Se guardi troppo a lungo nell'abisso l'abisso guarderà dentro di te

 

G.K. Chesterton

Ieri sera cenando in convitto il mio compagno di stanza e un altro convittore mi hanno spiegato la genesi horror lovecraftiana di questa nota massima. Non mi interesso né di horror (sono particolarmente suscettibile) né di Lovecraft (sono particolarmente elitista), ma le coincidenze della vita mi hanno portato a ripensarci proprio la mattina dopo che la frase mi era stata spiegata, ovvero stamattina, e a notare una somiglianza almeno di enunciazione con alcuni passi di Orthodoxy di Chesterton, che ho finito proprio ieri di rileggere. Chesterton si chiede se parlino a ragione coloro che vedono somiglianze tra il buddhismo e il cristianesimo, e per spiegare che no, non lo sono, compara una statua di Buddha con il ritratto di un santo medievale:

Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediæval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards.

 Stamattina, come altre mattine da quando soffro di ansia e piccoli equivalenti depressivi, non riuscivo a decidermi a uscire dal letto, perché pensavo intensamente a qualcosa che avevo pensato. Un pensiero durato due minuti la sera prima aveva invalidato una giornata piena di lezioni, di amici, di telefonate, di pasti, di sole. Poi ho pensato alla frase pop che mi era stata spiegata ieri sera, ho pensato a Chesterton e ho chiamato un mio amico, chiedendogli di accompagnarmi a fare una passeggiata. E la giornata è finalmente incominciata. Ancora Orthodoxy:

If we take any other doctrine that has been called old-fashioned we shall find the case the same. It is the same, for instance, in the deep matter of the Trinity. Unitarians (a sect never to be mentioned without a special respect for their distinguished intellectual dignity and high intellectual honour) are often reformers by the accident that throws so many small sects into such an attitude. But there is nothing in the least liberal or akin to reform in the substitution of pure monotheism for the Trinity. The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be an enigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to gather the mystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet. The god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an Eastern king. The heart of humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the idea "it is not well for man to be alone." The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists were sociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexity be our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religion than the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence)—to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal with it directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone.

 C'è un po' di tutto, ma certamente il punto fontamentale è che it is not well for man to be alone. Nemmeno Dio, che aristotelicamente basta a se stesso e contempla se stesso, è solo, anzi è addirittura in triplice compagnia. Un triplice enigma comforting as wine. 

Ho deciso di attenermi alla massima latina nulla dies sine linea, quindi proverò ad aggiornare quasi quotidianamente questa pagina per i miei due lettori certo, ma anche e soprattutto per me. Stamattina ho pensato alla lettura che avevo fatto, e mi sono rammaricato di non averne messo in pratica la mattina stessa gli insegnamenti; il pomeriggio ho rimediato, e questo articolo vuole esserne la testimonianza, per me e per i miei pochissimi lettori. Cari lettori, che sarete forse mia madre, i miei amici, la mia amata, ricordatemi quotidianamente, quando mi vedete incapace di non prendermi troppo sul serio, che sono sì un inciampato (dai tempi di Adamo), ma figlio di un Dio socievole. Siamo inciampati ma figli di un Dio socievole.