Growing up outside of Lowell, Massachusetts, in a French-Canadian home, we spoke French exclusively. My mother, a certified teacher in Canada, home schooled me a bit, and when tested, I was dropped into an English-only parochial school in the second grade.
Of course, children adapt well and learn quickly, however, I was blessed / cursed / gifted with (or by) a profound French accent. The cruelty of children was manifest as I would be made sport of for using “deeze, dem, or doze” rather than the more proper “these, them or those.”
Even as young as I was, I determined if English were to be inflicted upon me, I would work to master it relatively well and, to borrow a line from an old Don Williams tune, I would also “learn(ed) to talk like the man on the six o’clock news”.
Through primary and secondary schooling, vocabulary homework, to me, meant working with a dictionary and a thesaurus. The advances made in terms of vocabulary, etc, were instrumental in my skipping the 4th grade as well. The downside to all of this was I entered high school at a relatively young age.
High school Latin was the source of much pain for me (read on). Yes, I know, both French and Latin are romantic languages and share much of the same vocabulary. Therein lies the problem, since, if I was uncertain as to the correct Latin word, I would grab a French one change the ending, and continue along.
When corrected, my paper would be returned with the note, “We have not studied this word yet.” After several similar experiences, the brother called me in front of the class and beat me with my Latin book for failing to stay within the lesson plan. This was the 1950’s/1960’s and corporal punishment was alive and well.
The dictionary, thesaurus, Latin, French and now Spanish will, even today, conspire against me and cause me to give pause to an occasional, nearly inconsequential word. (O.K., I will agree there is more to it than just a random word, and the Big Guy may be sending me a message.)
How Can One Linger at Immediate?
One of the words which has been playing in my mind of late is the word “immediate” which would not seem to warrant much consideration, “Bring me that immediately“, or, “If you intend to go out this Friday evening, you had best stop that immediately!”
Linger brings with it the definition or synonym at the least, of tarry, dawdle, remain in place and loiter. This would seem to be at odds with immediate as defined as rapid, without wasted time, etc.
The two words do not seem to go well together at all.
That is my point, I want to stay here and take a few moments to consider, reflect upon, dawdle over the word immediate.
Im-mediate. The prefix can be taken simply to mean “not”. Immortal being the same as not mortal, immoral not moral, and so forth.
Mediate ( from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, adjective me·di·ate \ˈmē-dē-ət\ ) becomes acting through an intervening agency. Thus, immediate means without an additional agency, or person being involved.
So this brings us then to the words of Christ Jesus when He said no one gets to the Father unless it is through the Son. We can presume if we are in the immediate presence of God the Father, it is on the occasion of our individual judgement, and the Son’s work is done. No Son, no Holy Spirit, no one else, just us and the Big Guy.
The phrase which may be employed here is the beatific vision.
Defined by the Catholic Encyclopedia (www.newadvent.com) as “The immediate knowledge of God which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven. It is called “vision” to distinguish it from the mediate knowledge of God which the human mind may attain in the present life. And since in beholding God face to face the created intelligence finds perfect happiness, the vision is termed “beatific”.”
St. Thomas Aquinas defined the beatific vision as the “final end” in which is attained a perfect happiness.
The beatific vision is the end to which we each aspire, yet at the same time may be expected fill us with anything/everything from trepidation as a minimum to dread. When I think of this meeting, I find myself reflecting upon an anonymous author’s work of a “Fisherman’s Prayer”, which ends with, “When in the Lord’s great landing net, And peacefully asleep, That in His mercy I be judged, Big enough to keep.”
1 thought on “Lingering at Immediate”
Or, …Maybe the big Guy will say… Well, Dan, I see you left some unfinished business back where time exists, on earth, in America, and you also learned some one-of-a-kind, unique, irreplaceable talents and experiences that I can use …where time exists, on earth, destination to be determined. And, once you are born again other souls will intercept, interject and interact with yours and situations for which you have no past experience, will, by virtue of necessity require you to act, hopefully in the mode of goodness but with free will the chance to respond either
with ignorance or passion is also a possibility. So too will you encounter souls who need the gifts made indelible
by your past life, gifts that will require others to respond, hopefully in the mode of goodness so the continuing
human experience will be a little bit better for everyone -because of old souls like yours who are reseeded for
that very purpose. And since you are already saved you can rest assured that these existential caveats that I
use to help others see and reach the light is my way of purging your own shortfalls. I, the big Guy, hope you don’t mind.