TESTIMONY OF FAITH by Malcolm Muggeridge 2 / 4

The first choice is to accept and believe in the incredible beauty of our earth, and my fellow humans; of the earth’s colours and shapes and smells and sounds, of human love and the continuance of life from generation to generation. All these seem absolutely wonderful. The second impression, stronger than I can possibly convey is that as an infinitesimal particle of life, I am a participant in our Creator’s purpose for His Creation and those purposes are loving and not malign, creative and not destructive, universal and not particular. With this conviction comes a very great comfort and a very great joy.

In this state of mind, the realization that I am part of God’s Plan, one looks back on one’s worldly pursuits with a sort of distaste, as though it was all so much a waste of time. Yet, I must admit that journalism, which I have practiced for the last half century and more, has one great advantage; it gives one a sharp sense indeed of the buffoonery of power and of those who seek it and exercise it.

Without a god, men have to be gods themselves, and fabricate their own immortality, as they have in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Exhibition. In the beginning was the image and the image became ‘wax’ and dwelt amongst us, full of absurdity.

In this wax depository stand images of the famous and infamous, of the celebrated and the notorious, stars in an unterminable soap opera called history. There is even an image there of myself.
I like Pascal’s notion tat people in authority need to dress up to justify their eminence, “If judges didn’t wear ermine” he said, “ who could suppose that they were capable of dispensing justice ?” We would say the same of priests in their vestments, admirals in their gold braid, chefs with their tall white hats.

Authority requires an image. Men, in relation to power become images; only in their relation to God do they dare to be men. I’ve always had the feeling that somehow, somewhere, there was another dimension to reality where the fancy dress was put aside, the grease-paint washed off. I feel as though all my life I’ve been looking for an alternative scene; for the flesh beneath the wax, the light beyond are lights, a vista beyond reach of mortal eyes.

How extraordinary that I should have found it, not in flying up to the sun, like Icarus, but in God coming down to me in the Incarnation.”

(Mind you these are not words coming out of a person who has been declared by the Catholic Church a Blessed …though I believe he deserves that honour.)