Nikos Kazantzakis. Reflecting on the double pull of Christ and the world, he once wrote: “Every person partakes of the divine nature in both spirit and flesh. That is why the mystery of Christ is not simply a mystery for a particular creed: it is universal. The struggle between God and human nature breaks out in everyone, together with the longing for reconciliation. Most often The stronger the soul and the flesh, the more fruitful the struggle and the richer the final harmony. The Spirit wants to have to wrestle with flesh that is strong and full of resistance. It is a carnivorous bird which is incessantly hungry; it eats flesh and, by assimilating it, makes it disappear. Struggle between flesh and spirit, rebellion and resistance, reconciliation and submission, and finally the supreme purpose of the struggle/union with God: this was the ascent taken by Christ, the ascent which he invites us to take as well, following in his bloody tracks.”
The tension, as Kazantzakis, writes it up here, reflects the language and concepts of his Greek background. Hence, there is more than a little classical dualism (body versus soul) in his expression. But the struggle he describes, despite the limits of his Greek dualism, stills capture the heart of the issue. All sensitive persons should expect a life and death struggle within their souls and the harmony that needs to be established there between world and God, flesh and soul, earth and transcendence, will be long, painful, full of competing voices, and will often times, seemingly, pit life against life.
What is said too is that, just because it is natural to feel that the world and God (flesh and soul, full life and church) are opposed to each other and seemingly demand that we choose one over the other, does not mean that they are, in fact, irreconcilable. The point is not to choose between them, but to hold them both in a way that fully respects their respective values. That will not be easy, nor quick, but God wants to wrestle with resistance – and the more bitter the struggle, the richer the final harmony. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Wrestling with God” December 1997]