A Fish Tale
[“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods to them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on a bit, and then eventually one of them looks at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’” (Martin Laird, OSA, An Ocean of Light).]
[“(A)s the fish in the sea, and the sea in the fish—thus do I dwell in the soul, and the soul in Me—the Sea Pacific” (Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue).]
O Lover,
One of the most difficult challenges in my life of faith has been relinquishing the traditional transcendent/immanent dualism in regard to You. Or, stated differently, moving beyond the subject/object structure which invariably locates You as a being, an object, among others (however paramount) whom I as subject act upon or by whom I am acted upon. Being in that subject role means that I experience everything, You not excluded, from my egoic perspective, from what Laird calls the “natural default setting.” Being sequestered in that silo, whether via ignorance or agency, runs contrary to the principal thrust of Christian mysticism, and warrants de- and re-construction.
That the télos of much of the mystical edge of the tradition of Jesus is unity in general, theósis in particular, can only heighten the urgency for the above shift. One of my early mentors in this regard was Catherine of Siena (1347-80) who in her The Dialogue repeatedly places in Your mouth the declaration that You are Mare Pacífica. Furthermore, she wrote that the person dwells within the Sea of You not unlike how You reside within it. One of Catherine’s images of this inter-dwelling is that of a fish both immersed in and permeated by the Sea of You.
The above, O Lover, is preface to Martin Laird’s fish tale which elaborates upon Catherine’s imagery in several respects. First, the principal implication of his story is that the context of the exchange among the fish is the sea: whether beknownst to them or not, the fish are enveloped in it as it is permeating them. Thus the rigid dichotomy of subject and object is being challenged. Second, the critical issue for the three fish is awareness. While the oceanic environment is a given, consciousness of it is not. Indeed, the “natural default setting” of the younger fish—laid bare in the query “What the hell is water?”—signs that it is oblivious to the habitat which spawned, sustained, nurtured, and enabled it to thrive. But the environment is the given whether there is default setting or openness to greater awareness. Third, Laird’s tale makes the case that in regard to You it is awareness of what is, not striving, being “good,” following the right method, or being theologically correct, that is needed. Moving beyond our default settings involves not so much “working on” as “opening to,” “catching,” and “being shown.”
O Lover, I, LeRoy, am said fish, or perhaps an amalgam of the older and younger ones. I am in the process of jettisoning an objectified view of You with all of its egoic baggage of propitiation, transaction, bargaining, negotiating, and manipulation in favor of living out of an awareness of You as Depth, Grunt, and Abyss of all us beings. Given who You have shown Yourself to be in the Christ, I long to live in greater awareness of the self-evidency of Your hésed (“unconditional & irrevocable Love”) requiring nothing more to take place other than my attentiveness. More than being merely conscious of movement beyond the egoic and default setting, I long to be immersed in, to rhapsodize and revel in, Oceanic You whatever that might entail. I am persuaded that all of us beings are being drawn ever more fully into this awareness of the gravity-like convergence characterizing Your entire drama. In short, I am experiencing You to be Reality Itself: ubiquitous, irrepressible, encompassing, deifying, and in all respects too good to be true.
What is the context of this awakening fish? It is You, O Lover, who both surround and infuse all You have wrought. And what is this fish’s deepest identity? I, like my fellow beings, am immersed in Your Amorous Life. It would be a massive tragedy to have swum through this splendiferous cosmos either ignorant of or resistant to You who are Mare Pacífica.
