Breaking Away from the Great One

Who knows what unbelievable effort it cost that first moment of creation when everything burst? What is certain is that this demanded unbelievable courage.

Each piece, every atom must have been terribly lonely and suffered agonies in that breaking away from the ONE, in that first explosion and the ensuing expansion, that going to seed.

Each of the ten thousand things has endured this mortal fear of being born in its own unique, inalienable manner. That is true greatness. Shestov used the Greek word tolma (to be bold, even reckless) to refer to the courage it takes to break away from the ONE…

Why did God become human? Why? To suffer a life of disappointment and incomprehension for 33 years and to die a humiliating death? …

And yet this life was lived as a whole-hearted “yes”.

God chose to live it as a unique and lonely being, separated from that undifferentiated ONE, separated from that womb of oneness, however holy, deep and sublime that may also have been… to be here, unique and lonely, and to bring his own unique mission to expression. Well now, that is the assignment for everyone of us…

What I am speaking about here is something one can only stammer about. Great death, great doubt, living out of death, the grain of corn that dies in the earth. One can only stammer about it, powerlessly and diffidently.

-- Ton Lathouwers  (paraphrasing Shestov), More than Anyone Can Do