Recently, I was reading the current copy of our Diocesan Newspaper, The Huron Church News. I did a double take when I saw what I thought was a picture of me with other clergy in a situation that I didn’t recall. Then I realized it couldn’t be me as, the person I thought was me, was dressed in bishop’s vestments in a gathering of bishops. No, it certainly was not me as I don’t have a secret life as a bishop (and don’t have any aspirations to be one). However, I have one from an occasion in which I played one in a dramatic presentation – my double is on the top left and that's me in the picture on the bottom.
There is the belief that everyone has a double or a doppelganger somewhere in the world and I guess in my case that is true. There is also the legend or myth that meeting your doppelganger can bring your bad luck and even death. I hope that this doesn’t apply to just seeing your doppelganger in a picture. It hasn’t been a problem so far – knock wood.
This experience brought to mind one of the novels of Charles
Williams, Descent into Hell. In
this story, one of the characters, Pauline, was deathly afraid of meeting her
doppelganger which she had encountered at various times but had always managed
to avoid a direct engagement with. As
these sightings became more frequent, her life become more controlled by the
fear of the encounter. In the story,
Peter Stanhope, offers to carry her fear.
Pauline is doubtful of this working; however, she agrees and Stanhope
takes and carries this fear on behalf of Pauline in a very concrete, envisioned
way. As a result, Pauline is able to
meet her double without the fear which had become so much a part of her life.
In this story, Williams is illustrating his Doctrine of
Substituted Love. The exchange between
Stanhope and Pauline is described by Helen Luke:
Peter Stanhope, the
poet, offers to carry for Pauline the fear that has tormented her ever since
childhood. He explains to her wondering mind that it is like carrying a
bag, a parcel, for someone, for a brief time – but not like carrying the actual
person… The essential in such an exchange is that there must be enough real
love in both people, so that and exchange is the one helped is willing to let
go of his ‘parcel’ as the other is willing to bear it…Carrying someone’s parcel
you do not relieve him of responsibility for that parcel and its content; you
merely bear the weight of it for a while. When you carry the burden of
someone’s excessive fear or anxiety you do not take away his necessity to
suffer, but you give him a chance to face the fact of which he is so
desperately afraid…It was precisely because Pauline had been humble enough to
accept Stanhope’s offer that, when her moment came, she was willing in her turn
to carry, through her imagination, the torment of her ancestor’ fear of the
fire.
To be real love for
Williams, “every expression of love is a ‘sacrifice’ of the ego through a
simple acceptance of the facts. A
repression of resistance or of hatred is never love. To speak of partial aspects is always too
much or too little, for only the whole is meaningful. “
May you be blessed to carry one another’s burdens on your
journey.
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