佚名/Anonymous
It is said that the true nature of being is veiled.The labor of wor ds,the expression of art,the seemingly ceaseless buzz that is human th ought all have in common the need to get at what really is so.The hope to draw close to and possess the truth of being can be a feverish one.I n some cases it can even be fatal.if pleasure is one's truth and its at tainment more important than life itself.In other lives,though,the se arch for what is truthful gives life.
I used to find notes left in the collection basket,beautiful notes about my homilies and about the writer's thoughts on the daily scriptura l readings.The person who penned the notes would add reflections to my thoughts and would always include some quotes from poets and mystics he or she had read and remembered and loved.The notes fascinated me.Here was someone immersed in a search for truth and beauty.Words had been tr easured,words that were beautiful.And I felt as if the words somehow d elighted in being discovered,for they were obviously very generous to t he as yet anonymous writer of the notes.And now this person was in turn learning the secret of sharing them.Beauty so shines when given away.T he only truth that exists is,in that sense,free.
It was a long time before I met the author of the notes.
One Sunday morning,I was told that someone was waiting for me in th e office.The young person who answered the rectory door said that it wa s "the woman who said she left all the notes." When I saw her I was shoc ked,since I immediately recognized her from church but had no idea that it was she who wrote the notes.She was sitting in a chair in the office with her hands folded in her lap.Her head was bowed and when she raised it to look at me,she could barely smile without pain.Her face was disf igured,and the skin so tight from surgical procedures that smiling or l aughing was very difficult for her.She had suffered terribly from treat ment to remove the growths that had so marred her face.