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.

solidity in the liminal

“The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.”

~ George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts.

1

We are constantly reminded about the persistent certainty of change. This is a subject manifesting in such popular forms as our music and our aphorisms. All of that acknowledged wisdom still cannot completely convince us to count on the reliability of transition. A living human, body and soul, is in perpetual motion. As we live, we dwell upon moving surfaces. With a corner-of-the eye awareness, daily routines are repeated in a temporal context. The fluidity of time occurs to us when our continuities are disrupted. A building we always knew is torn down, a business we counted upon for years dissolves, people we long valued are suddenly absent, a protracted succession of work days or schooldays conclude. The passage of time bewilders and shocks. It’s as though time suddenly lurched forward, after a lengthy spell of stillness. But the hours and days have always been moving, all in the same increments. Yet there is ever an insistence upon solidity, upon predictability in the acknowledged provisional. The trick is to live a wise dynamic, even a comfortable one, in temporal conditions. The length and breadth of liminal space cannot be determined. Temporary can last a long time.

2

As technologies continue evolving, more conveniences and tabulations are connected to our tasks. The mundane and transitory aspects of communication, travel, and commerce become increasingly easier, as well as increasingly monitored and measured. Popular corporate culture obsesses about fickle figures known as metrics. Ease and access are as phenomenal as they are potentially impersonal. The universality of immediacy is really incredible, such that a few undercurrents counteract, by seeking to “unplug” the pace. Recently, on a Boston-bound train, I sat across the aisle from a passenger with two restless young children. Trying to calm down the squirmier among them, the woman spoke in impressively adult tones, “now you need to be patient.” The child replied with a memorable, “but I don’ waaaaanna be patient!” Who does? But we have to be.

If only the cherished could be held in place, and only the detriments be discarded. We would rather not view things and people we love as temporal. At the same time, we wince and want the things we dislike to go away fast- as in right now (this takes patience). All reside in the same time measurement, and unfortunately what we love is moving along and potentially away from us at the same rate as the unwelcome abiding of what we dislike. But then, we are each in motion, too. Evidently, I have something in common with the reluctant child on the train.

A fond memory recalls a simple, yet memorably savory meal I had when I was 17. It was in Paris, and I had spent a day on one of my many photographing ventures. Realizing how hungry I was, I looked for an appealing eatery that I could afford. Stumbling into a little cavern appropriately called Le Clos des Bernardins, I saw that I had just enough money for a salad. Well, the waiter brought me a wide plate that was richly adorned with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and vinaigrette on palm-like chicory greens arranged to point outward like sun rays. At the center of the salad was a warmed morsel of goat cheese. The colors, textures, and tastes were immediately striking, and I did all I could to eat civilly and slowly- albeit through tenacious hunger. I remember telling myself to savor this special food, and that I would momentarily stop to put down the silverware and look around the arched little dining room. I treasured every bite, and after gratefully paying the waiter what I had, I equally savored my slowed steps across the Latin Quarter. Even back then, I knew this was something to remember. What is purposed to last about a beautiful event cannot be the perishable ingredients, but rather the complete impression. Like flowers, a delectable meal is not meant to last.

3

Amidst the temporal, there abides a universal thirst for permanence. I strongly doubt there is anyone that doesn’t wish for something in life to last forever. It could be a beloved person, a situation or place, or a slice of time preserved only by memory. I remember my 13-year-old self at the end of the summer camp season, being very sad at the prospect of leaving many new friends, and returning to the bad old city. A bigger kid put an arm on my shoulder, trying to console me. He was probably a ripe old 15, and he said, “come on, good times don’t last forever.” In retrospect, that’s a rather grim pronouncement for an adolescent to utter to another. But it’s also an acknowledgment of impermanence. Summers do inevitably wind down. We begin school so that we can graduate. The optimist’s comprehension is that there will be more good times to follow, and it’s good to expect them.

Because of the work I’ve been doing for the better part of two decades, the word preservation is in my daily parlance. Archivists also want things to last forever. In my field, we use terms like permanence, longterm keeping, and conservation grade. We confer at length about best practices, formatted backups, and disaster preparedness. Of course, we must work to these ends; that is central to our professional stewardship and the common mission to preserve and provide access. We look ahead and we look back. Consider the historic materials and landmarks reaching us today from great spans of time ago. I type these words from atop the Boston Athenaeum, whose foundation dates back to the late 1600s. How will these places look, three centuries from now? Many of us, regardless of our work, have a personal awareness of preservation. The mindset says, “good things should last forever.” But we are striving to make things permanently endure in a temporal context. Our predecessors have passed their torches to us, and they may have also thought of the paradox of permanence in the provisional. We know that we do and see things that are momentary, but we proceed with a confident sense of preservation.

4

How can there be rootedness in temporal times and places? Ideally, it begins with a sturdy sense of daring and a powerful imagination. It demands faith, the evidence of things unseen. There is a popular biblical passage about the dogged and daunted life of Jeremiah the Prophet. Perhaps he had an inkling that his was among the lives that would be associated with metaphors. There have been many such individuals across the centuries. The ancient Jeremiah was enjoined to invest all his personal resources into the purchase of property in enemy territory which was embroiled in conflict. It was a volatile war zone. But he did it, despite his second thoughts, because what loomed even more powerfully was that he needed to buy that field and make it bloom. There was a holy calling that haunted his thoughts that he follow his vocation. The alternative would have been even more costly to him, and those who knew him. There had to be solidity in the liminal. We say that we make permanent decisions, and that we establish ourselves and our investments. But at the same time, many of us keenly know that we are digging into moving platforms. Perhaps what we must do, in order to maintain sanity, is to prosper between the temporal and the permanent. What is substantial, to the point of solidity, is our treatment of the transitory.

being memory

“We will walk on a hill
Red hats and blue coats, and everything still.
Snow will cover until
We can't tell the sky from the ground.
Where are the buildings, the old wounds of mine?
Did I ever once cry?

Waiting for you to arrive,
Where does the time go?”

~ The Innocence Mission, Where Does the Time Go?


Walking through places I know very well, the experience is one of inhabiting past as well as present. Since childhood I’ve had a vivid memory, but now I sense it has accumulated some depth and the aspect of witness. Living in the same small city for many years, it is easy to realize how present is often shadowed by past.

During a walk through the Old Port section of town, I noticed myself looking at construction sites while my mind’s eye “saw” what used to be in these places. That is an obvious example of seeing one thing and being reminded of something else. Indeed, our senses serve to activate and recollect imagery. Under chilled and overcast skies, with hands in pockets and hopping cobblestone curbs, I asked myself about references I carry with me. The aroma of boxwood hedges above rainwashed pavers brings Paris to Portland; to me, it is from time immemorial. I have a favorite shirt, of green flannel and laundered to the point of soft flexibility- which was bought at a general store in Vermont when I was unprepared for cold weather. It seems out of place when I wear it in large cities. An indelible scar on the side of my left thumb dates back to a painful injury that occurred while I was routinely rebinding a book. Unforgettably, it was Thackeray’s Vanity Fair : A Novel Without a Hero. My skiving knife cut so deeply it reached the side of my thumbnail. Fortunately, it happened at home. After bandaging the wound and remembering to elevate it, I also remembered the leftover red wine in my refrigerator. Downing it, I reasoned, would help rebuild the blood cells. What reminders are with you wherever you go?

By being reminded of my past, I’m reminded that I have a past. And it extends much further back than my lifetime. When I was old enough to understand, my aunt walked me to the places in Paris where my family members had been apprehended to be deported to the horrors of the Holocaust from which they never returned. My history became less abstract and self-centered, as it manifested in my teenaged eyes as solid and from beyond my self. Shortly afterwards, I took to looking up at night skies from the balcony in the 18th District- and then later in the West End of Portland- and ponder how time traverses through us. What we witness is our traversal through time.

Histories of the places in which we live become our histories, too. In their own ways, my articles about lost streets are a form of reportage from a life that comprises past and present- not so much as parallels, but a juxtaposition of experiences. Indeed, the present is the dynamic reality. The past formerly played that role of living events and thoughts that occupied the spaces I see today. This has long fascinated me- even since childhood. I would walk past places where something either had happened that scared me- or something I longed to see happen again- and I’d imagine how the only separation between then and now was time. The place and person are still here. Or are they? How similar is the place, and even more so, am I really the same person? By name, yes. But perhaps, as the streets may only be the same by name, they too have changed- even though I recognize them. What appears familiar is in constant transformation, and time is what effects the transition. Reminders point to the realities of our histories.

A scenario, a lived and familiar one to me, is waking in the middle of the night and sensing how alone I’ve often been in this big world, how it chills me to consider how so many of those who knew me as family are gone. It is the soul’s passage through darkness. Then come remembrances of people past, followed by times and opportunities past. These no longer exist. But I remember, and thus the individuals and events are preserved. It is the mind’s navigation through treacherous shoals. Fears must be winnowed away from commemorations, and as horizons regain visibility clear memory remains a worthwhile asset. In remembrance is the preservation of history. Nothing deepens a soul like an inheritance of ennobling continuum. And in the midst of all that demands and distracts, what are the todays that will be recalled tomorrow? What things am I passing up on right now that I’ll regret later? Of course I want to know. At the same time, the appropriately balanced thing to do is to keep gratitude in mind for well-seized opportunities.

My role as an archivist involves the absorption of memory. There are the recollections of those who daily enlist my assistance, the artifacts that require my interpretation, and the accessions that I seek out and document for future reference. At times it seems as though I am “remembering” things that predate me. The idea of “being memory” has arisen in my thoughts when I realize all an individual person can keep alive. My good archival education bids me to remember accurately and in context. Sure it’ll be authentic, but it may not always be impartial. Such is human life! In unique and iconographic ways, we are remembrances for ourselves and for others. Consider how many strong recollections remain at the surface, strung together as floating waterway barriers that signify navigable areas. Just as places and objects ignite memories, so can circumstances. The other day, recollections of “first days” in new and unfamiliar environments came to mind. My own history of introductions to new schools, new groups, and jobs. Those fresh first impressions that begin with acquaintances and orientations. After enough years of having to adjust to the jadedness and cynicism I’d find around me, I’d wonder at the possibility of my being naturally naïve. Evidently there is something I should have known all along and have yet to figure out.

Remembrance is the voice that cries in the wilderness of an amnesic world. And yet again, retrospection must not be permitted to take the form of a cudgel, neither should hindsight lead to animosities. Indeed, a two-edged sword that is better to have than to lose; better to manage than to crumple under. Archival records, authenticated, stand as evidence of the events and lives documented. The historic and accurate have the power to vindicate against adversity. And well-serving memories can prevent pitfalls previously surmounted. It is how we can recognize situations and connect them with ground already explored. When remembering my experiences of endurance- at times outlasting, or at other times transcending difficulties, my recollections become gratitude. Memory can constructively validate, and the earned payback is one’s own, deepened voice. Perspective can be the determining factor for what boards the vessel of advancement into the future. What will be remembered?

striving and striding

“Walking around,
You know I’ve had enough of this trouble
following me high and low.
Now it can go.”

~ The Innocence Mission, Walking Around


As with most weekday mornings en route to work, the postmaster and I exchanged greetings. “How’s it going,” I asked. This time, Jim replied with “I’d complain, but I won’t.” My immediate response was, “we each have a place to go.” A bit of work is a slice of sustenance. Having a place to go draws implications beyond the utilitarian trudge. As one’s work is a destination, so is a walk. Some people tell me going for a walk with no purpose is pointless. I must differ; indeed a meaningless stroll has great purpose. Less is more. From carefree jacketless jaunts to heavily-equipped winter expeditions, I remain deeply grateful for my mobility. Rather than appearing as obstacles, weather and terrain provide ingredients for the adventure. The paths of my upbringing wove through large, multidimensional cities. As a child, my grandmother and I would promener (go walking) together through our Arrondissement (the 17th); she would soften day-old bread with water for us to break off morsels to feed the birds.

Going for a walk, of any length, is a break out of the box. A taking to a trail away from the rutted roads of repeated routine. A means of escape? Perhaps; but if so, this is the necessary kind to re-engage the marches of time. A good walk comprises motion to slow things down. Just as going out with a camera to create a sense of a scene that draws your attention. An observation stops the pace, changes vantage point, and preserves an image. Teaching photo students, I’ll often say, “be a tourist in your own town.” Notice places familiar and changed. Turning corners and traversing roadways, thoughts will change- even opinions. As the mind diverts, what is cherished comes to the fore. Simmering the questions, strolls test and revise perspective. Blending the mind’s ingredients, an outdoor walk resembles the randomness of dreams. Notice how birds glide from tree to tree.

With paces preferring manageable paths, balance comes to mind. Striding and striving, often forcing matters becomes counterproductive. To strive, in this context, is to unnecessarily struggle and overattempt. To walk is to entertain patience. Aperch on a bench, amidst a city thoroughfare, the elements remind me to not be irritated by things removed from my control. Excessive striving is no friend of a good effort. We get accustomed to being so compelled as to force every detail into shape- and then to vigilantly guard these interests. How about an endeavor not to excessively exert? “Be paced, poised, and avoid burnout,” I mused while waiting to cross a street. Varying views change frames of mind.

There is middle ground between leaving things to be as they are (or as they develop), and constantly looking to adapt them (even compulsively). The latter viewpoint fixates upon the next thing. I’d be the last to advocate complacency; at the same time there is a worthwhile awakening in the consideration that one cannot get blood from a turnip. The preferable path sidesteps resignation, yet knows repose. The ancient gem, “study to be quiet,” originated in Paul’s criticism of materialistic and empire-building emphases among elites of ancient Greek society.

“Our dignity is tied to our ability to be thinking beings,” wrote Pascal. For me, this translates as the capability of conscientiousness. To think for oneself is to do so unabashedly- without façade. Technology and tools to be as gladly used as put away, giving priority to simplicity. Getting outside, away from the “virtual,” encourages continuation of cultivating skills that require thought and dexterity. When it can be done, easing the pace opens a view to observe treasures immediately at hand- and the trove may be that very midst itself.

near to you

"I look for the good in everything
It hurts when I cannot find it.
I don’t want to wear a suit of armor.
Do I have to come out fighting?

When it is clear to you
I’ll be near to you
I will be around
When it is clear to you
I’ll be near to you
I won’t let you down."

~ The Innocence Mission, Clear to You

Out of the poetic and biblical triumvirate Faith, Hope, and Love, the subtlest and most understated is that integral perspective of hopefulness. Perhaps our conditioning makes the action of confident forward motion into something far more arbitrary and abstract, than to love someone or some thing. And surely the element of faith is egregiously misunderstood into rote religiosity. It seems to me that when one can look ahead with trusting hope, there follows enduring, internalized love and faith. Stopping to think, and actively reflect, requires some unusual and creative effort, necessitating the elimination of multiple layers of "filler," the varying degrees of "white noise" we tend to overlook. A couple of weeks ago, I tried a new cafe in the city, and noticed how the environment invited the idea of being something of a refuge from the work day. I made sure to thank the proprietors for not having loudspeakered sounds clog their place. The quiet was conspicuous by virtue of the absence of demanding interruptions. Surely, the duration of the day needn’t require such stark austerity, but I’ve begun to view punctuating counterforms of contemplative spaces in the day as parallel to meal-times, or a glass of water, or a deep breath of sea air. This is how hopefulness looks to me. The very opposite of passivity, and truly the conscious practice of aspiring from the Spirit’s point of reference. To hope is as active an engagement as it is to refuse the ways of nurturing outdated anguishes. In this journey, living a hopeful trust looks less like a state of mind, and much more as learned, conscious action.


Perhaps I am not the only one for whom this has happened: On bright weather days, I will occasionally bound in from the outdoors, and absent-mindedly turn down light switches, thinking the indoor lights had been off and trying to turn them on, due to the comparative strengths of ambient light. Then in that subsequent split second I'd realize how accustomed I'd become to brightness- and- how much dimness I had previously tolerated. All of which causes me to wonder about the invisible graces that adorn our paths. Were they always there, as in the literal at-one's-side, the consoling paraclete, hidden and cultivating yet so often unnoticed by us? How hadn't I seen what creating forces awaited me so patiently? Embracing the moment is as conscious a choice as resisting it, yet the treasure planted and hidden in my heart aspires to the horizon. And I am finding the open embrace to be the more worthy effort.

momentum

"Your rebirth has come, not from a destructible
but from an indestructible seed,
through the living and enduring word of God."

~ 1 Peter 1:23

In an irony that causes me to laugh at my self (just the thing for a solo car ride), I am noticing my thoughts turning to some kind of maintenance of a sense of present-moment perception. If there is indeed a foundation, why worry about having one? And then again, is this new spirit as new as I think it is?

In its own silly way, my former life as a commercial photographer comes back to mind. In retrospect, how we would often nit-pick photographs into a visual numbness, now looks absurd. Back then, to say such things as "better is the enemy of good" would've been the medium's own version of blasphemy. Certainly there is much to be said about striving to do a job, and do it so well that new standards of craftsmanship manifest, but this was something of a side-category. This was a crossing-over from healthy pride in a job well done, into a fearful streak of perfectionism. We've all seen this: multiple entanglements in details, much of which are inconsequential, head-trips a success into something unnecessarily out of reach. (Notice I did not say "failure.") Moreover it is not the product (and in a situation like that, one daren't say "finished product") that suffers, it's the adventure of the process and the people involved in its accomplishment. The moment would so easily be surrendered to the ego. Art college had far too much of that. Anxiety too easily defeated the creative process, and competitive resistance would get the best of what can really happen in an environment of more than one soul.


That was then, and I was swept into that competitive tension just as much as anyone else. Twelve years of it. Now I want the ego to surrender to the moment. Maybe all of us now look back at that craziness with a more forgiving vantage point. I try to, at least. And along with that, I am trying to look at situations for the moments they provide- even with all the interactions. Worrying about maintaining a new perspective loses the simple fact that I already have a new way of seeing. Perhaps that is enough. There are few things as preposterously unrealistic than perfectionism. To mindfully go forth is simply self-explanatory. It is perhaps not quite as hard-worked as I am presuming it to be. I have come to understand this, even through reminders of hardships and rejections I've endured. The losses get their respects, but they must be terse glances. Staring back is potentially obstructive to the present. What is unfolding now is lit by what shall be, and it is captivating and hopeful. I dare say one maintains hopefulness simply by being hopeful. Could I have known this years ago? Should I have thought it trite? Would I have listened, if such things had been said to me, in my darkest nights?


All this happening simultaneously has the sensation of a molting experience. Familiar and unfamiliar reside side by side. Perhaps this pervading sense of seeing what I have known with a vision I have not known, is an assurance of a momentum that needs only to breathe to be nurtured. Just this past Saturday evening, after we played music for several hours, a wise friend made an observation with the parable of new wine being poured into a new wine-vessel. Fresh new wine, he said, cannot sustain in the old container; a new one must be made. New ferment, new vessel. Both have been wondrously given to me, and thankfully neither originate with me. This time, Passover is a passing- over from the doubts that came with desolation, into the trust of forward-moving faith. I am beginning to dare to believe this momentum will hit a stride that will continue, though at a rate-of- travel that I daren't predict. That is not for me to ascertain. The most precious gifts will never be confiscated, and the sense of love and beauty need never leave me, especially as I become better able to see the essence of being, beneath the trappings of materiality. Here, a loss of perceived power is a very present consolation.

l'élan de repartir

"Mais tu veux
au fond de moi
la vérité ;
dans le secret
tu m'apprends
la sagesse."

~ Psaume 50

Going forward, with the resolve to be faithful to what has brought my steps to this new momentum, is daily put to the test. But as I proceed through my days, it seems that challenge needn't imply struggle or even resistance. This is more along the lines of a follow-through, a persevering continuance to keep still and attentive to each moment, and away from the wounds of time. It is itself a transition, to advance from deciding where we wish to focus our commitments- to setting out in fulfillment of these hopes.


So many countless intentions begin well, but end right at their own outset! But that memory shouldn't stand in the way of desiring anew. From that newly discovered source that ignites a fresh embarkation, the pace of such movement may not be immediately detectable. Quite likely, that tempo is not in lock-step with much of society around me; it is a rhythm that can breathe. Delays and (what resemble) setbacks can frustrate, and being true to new directions implies remaining encouraged. And perhaps it is that hope does not come from me. As it is with love, I am either a gracious conduit or a resister. It has been in my thoughts to see aspiring promise in this way, and in so doing, the pressure lessens for me to have to originate everything and to view my pursuit of authenticity as some sort of grim struggle. When a new beginning has been desired so thoroughly from the heart, and it manifests, a grateful life of faithfulness to this gift validates the permanence of change.

stillness

"Our inner life is not something to be sought up in the skies, but within ourselves; not in the abstract, but in little daily happenings and acts. God is at work there, within us, with us, correcting, polishing; until- and in order that- everything in us, our faculties and their acts, are under the sway of this inner principle. We should try to reduce everything in us to this inner principle."

~ Augustin Guillerand, Le Silence Carthusien


To leave discouragement and hopelessness behind, it is vital that I innately know to still my soul. Learning a new habit, a colleague tells me, can take at least several weeks. For the time being my version of "spiritual discipline" seems to be interrupting my thoughts with creative variations of tersely stifling the old routines of reaching backwards to fetch what I'd concertedly tossed in the dustbin. So this is no lofty exercise, but a ground-level aspiration for the enduring essentials: the desire to develop qualities that encourage others and build my spirit.


Quieting my insides is now indispensable, and perhaps while trying to dis-identify with thoughts of both past and future that obscure the present, inadvertent morsels of silence manifest throughout these days. Again, it is a means, rather than an end; in recollective tranquillity my resolve to move forward can reinforce the new strength. To reach for that which is ahead, and embrace the moments as they are given to me, is to refuse societal pitfalls that can alienate me from others' presence, and from those substantial things in life that getting out of my own way permit me to recognize. Yesterday, while driving on the highway en route to giving a music recital, it occurred to me that we are kept back when we don't look beyond our thoughts of ourselves. The winter-into-spring sky looked so vast, as a prepared canvas that was itself the completed art.


Surely, no process so personally integral can be finite. Perhaps, indeed, transition has neither a beginning nor an end. And truly, none less than Isaiah could observe that, "it is the living, the living that can give praise." The grave cannot celebrate, and the darkest pits of corruption are not sources of hope and promise. Our grieving figure poetically turns from the bitterness he disowns, and immediately recovers with music, with song! From such turning-points, if anything, we can proceed with careful steps- not fearfully- but mindfully aware of something new. Fragile, yet with incalculable fortitude. And from the stillness a vision to see the ordinary in extraordinary ways.

tension is a passing note

"tension is to be loved
when it is like a passing note
to a beautiful, beautiful chord"

~ Tension is a Passing Note, by Sixpence None the Richer

If I choose to give my all to the present moment, what of this penchant for preservation? With the mind's eye, we photograph the fleeting hundredths-of-seconds. It's what I see and hear, how a slant of light changes what I notice, often the startle of what I hear myself say, and in silence the still voice resultant after the earth shakes and the cataclysm dies. Noting thoughts becomes a mindful balance between enshrining days and events- and navigating paths that lead forward. I try to learn from my past, and that which is around me, and preserve in order to perceive. And then there are moments to gratefully relish, lights along the way, connecting reminders not to be disregarded.

How deeply has the Spirit taken root? Are things really different now, or is it that I see things differently? In stillness comes the dare to become aware of more than simply my own voice. Transition has neither beginning nor end, and coming to this, being both observer and active participant, provides much reassuring relief to me.

voyageur de l'espérance

"Le silence n’est pas un vide, c’est une traversée vers une plus grande écoute, vers une plus grande présence."

~ Francine Carrillo, Le Silence : Un Artisanat de Quotidien

To say traversal in this context would only suffice as a beginning, in describing a crossing-over, a voyage of transition, through a dense wilderness, a desert, a night of the soul. I once traversed a very long and unknown causeway bridge during a road trip, just after midnight, during a rainstorm, and could not figure out how far across I was advancing; alone on that road, my only visibility was about twenty feet in front of my headlights. The best and sole task was to steer straight and remain watchful. Having already driven about six hundred miles, it seemed endless.

Setting forth with all we have and all that we know, risks where and who we are. Yet we go. As my arms reach farther before me, what had been in my grasp falls away. Only when I momentarily stop to think about it, I am able to recall what residual weights had been released. Though new places, seasons, and identities may be uncertain, it is the promise of renewal that drives us onward. A most worthy crossing-over is that which traverses desolate stretches and into consoling solitudes in our deepest heart. It is a return, with the familiarity of my maternal language, but with the newness and assurance of a clean slate.


Being restored to ourselves, even in solitude, is far more than a tearing-away from accumulated anxieties, but rather a transcending of such disabling thoughts so as to descend deeply within one's gravitational center. The inner life cannot subsist in surface thoughts; the spirit is sensed in the still realm of our very respiration. An acknowledgment of weakness needn't frustrate, neither should it endanger hope. Instead, I try to remember times when I'd say, "well, if this doesn't happen, or doesn't work, here are some other things to try." At other times, there is someone near me who has justifiably misplaced their own recollections; and I can serve as a memory of what has been tentatively forgotten.

Leaving discouragement behind, leaving loss by the wayside, I am navigating the departure from wanting through my thoughts, to a heart's desire to trust anew.

a perch on Montmartre

"The Little Prince climbed a high mountain. The only mountains he had ever known were the three volcanoes, which came up to his knee. And he used the extinct volcano as a footstool. "From a mountain as high as this one," he said to himself, "I'll get a view of the whole planet and all the people on it..." But he saw nothing but rocky peaks as sharp as needles."

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

This is a time during which all things are taken close to heart. Surely not in the sense of being agitated at the slightest tremor. Immersion in one's being is not even close to superstition. Quite the opposite, to breathe in deeply of the Spirit is to realize the extent of one's strength. I have experienced joyful welcomes in places that are thousands of miles apart. It is as though I have many homes, when I feared I had none. Far above place, it is the enthusiasm of greeting which goes straight to my heart; honest kindness, gratitude, and openness.


In recollecting, I am brought to ponder how the precipice of despair has forced open my receiving embrace of mercy. It remains a wonder to me, and I believe it will for a long time. Changes of scenery, even for the cause of refuge, have become ways of returning to myself. I sought to remedy what was lacking, and as I emerged from the crepuscular void of grief, it turned out that nothing and no-one is missing. The fear of loss is gone. I am here.


As we return to ourselves, we go to the innermost realm where truth dwells; it is not beyond our reach. Indeed, the words of life are right on our lips. How I had lost sight of that! In retreating for refuge, all along the way I noticed beauty- the kind of plain eloquence that brings the brilliance of the spirit to consciousness. The shifting light of day, the taste of fresh bread and fruit when we’re famished (but trying to be discreet about it), receiving the presence of others, scents and sounds. Perhaps what was lacking, if anything, was perspective, and perhaps part of that was forgetting to be conscious.


Care must be taken not to be so quickly self-condemning, that I cannot learn simple truths the first time around, and that I must learn the same life lessons many times over. It is all to make emphasis that as deep suffering gives way to peace, what I saw as numerous "false starts" are actually increments pointed toward this very moment I am writing these precise words. Points of view I have wished to leave by the wayside now become incongruent to the extent that such negative perspectives simply no longer fit, and do not warrant another minute’s worth of time. Oddly enough, anxieties re-appear, even when I worry about maintaining the good momentum of renewal. The feelings are strangely familiar, but their substance is now simply out of context. Indeed, this forward motion requires some nurture, even after such inertia has been overcome, and progress will proceed. It will.


Innumerable "false starts" are still no cause for cynicism. And to be troubled about such things is as self-undermining as worrying whether I’ll wake tomorrow morning and wondering if I’ll wash up, have my coffee, and brush my teeth. Of course I will. I always have. It seems I need to actually see myself learn these lessons. Aspiration allows me to see possibilities, and in turn I continue to aspire. As it was for Augustine, to desire is to be truly in prayer; the two are parallel. And though I must fully engage the chaos, the silence of the monastery need never depart. Even in humble, workday parcels, silences bear the roots of the cultivated interior life, recalling how greater is that which is within us than that which passes through this world.