Brothers
I just this morning finished Juan Santos’ last post in his Apocalypse No! series: The Lessons of Gaza in a Time of Collapse and Rebirth. As I write this a couple of tears well up. I miss Rafael a great deal, a man whom I never met in the flesh and yet called brother, a man who’s writing went right into my heart, a man who’s love of life, of the land and her beautiful creatures, and of the glorious potential of his fellows, even with all the evidence against he’d gathered in his life, a man who’s love was clear and palpable even thousands of miles away, and available to me only through wires and pixels. I’m so sorry to have missed him before his ride came and he had to go. Our communications had fallen off to rarely, and my reading has dropped to near zero, and yet we connected briefly just a month or two before he died, with promises to re-enter into dialogue soon. And then he was gone. And all the good intentions and might-have-beens in the world will not change that.
His final piece catches my throat. It stabs me in the heart and comforts me to the core. Rafael had something that I have only just begun to re-discover in myself: a fierce protective love, and a willingness to give up everything for one’s people, one’s planet, and one’s sense of right. I hope he knows that at least a part of who he was lives on inside of me, as I’m sure he lives on in the thousands he touched during his life. I hear people speak of their ancestors, but coming from a culture of almost-total disconnection, I’ve never had a strongly felt sense of what that really means. But I find, thinking now of this dearly departed brother, that I have some new access to that. Perhaps I now have an ancestor named Rafael?
I am so sad today. I’ve been thinking on those who have fallen away in my life, as I’ve walked my path into collapse. Grief bubbles up. Anger burns. Disappointment haunts my dreams. In my darkest hours, it feels as though Trent Reznor was right, and that, truly, “everyone I know goes away in the end.” And then I remember that Rafael saw to the core of my heart even in my deepest pain. He saw me, and affirmed the goodness of my soul, and wished me well as I took another step. And another. And I know that, even though he seems to be gone now, he never once went away. Not once. Not once.
Juan Santos has discarded his suit of flesh and cast off the constraints of this gravity well. He’s working now on another plane. But I remain here for a while longer. With work still to do. And lessons yet to learn.
And the other day another brother appeared, this one a brother of blood and family. He showed up in my in-box after I posted my previous blog (in which I questioned again whether I belong in this realm of blogs and webs and words) with these simple words: “You may not be ‘convinced that it’s good for me to be here’ but I’m convinced that it’s good for me for you to be here.”
Do you understand what an amazing thing this is? One of the four Bennett boys sending a clear and simple message of affirmation and appreciation to one of his brothers? No joking? No irony? No banter? Just… respect… and thankfulness… and even, dare I say… love? As a product of a culture that systematically destroys our ability to risk vulnerability and to feel, and perhaps especially so for men, my brother’s few words stand as both a challenge to that culture, and as a testament to the possibility of growth and healing. Just as Juan Santos’ did, they catch my breath away and lift me up from despondency. In the past ten years of my life, as I, in the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, stood up during supper and walked outdoors, and kept on walking, “because of a Church that stands somewhere in the East”, as I left wife and family and home and community and identity and culture all far behind, as I crawled through the cave of collapse, into grottoes more frightening than I’d ever imagined, into caverns damp with despair and sharp with the cutting edges of reality, as I wandered fitfully across the deserts of mass delusion and into the mirage of insanity, this brother, this very same brother, like my brother Rafael, never once went away. He did not judge. He did not run. He did not hide. And I will never be able to thank him enough for that steadfast resolve.
One brother leaves. Another remains. The Earth spins and orbits, as does the sun, as does the galaxy, as do the cosmos. The collapse of our present world unfolds. Some fall away. And some surprise you, and step into the full sun when you least expect them to.
Such are the times in which we live. And I am so glad to be here.
TTG