Meditations on Matilda : Chapter 3.
The third chapter of a fictional work I started writing in 2010.
Read Chapter 2 of “Meditations on Matilda” here.
Chapter 3. 'Mystics & Milestones'
Dali used to despise God. Like a facetious child, he loathed the very thought of having to bow down to anything other than his canvas, which he hunched over theatrically with paintbrush in hand. The ‘tortured artist’ — all heroic and tragic. This isn’t the whole story though. During his time in London studying Art History, Dali developed a strong bond with his lecturer, Professor Burling. He was a regal man with a crown of gray hairs who opened the chambers of resistance to the spiritual realm that Dali had built up for many years. With a tact for explaining the supernatural in his own words, Dali began to see the world through the eyes of this aging, sage academic.
Burling was a man who flinched at the clinical kinds of religious ritual but rejoiced in personal revelation and the various pathways toward it. He had been a hippy in his younger years, found Jesus in his twenties, studied calligraphy with Tibetan monks in his thirties, and now in his late forties had retired to a comfortable middle ground between the great teachers of the East and the West — what one may call a Christian Mystic or a Floater.
No longer desperate to understand everything, Professor Burling had found his own peace and pace for life. He spoke often about unconditional love, the kind that was found beyond earthly relationships. This was no love that Dali had known. In fact, every kind of love he had given or received was under very strong conditions, so this all came as quite a breath of fresh air.
Burling meditated every morning before he started his first sketches of the day; he said grace before every meal, thanked God after every painting he sold, and tithed 50% of the profits to the local church in his neighborhood. Professor Burling swore by a life of regime, but here was the clincher he once told Dali, “I rejoice because I love who I work for. I love who I work for because I know Him intimately. And now it is no longer work, but joy.” Burling told Dali to look for God in the quiet moments when all is still, when the unknown creeps in and silently fills you with power and awe. Burling told Dali that God is near when you can look at someone and know both their greatest gifts and their crippling failures and love them all the same. Dali was committed to prying open the fortress in his heart so he could see God and others as Burling did. It wasn't long before he would experience this joy for himself. His interior life was opening like a child’s mind.
I had tried to talk to Dali about the Divine. Well, at least the fragments I had come to learn of it myself, but I always found my attempts fell short. I remember hearing a pastor once say, “preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.” It seems apt. I think we talk more with gesture than we do with our mouths.
Professor Burling collected stones. I met him once, and he gave me one. He said he would wander down to the beach near his house and find a stone to represent each new revelation or relic of wisdom he had received from God. It was symbolic of a new level of awakening or understanding. These were his ‘milestones.’ He said I had arrived at the lesson and gift of forgiveness. He placed the small pebble in my hand, curling my fingers over the soft stone and looked at me with ancient compassion. Burling told me a rock is just a very fast form of energy, so fast that it hardens to the touch and you can't penetrate it with your finger. He told me how really the whole world is made up of rhythms like this, energy pulsating and creating different kinds of matter. I liked how Burling saw the world.
When Dali returned from London he wore a necklace of pebbles around his neck. Burling had made it for him. We stood in the yard outside my house and cast projections onto each other like cinema screens. We were older now and knew the flimsy of fantasy. But it was nice to dream. Summer had snuck in to the air, permeating all things with possibility. It was time for a new beginning. Dali was home and he brought the whole world with him.
Till next time,
I really enjoyed this. That is all. Have a great week