"What is it this time?", Alyosa cocked his head towards the languid, and heavy-breasted Leonel, who was already leaning on a birch tree and sobbing. "For the last time you've almost gotten us killed, and every single time it was the White Spirit that saved us. Would that we would only follow his instruction! And not turn away from the path, then perhaps very well soon we would reach the other side of this island. But again and again you would not listen, for some glittering thing by the narrow path of the thicket, and I sometimes I shuder and cringe that my fate is bound with you."

"But I cannot help it! And it is not my fault that this place is so deceptive. Why, you too, when we passed by the secret springs near the mountain, and saw the heavenly muses bathing under the falls, failed to speak on account of their song, and their slender and enticing beauty. And when I stepped forward in silence, pushing through the leaves, you did not stay me with your hand, but stood there stunned in indecision. How could we have known then, tell me, that the whole scene was a spider's web, and an illusion, and though in our mind's eye we were beholding brilliant beauty, rather it was lust, and the spring was a bog, and the muses were living corpses, and their sweet lips smiled ravenous teeth at our presence. You must confess, you too did not see." And Leonel rubbed the still fresh wound that he acquired on his right elbow, some of the blood now dried and hardened. For providence it was only the nails which tore at him, and not the teeth which injected a grim and solemn poison. He found it hard to stifle his sobs, though he tried hard, for the pride of his defeated manhood mocked him.

"But we were warned. And we were told, that you ought only to keep your eyes to the light, brighter than a star, more visible than daylight, hovering over the treetops, and if only we would draw closer, we would begin to feel its warmth, and if only we would set our hearts firmly on it, you and I, then its light would even become a voice, and it would soon sing to us songs clearer and more pure than any earthly delight, and how I wished I kept my eyes on it, then I would most certainly have clasped both your shoulders and egged you onward! And didn't you hear it, as we drew the closest, that very faint voice streaming through the air, a trembling in the wind, as of something otherworldly, and didn't it move you to strain your ears, and listen, and catch a few words of white music speaking?"

"Yes, I did, and yet at the same time I caught the laughter of women and splashes of water on my far right, and when my eyes pierced through the bushes, I knew, oh, that I would drown out the white voice with the sound of my own beating heart, and with the heat that rose to my ears..." Leonel fell silent, and looked bewildered at the trees, as though frustrated with himself, simmering in his own guilt, but slowly trying to take this burden and pass it on to another, yes, perhaps pass it on to their mysterious guardian.

"Do you think it should ever be more than this on our journey, Alyosa? I mean, all the while it's been just that light over and above the treetops, and a serene voice barely audible, always tantalizing but never fully formed. And the White Spirit only appears and whisks us in the time of greatest and desperate need, and not soon enough to completely spare me from hurt. Why must this good be always only at the fringes, just where I cannot touch with my own fingers? Tell me, why does the White Spirit refuse to be our companion? Why does he not guide us here, beside us, every step of the way? Surely then, he would be able to protect us from such temptations as these, like those ruins that we stumbled upon days ago, and called out to us with inscriptions of ancient wisdom, and we, who could not know better--except yes, a glimmering, frail light in the distance--upon deciphering these incsriptions entered in, and that is when we encountered the monstrous Metuselah, and eventually felt his ancient branches round our waists..."

Alyosa shuddered, and his eyes narrowed, he too was remembering that damned encounter, yet he spoke, "But over and over again the White Spirit has saved us, even in the throes of certain death, and not in mere jest, for you remember that even though he took no solid form, yet we watched as the contours of a man in resplendent light hacked at those withered branches with his radiant sword, and I wonder then, why we dare to go on our journey, daring to go it by ourselves, and not seek him first. For you and I know that he is here, and yet, in an irony that is only possible for fools like us, we also say he is not here. But how could we be saved, if he was not always aware of our state, and keeps watch over us? Then perhaps he is here? While you sob and we talk about his hiddenness? Then let's call out now! And say, why hide yourself, guardian of two fools, why not come, lead, and we will follow, and should you tie us with ropes, bound like captives, yet we would even be more glad!" And so Alyosa, unexpectedly, not caring for any prospect of failure, or for caution, shouted, "Come! Come! Oh, white one, let yourself be seen!"

"Hush! Hush! Is this such a good idea, Alyosa? What if you wake some other thing? Shut up now!" But Alyosa only called louder, even as birds were irked at his voice and flew away, and his voice echoed unwelcome through the sleepy trunks: "If you would really save us then why not show yourself to us! And why, though you ask for faith, can't you honor us with your comforting presence!"

And after a minute or so of this madness, he fell silent, and so did nature around him. And Leonel, a little surprised by his companion's outburst, was just about to laugh, or smile, or to do anything to repay him for his scoldings, for though Alyosa was right in all his reprimands and his thoughts, yet Leonel could not stand that thought of being put down as the lesser, the one who keeps on stumbling, though in truth Alyosa did not think such, but carried his equal share of their mistakes. When they had started this journey it was Leonel who wore the bronze armor-piece, and wore the slanting sword behind his back, and who pushed through the brush in confidence, while Alyosa paced behind him, armed only with a staff, and Leonel considered him the weaker. His proud sword and armor was now gone, the very ones he had to surrender and unstrap when he sank into the bog, and the maidens started tearing at his arms, and only the angel-lightness of their saviour could lift him up, only he had to get rid of his equipment. And now, would this deliverer consent to show himself, and answer these crude and almost childish calls? And so he was about to speak bitterly--

Then there came a shaking in the bushes.

In this lonely clifftop surround me, spread over me, but no, further let the hunger be, I want you more. O sunset color of parting lips, and sparkle glinting of a kiss, I said, I will permit your silence Lord, but only if you give me your presence! Face in the clouds! Face in the clouds! Reach out your arms to enfold me, and enrapture-compress me, and be never afar off, no not like a paper christ, sketched in the inference, and the rational-doctrinal-evangelical lie. But be more real to me than flesh, and shake me: “God is a Person! God is a Person!” And never the inert word, never the mere expectation. Because faith is not imagination, but the swallowing of the Spirit, and being guiltless of indulging like the earth-forgotten mystic.

Teach me: God is not invisible.

Oh love, I can touch your face when you cry, and I can feel your hand in mine, and oh to seek you until my voice crumples and divides! And to never be content with this trembling mirage: As the trees bend, and the skies open, the sea flaps its wings. Who will tell me we demand too much, when we've become sons and daughters of the living God?

Whisper to me: God passes through me, God is swirlsong round me, God is tiptoeing towards me, God is speaking above me, God is face-front of me, God is behind--oh please enumerate the blessings of the Trinity.

Remember: The Bible is the love letter. But soar and surpass! The letter writer beholds you right now, eyes-blinking, smiling. Touch Him: “This is eternal life, that they may know You.” And what is prayer? It's when he tells you to roll the earth up like a scroll, and then in the golden plane rest your head against his chest; I have never found this much sweetness in death.

In this technicolor dream, in this tropical rainbow sheen, where white flakes of glow and gleam descend upon the grass: the trees bend to form their sacred circle, and their reverence encircles a spell upon your own heart. The sky above is a flapping royal banner, blowing in the wind, waves of thick purple and lighthearted laughs, sun-strands of smoke towards the horizon: there is a presence, there is an essence, here, when the world conspires to bring and to bend, to single moment's end, the one you Love. But who?

In the middle of the forest circle a single flower, the base of its petals drenched in rubies and blood, yet rising softly as a flame, into the pink of an innocent blush.

Who knows if you were not here before you were born?, perhaps when space and time is torn apart, you too will understand.

Turn now, yes, turn, back to real life, go, so go, since you say there is little time. To where? To typing on your computer screen, and wristing on the plastic mouse, scratching those pages with a click point click. To the irony of life: that even so you were alive, you would rather dream. So be swallowed whole, God must have created this life for something else.

Can you possibly tell me, what is the meaning of meaning?

And how are you so sure and certain of the meaning of what you say, and of the meaning of words? And why do you act as though there is something here that is sure and stable, and seemingly permanent? For after all, when you use the same word, you use the same word as you did before. Surely, isn't it the same word?

Yes, of course, it looks exactly alike, and it is spelled in the same way, and I recognize it like a friend, and therefore it must be the same word. And if it weren't the same word, then how can communication be possible?

And yet at the same time you acknowledge that if the years should pass, then a word can slowly change its skin like a snake, and wear another meaning, perhaps something completely unrelated, even directly opposite. Except, you are not ready to allow the occurence for within your own lifespan, and certainly not within the span of a day, and it is most likely an exception to the rule, it is something to be ignored: that a word changes its meaning.

But is there something perhaps radical hidden underneath? That when you utter the same word, it is always never the same word. No rather, it is a new creation every single time. The pulse of a thousand, billion associations firing in the memory, in the inner recesses and caverns of your mind, echoing the meaning, which is never really permanent but effervescent, like a puff of dream, like a shiver of sound.

There is something here that we take for granted. Human language rests not on solid foundations, but a yawning, terrifying complexity and dynamism, and the best we can do is assume meaning as stable and rather friendly entities. But they are as friendly as stars, only if you look at them from a distance, they look benign. In their closeness they are big gas balls that explode every millisecond, and their sheer activity burns the mind. Human language, we shall show you, is a little tiny ember, caught afire from the conflagration that is divinely incomprehensible, something that shall soon make you silent.

"If I now say God is good, it is not true; rather, I am good, God is not good." --Meister Eckhart

So goes the way of negative, apophatic theology, a kind of linguistic and mental cleansing before imagining the most pure, the most sublime: God--oh, careful with the word, oh throw away the empty husk of a word. As if you could make the predicates cling, as if the name itself, through a three-letter word, could holy ring.

But understand, please understand, how you know what "good" is. Reminisce and recall how you've come to learn the word. Perhaps, in your infancy, after swallowing your food whole, and not spilling any from your lips, mother said "good", and it was pleasant to the ears, and you made it a soothing association. And again another instance: when you tried using the word "good" yourself, while banging the toy on the wall, you said "good, good!", but mother said "no! bad!", and she gave you a spank on your tender, little hand. And so on, in different scenes of life, this one good, this one not. A collection of memories, stitched and strung together, an ever changing landscape of "goods". Some of them stick to the consciousness longer than others, some of them you deliberately forget. And yes, sometimes you'd even take those clippings, and make them shuffle, and create new fantasies of the good, like an artist working from the colorful pallette of personal experience. But even now, though the roots are strong and the trunk is sturdy, yet the concept still continues to grow and spread its leaves in you.. while other leaves fall.

And all this, an organic blob of meaning, for everything which you call "good".

But God is not this "good".

In fact, how dare you call God, this "good".

Frail and fragile men that we are, presumptuous to the letter! No, but rather shut your mouth. Be silent, be mute, be completely ashamed. God is not good. God is not good. Let all the words in your hands balk and blunder, stumble and stutter, let your voice crack into a garbling grumbling grating gtrsdsa;lksdfawerwyujrtpo------------ - - - -  -  -  -

And with a whimper-whisper, tell yourself: everything I think I know about goodness, God is more than that, God is beyond that, and if I should know it now, my mind would burst in the veins. And be humbled instead in spirit, and let all your pretty paradises, all your warm-hearted images, all your sweet-scented melodies, be magnified larger and larger, into as great an infinity as finity can ponder, and let it trail of into the distance, into where you can no longer see, past the sun, past the sea, past the farthest star in the black skin of the sky, into realms of inapproachable light...

When you have thus turned blind, now then say:

God is good.