PARADOX?

Cited by David Brooks on this day of Passover, the 20th-century philosopher Eliyahu Dessler wrote, “the ultimate aim of all our service is to graduate from freedom to compulsion.” As I read this, I thought of the Second Collect in the Anglican service of Morning Prayer: "Oh God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom . . ." The Latin original has cui servire regnare est, literally "to serve whom is to reign". It is, perhaps, in the end the same paradox. Brooks, distantly following Dessler, sees an education into obedience, into the multiple "sweet compulsions . . . of love, friendship, family, citizenship, faith, a profession or a people." The Collect sees only one. Rav Dessler would probably have said that they are ultimately all one. But the Collect goes straight to the heart of obedience: to serve God is perfect freedom. It is the only perfect freedom. Matthew 6:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

How and why is this? Our local Algerian priest, Fr Jean-Kamel, in his Palm Sunday sermon, said passionately that Holy Week, while it is in one sense an entry into mourning, is also the deepest sounding of joy: "Just think," he said, "de quel amour nous sommes aimés!" Think, ponder, with what love we are loved! This is the meditation of this time, whether one celebrates Passover or Easter. With what love we are loved. And the more deeply one enters into this, the more one wants to seek first the "kingdom of God", which is of course regnum Dei, the reign of God, the dispensation, the all-enveloping presence of that love.

Unlike the Nirvana of Buddhism, this is not something one can reach. Another paradox: you can seek it, but you cannot reach it, attain to it by any form of self-improvement. You can seek it, but the only way you can find it is by realizing that it is seeking you, and opening yourself to it. And when a few of the shutters on your windows start opening, you realize that indeed "all these things" -- the other things, like peace, happiness, love to and from other people -- are being added unto you, bit by blossoming bit. 

The whole thing, you dimly perceive -- because this is a long journey --, is a journey from false freedom, what you thought was freedom when you were 15, to real freedom, which, like the peace that accompanies it, passes all understanding.