From the Hermitage

It is not easy for me to write an introduction to the manuscript I have in my hands. I was brought by a friend carrying the burden of the endearing. He told me that it could be brief, not to worry, to be sincere.

   My difficulty begins with the nature of the text. The same, combines spiritual teachings of colloquial type in a monastic context with descriptions somewhat meticulous related with the poetic. To add insult to injury, two short annexes between the phenomenological essay and the philosophical reflection are added at the end.

   But the predicament does not end there. Although some passages allow to situate the story in a precise time, the sensation that I had at the end of the reading was of uncertainty. The content reveals a certain process; Sometimes the author speaks of the past, in others he refers to the present and there are passages in which I think he imagines, not without compromising, a certain future.

   I am not a person who adheres to a particular religion. Nor do I blame myself on atheism. I do not feel relativistic, or consumerist, nor among those who practice dormant hedonism. At some point the text bothers me, but I say it amicably.

   I have been pestered by the optimism and hope that transpires this small volume. I come to shake the layer of nihilism with which I usually protect myself from the disappointments that the world produces. These people believe and believe it all. And it seems that he lives it and that he likes it and that they spend it better than I, no doubt.

   It is that there is no affectation or crude beatería, nor encapsulation in archaisms that produce aversion. I can not deny that I like the combination of intelligence and emotion with which the text has been woven. It leaves me questions but open doors, possibilities in the future. These people simply interest me. 

   This paper consolidates a conclusion to which I arrived a long time ago and from the mere observation of the social movement: Religions are not disappearing.

   The spirituality or religiosity in the human being is not receding despite the explosion of technological and invasive material and overwhelming. Nor are religions relegated to a mere quantitative phenomenon of popular piety, as analysts of the psycho-social background predicted in the early 1980s. It is difficult for me to associate the opium of the peoples with the simple depth that is shown here.

   That friend of many years who brought me the inescapable commitment to put some words before the text itself and that gave me the freedom and confidence to write what I wanted, says that "God has not died, neither in heaven nor here in The people "and that" not only has not died, but that will speak. " 

   His naive freshness often irritates me, that inflexible optimism that he calls his faith, clashes with my schematic rationalism. But I can not hide that that characteristic is what I like the most about him. I acknowledge that I would like to believe as he believes. I would like to feel as they feel that they have clear things, to possess the vital force that comes to them from that inner unity. 

   I am going to finish these lines by quoting not the author, whom I know only by the text and who does not seem very interested in making himself known, but my cordial friend, who by mail told me a walk he had made to a mountain near the monastery where he was. The experience he describes is alien to me, but as he says "because you desire it, you come closer to living it". 

   "As I walk along the path, shaded by numerous trees, which is narrowing as I approach the summit, I breathe deeply the heat of noon. I go in search of the Virgin, who I am told presides over the summit.

   There are shady corners of vegetation, so full of life! 

   I did not know that it was, whether grace, physical effort or the holy Name that whispered continuously, which enabled the experience. 

   I began to perceive the rays of sun that penetrated the foliage, as drawn, very clear and clear. The sacred was evidenced immediately by a particular calm that flooded my heart and limbs. 

   All signs of haste and a deep joy and without expectations took possession of the spirit. 

   I crossed with the end of a subtle creeper, very green, graceful and beautiful. Just at that moment a ray of sunshine centered on her and the beauty doubled. Although I could not see it with my eyes, that beam of divine light must have touched my heart as well, because I burst into tears without any will, astonished by the uproar that grew as tears flowed. 

   ¡You are so beautiful, Lord! So dazzling! 

   I noticed the innumerable gestures of God's love that surrounded me. 

   I covered my eyes with the emerald green of the final line that I was trying to get entangled with, and I felt the sound of the crisp leaves that carpet the floor ... I seemed to feel the throbbing of the mountain that oxygenated everything.

   ¡Oh Lord, source of all immensity, how great and beautiful you are! " 

   Is it possible for me to treat others with something of the love that You have for me?