CONTEXT: The end of my post about Amsterdam’s Westerkerk said my next would be the ‘last for my whole 2016 journey.’ But instead of that one (‘The Jewish Bride,’ to be put here soon), I am posting this piece and (below) the video that inspired it. When I came across that video in late May, 2020 – the pit of the COVID Pandemic – it acted as a zephyr, softly breathing life into the embers of my wavering spirit and faltering sense of hope. I consider its great effect on me to be ‘soft’ evidence of how there are times we should just yield to letting our impulses, instincts and better Angels guide and sustain us – even in the absence of ‘hard’ evidence.

If the video strikes you as maudlin, that quality, perceived instead as beautiful, is just what makes it so potent. It demonstrates how instinct on its own may lead to Edenic behavior. But this presents a special challenge to us humans, for unlike its sweet animal protagonists we can, if we will, deploy our reason to augment, but not replace, the promptings of our ‘better Angels.’

My ‘Jewish Bride’ suggests a goal for which I will try to provide logical supporting arguments. But here, I advocate that a related aim may be reached by yielding to an alluring but elusive energy, ‘Like a breeze gracefully rustling a curtain.’ An aim which also manifests my aphorism that ‘Reason is not the only thing that makes us human.’ And that a milder, suppler aspect of our humanity may serve as a glorious enhancement of it; as I hope these loving, gentle creatures (and my lowly text) may help you to agree.

Marvelous Beasts: The Peace that was Meant to Be: Discovering this video recently was a huge relief to me amid the ongoing pandemic. I had to choke back tears of joy to see that even now, such innocent beauty is still to be found in our world. Perhaps you will, also.

Beyond its straight-to-the-heart impact, this had additional relevance for me. It reflects what I’ve tried to convey in some of my posts, hinting that ‘Eternal Life’ may mean our rejoining the energy of Creation that never ends but is, transiently, obscured from us by our mortality. And that energy’s clearest expression is love.

Which this video radiates like the breath of Eden. The acts of affection, care and trust it shows are awesome due to their essential simplicity, not in spite of it.

Perhaps these animals, spared by their kind owners of the need to kill and eat each other just to stay alive, demonstrate what our world is meant to be, and what human intelligence could procure: A reality in which living beings never have to hunt and devour each other – literally or figuratively. The end result of using our brains for mutually assured sustenance is what we call ‘civilization,’ and despite there being so much privation on Earth, we have the means to share with our whole human family the abundance and security these pets already enjoy.

To take that observation further, perhaps we were given Reason so we could be instrumental – in a way no species lacking it could be – in making universal peace and plenty a reality. Perhaps the mission of our very existence is to be active participants in completing the original, disrupted cycle of Creation, and reopening the gates to Paradise in whatever form, or forms, it takes.

We can all contribute to that mission. Consider the cases of two characters from Mozart’s opera ‘The Magic Flute,’ Papageno, a jolly bird-catcher and Tamino, a courageous truth seeker. Papageno is content just to have enough to eat, work he likes, and a pretty wife who loves him back. Hence, he is condescendingly told that he will never know true enlightenment, as the clever Tamino will.

Cleverness is a fine attribute, but surely, exceptional abilities are not needed to make a human life worth living, if only because not all of us are equipped for such a standard. Brain capacity, of which things like cleverness are fruits, is largely a matter of genetics (as are physical beauty, strength, agility, etc.), and I will not accept that it could be a Natural, let alone Divine, intent that any person’s right to fulfillment or value depends on random advantages, or disadvantages. Ranking in this way is a coarse social construct we use to appraise each other, as higher or lower.

Is it ‘true enlightenment’ or even common decency to imply, more or less, that because he got born with more brains, Tamino is simply ‘better’ than Papageno, whose naïve jolliness of nature may benefit not just him, but all those around him? Such an implication (especially coming from genetically privileged people) looks self-referential, or even self-congratulatory. Anyone of good heart should reject it.

Routes that most of us cannot access cannot be the only ones to life ‘worth living.’ Other valid paths may be simple, and likely benefit others too, like how these placid pets care for each other. And what could be simpler and more accessible than ‘Love thy neighbor,’ as these creatures, unable to reason, display with illuminating clarity? Loving one’s neighbor is simple in the sense of ‘elemental,’ an ability most of us have innately, but it has proven harder for mankind to practice consistently than it has for us to learn the structure of the atom or the universe.

Yet here are animals that are often natural enemies, showing us it can be done. This video may pierce so many of us because it echoes our deepest sense of how life on Earth should actually be. To someone of my background, rapture at such idyllic images suggests the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit. Like a breeze gracefully rustling a curtain, She cannot be seen, yet is apparent, confronting us with realizations of our best impulses. Like tender responses to visions like this.

A world in which such scenes are the rule rather than an exception is not a reality we discover, like laws of physics. It is a reality we may each be inspired to help beget. And making our planet less bitter, and more sweet, surely enriches not only those who receive the sweetening, but also those who proffer it – perhaps as much enlightening, as enlightened.

As you may agree, if you had to ‘choke back tears of joy’ watching this. Again: helping to complete a cycle of Creation, one worthy life at a time.