The word “escape” has become more familiar today as “escapism.” Escapism is flight, an ersatz and a substitute for not fulfilling a duty or fulfilling an obligation. For example, alcoholism is an escape for the man who has piled up debts and tries to forget them in the irresponsibility of sleep. Sleeping tablets are a means of escape for souls whose conscience beats up a rat-a-tat on their brain all through the long and fearful night. Those who are not courageous enough to give up evil habits often try to solace their wickedness by calling those who love God ‘escapists/’
Escapism is cowardice. There can be no peace for the soul until there is an “inscape.” An “inscape” means a spiritual, moral, and mental security found through being enfolded in the meaning and goal of life.
Tennyson once wrote that if he knew the flower in the crannied wall, root and stem and all, he would know what God and man is. By this he meant that the flower in the crannied wall was the
“inscape” of the whole universe. Somehow or other, if one knew it thoroughly, one would see it reflecting the countless generations of flowers that preceded it, all the rain that ever fell from the
heavens, all the beams of the sun that shone upon it, all the chemicals of the earth that once hemorrhaged from primitive volcanoes, and above all the Mind of God that made all these things converge in this one flower in the crannied wall. Not only that little flower, but every little thing in the universe, whether it be the filigree of a snowflake with its chiseled patterns, or the birds that sing their Matins to the trees earlier than the monks in their cells – all these things reveal the Creator s Mind. They are a concretion of the Divine Architect’s plans.
What then is inscape? It is law, order, rhythm, pattern, purpose. It is a philosophy of life; it is the revelation not only, of where I came from, but also of where I am going. Inscape is the discovery of order and meaning; it means being wrapped in the cloak of the mystery of God; the making oneself intelligible and giving life a meaning; it is finding a refuge in the God of love. For every escapism there must be inscapism; for every flight from reality, there must be a return to it; for every loss of personality, there must be its recovery.
Here is where a certain erotic type of psychoanalysis (which is not identical with psychiatry) breaks down. It can tear up and discover the disease, but it cannot heal; it can diagnose, but not
cure; it can psychoanalyze, but not psycho-synthesize; it can tell a man he has anxiety neuroses, which really means nothing; but it cannot tell him why there is a fundamental anxiety at the basis of life; namely because the cups from which he drinks cannot contain the love for which he yearns. Love of sex is an escape; love of goodness is an inscape. Divorce is an escape; fidelity through trial is inscape. Egotism is an escape; charity is inscape. Because the pleasures of life disgust without satisfying, we see an escape from the let-down feeling. Because the pleasures of union with God satisfy, without disgusting, we seek the beautiful inscape, into His Truth and Love, until finally death is swallowed up in Life. Hell is escape; Heaven is inscape.
– from Way to Happiness (1949)
