depths

“Pieces of coal, hewn from the deeps of the earth,
Here in my hand, spectra of lights retain;
Crystal on crystal knit, back in its birth-
Sun meeting sun again.”

~ Huw Menai, Pieces of Coal

formed from this earth

We are formed from this earth. Like the coals drawn from untold and lightless depths, the soul is drawn to surge upward to divine fires. With the coal-blackened laborers and the burdened haulers, I, too, know the work is relentless. Nothing less than conscientious effort is needed for me to arise and walk this earth with strength and wisdom. Through the winter, I’ve had a fragment of coal on my desk. It is from very far beneath the ground, brought up in untold tons by unseen hands that toil and risk their lives’ safety. Souls whose wildernesses are subterranean, whose ocean is the earth’s crust, and their enormously hard-worked paths are confined to narrow tunnels.

In the work life I endured that enveloped my twenties, my average workweek saw very little daylight. Prolonged travail in complete darkness disrupted my sense of what time it was- save for deadlines. Further and broader still, extended overtime and intenseness in a foul and exploitive darkness seemed to meld the years. I don’t know how much more of my earnest energies I’d have added to that job, had I not found myself in a tide of layoffs. It was confining and toxic- though only one level underground, but being a daily reality, difficult to break away from. I free-fell into the light of day, and though it was barely ten years ago, some of that shock of life-contrast does remain in my ordinary thoughts. Re-evaluating one’s continuum sets a soul on the verge of self-definition. Aquinas wrote of how the reality of creation stands at the brink of the world. Every time we dare to behold the wonder of creative power, we stand at the edge of the known world.

depth and depths

What breathes life into dry ground and stone ledges? Along the roads, still layered with months of sand and grit, the landscape remains barren with granite, ice, and spines of trees. Outstretched branches try to collect enough rain. They do not wait in vain to be reshaped, even as fire transforms masses of anthracite to set colossi into motion. Often when we think of our sources, we refer to the ground of our being as though we had a geographical idea of our rootedness. But surely my basis isn’t limited to the substrata beneath my feet. Might there be roots nearby, far above, and even right alongside my hands writing these words? Speaking of a “center,” or a “core,” may confine us into imagining the spirit that gives us life begins within us, rather than respirating through us.

Among my disciplines is an effort to avoid clichés, or at least unclarified terminology. In this society, we accept too many catchphrases, pat lines, and sound bites- and it seems counter-cultural to take the time to explore and more thoroughly comprehend. It’s fine to conscientiously “go to one’s center.” All right, go to the source. And then what? You just stand there? Not at all. I’d like to think life is more a working library than a sealed-off museum. The source is for our immersion. Mine the depths of the soul; jump into that water of life. Traverse that guardrail from spectator to participant. Looking at a sumptuous meal is one thing, but savory dining is quite another interaction. Even in the early morning, I find it vital enough to give space to recollect thoughts- but that coffee should be downed while it’s hot. If stopping at the shoreline of the Source isn’t satisfactory, take that as a good sign. Indeed, as the Holy Spirit takes hold, the unresisting natural course is to respond and pursue. My understanding of immersion begins with internalizing the wisdom that I gradually comprehend. “So walk ye in him,” wrote Paul, as he wrote his listeners to practice their professions of faith. For me it is to seek more of the source, and even to become part of it. To arise with a constant gratitude that mirrors the constancy of the wellspring of life.

coal and work

The coal on my desk was given to me by a railroad trackman, along the waterfront. The heap of coal reminded me of the histories that described black mountains of anthracite on Portland wharves that were regularly offloaded from massive schooners. Nowadays, we rarely see such elements as those which are consumed in the operations of our days. These pieces of coal may have been cut from seams that were two or three kilometers underground. But they look like they could be from the Moon. As it were, reverse-meteorites from darkest inner-space. When struck by light, the fragments reflect as glittering silver. During my fourteen years in photographic manufactures, we’d quip about our labors as “silver mining,” with hours in which we could not see our hands in front of our faces. I remember driving to Pictou, Nova Scotia and stopping in Stellarton. It was only months after the Westray Mine disaster, and I wanted to pay my respects to the more than two dozen miners that perished at their work far beneath the ground. It was a rain-spattered afternoon, and amidst a mournful and desolate stillness, I stood and sent my deepest prayers to the living and to what memories they had of the deceased. May they rest in peace. Almost reluctantly I took a few pictures, since I often think through the camera. About a half-dozen years later, the entire Westray complex was torn down- the ashes returned to the earth.

Westray Mine; Plymouth, Nova Scotia, Sept.1993 - after the disaster.

antiquity and present

Bringing our souls up from the depths means a descending of mind into profoundest heart- and there we mine the bituminous ore the Spirit can ignite. The ancients whose thoughts are compiled in the Philokalia shared their imagery of prayer as being a descent into the heart of our being. Imaginably inspired by their desert wildernesses, inwardness always seems equated with ways modern westerners refer to upwardness: vast yet intimate. It is fascinating to notice what appears as an inversion of upward and downward, perhaps not intended by the ancients as a reversal of popular perceptions. They described contemplation as a search through the depths of the human heart, prayer being the descent. In these journeys, it is necessary to navigate through the darkness of one’s most haunting and destructive thoughts- armed only with faith and a disciplined mind. With a view that considered thoughts as separate from self, St. Neilos the Ascetic wrote, in the 5th century, of how “the mind descends into the darkness of our thoughts.” But indeed, we are not to simply dwell in such crepuscular paralysis. Realizing the presence of mercy, and that it comes not from but through us, we are brought to a humility that cleanses the heart. Arriving at a recognition like this, even in tears, as Nikitas Stithatos noted:

“...your consciousness of the love of God will grow lucid and you will begin to contemplate the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and the inner essences of created things. The more you descend into the depths of the Spirit, the more you plumb the abyss of humility.”

Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, observed how the brink of creation is known in our depths. He equated the darkness encountered by the soul as Divine mystery. When we realize how creation was called into being from nothingness, our sense of wonder defies plain sight, and we plunge into truths we cannot see. But going forward must be without hesitation, even if one is “caught between the terror of mystery’s invitation to step out into the darkness- and our mind’s insistence on knowing the truth.” Comfort is found, alas, in realizing one’s mind is not the full measure of all truth. In this instance, vastness takes the astonishing form of reassurance.

Miners' Memorial: Springhill, Nova Scotia - 2003.

source

Still amidst times of seismic upheaval, I know the vitality of vigilantly drawing from sources of strength and trust. And as I heard myself say to a friend the other day, it can be as unspectacularly consoling as opening a cherished book and seeing the soothing words. In the swirl of the fluidity of these times, I take heart that God is both steadfast and creating force. As strengthening as it is to know what the ancient Psalmist called “the everpresent help in times of trouble,” I try assuring myself of the unusual dynamism of unknowing. Rather than to presumptuously assess that which is around blind corners and distances beyond my field of vision, I’d sooner take stock in the openness of what is yet to be. God is ever so much nearer than I thought. As near now as in the murky, damp, cement-floored darkness that I’d grown accustomed to as I made my living for a fourteen year span. What fascinates me now is this unseeing sense of certitude even though I am not sure how dark the figurative glass of comprehension, through which I must navigate, will remain. Next week, I’ll return the coal fragments to the heap near the railroad where it will all be used. And I’ll continue to wonder at the prospect of whether depth is measured from above or below, or if the spiritual life even has a fixed surface from which to determine measurements. Is the pitch darkness in an earth-gripped tunnel or a lightproof corridor as close at hand as the sky? The Divine is as near as the notebook in which I write my words. Indeed, proximity may need only one reference point.

post tenebras

My time of day is the dark time...
When the street belongs to the cop
And the janitor with a mop
And the grocery clerks are all gone

When the smell of the rainwashed pavement
Comes up clean, and fresh, and cold
And the streetlamp light
Fills the gutter with gold

That’s my time of day.

~ Frank Loesser, My Time of Day (from Guys and Dolls)


In my most silenced and darkest waking hours, there is time to regather. With ambient light dimmed to crepuscular graininess, even the objects and structures in our midst emerge with softer edges. How are the pre-dawn hours so unlike those we call “late night?” Is there a zone of demarcation- like, say, 1 am? I find the noticeable significance when my awakening renews my alertness very early in the morning, before sunrise. Unlike a world-weary after-midnight wakefulness, my regained consciousness parallels hot water and soap, clean clothes and coffee. The windows are still blackened with night, and mirror my interior back to me. The world is still asleep. Muted sounds from my table radio, the sole permitted murmurs through the holy silence of the day that seems not to have started yet. There’s time, in these nascent hours, to reflect on the day passed and aspire to the one yet to form.

Yesterday’s newspaper sits on the dining table, rendered obsolete by the simple traversal of the night hours. At my desk, situated where I’d left them, my wallet, books, sweater, and writing things await. These inanimate objects in their respite, as the parked cars lined up outside at chilled ease- yet lingering with their owners’ residual imprint. What remains of us, when our instruments and habitations remain in our absence? Does your bicycle in the hallway, the notebook atop your desk, and your chairback-draped coat await only you? By the second cup of coffee, the grey light presents a black-and-white photo exterior. Perhaps in this essence of advancement there may be found the difference between the darkest hours before and after repose. More than a marking of time, it’s an alteration of perspective, the division between the winding-down of well-worn thought processes and the restarting of rested reasoning.

In these precious, slower, somber moments of the half-lit day, there is a sense of catching up with time’s pace, witnessing light’s increase. The scenery outside develops, reminiscent of images manifesting in darkroom processing trays. In the holy darkness, we do not wait in vain. These vigils recall creation, with light dividing the uncomprehending darkness. With such thresholds are new thoughts and reflections to accompany my routines through the work day’s structure and its daunting complexities. Such silent spaces are my Divine Hours, and the hushed darkness- those times of less apparent visibility- invite an expanse of inward roads.

I have never found myself begrudging the early-waking. The time seems to belong to me; it is uninterrupted and given gratefully to unstructured contemplation. Being awake is all there is to be concerned about. There is still time to dream. The slate is clear, hot coffee fresh, and the liminal gradations through dusk are navigated with certitude into light. As I learned in memorable wonder through my many monastic sojourns, from vigils and lauds the day silently emerges into being, and with the ensuing visibility a new admiration for the full sunlight that follows. Another set of very-early-morning memories rewinds my thoughts to junior high school years when I began to take to waking before 5am, hearing my Dad readying for work. We were both half-awake, he with his coffee and me with my cereal bowl, and the New York Times sports section before us. And cartoons. Sometimes, at the opposite end of especially prolific baseball days, we would go out walking after 11pm, to buy tomorrow’s Times. We were the vigilant and purposeful souls, awake before the rest of the block, save for- at least it seemed- the delivery trucks and Newsradio 88. This was the safest part of my adolescent day, and only now when thinking of it I realize the origin of all my good connotations and sensitivities attached to these hours.

Walking home last night, scaling the embankment along Pleasant Street, I remembered tracking those same sidewalks after groggy all-nighters in my studio at art college. During senior year, I worked a third shift in the dusty press room of the city newspaper, walking home to grind the ink off my forearms with abrasives. Of the divine darkness, there is no defined duration. Perhaps that cognizance of eventide remains with a soul, in varying degrees and times of day. Dionysius wrote how it is in this kind of lucent darkness that we long to be, “and through unsight and unknowledge to see and to know that which is above sight and knowledge, by very not seeing and not knowing.” About nine hundred years later, in the latter 14th century, there followed the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. Perhaps the symbolic cloud is as much a place of uncontrived comprehension as it is a shield to counteract what Dionysius called the “oversensible.” In silence and in sparing shreds of light, the soul may “be borne aloft to the superessential ray of divine darkness.” At this moment of writing, early in the morning, I am borne aloft by an unseeing sense of expectation. Not really rested, but as always a clean slate. Now writing of this gift, I become more aware of the ingredients with which each day begins.

drawing strength

"Look to God and be radiant;
Let your faces not be abashed.
This poor man called;
The Lord heard him,
And rescued him from all his distress."

~ Psalm 34

For those of us whose lives find their contexts in cold, northern climbs, we can undeniably acknowledge the unambiguous departure of winter. Without overt contrasts between interior and exterior temperatures, moving from place to place resumes an effortlessness and a lightness not experienced since last year. A new season invites new views, even in old places. New energies that result from surmounting transition are often counterweighted by the exhaustion of having made efforts needed in order to arrive safely in a new place- or a new mindset. Usually, by this time of the year, I retreat for a spell of days or weeks, and my clear response to this being long overdue is to find strings of hours to help offset my hunger for regathering time. By comparison, one might imagine periodic cups of coffee between sporadic meals, or the way many of us can just occasionally close our eyes during those draining flights and travels before finding that elusive soft bed. Endurance challenges our abilities and drive to sustain our physical paces, but also our spirits are put to the test. Caffeine can help keep me in motion, but with each day’s arrival I must continually draw from the source of faithful, confident trust. Tiredness need not mean disinterestedness, and of late I have witnessed the effects of societal factors that grind spirits right down.

Stopping for a moment to reflect, even if just for brief distant views of the big picture, I realize how many people’s eroded aspirations I listen to, in the course of an ordinary day. Sometimes I hear overt discouragement from those who speak candidly about their employment, the political process, their churches, or other struggles in their lives. Other times, disenchantments are unspoken yet pronouncedly evident, apparent between what is said and how the words are expressed. And for justifiable reasons. I feel the same things, too, catching myself under the weight of similar ineptitudes, spite, and carelessness everyone else notices, responds to, and carries with them. Counteracting such burdens takes some conscious perseverance. Although most times I am unaware of my vigilance against apathy, occasionally the concerted need for an infused effort surfaces. And as with any spiritual venture, antidotes come in forms such as friends and reflection. But to recognize diverting currents before they can poison cultivated ideals is a conscientious endeavor. Conscience is the voice of the soul, it is what Karl Barth described as, "the interpreter of life." When our forces and creative reserves run thin, or appear set back, we can conscientiously take stock of what is around us and within us, and proceed. Perhaps an incident which only you have noticed sticks with you, or that your voice is solitary in a figurative wilderness. But, still, you search your conscience and explore both the disenchantments and the gratitudes alike. In defining and delineating the source of an emotion, I am applying some of the approaches I’ve taught in art criticism: first determine the appeal of an image, and then follow by articulating the basis of my response. Through that discourse of asking and seeking, we can find an assuring sense of self-confidence that we will surely need when conscience must be our spark of celestial fire.

Perhaps it may also occur to you, as new strengths noticeably begin to undergird your words and actions, assumed limits consequently follow as dissipating banks of dense fog. More road becomes visible, and the landscape widens. Many presumed impossibilities start evolving as the attainable, in some form or another- shedding old preconceptions. Last week, I asked myself about my perceived limitations- outside of practical and material constraints. What outdated ideas and goals need to be challenged which had been long deemed out of reach? As we grow and advance, so must our expectations and hopes. Reflecting upon the concepts of what I expect- even the words "goals," "aims," and "success," though representing necessary practical matters, also attest to the lexicon of these times: "what can one amass for one’s own self-aggrandizement?"

Throughout the 1990s, and a bit since, I’ve had to sit through a lot of bulleted and powerpointed lists of whatever flavor or method or series of habits and steps promised to make for a better person and a more productive workplace. Everyone had to conjure up and declare an altruistic "mission statement." Even the company that sold me bicycle parts by mail made a mission statement. These are really shadows of motions, neatly wrapped with a bow, that essentially changed nothing. Formulas, apparently, are easier than to simply profess working together and respecting one another, and follow it up by solid implementation. If there had been an upshot, it was the way many launched from the empty words into thinking seriously about living life authentically, more deeply than the perfunctory verbiage. When aspirations come to mind these days, these are honestly more about what I hope to accomplish alongside those around me. If realizing how the small and sporadic measures of encouragement have been as rare gems to me, then it is for me to be respectfully encouraging to others. To do this well implies a real desire to understand, and that means letting go of limiting mental structures and universalizing my comprehension.


Drawing strength, I aspire to run the race without regret. Reaching forth in an open-ended progress requires that I challenge and refine my perspectives. Sufficient for the moment, while reflecting upon ways to conscientiously persevere and dislodging presumed limitations, I would like to reconsider long-used vantage points. In photography, part of the skill of compositional dynamics is to vary your angle of view. Try to portray your subject from differing trajectories, and not constantly view from the same standpoint or always the same distance. Surely, and for so many of us, writing allows for a variety of ways of observing- as does listening and participating in the world that is in our midst. In the search to see afresh in this new season, especially along the journal-writing road, I am reconsidering the lenses through which I’ve been looking back and writing my history. Of course, there are the historiographic elements of accuracy and genuineness, but that is just the foundation. Reflection, by nature, is a patient voyage without deadlines. Plumbing the depths of recovery, resurgence, and rebuilding after past times of loss and brokenness- finds its fulfilment in an abiding thirst for the spirit that traverses the waters of discovery into involvement. I ponder how it is possible to regard afresh- even without the excess baggage of memory.

The other night, after helping to serve a joyous meal to a group of very dear friends, I dreamt about two places from my past that- in the dream- were in adjoining rooms. (Of course, in real life, that would have been geographically impossible.) In the dream, I moved from the staff room of a studio in which I’d worked for many years- to the office I’d had at yet another job more recently- as if walking between two next-door spaces. Both were in notably egregious disarray. My presence was unnoticed in the hum of daily operations and ringing phones. In one of the rooms, while instinctively stopping to pick up some of the mess- I stopped myself and said, "Leave it alone; you don’t work here anymore. Just leave it be." The next morning, I mused about the imagery of the presence of my absence- and enjoyed the way I did not interfere with what had lost its relevance. It all left the same impression as that of turning a street corner and discovering the first flowers of spring.

belonging

"Love is our true destiny.
We do not find the meaning of life
by ourselves alone-
we find it with one another."

~ Thomas Merton, Love and Living


In this recollection, in this foraging for signals of grace through the season’s incessant and thick snowstorms, it becomes vital to revisit my purposes. Nature’s encroachment has a confronting beauty. Even if to remember that clouds of unknowing are part-and-parcel of the life of faith, and the key is to simply continue with a consistently hopeful and grateful spirit. Sowing and seeking compassion must be undaunted. Perhaps it is natural that when our steps fail us, we begin to look back. I am trying to transform that reflex into some kind of balance between a forward perspective and the search within, though it can occasionally send us back in time. If I am to plumb the depths of the soul I have journeyed these years with, I must dare to consider the volatile theme of belonging- one thread which has laced my days from earliest memory. It is a life theme. When absent, an anguish; when present, a sublime joy.


To be integral to something greater than our lone selves is a universal longing. In varying degrees, founded upon our earliest experiences, we desire the assurance of belonging. There is a strengthening comfort in knowing we are anticipated and accepted for nothing other than who we are. For some, "fitting in," implies more impact than for others, coexisting with a hungering for our own distinguished identities. At some point, just about all of us dressed and talked like our friends; we liked what each other liked, though we’d all claim our own unique style to our selves. My personal adventures, having been in such far-flung places and demographically diverse situations, all have contributed to a scrapbook life of savoury kindred and community experiences. Indeed, many of us can pause to notice layers of concentric circles of friends and colleagues. Many an academic workday has comprised nights of ESL volunteer teaching, with the next day involving a photo shoot, and the next day playing music in a church, with the next day taking to the road- or the air- to see more people in still more situations that I know. This has gone on for years. A perceptive friend once pointed out how amusing it can be to simply glance at one’s entire e-mailing address list, noticing all the names and the meandering ways we become a common reference point to a hodge-podge of individuals we can only imagine ever seeing all of them in the same banquet hall at the same time. An amusing thought. But, oh, how the soul longs for unity- and for recognition! We are created for community and we thrive when we are assured of our belonging, or our being as part of a boundless entirety.


In a life of opposites and paradoxes, belonging and exclusion are far more than vague concepts. These are powerful emotions connected to experiences, many of which are indelible still. It does surprise me, to think about how many childhood instances remain with me. These things, in the duration of their happening, had short-lived significance- and if any more than that, circumstances I simply wished to surmount. Getting through school, wishing to be anyplace else than where I was, escaping the grasps of gangs and thugs, or dreaming about leaving. Quite often it seemed the idea was to move on to the "bigger and better" things. I used to wish away my time, having been one of those kids who was mercilessly bullied without defense, and that had profoundly affected my view of life- always between acceptance and rejection, and always looking to some imagined destination. It took years to sort out these ingrained self-assessments, and the challenge occasionally amplified when I could recognize condoned workplace versions of schoolyard bullying. The relentlessly abusive production manager at a studio I worked for, echoed the aggression of muggers in the elevator of the high-rise project I lived in, during my grade-school years. During a misunderstanding in which I stood alone in my cause, it was as though I had been back in one of those summer camps, teased and maligned, suddenly tossed from the garden as it were. Being shunned by colleagues blurred into the shunning of my co-religionists and family when I embraced a new faith, and the gauntlet seemed to go on and back to the snarls aimed at the youngest, smallest, weakest kid in the class. Once, as a ten-year-old, I took an unwarranted thrashing from a bigger kid- and got sent to the school nurse, who turned out to be the kid’s mother. She did not know who had bloodied me, and when she told me who she was, I simply said that her son was a nice guy. Why I remember such things is beyond me.

Perhaps there is a cutting edge, when enough ostracism, disowning, rejection, and undercutting becomes a costly self-underestimation. Surely it has not all been negative, and the pendulum would often get pulled in the very opposite direction when I would find welcome company. And it has been, and remains, in many unrelated places, tastes of spiritual and intellectual kindredship. Part of its beauty is in its very unpredictability. If you treat everyone well, there is always an open door for something new to materialize. Then you can be the one who includes others. And when things descended to their very worst, and I had been certain that I walked this earth alone and unwanted, my steps brought me to the little sign along the path to the Weston Priory that reads, Know That You Are Welcome. There, on the first of countless pilgrimages, I began to pull the experiences of acceptance together with the nurture of an encouraging community, and build enough strength to begin applying all the good which had been shared with me. If it has been an odyssey to find where I most clearly sense that coveted attribute of belonging, I have been learning to gratefully recognize the fleeting situations and the companies of those among whom I find the deepest joy. When the inward cry of "where is home," is contrasted by the presence of compassionate friends, it is impossible not to connect the two scenarios. When we have had to navigate the darkness east of Eden, with some patience we can surely learn to savour the sunlight.


In his book, Love and Living, Thomas Merton adds, "We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love. And if this love is unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal itself, the message will never be decoded." Adding this to our equation, we may reconsider the impact of belonging, for us and those in our midst. If we embrace the call to belong*, then we see our role in the lives of those we meet who wish not to be islands unto themselves. (In this respectful context, nothing is to be enforced upon anyone.) So who makes the rules, anyway, about who "deserves" sympathy and respect, and who doesn’t? Who’s in the "club," and who’s out? Upon reflection, for those whose impressionable exclusions have forced themselves into self-imposed lives as outcasts, perhaps it is that we have the power to include ourselves into our own environments, and conversely to embrace those around us- those kindred souls each of us will invariably find- into our unique spheres. For me, it’s been helpful to think about the gold I have emerged with, through times of trial. And when I see those contrasts of rejection and belonging juxtaposed, my resolve is to continue being mindful of others’ circumstances, and to be sure to contribute positively to wherever I am. Time may not reliably heal, but it does shape our perspectives. And there is always that open-end, that beautiful way forward that is extended to us each day. This morning my thoughts were captivated by simply acknowledging the amazing mystery of not being able to fully know what I may be equipping myself for.

* Romans 1:5,6

chronos

“Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky;
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.”

~ Rumi, Quietness


There seems no end to the mystery and perplexity of the passage of time; at times grievous, at other times in reminiscence, still again in a wonder which evades words. We seem to think we can do things to manage time, to stop or accelerate, or slow down the advances of moments, hours, and years. Of course, we are well familiar with the increments against which our days are structured. At my place of work, there is a large grandfather clock, with the name “Regulator” engraved across its face, lending itself to plenty of irony. Lesser portions of days are irritable games of “beat the clock,” but with renewed perceptions the day balanced with obligations and unstructured moments develops into a sentient puzzle. As a child, I would muse about the meaning of the recollections of those around me, those elder voices explaining times past. Had “a long time ago” disappeared into a darkened lane, to be retrieved? Or as it turns out, is the retrieval only at our summons? And the witnesses of time’s advance do not always remain with us, and accompanying our cognizance of this reality we find ourselves witnesses of our own times.


Moments may become landmarks as tangible for us as any boldly-planted granite memorial. And perhaps, with that consideration, we may be the iconoclasts operating the demolition equipment. But we may also be the preservation historians. One which stays with me proved to be a turning point. When I was seventeen, it seemed opportune for one of my most loving elder family members to explain the harsh truths to me about what had happened during the Holocaust, and actually took me on walks to see the actual places in Paris that- for us- are landmarks. It was all so profoundly astonishing to me that, for days, it was very difficult to sleep. Among many thoughts I had been trying to fully comprehend, was that of time. Staring out from the balcony at midnight, above the darkened street in Montmartre, my evolving thoughts dwelt upon the idea that it was time that divided the perished lives of my own family- from mine at that present moment which suddenly occurred to me as a life spared. In my stupor, my thoughts turned to imagining the divide of some forty years between a hopeless, unimaginable, brutal end- and- the found realization of looking forward very freely. What can one do with these truths? As well, during those wakeful nights alone on the balcony, I would look up at the charcoal skies and, in my thoughts, ask “what is out there?” “Who is out there, and why am I spared?” And it was up and out to the same skies, but months later above the coast of Maine, that I began to entreat with the simplest prayers in my own unpresuming vernacular words.


We find ourselves inhabiting the context of our times, inherited- and occasionally also freely chosen by us. And when we can embrace our own direction, from our hearts and with the ingredients which have brought us to this very day, we know our spirits are unconstrained by the limitations of measure. Yes, with an apprehension of our own time’s landmarks we can see our paths as part of an immeasurable continuum. We know about the superimposed units of measure, but we cannot presume to determine the pace. When he began to create a summation of his experiential discoveries, the ancient apostle Peter went so far as to stipulate that if there was even one thing of which even the most bewildered- or the most knowledgeable- must not lose sight is that in the context of creation “a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.” With the illustration of extremes, the man who witnessed the Transfiguration assures the reader how the Divine is transcendent of time, “the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness, but is patient with you.” In that unpleasant habit of wishing away time, frustrated by what may appear to be a lack of progress, it’s easy to miss that many steps are unhastened for our own undetectable sakes. And thus it becomes possible to be reminded that places and situations may test the limits of our strivings, but is less essential than the very action of setting forth.

terra nova

"Mais la mort, ici, n'est qu'un indice. En christianisme, ce n'est pas la mort comme telle, c'est la résurrection du Christ et le monde nouveau ainsi inauguré, qui impliquent, à propos de la réalité, une véritable et indispensable conversion de point de vue."

~ frère Pierre-Yves Émery de Taizé, Le Souffle de l'Espérance


To feel the strength that new vision is enduring the tests of time and of the banality of the commonplace, is convincing me of its manifestation. Yesterday, I drove what we call the "airline road," which connects Bangor, Maine and New Brunswick, Canada. The nickname is due to the way that slick bending roadway rises, drops, and banks over scenery. Some of the views give an impression of being in the air, looking down at fields and water (but surely not as the above images of my approach to Iceland). I've driven the Airline Road many times, although with this recent adventure it all looked quite new, and somehow the grey backdrop of winter sky added a reassuring sense of serenity to all that was presented before me. Bare trees laden with ice were living black and white pictures. When I reached the Bay of Fundy, seeing evidence of extreme tidal movement demonstrated the certainty of change and the solidity of the ground upon which such transition takes place. As surely as morning after night, the spring tides will continue to bring the waters in close so as to immerse the land beyond the shore. Now that I have reached the new land, I can inhabit the new places with care and gratitude.


The landscape is familiar, yet different. I know enough to find my way, and yet the old Portland streets of my day-to-day reflect an evolving perspective. Is it what we see, or is it how we see that which is present to us? In a similar sense, there is a contrast between considering a statement like "things will never be the same" as something once having a connotation of fright, becoming an exciting prospect. Embracing the transitory aspects of living allows me to thrive in its very dynamism. Contrasts add dimension to our sight. Doubts and confidence coexist side-by-side. And so, if stress reveals the darker side of uncertainty, how shall I tread the trusting side of journeying into the unknown? Perhaps it is to root myself well in the terra nova, and to fully hope in what renews. I walk gently and solidly on this new land, with new steps. Hope is a correspondence between the present and the alighting future. Holding fast to hopefulness is showing me to die to discouragement, to release the grip on defeat. Often it has been the self-defeat of believing I will never be "good enough." But from whence comes the criteria? Truly, this voyage of advance can only happen in steps, and the movement proceeds at a pace I cannot predict. But my thirst leads me onward.

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.

landfall

"Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live:
And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live..."

~ Ezekiel, chapter 37

It is no longer a wait, but an arrival; not a longing for the irretrievable past, but a looking forward that centers on the present. What had been a dagger in my chest is now grazed cannon fire of which I have been spared. Yes, this is a new land, and my steps are just at the beginning- however I am tapping into strength that is profoundly rooted beneath these experiences. There is a rush in the air, and something wondrous is happening right at this moment.


Well before dawn I awoke, and from my window much of the results of last night's snow remains untouched and reflectant. The voices and faces of those who have blessed me with their presence fill my light recollections, and I want to honor them all with what I can make of this life given to me. These times are simply shadows of what is to come, and even if what embodies the now constitutes all I really have, the embracing of this moment gives way to confidence that can see beyond the confines of expectations and setbacks. I was sure I heard the double bolting of slammed doors, but now it appears the door may have been bolted only from the inside.

yet to be

“You will have nothing but love
Nothing but hope, blue sky above
You will find nothing but peace
Nothing but the sun shining on your face

When you open your eyes

You will feel nothing but free
Nothing but trust that's how it should be
And one who cares about nothing but you
Watching close by the whole night through

When you open your eyes.”


~Mike Oldfield, Nothing But


Indeed it is a gift not to be dismissed, to have the ability to see. Clear vision is an almost effortless ingenuity that allows us to recognize a situation and notice open doors and possibilities. For those whose perceptive skills are finely tuned, potential can be glaringly obvious. Conversely, visionaries have the added dilemma of respectfully comprehending those who, for their own reasons, cannot bring themselves to see what is good. Frequently, the limitation lies in forms of prejudice- an irrational unwillingness to acknowledge worthy promise. The prejudging can take on varying aspects of unchecked bigotry, as much as a constricting naïveté that has yet to be challenged. Still further, the formidable twin saboteurs known as apathy and lethargy serve as obstructions to clear sightedness.

A wise and trusted friend and I were talking about the two-edged gift of sensitivity. Amidst intense anguish, with a memory of how this culture frowns upon the sensitive and vulnerable, I denounced the worth of compassionate awareness. It all looked to me like a debilitating course of overconcern and so much more work than the average person should be subjected to assume. But the alternative state, that of insensitivity and neglect, is so much more detrimental to personal growth and to participation in this existence and in the lives of those around us, that one would find themselves in far worse of a disjointedness from this precious life through which we only travel once. My good friend pointed out that as much as those who are sensitive are open to the pains of rejection and misunderstanding, we are equally open to the sublime, to beauty, and to profound joy. The successive outworking is that we who choose not to be calloused and cynical are also those who freely and gratefully give.

leave the schoolyard

"When we were children,
we thought and reasoned
as children do.
But when we grew up,
we quit our childish ways."

~ 1 Corinthians 13:11


Growing up in the asphalt jungle of inner New York City amplifies the metaphor all the more. Schoolyards are nominal, hard-paved spaces between the school building and its neighbors: chain-link enclosed, inhospitable, littered, constraining. If indeed it really is our tendency to carry deeply ingrained childhood experiences into the collective mélange of our adult years, we may even find that we take some kind of twisted comfort in the familiarity of penned-in incarceration. Though known and seemingly safe, the vandalized schoolyard is the narrow world of irresponsibility which we must all outgrow.

Our school districts may graduate us, but truly we must each decide to graduate ourselves out of the confines of bullying, pettiness, and puerility. Such cultural phenomena as that which sees numerous individuals dragging their adolescence well into their grownup years demonstrates a bizarre pulling-behind of the schoolyard. The intersection of current and counterculture forces the choice between apathy versus awareness. The cutting edge is in the realization there are others around us in this world, and that our thoughts, words, and deeds actually have consequential effects on those whose lives we touch. But we can’t embrace this difference, this challenge to pursue an expanded life, until we boldly leave the schoolyard.

no insult like the truth

"First, there is the psychological conscience, which is better called consciousness. It reports to us the actions we perform. It is aware of them, and through them it is aware of itself. Second, there is our moral conscience, which tells us not only that we act, and how we act, but how well we act. It judges the value of our acts. The psychological and moral consciences are both faculties of the intelligence. They are two kinds of awareness of ourselves telling us what we really are."

~ Thomas Merton, Nul N'est Une Ile (No Man is an Island)

Taking a bold look at the big picture of real life- of reality- can remind us of our joys and consolations, and can also reveal that which is injurious and incorrigible. Nonetheless, the renewal of realistic perspective is the strong medicine that will help carry a person to the other side of despair and grief. Like prospectors who seek precious gems in mountains, while foraging through clay and rock and dirt, the stouthearted and diligent will discover the reflectant colors that shine out from the Pearls of Great Price.

When the contrast is struck enough times, between what is genuine and what is fool's gold, it becomes easier to distinguish all the love and cherished intention that surrounds me, from the impetuousness of intolerant rejection. Not enough of us know that ill will produces ill consequences. At times we are forced to accept the verdict of reducto ad absurdum, but there is still never a reason to resort to it ourselves.

conscience

"It is a monstrous thing to see in one heart at one and the same time this sensitiveness to trifles and this strange insensibility to the more important things. It is an incomprehensible spell, a supernatural slumber which indicates an all-powerful force as its cause... For when people choose to live thus in ignorance of what they are, without seeking enlightenment, their defense is that they 'do not know'."

~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées


Here, Pascal's terms are strong and seem even excessively harsh. But on second thought, matters of conscience become the principles by which we conduct our lives and perceive circumstances and the souls of other people- not to mention our own selves. It's the eye of the heart that looks out towards what we regard as the highest. A caring conscience sensitively seeks to walk without offense, lest it become seared by wounds and setbacks- and what is destructive in this culture. What I've found to maintain a sensitive yet solidly grounded conscience is the continual habit of openness of heart and mind, inside and out, to be educated and renewed. An openness to the divine, and to the hearts of people around me. This stands the tests of trials.

Now my considerable challenge is to face adversity without toxicity, to hold fast to the generosity of spirit by which I always wish to cultivate and offer, and to daringly aspire with peaceful resilience. Something as seemingly trivial as a short period of time to consider what is healthy and what is avoidable, as a self-examination, is actually a bold and compassionate progression in the direction of vitality and freedom.

this is no rehearsal; it's for real, and it happens once.

"Il y a ce qui nous tourmente plus qu'il n'est nécessaire, ce qui nous tourmente avant qu'il soit nécessaire, ce qui nous tourmente alors que ce n'est absolument pas nécessaire. Notre douleur, nous l'augmentons, nous l'anticipons, nous l'inventons."

Sénèque, Apprendre à vivre