How Hard it is to Rise

(Found here)

“How hard it is to rise. How fast each bond binds us to the lower life. How dim and impalpable the vision of the world above us until we enter in and take possession and how substantial the grip of those things for which we live, until, with pain and tears, we break away and die upward into the world above. Then how poor and shadowy and worthless the world we leave seems when looked at from above — like the toys of childhood seen by the eyes of a man.

So we pass onward and upward from the lowest to the highest edge of the kingdom of human nature, ever dying so that we may live more fully, the pathway of our life strewn with those things we once valued and cast away so that we might fill our hands with things more precious — the eye becoming more keen of vision to see the true value of things, the hand more sensitive to their touch.

But can we rise no higher? Is the limit of our natural power the limit of our possibilities? Are all our resources to be found within ourselves and the sphere of their activities in the world of men and things around us? No.

There are times when most men feel capacities for greater things than this world supplies: a possibility of knowledge and action that craves for a wider sphere than they can find here on earth, a power of love that cannot be satisfied. Like pinioned eagles, men beat against the bars of creation and wish to soar aloft to the infinite.

Having risen through one realm after another in the natural order, from a life of pleasure and self-indulgence to a life of thought and usefulness, man cannot rest. He would still press onward, break through the limitations of his own nature, and press his way upward into the kingdom that is above him — the kingdom of Heaven.

But how can he? Where can he find a lever to raise him above himself?

All that is human he can do, but within the limits of his nature lie the limits of his possibilities. The beast may develop instincts and intelligence that are almost human, but he cannot cross the barrier of his own kingdom. No more can man unaided enter into the kingdom of Heaven than the beast can enter the kingdom of human life or the inorganic can enter the world of organic life.

If he is to rise, he must be lifted across the barriers and placed within the realms of the heavenly city by the hands of One stronger than he . . .”

~Basil Maturin