Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

Something else I want to say to you is that whenever I do something wrong now or in the future, it's entirely my fault and nobody else's, certainly not the fault of anyone at home at least, because you've always been much nicer to me than I have to you. Grandpa and Grandma send best wishes too.

Love, Eva

Dear Eva,

I'm pleased you're having a good time at Grandma and Grandpa's and having a little rest after your 'hard' studies. I understand what you meant about justice. Believe me, I've often had similar thoughts, even though I know that no one can understand divine dispensation. When your mummy died I was so full of bitterness that I even considered giving up preaching. (When people become bitter, they oughtn't to preach.)

At that time, it was Emanuel Rádi who helped me. In his Consolation of Philosophy he came to the realization that Christ brought direct guidance for mankind and that God acts the way that Christ did. He does not force anyone to do anything and so he is perfectly defenceless. He doesn't do miracles, doesn't send lightning or floods or plagues against people. He doesn't punish people in this world, he doesn't protect the wheat from the weeds that spread all over the field. In other words, to expect God to intervene directly in any matter whatsoever is to wait vainly for a miracle. But if God is a defenceless being, how does he operate in the world? He operates the way Jesus did. He loves people more than we can ever imagine and helps them

the way a defenceless person does: by teaching, by guidance, by praise, by example, by rebuke and by admonition. I am not telling you this as a lesson, but to let you know I understand.

But your letter also embarrassed me and worried me in fact. It embarrassed me because you praise me excessively. What worried me was the way you speak about yourself as if you were someone guilty of some great wrong. Your unfinished sentence: 'Whereas I'm…' startled me. I don't know of anything that you're guilty of, not that that is relevant of course. You're an adult now and have the right to your secrets. But if you have any, and they're a burden to you, you might be advised to share them. You know we'd never judge you. We know that it is not the role of people to judge others (Our Lord will judge us one day), but we'd try to understand you or help you somehow, should you need it and want it.

You must believe in yourself more, Evička. After all, you're only a beginner and no one expects anything from you but a willingness to live a decent life. And you have that. You've never done anything to harm any of us, leaving aside minor naughtiness or disobedience. And as far as faith is concerned, that's a gift for which we must be always grateful, it is a grace that we must ask for again and again. And, as you know, while grace can be refused, it can also be granted at the very last moment of life. And the Lord is good and will never ignore a sincere petition.

I am thinking of you and will continue to, and I'm already missing you. Give my best wishes to Grandma and Grandpa,

Daddy

P.S. Apart from the odd mistake you play the harmonium perfectly, and you know that as well as I, of course. And at the Conservatoire they'll give you the additional instruction to overcome what you perhaps regard at the moment as your lack of proficiency.

Dear Reverend,

I tried to call you before going off on holiday, but you weren't at home. I have some interesting news for you. I have managed to discover who had your father 'in his department' during the years sixty-three to sixty-eight. It was a certain Captain Bubnik. After the Russian invasion, they kicked him

out of the secret police. He earned his living for a while as a taxi driver and then worked as a warehouseman. That suggests to me that he was one of the more decent ones, and were you to approach him, he might tell you something about your father. Capt. Bubnik is now a pensioner but earns some money on the side as a night-watchman for the Gross construction company. I enclose a list of all the necessary addresses and telephone numbers.

I wish you tranquillity and peace of mind during the holidays.

Yours, Dr M. Wagner

Dear Mrs Bára Musilová,

You sent me a nice letter with a number of questions, which I doubt I'll be able to answer as I don't want to give a preacher's answers and I'm not very good at any other kind. You ask not only about love and freedom, but also what we must do to build up our relationships instead of knocking them down.

I share your belief that love is the most important emotion in one's life; where it is absent, people are in a bad way, while on the other hand, where it is to be found, as Scripture tells us, it covers all offences. But love not only gives, it also makes demands and takes away. If nothing else, it gives the intimacy of a loved one and always takes away some of our freedom. (That also applies to the love of Christ.) These days people mostly choose freely to live together while promising at the same time that they will not freely enter into an intimate relationship with anyone else. In the modern world, that commitment bothers many people and they are not even particularly remorseful when they breach it or betray each other. I'm sometimes amazed at what a high value we set on freedom and how little we value responsibility or our faithfulness to our own promises.

I don't want you to think I don't understand what you say about freedom. If one truly loves another then one must not begrudge them their freedom, including the freedom to leave — for good, even. If one knows one may leave, it is easier to remain with another person, because there is no sense of anxiety at having entered a space from which there is no escape, and there is no sense of being a prisoner.

You also want to know what one may do to prevent one's emotions from

dying. It's hard to give an answer. One cannot see into another's heart, possibly only He can do that. I think that if one wants things to last one must constantly strive for a place in the life of one's companion and be for them the best of people. The only thing we have to bind another to us is love and understanding. All other bonds can be broken or feel like shackles.

And remember the words of Karl Barth that I quoted last time. There are boundaries that we will not cross on our own, while on the other hand there are chasms which lure us and can easily swallow us up. I don't want you to think I'm preaching to you impersonally; I too am confronted by these boundaries and chasms.

Yours sincerely, Daniel V.

Dear Reverend,

Thank you for your beautiful, wise and human letter. I am thinking of you. I would very much like to talk to you. But one cannot have everything. That's a precept I have to keep repeating over and over again, because I want to have almost everything. So far, I have almost always managed to obtain it, but I realize that I have to pay for this covetousness, by my services, work and good deeds. Thus I take care of my husband and fulfil his every wish. I comfort him when he is anxious, praise him when he doubts himself for a moment, I attend on him, I put up with his groundless fits of jealousy. I act as his wife, his secretary, his skivvy, and his nurse. And for what? To earn the right to spend a little time with my kind of people. How ludicrously tiresome: always wanting to earn something. I'm tired of all this 'earning' and would like something for nothing too: for no good reason, just for the fun of it, just for being me. I'd like time — time that doesn't rush madly away, the time and the freedom to make up to you for finding time for me, and to have the chance of taking up some more of your time maybe. Though I know that's something I can't expect, that I have no right to.

I don't know what I'm to do, don't know how to seek the truth, don't know how to manage to do all the things I want to do and I'm scared of time that keeps giving me menacing reminders. And I don't want to race through life, I want to live it: decently, properly, in love and kindness and hope. That's why I came to hear you preach, to hear what you would say about it.