inclinate aurem vestram

“Preserve the watch, make way for the glorious operations of the Spirit.”

~ Richard Phillips (Quaker, 18th c.), On Watchfulness and Silence.

On a recent raw-cold morning, while paying for the day’s newspaper, the cashier said to me, “stay in a while and warm up; it’s a frozen wasteland out there.” Pocketing my change and bunching up my gloves with the folded paper, I repeated, “frozen wasteland? It’s not that bad.” From there, I heard more about how forbidding the way to work had been, and how this is just the beginning of a helplessly interminable winter. In short, I was reminded to brace myself. It’s easy to understand this view of the world, and even easier to be governed by it. Building upon a chassis of apprehension is as tempting as it is stifling. Bad news is abundant and free for the taking; a dish of victuals that never empties. Problems are more visible than solutions. Focus naturally fixes itself on the foreground. Somehow, I’m slow to be swayed by these offerings; still instinctively straining forward. Insistently, somehow, always with ear and eye inclined to listen and read for wisdom.

The pursuing love of wisdom is known as philosophia. Bernard of Chartres (12th c.) described wisdom as “the comprehension of the truth of things as they are.” If any things are to be gained in this pursuit, they may be clarity of thought and perception, along with some degree of peace of mind. This quest is a form of watchfulness. It takes cultivated readiness to be able to discern the true and the good amidst slag heaps. To be watchful is to be studiously prepared while navigating somber obscurity, ever alert for signs of graces.

Several days after traversing the frozen wasteland, as described by the store clerk, I was sauntering along Charles Street in Boston, admiring the shopwindow Christmas decorations. The colorful street was funneling a cold wind. In the middle of tinsel, glitter, red ribbons, and gift displays, I saw a crate of flower bulbs for sale in front of a small hardware store. The sight of these brown, dry, onionlike bulbs caused me to stop and look closer. A couple of pedestrians also stopped, perhaps to look at what drew my attention. “You know what these are,” I said to my fellow browsers; “these are signs of hope. There will be spring again.”

Those dormant, dessicated bulbs were my favorite decorations, perhaps because of the way I encountered them. Wind tunnels and frozen wastelands are valid descriptions for realities of northern winters that might be expressed with different imagery. But harsh conditions are real, and we live amidst increasingly hostile times. How things are perceived doesn’t alter them, and we cannot always, or easily, change situations. If transformation is from within, then an individual can adjust to circumstances, repositioning sight and listening ear, en route to action. As the Lenten season is dedicated to reckoning, so the Advent season is one of expectation and inquiry. Both traditions are expressions of pilgrimage and the succession of a soul’s development. Rather than dwell upon one day, we proceed along strings of unfolding weeks as portions of the year. The Advent is a hungered waiting, the kind that aches to the brink of giving up- like an indefinite winter’s darkness. At its depth is a fine line between the certitude that something good will come to pass, and desolation that the good is but forgotten futility. The comfort ye my people of Isaiah is a declaration of assurance in the desert that verdant heights await.

Not having grown up with Christmas customs, they were quite new to me as a young adult. My way into the narrative, and still most fascinating to me, are the mysterious Magi. They are known as the scholars- or the Wise Men- in the biblical text. Some commentators have called them astronomers, as they made note of the night skies. They also demonstrated knowledge of the Torah. Their place of origin was no more specific than east of the land of Israel- which could have been as far away as India. Evidently, they were extraordinary enough as visiting strangers to be summoned by Herod. Little else was recorded, aside from having reached the stable in Bethlehem, and that came to be commemorated later as the Epiphany. These unusual pilgrim scholars were also clever and perceptive enough not to report back to Herod, and to slip away instead. They had been convinced to do so through warnings they had dreamt about. Where did they go afterward, and did they recount their voyage to anyone? The scholars were integral to the Adventus, which is also to say, proceeding to the arrival.

For those of us postdating the Magi, postdating Easter, Pentecost, and many other events, the Advent season continues to be one of awaiting. The earthly journey is perilous and unstable; it is a tremendous test of faith, and its duration is unknown. The search for guidance and assurance is continuous, often a weary awaiting while persisting ahead. Perhaps those scholars and Israelite peasants were also haggard with hard times, emperors, and the longing to see better days and tangible justice. Looking up at the night skies, whether from the window near my writing table, or from across the lot in front of a neighborhood convenience store, the vigil is upheld with an ache for improvement and peaceful respite. There remain too many unfulfilled aspirations; too many squandered efforts. Yet, even now, keeping faith means collecting my wits over and again, at times with fumes for fuel, and tell myself to hold course and look forward. It also means a determination of heading in the right direction. On overcast starless winter nights, it’s blind faith. But senses are ever inclined with expectation.

already

“Is there, in this place, any relief
for Pilgrims that are weary on the Way?”
The Shepherd replied, “The Lord of these mountains
has given us charge not to be ‘forgetful to entertain strangers,’
so, the good of the country is before you.”

~ John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress.


It is a turn of a calendar page, and only according to one (albeit predominant) tradition of time-keeping; we are in a new decade. The clean slate of a new year reminds me of how far I’ve already travelled. A new epoch, a newly-marked span of time, provides a new occasion for new ways of thinking. And having only so much time, adopting changed perspectives makes it necessary to discard the obsolete. As difficult as these times have been, there is reason yet to give thanks for new promise. Look forward to the good that is yet to happen. Being able to do this calls for some daring: a combination of boldly anticipating and accurately remembering. Keep sights fixed forward, while experience is preserved and accessible. Just the other day, I thought of the shepherd’s staff of Moses- how the walking stick used to signal and gather a small flock was recast into a directing object to guide numerous human souls in his care. If you will, a workingman’s sceptre. In our own transforming eras, our tools can be recast. The implements of our creativity have potential to be means for the transformation of more that just our selves. What is yet to be discovered may well be already in our midst. As the winter forest, that which is dormant is indeed very much alive.

From beneath the cover of darkness, light can still overcome. Observe what is in your midst, and see what is happening. It is an exercise of vision, to notice and take stock of the good that already is. Writing these words in my local public market-house, my notations are scribed between greetings with friends that pass by, bites of my lunch, and the general activity of a vibrant community space. Much is happening around me, among vendors, customers, visitors, and writers. Each transaction, entrance, exit, written word, and sketched drawing surely has a narrative. An event is real to us when it is immediately before us; its reality ceases when it becomes past, and it is not yet real when it’s in the future. But the ways we perceive and interpret the world are quite tangible as well as intertwined with the moment. Glancing back and gazing ahead provides occasional context to the present.

“Look at what you’ve got going for you,” is often part of the encouragement I give to friends- and ought to be advice for me to internalize. Seeing things as they really are requires wisdom to notice what already exists, ready at hand, to sufficiently and indefinitely sustain the soul. Fleetfootedly bounding across town to my employment, it occurred to me how easily the already can be taken for granted. Past is forgiven, hopefulness opens the future, and potential fuels the day.

The idea of realization is a thread running through our own histories, and we can identify this exemplified in the stories we know. There is that character type that traverses obstacles through a death-defying odyssey, only to realize they already possessed what they sought. A story like The Wizard of Oz takes the point of “no further than your own back yard” quite literally. In A Christmas Carol, the Ebenezer Scrooge character makes the opportunity to change course, but for Charles Foster Kane, in Citizen Kane, it is tragically too late. Envious of what most of us mortals take for granted, the angel Damiel character in Wings of Desire scraps his celestial existence in favor of gritty humanness. In most dramatic fashion, the fable presented in It’s a Wonderful Life begins as the protagonist tries to carry out his suicide attempt. George Bailey is killing himself to find what he unknowingly already has. He wants to see the world, but never gets out of Bedford Falls, and he learns- as these other stories’ characters do- how wealth manifests in more than one form.

The story of The Pilgrim’s Progress provides a vivid example when the protagonist’s travels bring him and his companion to Doubting Castle, where they are captured and tortured by the giant named Despair. In this allegory, Despair takes hold and nearly annihilates the travellers. Beaten to the ground of their dungeon, they ask each other, “shall we be ruled by this giant?” I like to think of the pilgrim’s tone as being one of indignation- as in, ‘are we going to be pushed around by despair?’

True to metaphorical form, the pilgrim has the timely epiphany: “What a fool I am, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty!” He realizes he’s had a key in his breast pocket all the while, the key being called “Promise,” and with that a successful escape is made from Despair’s imprisonment.

Our reading and viewing, our lived experience and immediate present, remind us to consider what already is- ground already covered and trials surmounted. Allegorical films and novels teach us over and again how we are actually equipped with the forces we need to fulfill our vocations, assert our voices and abilities, and work on behalf of others. In this seemingly endless valley of dry bones, I must keep in mind that I already have the requisite light to make the passage. The invitation extended to me simply requires my response. By realizing and remembering , we know The Already, and this becomes discerned, reinforcing strength.

When something is already, it has manifested in advance of our cognizance- either shortly beforehand, unwittingly and away from our attention, or before time as we know it. Most nights, I set up my timer-rigged coffeemaker to brew before I wake. Thus, at my pre-dawn ablutions, I cross my cold floors to find hot coffee already made. Then there are other ways to affect alreadiness, such as direct deposits and payments, automatic digital file notifications, highway tollbooth transponders, broadcast downloads, and other such conveniences to answer the persistent wish that things happen by themselves. Indeed, within these means is an implicit degree of trust. Ponder the idea that drives us to want things done ahead of time. We hunger to be ahead of the game, without missing an opportunity. Of course, I want all my efforts to go smoothly and to always be prepared, and of course that is more fantasy than reality.

But do any of us realize the grace and potential we already have at hand? Even some of it? How about just enough without being overwhelmed? In his essay Now or Never, Richard Baxter wrote, “There is more power in you than you use, or than you are well aware of. It wants but awakening to bring it into act.” The 17th century minister echoed the exclamation of the ancient Isaiah’s, “Arise, shine; for your light is come.” These biblical verses are often the meditation for the observance of the Epiphany. And embedded in Isaiah’s illustration of the brilliance and glory within our reach is, “lift up your eyes and look around... your heart will thrill and rejoice.” Do I- or any of us- know what we have working in our favor? What horizons are open before us? In the crepuscule, we crave brilliance. Epiphany is even more powerful than the hardness of our constrictions. The already is subtly apparent, and easily missed. With the legendary pilgrims, I can arrive at the realization that hope and promise are already with me, and have been for a much longer time than I’ve known.