then may bestow on us the grace
needed not only to truly follow Him in our incarnate daily pursuits, but also allowing
us to start acquiring His mind. Gradually becoming of one mind with Him in a
life quest patterned on and mirroring the spiritual ascent of lectio divina. Then one day, on the
final rung of it, the mystical contemplation, we might be blessed by truly
becoming one spirit with Him. Though this contemplation might be such as
described by John of the Cross, pure-faith-based and nourishing our soul only
darkly.
The advent of the gift of contemplation will signify that Jesus has led
us in His grace from the place of hope that He, the incarnate Word, is, through
the mystical locus of pure faith – unto the summit of love. The very love that
enabled our quest in the first place. Or is it His quest for us?
God is Love and Love is God. It is life and creation as one. It takes
this love for us humans to return to wholeness. Yet not a wholeness submerged
in an ocean of the unconscious, as was the case at the beginning of man’s
quest, though. Nor is it going to be a self-based identity relying mostly on
man’s mental faculties. It must be an embodied wholeness of love, a love
partaking of its source and yet fully incarnate in its human manifestation.
Just as Jesus Christ forever is for us – and in us, as long as we are love’s
living crucible.
What
follows is a vision worth meditating upon – as well as pursuing.
At this lofty stage man’s mimetic quality will also have spiraled upward
full circle, reflective of man’s model/mediator. We shall then be conscious,
but not self-conscious in the sense of being preoccupied with ourselves. Our whole
sensorium – corporeal, intellectual and spiritual – will be involved in an
ongoing mimesis. This will necessarily include the Buddhists-recognized sixth
sense, that of the mind/consciousness, which actually consists of several
modalities reflective of man’s biological and cultural evolution. The two
hemispheres of the brain will again be in balance, allowing for an empathy-imbued mimesis,
where covetousness and envy are short-circuited and thus held in check.
Each and every one of us creatures will at this stage be a whole forming
a part of the Whole, a whole whose biologically-
and culturally-evolved multilayer sense modalities will allow for an ever more
perfect integration and bonding. Expressing this wholeness, our inner and outer
senses will become mutually complementary.
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