The Fear of Forgetting

And now I return to the contradiction with which I began.

Why am I writing this?

Why do I feel the need to explain Kavanah?

Why do I spend so much time examining philosophy, theology, meditation, Kabbalah, and mysticism?

Why do I search for words precise enough to preserve something I believe lies beyond words?

Part of the answer is curiosity.

Part is the desire to understand.

Part is the hope that these reflections may help others who have experienced similar uncertainty.

But if I am completely honest, another part is fear.

I am afraid of forgetting.

I am afraid that tomorrow I might lose this understanding.

I am afraid that a future doubt might erase the clarity I feel today.

I am afraid that without a written explanation, I will return to the same struggle and fail to recognize what I have discovered.

And so I write.

I create concepts.

I organize arguments.

I construct a philosophy.

I attempt to hold onto an experience through language.

There is a certain irony in this.

I am trying to preserve my freedom from control by controlling the memory of how I discovered it.

But perhaps I do not need to reject the writing.

Perhaps I only need to recognize what I am doing.

Writing can be an expression of fear without being nothing more than fear.

The words may help communicate an insight. They may help me examine mistakes. They may give another person a language for an experience they have struggled to understand.

But they cannot preserve the experience itself.

They cannot guarantee spiritual connection.

And they cannot replace the living act of directing consciousness toward the Father.

So I will continue writing, but I hope to become less dependent upon the words.

I will continue studying, but I hope to become less dependent upon certainty.

I will continue questioning, but I hope to stop demanding that every question be resolved before I can pray.

And when I notice the fear underneath these activities, I need not condemn it.

Even that fear can be offered.