Pervious

Pervious: allowing water to pass through; permeable. My new favorite word: Pervious. It came into my life because we are replacing our stone driveway/backyard at Bradley Beach with pavers and the town requires that 40% of our land be PERVIOUS. Good news: that does not include the houses, so we are fine. But the word is fascinating. Asphalt and cement are impervious; grass is pervious as it allows water to flow through into the ground. Analogically the word is rich. The thought strikes me: the person, in heart and intellect, is created to be pervious, to be receptive to the Creator and His creation, it all its splendor, all its boundless Truth, Beauty and Love. To be alive...is to welcome what is given, to receive it, to take it in, to allow it to flow into us, through us, and to others. Such it was in the garden of Eden. It was sin that has made us impervious: hard, not allowing the passage, resistant, indifferent, unaffected, non-vulnerable. It is pride, suspicion, anger, and fear that close us to the Given. In last nights episode of "The Last Kingdom" the beautiful Ethlefled confides to her admirer, the fierce but chivalrous Viking warrior Eric, that her abusive husband "does not see me." He is insecure, envious, prideful, fearful and vicious; he is incapable of "taking in" her nobility, beauty, intelligence, charm and heroism. Happily, Eric is pervious to her feminine splendor; and he dies to rescue her. So for us men, the takeaway: it is not for us to repress or diminish our attraction to and delight in womanly beauty; it is for us to deepen and purify it, that we become more pervious, more receptive, more tender and reverent before it. And so: we want to become more pervious...to all that is beautiful, true and good. This is not to store it up or hoard it, but to let it flow through us an out to others. The more we receive, the more we share; the more we share the more capacity we have to receive. So we become an ever-expanding river of the Good. We long for it. We receive it, in trust and vulnerability. We allow it to flow. We become fluent, fruitful, free. We receive ever more. We acknowledge our imperviousness and repent. Why did Satan target Eve and get to Adam through her? Because she, as woman, is more pervious: to the true, but also to the false; to the good but also to the bad; to the beautiful but also to the disordered. And Adam, as a man,is pervious to the influence of Eve as woman. His strategy was flawless. Finally, with Mary we have the perfection of perviousness to the Good and imperviousness to the bad. And so with St. Joseph and all the saints. And so with us. We become branches on the Vine (in today's Gospel), receiving the life-giving juices of nutrition and bearing fruit. We become the good soil, receiving seed, water, sunshine...in endless flow. May our hearts and minds be ever more receptive, sensitive, responsive and generous!