Do we stop the world?

Out of a peace so profound rises an inkling of purpose from the depths of this presence to the moment in which we find ourselves. “This presence is pregnant with life,” I tell Sophia soundlessly, in the silence of our peace.

She half turns her head. “This presence is pregnant with life, Christos, but also with law, and with mind, and with spirit.”

“With law, with life, with mind, and with spirit,” I say, adding continuity. “This presence is forever giving birth to an evolutionary disclosure of matter, life, mind, and spirit – an ever-widening circle that promises to reveal more of itself with the passage of time from within the depths of space.”

Sophia turns around inside my embrace to face me. “Until the circle is whole.”

“And complete,” I add, after a pause.

“In the meantime, Christos, with bodies as vessels, we might dwell in the peace of this presence from time to time, to contemplate the objects of this world with sacred intent through sacred encounter.”

“And with bodies as vehicles, Sophia, we can soar on the updrafts of this presence, and celebrate the objects of this world with divine intent through divine experience.”

“And remember, too, where a sacred encounter is a religious encounter, a divine experience is a …” Sophia pauses to reflect. Or was she playing with me?

I smile knowingly. “A spiritual experience.”

“And so, a person fit to live in this world is a person who …”

I laugh away my delight. “Is a person who … celebrates the divine dimensions of mind and spirit without neglecting to cultivate the sacred dimensions of law and life.”

Sophia embraces me, and as I experience a rush of pleasure inside her embrace, I am pleased to know that we have come to harmony through yet another act of intercourse.

I rest content, happy to feel the love of Sophia, until our everlasting embrace gives way to a rather potent query from Sophia: “Do we stop the world with our love of presence or do we engage it fully with our secret love of power?”

At the beginning

“Tell me your purpose.” She says that in a quiet way, in a gentle way, in a way that invites me to open my heart to her.

“Sophia, my heart might tell you one of my true aims, my soul might tell you another of my true aims, and my spirit might tell you yet another. Who am I to say where my true purpose lies?” She turns around to look at me, frowning, as if to tell me that I’ve let myself off the hook too easily with my glib answer.

“What do you want, Christos? Knowing who and what you are, knowing what you have, knowing what you do, and knowing what you’ve become, what is it that you want more than anything else in the world? What is it that motivates your days and nights, what is it that compels you to prevail in spite of hardship, what is it that takes you into the depths of your soul and to the heights of your spirit?”

I sigh and walk away from her. Her questioning is relentless, but not unwelcome. We both know how important it is to articulate a central purpose in life that would organize and integrate everything that I am, all that I do, everything that I have, and all that I seek to become. I walk through a door onto a balcony overlooking a cityscape at night. The sky is clear and a cool breeze teases my face. I cannot escape from her here; our most intimate of links keeps us in constant contact. I tell her, in the privacy of my own mind, in no uncertain terms, that I am ignorant: “Sophia, I simply do not know.”

“You do know; you simply have yet to put it into words.” I close my eyes, feeling a rush of desire in response to the intimate, erotic tone of her words – words that flow like warm honey into my awareness, as they always do when we separate from each other spatially. My sensitivity to the cool breeze heightens. Goosebumps run up and down my back like a caress.

“Where do I begin?” I reply weakly.

Soft laughter bubbles up inside me. “You begin at the beginning, my precious one.”