Deep Rhythm and the Riddle of Eternal Life

John S. Dunne

Description

In Deep Rhythm and the Riddle of Eternal Life, John S. Dunne’s twentieth book, he examines the end of earthly life and the prospect of eternal life. He begins with two questions: Is death an event of life? Is death lived through? If we answer yes to both questions, then we face “the riddle of eternal life.” This book explores that riddle.

Dunne finds his answer in the Gospel of John, with its three great metaphors of life, light, and love. Dunne contemplates the meaning of the metaphors in “deep rhythm,” the deep rhythm of rest in the restlessness of the heart. The words of eternal life in the Gospel speak of life and light and love but also of life passing through death, of light passing through darkness, of love passing through loneliness. So, too, Christ, embodying life and light and love, passes through death and darkness and loneliness. This deeply meditative book from one of our most gifted spiritual writers and teachers will offer consolation to those at the end of life as well as hope for all readers who contemplate eternal life.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Biblical Meditations
• Philosophie et théologie
• General officer
• Spirituality
• New Testament
• Christianity
• General

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268077624
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Deep

Rhythm

and the

Riddle

of

Eternal

Life

Deep

Rhythm

and the

Riddle

of

Eternal

Life

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

J O H N

S .

D U N N E

Copyright © 2008 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Title Page and CD art: JupiterImages © 2007

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dunne, John S., 1929– Deep rhythm and the riddle of eternal life / John S. Dunne. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02596-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-02596-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Death—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Future life—Christianity. I. Title. BS2545.D45D86 2008 236'.1—dc22 2008000414

∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Preface

Contents

A Question of Heart’s Desire A Quest of Eternal Life The Riddle of Eternal Life

An Answer: The Road that Goes On The Road Goes Ever On Sailing into the West

A Spiritual Journey The Road Taken The Road Not Taken

A Deeper Life The Mind’s Ascent to God The Silence of the Heart Speaks

Going through Death to Life Letting Go of Everyone and Everything A New Relation to Everyone and Everything

Deep Rhythm

A Symphony of Songs

vii

1

23

45

65

87

107

119

preface

Is death an event of life? Is death lived through? No, Wittgenstein has said, “Death is not an event of life. 1 Death is not lived through.” But what if the answer is Yes, itisan event of life, itislived through? If it is, as has been assumed in most civilizations but our own, and in our own too before the time of the Black Death, then we face “the riddle of eternal life,” as I call it here. I see the answer to the riddle in the Gospel of John with its three great metaphors, life and light and love. And I see the meaning of the metaphors in “deep rhythm,” as I call it here, the deep rhythm of rest in the restlessness of the heart. Life and light and love, the three metaphors, form a great circle in the Gospel of John, from and of and to - wards God, as in the words of the old Bedouin to Lawrence of Arabia, “The love is from God and of God and towards 2 God.” Eternal life then is the great circle of life and light and love. There is a far point on the circle, though, farther- most from God, and so as Wendell Berry says in a poem, 3 “Even love must pass through loneliness,” and we could say too, “Even light must pass through darkness” and “Even life must pass through death.” And so “the words of eternal

vii

viii

Preface

life” in the Gospel speak of life and light and love but also of life passing through death, of light passing through dark- ness, of love passing through loneliness. So too Christ, em- bodying the life and the light and the love, passes through death and darkness and loneliness. Deep rhythm then, the deep rhythm of eternal life, is a rest in the restlessness of the heart. It is like the poise of a whirling gyroscope. The restlessness of the heart appears in passing through loneliness, through darkness, through death. Rest in restlessness is an acceptance of the restless movement of the heart from image to image, a dwelling in that movement. It is love in the loneliness, light in the dar-k ness, life in the dying. “Our heart is restless until it rests in 4 you,” Saint Augustine’s saying in the beginning of hisCon- fessions, seems to describe this process of passing through loneliness, through darkness, through death, and coming to repose in life and light and love. “Wisdom is repose in 5 light,” Joseph Joubert says. It is repose in life and light and love, I want to say, and that is the meaning of “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Wisdom is repose in God, and that is rest in the restlessness of the heart, “at the still point 6 of the turning world.” Life and light and love then, and deep rhythm are metaphors of eternal life. Rest in the restlessness of the heart is the meaning of the metaphors. If we take the rest- lessness of the heart to be the stream of consciousness as it goes from image to image, rest in the restlessness is a re- lation to the things of life flowing in the stream of con - sciousness and so is not just part of the flux but is or can be something lasting and enduring. If “we all have within us a 7 center of stillness surrounded by silence,” as Dag Ham- marskjöld says, this rest can describe dwelling in our center of stillness. Can it also describe “eternal rest,” life after

Preface

ix

death? I am hoping it can, as if life after death is the same as what is now our inner life. So when we speak of deep rhythm and the riddle of eternal life, we are speaking of metaphors, but they are “cognitive metaphors.” They are images, but there is insight into the images. What is more, there is a metaphor that combines all into one, and that is Tolkien’s image of the road that goes ever on. “He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at 8 every doorstep, and every path was its tributary .” It sug- gests “the road not taken” in life rejoins the road taken. For me the road not taken is the way of music and the road taken is the way of words, but in these later years the roads have rejoined for me, and that is what I try to illustrate here at the end with my “Symphony of Songs.” The rejoining of the roads is my deep rhythm and my answer to the riddle of eternal life. I want to thank Quinn SmithPillari, who sang my “Symphony of Songs” with me accompanying her on the piano at Notre Dame in the spring of 2003, and Dustin George Miller, who recorded it on compact disc, and the University of Notre Dame Press for bringing it out. I also wrote an orchestral version for soprano and string orches- tra, but that has not yet been performed. The songs are from my previous song cycles but are combined here in three symphonic movements.