There is a scene in Soul Eater where we finally hear Soul play the piano.

I cried.

I cried over an anime character playing the piano to unite his soul resonance with the rest of his team’s so that they could defeat something evil.

I saw this last May.  I was burnt out from work, ready to be on my way to a restful summer, and maybe a little emotionally vulnerable, so it is possible under different circumstances I wouldn’t have sobbed like a little baby over a short scene in a deeply morally problematic cartoon.

But maybe the circumstances don’t matter that much.  Soul’s struggle the entire show is the demon he has been infected with, the demon he fears even though he will not show his fear.  From the beginning Maka begs Soul to play for her like he did the first time they met, but he refuses, so as the audience we only know about Soul’s talent through Maka’s admiration of it.  When Soul plays in order to give the team a chance to save the world he is allowing them (and by extension the audience) to participate in something very private between Maka and him.  And he is destroyed.  His demon grows with every note and overtakes him.

I thought of all this again today listening to the noon Mass sermon at school today.  Father gave a few minute homily on the necessity of physical presence to friendship.  His point was that while we maintain relationships with phone calls and emails, those do not actually take the place of physical interaction, the importance of which cannot be ignored, because God became man, instead of just sending us a letter for redemption.

But what if we are consumed?  How are we to open ourselves, to give others what will save them, if we are to be ruined in the process?

There are those in my life who are ravaged by tragedy.  My heart breaks for them.  It breaks because I understand the sense that one cannot express what is good for that will allow what is bad to flood the heart, a drowning in memory without end.  We hold ourselves, wrapped as a guard around our pain, neither giving nor receiving, and our physical presence in the world fades.  We desire no touch, give no words, hear no laughter.  Our senses dull until a small intrusion is an assault.

Maka saves Soul in the end.  She places her own body as a physical barrier between evil and Soul, wrapping the smallest piece of him in her arms and guarding him from darkness.  Christ through his body redeemed our sin, making our body a house of God, a vessel to pour out His love.

We will not be consumed.  And maybe if we can open just slightly, show one other person both our promise and our pain, it will be all they need to wrap us in their arms.

(3 Years, and 18 Days Sober)