Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

Each time I arrived at the ridge that overlooked their house, I was delighted. Their cabin became like a second, secret home to me. On summer evenings we sometimes played hide-and-seek amongst the trees. These were the best times for me, peering out from behind the brush at the two fatherly men in their fifties pretending they couldn’t find me.

Engelthal was a small community, so it was inevitable that others knew about my “covert” visits. I suppose no one could see any real harm in them and, although they were an open secret among the nuns, I honestly believe that Gertrud, Agletrudis, and the prioress never knew. If they had, my visits would have been put to an abrupt end simply for propriety’s sake.

The prioress died one night when I was in my teens, and a new prioress needed to be chosen as soon as possible. Dominican monasteries were democratic institutions; Sister Christina, who was just then finishing the Sister-Book of Engelthal and starting her Revelations, was elected in a nearly unanimous vote. Just like that, she took possession of the title Mother Christina. Obviously, I was pleased by this turn of events, but it was another matter altogether for Sister Agletrudis. How quickly events had turned against her, in regard to her desire to ascend as the next armarius. Not only had a wunder-kind appeared in the scriptorium, but the new prioress had long been the girl’s greatest champion. When I took my formal vows into the sisterhood not long after Mother Christina’s election, this must have been the drop that made Sister Agletrudis’ barrel overflow. I could feel the burning hatred in her eyes as I professed my obedience to the Blessed Dominic and to all the prioresses until my death.

In the eyes of the other nuns, however, I saw approval and affection. To them, it must have looked as if everything in my life was falling perfectly into place-but this is not what I felt. I felt like an imposter in the house of the Lord.

I had been raised in an atmosphere of intense holiness, but I felt anything but holy. So many of our sisters, including Gertrud and Agletrudis, had mystic visions, but I did not. This created a constant sense of inadequacy in me. I had skills with languages, yes, but that was what they felt like-skills, not gifts or revelations. It was not only a lack of communication from God that made me feel less worthy, it was also that the other nuns seemed so sure of their paths when there was so much I didn’t understand. I was bewildered in heart and mind; I was deficient in the certainty the others seemed to have.

Mother Christina assured me that I should not worry about my lack of visions. Each sister receives her message only when she is ready, she said, and it is not a matter of calling the Lord to oneself but of making oneself purer so that the Lord would want to come. When I responded that I did not know what else I could possibly do to make myself more pure, Mother Christina advised that I should prepare myself for the Eternal Godhead by losing the creatureliness that adhered to my soul. I nodded my head, as if to indicate that this explanation clarified everything, but in truth it left me feeling as confused as a cow standing in front of a new gate.

I’d been studying these ideas all my life, but that’s what they remained. Ideas, concepts. Vague generalities I couldn’t really grasp. Mother Christina must have seen the look on my face, because she reminded me that I did have my inexplicable ability for languages and while this capability was not a mystical visitation, it did make me unique. It was increasingly clear, she maintained, that God must have a wonderful plan for me. Why else would he bless me with such gifts? I promised that I would try to do better, and silently hoped that I would someday grow to have the same belief in myself that she had.

Shortly after I entered my twenties, I met Heinrich Seuse for the first and only time. He was traveling from StraЯburg to Kцln, where he was to study at the studium generale under Meister Eckhart. Though our monastery was not directly on the path, he said he could hardly pass up the opportunity to visit the great Engelthal. Those were his very words.

It was obvious that he knew what to say to charm Mother Christina, but Gertrud was another matter. As soon as she heard that Seuse was going to study under Eckhart, she refused to meet him.

The subject of Eckhart was a touchy one. Although an accomplished writer in Latin on theological matters he was perhaps better known, or more notorious, for the unusual sermons he gave in the vernacular German. When Eckhart spoke on the metaphysical sameness between God’s nature and the human soul, his ideas often seemed to stray from the orthodox path, and it was not a good time for ideas to do that. There was already much unease among the monastic orders and clergy because of the move of the papacy to Avignon.

When I came across Eckhart in my readings and asked Gertrud about him, her reaction had been severe. While she admitted that she hadn’t actually read any of his works, she stated emphatically that neither did she need to. She’d heard enough of Eckhart’s filthy views that she did not need to go to the filthy source. She spat his name out of her mouth as if it were rotten fruit. “Eckhart was a man with such promise, but he has allowed himself to fall to ruin. He will be found a heretic yet, mark my words. He will not even admit that God is good.”

Gertrud’s attitude worked out well for me, strangely enough. Because of her refusal to meet Seuse, it was I who was appointed to show him the scriptorium. I was shocked by his appearance. He was so slight that I could barely believe that his bones could support his weight, as little as that was. His skin was sallow and blotchy, and I could see every vein in his face running just below the surface. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and it looked as if he had never been to sleep. His hands, covered with scabs that he picked at habitually, were like fleshy gloves filled with loosely connected bones.

My description makes him sound gruesome, but in truth he was the exact opposite. The thinness of his skin only seemed to allow the light of his soul to shine through. The way he waved his slender fingers around while speaking made me think of saplings blowing in a breeze. And if it looked as if he never slept, the way he spoke suggested this was only because he was constantly receiving messages too important to ignore. While he was only a few years older than I was, I couldn’t help but feel he knew secrets that I never would.

I walked him through the scriptorium and then, later, through the outlying lands belonging to Engelthal. When we were safely removed from the ears that could be found in every corner of the monastery, I brought up the topic of Meister Eckhart, and Seuse’s eyes danced as if I had just handed him the keys to Heaven. He raced through everything he knew about the man who would soon be his master. I’d never before heard such a brilliant jumble of ideas fall from a mouth, and Seuse’s voice was wild with ecclesiastical joy.

I asked why Sister Gertrud claimed that Meister Eckhart would not even admit that God was good. Seuse explained that Eckhart’s position was that anything that is good can become better, and whatever may become better may become best. God cannot be referred to as “good,” “better,” or “best” because He is above all things. If a man says that God is wise, the man is lying because anything that is wise can become wiser. Anything that a man might say about God is incorrect, even calling Him by the name of God. God is “super-essential nothingness” and “transcendent Being,” said Seuse, beyond all words and beyond all understanding. The best a man can do is to remain silent, because any time he prates on about God, he is committing the sin of lying. The true master knows that if he had a God he could understand, he would never hold Him to be God.