rest assured

"God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy.

This is the great mystery of Christmas that continues to give us comfort and consolation: we are not alone on our journey. The God of love who gave us life sent his only Son to be with us at all times and in all places, so that we never have to feel lost in our struggles but always can trust that he walks with us...”

~ Henri Nouwen, Gracias.


On Christmas Day, I went to an exquisitely beautiful place that is just at the edge of Portland- called Gilsland Farm. This is an old favorite place of mine, and throughout the week my wish had been to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere of this Maine Audubon Society refuge. Days without schedule or demand offer opportunities to wander- and my steps invariably take me to the ocean. In this part of the world, there are multiple meandering and convenient ways to walk down to the sea. At the Gilsland sanctuary, river waters meet the Atlantic, and so the walkways offer many perches in a domain frequented by small birds and great herons alike. Rolling terrain permits for straight-ahead views of open skies. The combination of expanse and intimate inlets remind me to draw in plenty of deep breaths of fresh air. Pines, sweetgrass, and sea- all together on the same canvas.

Places that are significant to our individual journeys become our personal historic sites. Returning to explore- to simply inhabit these spaces- cultivates depth of perception. Now that I think of it, I’ve enjoyed the quiet of Gilsland for the better part of two decades- by bicycle, on foot, and by car- in every kind of weather. It’s where I’ve watched owls from very close. Gilsland is one of those nearby places I choose to visit for sorting matters out, regathering, or for seeing things anew. Even without the memories, revisiting any place reveals insight with each landing. Being out-of-doors, surrounded by nature, simply observing the panorama sizes down the accumulated doldrums to their appropriate proportions. Stopping in a place that represents a withdrawal from what promotes and perpetuates restlessness allows me to go further than just catching up with thoughts: from there I can extend that attentiveness beyond thoughts and listen for the Creator Spirit. As with the ancient Psalmist, the lamp within is rekindled amidst wide-open, limitless spaces for my steps and eyes.

At the surface, repose may be perceived simply as physical rest. In greater depth, rest manifests as peace of heart. While walking the Gilsland trails, for example, the woods, waterways, and quiet provided a soul respite. There are no demands, no cause to strain any senses. Moreover, on a holiday, there was no agenda. It wasn’t even all that cold, so I could pause to write at leisure. A fine and rare occasion to let things be, and to blend into the landscape. My years have made it possible for me to form a personality that is prone to forcing things into existence. It continues as a kind of recurrent old background chatter that says I have almost no resources and must build from scratch at every turn. At many times, this has been strenuously true- but I’ve learned to challenge that thinking. The breaks and the blessings must not be forgotten, and a good hike in the woods helps right the ship. Nature reminds me that I’m not running on my own power as I tend to believe. After all, do the trees will themselves to their heights? Can tides refute the moon phases, or refuse to freeze at rivers’ edges? So I walked along a frozen salt marsh and stopped at a dock to write, “grace is not contingent upon human effort, though I toil at a constantly arduous pace.” But no straining at Gilsland on Christmas Day. A gift to keep in mind.

If spiritual fortitude isn’t limited to situations of stoppage, then I might rest assured while in motion. Reaching a highland, and looking around at the hilltops around me, it occurred to me that times of forging ahead must be balanced by times of groundskeeping. Profound progress can be made by letting go of the control I purport to have. And in letting go, I become better aware of the grip of grace. Lately, I hear the expression, “it is what it is” an awful lot. Yet another term that straddles the superimposed worlds of business and sports- and common usage- that expresses a resigned reckoning with exasperation. It can’t be helped, tough luck can’t be reversed: “it is what it is.” Noticing my infuriated response to the shrug, I now imagine the words taken more literally. What happens when that which is beyond one’s single-handed control is left to “be what it is?” Isn’t it presumptuous to think I can change everything? Perhaps, then, the admission that something is what it inherently is, makes a situation easier to engage. The best of that expression is an observation about refraining from striving. It might be a useful way to perceive not trying to grind something into what it isn’t. Resting assured expresses faith in the certitude of sustenance.

An old hymn refrain returned to my thoughts, that goes: “My God is a rock in a weary land, shelter in the time of sorrow.” Yes, it was one of those work-weeks; one of those strings of long days filled with serving a notably needy representation of the public. Perhaps a reflection of the season, and the sense of urgency that it impresses upon many- but at the blunt end of it are those who equally serve the rude and the courteous, the shrill and the calm, the smug and the genuine- all with the same alacrity. One evening, walking home the long way, I remembered that hymn- which I hadn’t heard in a very long time. There’s something in those lyrics that speak to me, I thought; but wait- only in the time of sorrow? How about the times of confusion, of shipwreck, or when computers malfunction, or when I can’t find both gloves, or when someone says something resentful? That’s when the risk is greater of losing sight of the rock in a weary land: when the sorrows are deceptively small- almost too subtle to identify with specific words. It could well be that the human soul is the weary land. Yes, I think it is. It’s the ground that comes from the earth; the land that longs to be rooted, especially when all there is to hold fast to is the Rock and stronghold of consolation. Terrain can be weary, too, and the mind can regain its productivity when it is nourished from still more productive sources. During a recent wakeful night, at about 3 o’clock in the morning, I pencilled these words in my notebook: “don’t be angry- they are what they are.” Mine is not the business of changing what people do. Rest assured. The Gilsland trails provided the untethered moments I needed such that it was impossible not to be grateful for spiritual assurance.

This new season paralleling the start of a new year invites new insight. As I write these words, there is a swirling blizzard outside my windows. Surely, the trails I’d just traversed are now covered over with snow. Trails dotted with shreds of dried leaves and patches of residual ice, perfectly phrasing the meeting of autumn’s end and winter’s beginning. Settling upon exterior surfaces, hard edges are now canopied, traffic sounds are muffled. Back in art college, I had a teacher that would say, “we’re snowed in; that means it’s time to get in the darkroom and print.” We’d all head into our studios, armed with our reams of film- undoubtedly plenty of images from sunny days past. Now I must assure non-practitioners that printing in darkrooms is not a gloomy thing to do at all. For us photographers, it is integral to the creative process. It’s very much the process. As with journaling, conceptualizing our questions demands that we write them down. Put the impressions on paper, so that the words may face up to the light and air. Scribed marks can be re-read; they may be commented upon. Words and images rest assured and boldly upon our creative surfaces. What ensues will be what it is, will be reckoned with, and will be navigated, as the continuum moves forward with confidence.

drawbridge

“The spiritual life is a long and often arduous search
for what you have already found.
You can only seek God when you have already found God.
The desire for God’s unconditional love is the fruit
of having been touched by that love.

Because finding the treasure is only the beginning of the search,
you have to be careful.”

~ Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love


This evolving voyage is well in progress, and I am still young enough to find it endless. And along this complex network of paths and way-stations, with an increasing array of experiences, places, and remarkable people, a broadening and deepening of perspective begins to form. We may even observe our own sense of self-possession, as it develops. During a pleasant and animated conversation with a group of colleagues, just last evening, I heard myself express a culmination of thoughts in response. Once in a while, I am able to enjoy the observations of others, with the addition of my insights; and in context, this provided some food for thought on the quiet ride home.


Exchanging stories occurs to me as a sharing of road maps, and in so doing it reminds me of the necessity of fine-tuning my learning as I proceed. In my deeply enthusiastic discoveries, I find that I have something to offer- although there are times for which keeping silence becomes equally vital, in a kind of self-preservation. When Henri Nouwen wrote of “finding the treasure,” he was referring to the biblical parable about discovering one’s life force. I think of it as having realized the purpose for the spiritual search. The basis is really an enduring beginning, and even if one’s faith may be sturdy and road-tested, there always abides a paradoxical fragility that reminds me of the vitality of nurture. And the carefulness that is implied here means that to prevent from burning-out, it becomes necessary to know when to attend to one’s spirit in silence. When our experienced insights can be retained enough to learn from, these adventures can become points of constructive reference instead of repeated pitfalls. To be able to retain those vital truths, we must develop ways not to be sidetracked from our sacred course, or be dissuaded from our ideals to the deathly point of cynicism. Is such occasional carefulness a holding-back? Is it fear? Must there even be a drawbridge at all?


To be soundly in this world, yet not owned by it, we find inventive ways to gain the proverbial field within which the treasure lies- even if it means exchanging what property and status we own. That restless journey to the place of rest means never losing track of that pearl of great price. The sacred journey began long before I knew what it was called; before even being aware that my life had significance. Last night, while winding with the curling roads of the Maine coast, between the pine forests and the rock ledges, I thought about my adolescent years on the merciless streets of Corona, in New York City. I had developed a survival instinct that looked to alternative ways to get from one place to another. In order to endure the dangers of gang-infested and crime-filled streets, hallways, basements, subways, and parking lots, I hatched multiple routes- as a kind of human chess piece- to get to places I needed to go. So many junctures had what-ifs and alternate plans through mazes of alleys and thoroughfares. Admittedly, my strategies of avoidance didn’t always work, but I was smart enough not to walk straight into the hands of predators. In the end, I survived with only a handful of muggings and a bunch of beatings.


But the self-conditioning of such impressionable years can really stay in a mature person’s psyche, and to this day I wonder at this childhood casting that combined standing my ground, with self-defense. When we think we are defending ourselves, what is being defended? When you’re a defenseless kid in the asphalt jungle, you’re running a gauntlet and trying to save your own hide. Even children are intelligent enough to see how unhappy such realities are. But then we raise ourselves into professional life, and self-defense often looks a lot less literal and more like an egotistical response. What is being defended, and against whom? What’s at stake? Is avoiding a “hurtful crowd” a wise move, or is it a manifestation of old fears? Those instincts from youth play a role in a developed conscience informing me as to what is permissible and what isn’t. Confrontation is also a conscientious decision, as much as a wise defense would be that attends to a sense of self-respect. Once more, there is a requisite balance between wielding strength and disarming by example. We can cultivate an innate knowledge that informs us when we need to fortify- and when self-fortification becomes obstructive. Indeed, for those who wish to “love your neighbor, as yourself,” with their lives, this implies forgiveness, forbearance, and maintenance. To others and to ourselves. Sharing wholeheartedly in Christ’s risen life is also sharing in his dying- even in the humility and humiliation of his experience. To follow is a call to be completely immersed: not simply to skim across the surface of still water, but to thoroughly sink into the ocean of living and be enveloped in God.

In his essay, “Control Your Own Drawbridge,” Nouwen observed a metaphor in the imagery of drawbridges in medieval castles and walled towns. “You must decide for yourself to whom and when you give access to your interior life,” he reflected, adding how there have been times when he has had to draw the bridge. This was his expression for exercising his commitment to listen for God’s spirit of rejuvenating strength. “Never allow yourself to become public property where anyone can walk in and out at will,” he wrote, “you might think that you are being generous in giving access... but you will soon find yourself losing your soul.” In my own way, I have known this endangerment, and return to the idea of losing track of the “pearl of great price.” Much care is needed when, in this world, we bare our hearts. Of course, there’s a chasm of grey area between living one’s whole life with the castle bridges locked up- and being a doormat. I think of how color transparency film can lose its entire spectrum of hues, when it gets overexposed. All that is left is blanched film with neither color nor outlined forms. Without looking after myself, I’ve often noticed being in a simultaneous state of being at once poured-out and saturated, to a detrimental extent.

Returning to the quest for what has been subtly tasted as enough evidence to devote the whole of life, my thoughts move across and around my own years, pondering how I have perceived my identity. In the context of the occasional “drawbridge” of self-maintenance, I believe the profoundest sense of self-defense is activated with a knowledge of what- and even who- I represent. Perhaps we realize what our core reveals, when we are brought to speak on our own behalf, placing our selves on the line. Surely, such revelation needn’t occur solely at confrontational crossroads; our pared-down selves may be wondrously disclosed when traveling, meeting people, and beginning new ventures. When identity loses much of its baggage, we can learn a great deal about ourselves. We can enjoy our simplified selves. When that happens, I begin to think of my human and spiritual roots. I imagine “representing” my physical ancestors, and how I might resemble them. Having been touched to the core by unconditional love, from almost beyond grasp, my ideas of identity cause me to wish to align with the author of forgiveness and reconciliation. For this communion, there are no fortifications. We discover ourselves as we discover God, and my identity is truly concealed in divine mercy. Thomas Merton once wrote, in New Seeds of Contemplation, “the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence.” Indeed, it is far more than an elusive impression that moves me onward; the inspiration is in the substance and assurance I continue to encounter along the way.

audible sigh

"When I'm broken, see what happens
Arms wide open, see what happens
See what happens to me."

~ Vigilantes of Love, When I'm Broken (See What Happens)


With diligent and solid endurance, brokenness can gradually transition in the direction of wholeness. The steps are unpredictable, and there may be spells without any steps. One of the turning points I've found is in the recovery of our stance. Though violated, life and self are worth defending. Perhaps this is close to Henri Nouwen's stand in your pain statement. For me, this seems to evolve ahead of retooled life patterns and diet. There is power in articulation, especially for those whose spirit is accompanied by images and words- written and spoken. And this is to say real and palpable words, far more substantial than pixillated digital files and mugshots which can be deleted at the press of a button. The virtual world is just what it purports to be: figurative, evasive, and only a vague byproduct which cannot compare with the real world of pulsating souls, beating hearts, accented voices, personal histories. Our defensible lives require the collective boldness to seek higher things and not cop out on ourselves or on one another. Choosing to love, and love well, implies risk and imperfection; but to be true to this ethic means that the practice of compassionate love is to provide space for understanding, instead of dismissive judgment and intolerance.