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Prestile Stream
Easton, ME; Aroostook County
Persons speak of finding love. They say they found love or hope to find it. What if love finds us? What if it has been in pursuit of us all along, and all the time our trying to find it was our running away from it? Could that be true?
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I finally decided to visit the one called the Anonymous Sage. My friends had encouraged me to see him for months. They had noticed I was becoming a miserable man. I had been a joyful man once.
I kept making excuses. What would I say? And I felt unworthy. I heard he was a holy man. I felt unholy - very unholy. Would he even welcome me? I would not. Or see into me and turn me away? I would.
I asked a friend who had visited him, "What would I say?" "Do you have a question you'd like an answer to?" "Yes." "Why not ask the question? That's what most visitors do. Be aware, though, that some of his answers are confusing. He likes to give an answer that leads you to your answer." That confused me. "What do you mean?" "I cannot tell you. Just go and see." Those two words - go, see - resonated with me, but I did not know why.
As I said, I finally decided to go visit the Sage. He greeted me warmly, as though we had been best friends for a long time. I immediately felt at home in his presence, more by what he was than anything he did. I think I would have been joyful being there, even if he had done nothing at all. I had never felt this way with anyone. It was as though I had stepped out of my world of misery into another world, one of bliss. Being with him was refreshing, invigorating. I could not put a word to what was happening, but it was real, almost unbearably so, as though you can experience something too wonderful.
We sat silently for a few minutes. I decided to speak. "I was told you answer questions." "Yes." "May I ask you a question?" "Certainly." "What is love?" I felt shy asking it. The question seemed a little weird coming off my tongue, but I wanted to know. I had thought I knew what love is, but no more. I thought that my growing sadness might be related to that question. Had I forgotten what love is? Had I ever known?
After a time, the Sage spoke. He said, "Love is what your heart most longs for." "But what is love?"
After my last question, the Sage sat quietly, breathing calmly, with his eyes slightly downward. I kept waiting for an answer. At last, he answered, "I cannot tell you." After some more minutes, he said, "Thank you for visiting me today. I much appreciate it. May peace go with you."
I expressed gratitude to him, and I left somewhat disappointed. As I was going, I felt a palpable feeling, as though something happened in meeting him that left with me. I wondered what it was. The feeling felt like something once known but now forgotten, like meeting a long-lost friend again.
I thought about this unnamable sense over the following days, and it remained with me day and night. The sense would change in intensity, from strong to weak, but it never left. I decided to return to the Sage to ask him about it. He could not tell me what love is, but maybe he could tell me what this sense is.
After our greetings, we sat as before. I told the Sage what I felt when leaving and over the days since. I could not put it into words, so I stopped trying and asked, "What is it?" "Did you not ask, 'What is love?'" Then, in the silence, the answer to "What is love?" dawned on me, and the way to the answer too. He smiled, and I knew we both knew the same answer and knew it best to hold it in silence. I knew at that moment something I had never known - some things are too holy to say. After our goodbyes, I returned home joyful and singing. The world felt alive, and I too. It might be more true to say life is all I knew.
My friends were glad to see me so joyous and serene the following weeks. They remarked about the change. When they asked about what led to the change, all I could say was, "Love dawned on me, and the way to love too." And to the friend who had said, "I cannot tell you. Just go and see," I said, "I now understand what you meant. No one can see for me." He seemed to be confused at my remark. Maybe he had said more than he knew - we often do.
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*© Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*The above story is part of a collection of stories by Brian called "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
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