Fiction 2: The Window in My Soul

It was long before I gained self-awareness, longer still to make sense of things and events as they unfolded before me. I stood back, watching through twin windows, sometimes closed, but always between me and the outside.

Looking out, at first I saw only chaos. Scenes flashed so quickly by, I had hardly time to notice them. Often they remained only a blur; for all that later I realized they had made an impression on me. Colors, scenes, faces, sights combined in a mélange of images not quite as organized as a collage; yet somewhere I felt there was something that joined them, that made sense of it all.

As I became more accustomed to looking, I began to catch sight of threads that ran through the sights and sounds outside my windows. When I concentrated on the threads themselves, rather than on the fleeting images, sometimes the images held still for a moment for me to see. They aroused feelings in me I did not well understand: love, sorrow, pain, grief, joy, peace, contentment, fear, anger, puzzlement, frustration — each thread a different emotion, a different reaction. Following along one thread I saw a series of faces: smiling faces, sleeping faces, peaceful faces, joyful faces for the most part. I called this the “love” thread, because as I looked, such a feeling of contentment and warmth and affection rose within me that even when I could not identify the faces, I knew that love was their theme. Occasionally, as I followed the thread, one appeared looking quite different from the others. When I looked closely, I saw that these often were at intersections, where different threads crossed each other. One looked infinitely sad, and as I followed it I saw more faces filled with sorrow, I saw tears dropping, rainstorms, grassy mounds, headstones. I called the thread grief. From this thread branched another; I saw men sitting idly, women laboring with things too hard for them, children without clothing, people with empty, hopeless faces. I called the thread “loss.”

Yet another thread crossed all these threads, which I called the thread of joy. Where it intersected “love” was a baby, laughing; where it crossed “fun,” I saw children playing; where it met with grief, I saw an aged one in bed, eyes closing, hands relaxed surrounded by others weeping, but from the one – asleep? — I saw something else. Here also crossed a thread filled with images of clouds and mountains and seas and sun and birds and trees and churches and music being played and heard, and as I followed it I felt at peace, even where it crossed other threads following scenes filled with turmoil.

There were other threads, threads I hated to follow, threads with scenes of violence, horror, isolation, emptiness, terror. I called one “hate” and another “fear.” Where these crossed other threads, confusion seemed to reign. Sometimes it seemed to break a thread completely where they met, as if one had conquered the other in battle. Where they came near to “love” they reared up, as if they were snakes poised to strike; but where either seemed to intend to cross "love," fear and hate simply vanished. Where they came near “peace,” though it was impossible to understand how, even frightful scenes became somehow muted, softened so that I could bear to look on them. My eyes took hold of peace and love as I let them wander, so that these two would never be too far away, and found that all the threads began to make sense.

There were other threads: pride with a graduation scene where it crossed with “joy” and a sneering man with a whip where it crossed “hate;” “hope,” which also seemed to interrupt the paths of “fear” and “hate” and which intertwined with “peace” wherever it went. Along it ran children, schools, work, scenes I knew were not yet but were coming to be. Then I saw that hope sprang from a strong rope of threads wrapped round each other, that it was bound together with threads like joy and love and peace and that together they could not be broken. Along it I saw scenes of children holding parents’ hands, young couples embracing, beautiful works of art, choirs in full voice, images of exultation, of reverence. I called it “faith.” I realized that whatever sprang from this rope completely changed the character of those images on other threads as it crossed them, gave to them an essence of lasting meaning and purpose, and I resolved to follow only this thread as long as my windows remained open. As I followed it, I became filled with the emanations of all the constituent threads of "faith," and could hardly bear the rapture.

At last I came to its source, and finally met understanding. This thread had appeared to me before only here and there, usually very thin and tenuous, twisted and broken; but here, suddenly, it became powerful beyond measure, shining with light indescribable. I called it by a new name: “Wisdom,” and realized that from it flowed all the threads I found good. I fell to my knees before its wonder, and heard it call my name in a voice so full of love and hope and joy and peace completely passing all understanding that suddenly I knew this source was not merely a ball of random threads, but a One! Overcome, I sang my heart to it, and then, from its heart, came a new tendril. Growing stronger, it wove its way through my windows, around and through my own being, and I became whole, became one with that origin of all, and finally at rest.
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Afterword: A short commentary on this piece, in response to a reviewer's missing what is happening here, was at

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where it received 11 5-star reviews. To economize on my item totals, it is now included here:

A response to a commentary on

Fiction 2: The Window in My Soul  (E) A mind's view across life thru the windows of the eyes into the structure of Creation. #969334 by revdbob

         One of the difficult things about writing anything and receiving reviews when you get a response you didn't expect, is knowing the answer to this question: is it because you didn't communicate well enough what you meant, or did the reviewer just miss what you put in there? should he have seen it, or did he just not see it because I didn't write it too well?

         I know when I review, I don't always assume the writer did something that may look like a mistake on purpose. Now if I'm reading a genius, of course, I know to look for the reason why he did something odd; but if I'm reading Joe Schmo, usually he just did the odd thing because he didn't know how to do better. So here's my problem. Now I am going to try to show you what I thought I was doing, or was trying to do, and I have to ask you to decide whether what I put there is really there, and you missed it; or whether whatever I did just didn't work. And you, gentle reader, are the only one who can really tell me!

         So, if you don't mind too terribly, I am going to go through your review in some detail, and where you say something unexpected, I am going to tell you what I thought I was doing, so you can feed back your opinion of whether I accomplished what I intended, or just blew it!

         First of all, while I didn't want to take people by the lapels and shout "this isn't a literal window!" I did want people to realize that. The speaker is a mind or a soul looking out through the windows that are his eyes at the world around him. The mind is personified; but this is something like allegory, so that is allowed. This is not a literal person looking out of literal windows, watching scenes go by in a short period of time. Later on you write that it seems to you that this is all happening too fast. That is because this is the mind's summary of what he has seen over a lifetime. Much is skipped over. Also, the personality of the person within whose brain and through whose eyes (windows) the mind looks is irrelevant to the story. The speaker is the disembodied mind, perhaps the un- or sub-conscious mind putting things together. It is as if the person's fundamental character is telling about how it developed.

         The beginning is deliberately hazy about time, partly because while it is true that for all people, the sights and sounds around them must be chaotic and meaningless at first--at birth. But I do not say that straight out, because for many, their intellectual and spiritual "birth" comes much later. They go through life without seeing very deeply, or making connections. Some never recognize the threads that run through life's events, or of creation. "At first" could be the period of infancy, or fifty years. The reader must fill in the blanks.

         Awareness comes slowly, especially at first. We begin to notice that certain events share things in common with other events, certain people with other people. Some of these connections begin to hang together with similar meanings as well as effects, and have similar causes. The threads have abstract names, because they are abstracting sense from what happens around the speaker. They focus on the central causes of events, but also the attitudes which people bring TO the events that occur around them. A death to one person means only grief or loss; but to another it brings peace, especially when hope travels with the individual it happens to. When one brings hate or fear, it is destructive of many positive attitudes; but if one has focus on attitudes like love and hope, fear cannot break down the thread, and the individual who lives along those threads also has peace even at otherwise horrific moments.

         Most people go through life with little real understanding. They pick up some knowledge, and they get glimpses of truths behind the facts, but they are left with many questions, much ignorance, and even what they "know" is often partial or wrong. But when one carries love, hope, peace along, when one has "faith," it transforms everything else, and a deeper and truer "understanding" can be had.

         "Wisdom" is an ancient figure, even in the Old Testament, for God, and this is a direct reference which will be picked up by some readers familiar with the literature. You picked up to some degree on it without any direct explanation even without having any great biblical familiarity, so I deem that successful. The ball which joins together all the positive threads, and from which they extend into the world can be nothing else, especially since from it can grow a new tendril that encompasses and draws in the soul of the thread-follower who walks with "faith" wherever it goes. Wisdom, therefore, comes to those who are filled with faith, hope, love, joy, peace and who refuse to allow hatred or fear to "cross" them. For some, an allusion to the Cross of Christ who suffers when hate or fear "crosses" our paths might occur, although it is not necessary to the tale that anyone recognize that. It is merely a touch I hope might enrich the tale for those who are believers.

         Part of the point here is not that we can GAIN this wisdom, but that Wisdom takes us into itself. It is not ours, we belong to IT! Perhaps that is too subtle.

         You are quite right about my avoiding direct theological language of any sort. This is not really a theological treatise, but rather a spiritual observation entirely compatible with any good theology. (Footnote: As opposed to much of what gets published or preached from pulpits. I think it was Theodore Sturgeon who once pronounced "ninety per cent of everything is crap" in so many words. Certainly, in my own words, "half of everything is below average!" And that includes theology, philosophy, art, people and everything else. Even half of what I do is below average for me. My job is not always to be my best--that will happen [most likely has already happened] only once in my lifetime. My job is simply to raise my average!) And yes, I am not trying to frog-march anyone; just to get them to think about the meanings of things they do, and how what "thread" they follow affects how they experience their lives.

This paragraph seems contradictory to me:

         To me, the biggest weakness of the piece was that you became too laden down in detail about the mechanics of the 'threads', and this became distracting and confusing. For a reader like me, the pace was a bit fast, and you needed to ease me in a bit more.

         Perhaps you could give me a little more detail of what you mean here. On the one hand, there is too much, on the other hand, not enough. If I leave out more of the details of threads, and how they intersect, the movement would be even faster. If I slow it down, it would have to mean more descriptive detail....It appears to me that part of the problem may be that you still seem to be thinking of this as a literal window and a single event rather than a life-review covering many years and slowly earned insight. The story is not really about "a person looking out a window;" it IS about the meanings of life, and how our choices of "threads" to follow affect how we perceive life, and even the events that occur to us IN life. The speaker is an "everyman" who is slowly coming to insight. You say "Perhaps some of the sights will remind him of things from his own life?...

         " Actually ALL events that ever were for anyone are viewed through these windows. Remember this is allegory--people are not necessarily even people in metaphor and allegory, let alone individuals with individual character. This character is more an observer from without on the way to omniscience!

          You write "My gut feeling was that it just wasn't believable - the narrator through the main 'middle' bit of the text seems a very spiritually advanced person (far more so than readers like me!) and it just didn't seem feasible, at the end, to suggest that he'd only just discovered 'wisdom'. "

         For the spiritual journeyer, such things do usually come late when they come at all. Whether one is speaking of a Buddhist "Enlightenment" or a deep and possibly mystical Christian apprehension of God, one continues learning and growing through a lifetime, in slow stages, and generally reaches enlightenment only at the very end or possibly after death!

          I purposely did NOT have the observer/mind/soul come back to the window many times, because the window is always before him. There are no separate visits; he looks through his eyes at life as it goes on continually. Most of life brings little new insight - it happens usually in "aha!" moments, which when we string them together can occasion new "aha!" moments. There need not be many - there are not many - of such moments necessary; but they come at long distances between for the most part (though sometimes for brief periods with stunning, staccato rapidity). Here we have a summary of all of them.

          I suspect that this is a difficult piece in many ways; therefore I did not want it to be over-long. At the same time, I did want to get in the essentials.

          Does this explanation make sense to you? Does it help? Does it change any of your opinions? What other suggestions might you now offer?