How does Aletheia save us from the shadows of Lethe? The mythological river Lethe in the kingdom of Hades is the river of âoblivion.â Lethe means oblivion or forgetfulness. The river flows through hell, and whatever falls into Lethe is forgotten.
Surprisingly, Lethe is related to the Greek aletheia, truth. The prefix âaâ means âthe opposite ofâ and Lethe means oblivion. Truth is something that doesnât fall into Lethe. In Greek, aletheia is something that doesnât fall into oblivion.
Salvaged time is the time snatched from oblivion. It is aletheia.
âYes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!â Rev. 14:13
Whatever we have done in chronological time to transcend chronological time remains. It follows us. It has been saved from Lethe. It is aletheia. It cannot disappear. Michelangelo said,
âThe true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.â
In aletheia, we turn shadows into glimpses of divine perfection. They cannot disappear. We do something âinto the law in which we were madeâ – to use Tolkienâs vernacular. We become sub-creators.
We have glimpsed divine perfection, and we reproduce it within the confines of our shadow world. The only way to salvage the world of shadows from falling into the shadow of oblivion is to transcend the shadows.
Whether we bake bread, write articles, talk to a friend over a cup of tea, build a cathedral, or fix cars – if we glimpse and reflect the divine spark in what we do, we engage in aletheia. We transcend the shadow land.
Everything in the shadow land is a shadow until we see through it and infuse it with divine perfection. We can do it by virtue of our divine birth. We have that spark in us. We are that spark. We are but shadows transcending ourselves by pursuing aletheia every moment of the day.
How does Aletheia save us from the shadows of Lethe? When we pursue aletheia, it follows us. We rise above Lethe. We are timeless.
âGreat art is an instant arrested in eternity.â James Huniker
What is “Through the Looking Glass” about? One of my favorite quotes from Aliceâs Adventures in Wonderland runs like this:
âAlice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.â
âIt makes perfect sense,â I thought after reading it. Since that fateful morning when she followed the white rabbit into the hole, she wasnât quite herself. Everything was topsy-turvy, to say the least.
Thatâs probably what the disciples felt around Jesus when he would say things like,
âYou give them something to eat.â
They said to him, âThat would take more than half a yearâs wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?â
When you have been around Jesus for a while, you are not quite yourself anymore. He always says something that blows your mind into smithereens. How can you give something you donât have?
Apparently, you have much more than you think you do. Apparently, you are other than what you think you are. Itâs just the sort of jaw-dropping reaction that Jesus is after. He is creating a nonsensical situation that helps people make sense out of life. He turns the world upside down for us to see what it looks like.
âWhatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.â
Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you wonât even know that you have it. This reminds me of the âLooking-glass cakeâ that Alice was trying to cut before handing it out. It didnât work â the pieces would join back together.
âYou donât know how to manage Looking-glass cakes,â the Unicorn remarked. âHand it round first, and cut it afterwards.â
It sounded so nonsensical that Alice got up and obediently carried the dish around. The cake divided itself in three pieces as she did so.
We are more than we know. We have more than we think we do. The world is upside down â it must be put on its head for us to see what it really is. By going through the Looking-glass, we, like Alice, will be changing several times until we find ourselves. To make sense, everything must be other than what it seems to be.
âIf I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isnât.â Alice
We can only give what we donât have. We can only have what we have given up. We can only know what we donât. We can only win if we surrender. It is so nonsensical that we get up like Alice and obediently carry the dish around. Surprisingly, as we do so, it works!