T He G Reatest Of A Ll
THE GREATEST OF ALL
The most astounding thing about the following poem is not its pathos or its beauty, but that it was written by Oscar Wilde. He was incarcerated in Reading Gaol for a short period of time and one day witnessed the execution of a man who had brutally killed his wife. It is a very lengthy poem. What follows is just a fraction of it:
And every human heart that breaks,
In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper’s house
With the scent of costliest nard.
Ah! Happy day they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in.1
There’s the reference to the woman with the alabaster ointment again. Wilde shows an amazing knowledge of Scripture. Actually, even on his grave in Paris, which has a giant phoenix as its mascot, are words from this poem, coupled with a verse from the book of Job. From the first time I read his story and some of his writings, it was impossible to miss his genius and his tragedy. Wilde died fairly young. It was at his deathbed that he called for a priest, telling his friend Robbie Ross that he wanted to make things right with God. The lines “The crimson stain that was of Cain / Became Christ’s snow white seal” find a similar echo in his Picture of Dorian Gray. For Wilde to ask for the Eucharist on his deathbed signaled that he was serious about making it right, through Jesus.
Let me switch scenes to several decades later. There lies a man in a hospital room. He was not an author, he is not renowned, he is just a man of high integrity, devout in his faith. He has spent many hours of his life in a temple, and everyone he knows describes him as a man of near impeccable character. The man is in his eighties and once held a high post in India’s Finance Ministry. He has spent hours with us over the years, his son and I, speaking about spiritual matters, probing, questioning, challenging us, and reading heavily on spiritual themes. Stricken with cancer, he has been admitted to the hospital. At his request, all his friends have come to the hospital today, straight from the temple with their “Prasad,” their sweet offerings, to give him their good wishes and a blessing from the priest. They mill around his bed, talking softly to one another. They do not know what awaits them.
Suddenly, he sits up in bed and speaks to them in clear terms. He says that he believes his moment to die has come and he wants to share with them, his family and friends, what he has just experienced. “I have lain here in bed asking myself the most important question,” he says: “What or who is the way to God? I have pondered this for years… You know how faithful I have been in my service to the temple and to my belief. But I have come to this all-important moment and question: What is the way? Who is the way?”
He pauses as they lean forward to listen. “I have thought, reflected, and have finally concluded that there is only one way, and I want you to understand I am making that commitment.” His voice lifts and his passion deepens. “That way is Jesus.”
In the stunned silence that follows his declaration of faith in Christ he does something amazing, something only an Indian family could fully appreciate. He has lived a life of honor, married for more than fifty years through an arranged marriage, and has raised two sons. He turns now to his wife and says to her, “I have never told you that I love you. But I want you to know that I do love you and that you are my sweetheart.” His wife is very embarrassed and dismayed by what he has said and doesn’t quite know how to respond. He turns to his granddaughter and asks her to sing his favorite Christian hymn. With that, shortly thereafter he breathes his last breath. His friends are dumbfounded and stand in awkward silence around his bed, not knowing how to think about what he has said and done, what to say or what to do.2
As I write this, I think deeply. How is it that a man who had heard almost nothing of Jesus until he was well into his middle years came to this conclusion? How is it that a man so devout, whose house I visited frequently, where there was always an altar set aside to the pantheon of divinities in Hinduism, came to such a clear conviction of salvation through Jesus? How does one so totally consumed by his faith, and active in the temple, come to the end of his life and take a fork in the road?
This is something the New Spiritualists have to deal with honestly. How do they explain it? Did this honorable, devout man, and others like him, come to this intuitive conclusion wrongly? Did he make up a truth that was totally unsustained in his entire life prior to that point? From Oscar Wilde to thousands today in the Middle East and China, the same story is being repeated. These things are happening in lands where the name of Jesus has been maligned or evicted by political or cultural decree. Yet they have found him.
I have no doubt that many might well be offended by the challenges I have made to other beliefs in this book. I must expect that and will make every effort to defend my approach. Some might even consider the tone of this book too strong or harsh. That is not my intent. But it is hard not to get passionate when you read the bizarre twists of truth offered by proponents of the New Spirituality. I have been fairly blunt because I want readers to be brutally honest with themselves.
True spirituality is not a game we play. It is not merely a preference for some position over another. Nor is it at its core a search for some healing balm. It is an ultimate choice of ultimate definitions that require one’s utmost commitment. One had dare not make a commitment to a belief for secondary or tertiary reasons or to “feel good.” The issues of gender and sexuality are extremely important… I understand how important they are. But they are secondary to why we are living and for whom we are living. To be driven to adopt a combination of myth and mysticism because of blunders made by cultural exploiters in society is to run from the arms of a lion into the arms of a bear. There is little comfort in that.
In the beginning of this chapter, I highlighted two personalities to demonstrate that the pleasure-loving artist and the disciplined civil servant had each tried, in their own way, to find life’s ultimate thrill. One, dying from a disease probably brought on by promiscuity; the other dying merely from the breakdown of the body in aging, who found out as all of us will that the body is not ageless, no matter how much we would like to believe otherwise. One lived a life of abandonment in the West; the other persisted in a morally and spiritually disciplined existence mainly in the East. One flirted with the law; the other upheld the law rigorously. One lived with multiple options and partners; the other was stoic in his commitment right to the end. One was a hedonist; the other devoutly spiritual. To both, the answer was in the same person: Jesus Christ. Why?