A Meditation on Mediation

A meditation for the morning: (The language is archaic and non-inclusive, I know. Please ignore, or skip the reading if you can’t. It is an extract from a personal journal and was never intended for a blog. The only reason I’m publishing it is that it has greatly assisted me in my understanding of spiritual matters, and that there may be some solitary soul out there who may also benefit by reading it.)

All of life is mediation. The reason is the alienation of man from himself, his fellow man, his environment and his very own speech.

Man relates with himself through other men. He sees and feels himself based on what other men want, not what he himself wants. He is a stranger to himself, and he only finds familiarity by looking to his neighbor. His neighbor is the standard, the bridge to himself. And so he lives through his neighbor. His neighbor is his mediator to himself. If he cannot imitate his neighbor he sinks into isolation. He loses connection with himself.

Man relates with his fellow man through pretense. He has to pretend that he is like his fellow man in order to reach his fellow man. His mask is his bridge to community. He does not realize that he himself is a neighbor to his fellow man, that he himself is perceived as being original. That is how strong his pretense is. He deceives not only his neighbor but also himself. He does not see himself as someone else’s beginning. He remains an actor, for without the charade he ceases to exist.

Man relates with his environment through hope. His environment provides him with the means to build a mask, and so he is attracted to his environment. He does not see nature as it is. He sees nature as it can be. Nature presents the bridge to the wish dream, and the hope of the wish dream the bridge to nature. Man’s relationship with nature is the relationship of the wood carver who robs the life of the tree to make an idol.

And so man lives happily in nature and next to his fellow man, thinking that he has established a community of reciprocal appreciation. But man is eluded. There is no community, only a constant interaction between actors on a stage. There is no reality, only a lie. It is for this lie that man lives. Man cannot tolerate the truth, for the truth means that he ceases to exist.

The unmediated life is the life that Christ brought to the world. It is life itself, not a pretense of life or a description of life. This life is its own mediator. I am the life, Christ said. Christ is the mediator, Paul said. And so this life mediates itself.

What this means is that the original relationship with man himself, with other men and with his environment is restored in Christ. In Christ we do not relate with ourselves through other men. We relate with ourselves through Christ. We see ourselves as he sees us. And so a direct and unmediated relationship with ourselves becomes possible. We no longer have to pay an indulgence to be accepted by ourselves. We become acceptable through Christ. There is no longer any bridge that leads to ourselves. Christ is the bridge. The man in Christ loves himself as Christ loved him. He does not need to impress himself from a distance. There is no distance. Man embraces himself. Man loves himself. Man is happy with himself. This is not the toxic love that man has for the image that he has created of himself. No, this is the unmediated love of an unmediated self for an unmediated self.

The relationship with man’s neighbor is changed. Christ now becomes the bridge to the neighbor. Man relates to his neighbor honestly. He does not need to visit his neighbor as a pretender, because he loves himself as Christ has loved him. He loves his neighbor in the same way. He sees his neighbor for who re really is. He sees behind the pretense. He loves his neighbor, and he disregards the mask. He has become a true neighbor, not a fellow pretender.

Man now sees nature for what it is. Nature is no longer beautiful because it enhances the image of man. It is beautiful because it was created by Christ and for Christ. Christ is the door to man’s environment as he is the door to man’s neighbor and to man himself.

The man of no mediation sees the world as it is. The veil has been removed. His relationship with nature and men is now direct and original.

But it does not stop here. The meaning of words is changed. In a sense all words are instruments of mediation. In a sense all words are adjectives. They all describe something, even if they are verbs or personal pronouns. But when mediation ceases words are no longer descriptors. That which is signified by them begins to describe its very self. For the man of no mediation the things are given their own voices. They reveal themselves. And so this man is reluctant to describe what he sees, for he understands that words cannot convey reality. He understands that one final Word summarised and included all other words in Himself. What is needed is a private meeting between men and things, and so the man of no mediation removes himself to make this happen. He is slow to speak. When he does speak he proclaims Christ, for Christ is more intelligible than the words of men. Christ is the Word.

The man of no mediation sees no need to explain Christ. He is not an apologist. Rather, he seeks to enforce the explanations of Christ. This is what it means to preach Christ. It is to allow him to speak, not to muzzle him in order to speak on behalf of him.