substrata

"beneath the snow
beneath the dew
a seed planted in autumn
is growing through

a tiny leaf
below the grass
stretching upward
hasn’t had a chance
to be proven both
strong and true

within my heart
deep in my soul
a fire was started in winter
that cuts through the cold

a tiny flame
below the ice
reaching upward
hasn’t had a chance
to be proven both
strong and bold"

~ Vector, Watch Over Me, and I’ll Watch Over You


Early signs of spring, as the increasingly brighter light combines with bracing air and freezing temperatures, call to mind how struggle and transformation exist alongside each other. I can see how tiring the long winter has been for so many of us, and now there are tangible signs for us all to experience a general sense of catharsis. The sidewalks can almost all be trodden with normal and careless strides. During today’s mid-morning coffee break, a bit more weary than usual for a day so new, I remembered the all-nighters I’d work at my studio. Sunrises following sleepless vigils of hard work evoke the reprieving solace of late winter’s early thaw. The relief is not immediate, but its evidence is convincing. Beneath the frozen surface is promise, and even if the melting outer layers reveal last October’s dried leaves, its fullness is a harbinger of newness. Dormant life manifests from within the weakened crust that remains from past seasons- both physical and those of the heart.

Today, I remembered the fresh-start gesture of the New Year’s revelers who set a huge paper-shredder out on a sidewalk and invited the public to destroy written references to their regrets and misgivings. Though symbolic, the action represents a definitive discarding of the uninvited past. Now, fatigue, along with the scarcity of reflective time, makes for labored steps, it is still possible for me to see how lengthened light outpaces what has become irrelevance from past days. As with discarded words and directions, modest forays can set profound changes into motion. This time of the year provides us with images that attest to the mystery of renewal. Though exerted, the desire to recommence anew gives way for us to emerge from the shedding cloak of winter. Trust is at hand, and the day’s change from yesterday’s rhythm fuels a forward movement.

As natural elements change before us- and around us, these physical signs represent the mystery of transformation. The transition is gradual, and always recognizable. For me, this fascinating imagery becomes as sacred iconography, revealing otherwise concealed insights. Icons are often compared to windows, as the image subjects themselves have multiple levels, and like a window frame we can see through encompassing images into still more motifs. Further, as with photography, more careful observation reveals subtleties that are ordinarily hidden from passing glances. With our contemplative sense of sight, we can observe the questions we provisionally live with.

"Est autem fides sperandorum substantia,
rerum argumentum non apparentium."

These words of Paul, addressed to my ancestors the Mediterranean Hebrews (11:1), came to mind today, while pondering how we can comprehend through our inner stirrings. Surely, his poetic statement about the wonder of trust speaks across all generations and peoples. The context for so wondrous a definition of faith, "the substance of things hoped for, and the certainty of what we do not see," or what is not readily apparent, comes during a discourse about perseverance. We can all be patient to a degree, and amidst hardships, it can run thin. His paragraphs point to those lives have embodied steadfast trust. The Latin offers some vivid imagery: imagine a substantive argument for the unapparent. The words lend themselves, and our thoughts, to the essence of trust- as a cultivated gift of being able to interpret what is not concretely evident. Rather, this is the ability of perceiving the world, creation, the lives around ourselves, and events through eyes sensitized by faith.

By looking again at the long journey as the destination, while the months of tarnish melt away from the ground beneath me, levels and layers of raw, unflourished ground appear. In this season, it’s as though the earth has been sanded down to a surface that cannot be seen through autumn’s colors and summer’s density- or the deep snow, for that matter. March’s thin veneer brings to mind how real are the layered substrata we walk upon. Being mindful of what abides beyond the surface parallels a personal examination of conscience. The burgeoning season brings me to new vantage points, and indeed changed perspectives. Subtle modifications in living are indeed quiet changes, and though unlike pronounced crises, evolving perspectives are no of less effort. And beneath the surface is mystery, unknowing- yet fascinating and consoling. Renewal is a wonder, because it astonishes me to see how freshly we can start over and again- especially without the jadedness of what must melt away. Truly, a fresh start is one that is unfettered by cynicism and liberated from condemning.

If I am really living ever-renewing days, what changes have emerged from the depths of the surface? Being revivified means to live differently. For the past couple of weeks, my handwritten journal has been speckled with pencilled jots inquiring about what has changed. I’d try the question at different times of the day- alas always during fleeting breaks from work. Indeed, since the nature of reflective journaling is an evolving format, we can explore and revisit concepts, allowing them to develop. If we began with presumed conclusions, it would defeat the dynamism of the process. Contemplatives, in this culture, have to steer around society’s obsessions built around controlling outcomes. These days in reflection, I am only now realizing through conscious writing and reading, we can be the incarnation of our learning. Manifesting what one learns about, corresponds with how perception influences what we see and how we interpret the signs and images in our lives. Momentarily, the specifics of my own renewal are still elusive and, so far, can be articulated as changes in perception. A general, intuitive change in how I perceive, both what is living and what is non-sentient. Spiritual growth, or development, unfolds mysteries we can recognize, but it also seems there are always concealed truths we become aware of in a beautifully unspoken way. Continuing on, with just enough of what attests to a confidence unseen, may be considered an undramatic change. But gradual transformation is indeed silently noticeable- and perceptible in both our thoughts and how we communicate. Perhaps it suffices, even momentarily, to assert there has been a sea-change. Even amidst intense road weariness, I am certain of the voyage- with all its required rigors and the grace each stage of the journey offers.

incarnatus

"You are like the ticket-half
I find inside the pocket of
my old leaf-raking coat.
There all the time, all the while,
forgotten.
I so often seem to leave You
in churches
and other islands."

~ The Innocence Mission, Every Hour Here


What we now perceive may essentially be a discovery of what we have been gradually deriving from our travels. Our gleanings. Like the shells and pine cones on my dashboard. The jottings in my journal. This season draws another year to a close, or rather to the next chapter’s threshold. Daylight’s brevity is no longer a surprise; we are all used to it, now. Dark mornings are times to gather thoughts. While the holidays punctuate work schedules, magnetizing many to malls, I have been cherishing all the quiet I can find. A cursory glance at last year’s journals verify the enormous transitions of the eventful months since last Christmas. Perhaps appropriately, my thoughts turn to the idea of gifts. And surely, I had no such thoughts at this time last year. When I am unable to see what changes may have manifested, amidst the day’s immediacy, it is thankfully evident in the archival record of written musings. My gratitude for all my adventures of the concluding year is a wonder that is regenerating into a strength of hope.


There is a gift to be found in simply recognizing the value in each preceding step. Material gifts in themselves mean a great deal less to me than ever, not just because of a recent burdensome relocation, but also in my yearning for substantive simplicity. The less, the better; the humblest, the most meaningful. I find that I am re-defining the gifts I have known, be it through the eyes of a recipient or those of the giver. Increasingly, I’m giving gifts that I’ve made myself, as well as treasuring the written words, calls, and embraces (and home-made gifts) I receive. An emphasis upon honest purpose flies in the face of the fog bank of mass-media-driven consumerism, which attempts to convince us all that our lives are incomplete. Don’t buy it, friends. The sublime indescribable beckons so much more forcefully, though indeed subtly, than breakable plastic. The other evening, around the table, I asked each of my gathered friends for a word that came to mind, and collecting them, as one might with exotic postage stamps, I wrote them in my book. The savour of an occasion. Such gifts take on an enhanced significance: the sight of familiar faces, with the ecstatic greetings of friends. We give and gather acknowledgment of one another’s presence.


A lunch hour turned into a barrage of errands and forgettable things nearly forgotten. With a few moments to recharge, I stopped for coffee. The above picture attests to a serendipitous moment of reflection and a few vital tastes to balance a day which otherwise would not have afforded the chance to pause. Balancing time and spirit requires a deftness similar to that of composing a photographic image. All the forms cannot be weighted to one side, or to the center, at the expense of the sum total of the picture. Angle of view is as critical as the image’s contents. I like to think of Robert Capa’s adage that said, "if you’re not happy with your pictures, you need to get closer to your subjects." Defying my old tendency to skip meals in order to get things done, I stopped in the middle of a long road trip; the idea was to avoid arriving at my destination on an empty stomach- as usual. The looks of the little roadside diner in northern Vermont instantly produced a surprising appetite. And when the hospitable waitress set down the aromatic home-made meatloaf at my place, I set down my writing and suddenly saw a grand image for all the senses to absorb- from the bustle inside the tiny diner, to the snowstorm outside, to my table. Discreetly taking a quick photo (below), the waitress later asked if everything was all right. I assured her the meal was truly a thing of beauty. And it really was. From my place setting, fleeting beacons of sunlight interrupted the pensive gloom of winter. These graces may be quite commonplace- and though they know no calendar days, they are no less rarified to behold.

It is possible to see a renewed way of perception has taken root, when there is an emphasis on the interconnection and interrelation in a life as diversified and eclectic as mine. And it is for me to notice those connections, allowing them to influence one another and add the color of cultivated vision. On a given day, for example, I’ve witnessed a common thread tie together something I read, with something my landlady said on my way out the door, with something an old friend told me on the street later that day, with yet more random thoughts the janitor at work told me that evening. The raw ingredients are for us to discern; we become the editors of connected events from fascinatingly unrelated sources. If we are awake enough to distinguish one day from another, we may surely embody our own evolvement, and recognize the passage of time as a renewing gift. Somehow, through barricades "inclosing all paths with hewn stone," the anguished and tortured Jeremiah found enough shreds of light to remember that so long as he was alive and breathing there was mercy. The verbal ocean of severity he composed, in the Lamentations, is ironically the source of the phrase, "great is Your faithfulness."


At times during which stagnation seemed certain, I had been unaware of what had been forming beneath the visible surface. Revised perceptions inform us that we are awake. And how we perceive the benevolence in our lives, humble as it may be, does attest to how our tastes- and even our spirituality has begun to evolve. A paradox comes to mind, which finds the seemingly lowly as greatly exalted in one’s heart. Our heart’s desires also develop, as do our wishes for one another. And for me, it is to be something of a tabula rasa- as much as possible. All transitions challenge us, even the ones that present new gifts to our lives. Even the positive changes ask our time for adjustment. Keeping perspective in the mixture of frustration, trepidation, homesickness- and- yes, excitement. And somehow, in the midst of this mélange, is a detachment that inspires an odd, gripless strength. It seems that with less to hold on to, there are fewer tangible reasons to tempt me to look back. With less grasp, there is an expanse of an embrace for others, and for what is both now and shall become.

sur la terre comme au ciel

"When the little prince arrived on the Earth, he was very much surprised not to see any people.
He was beginning to be afraid he had come to the wrong planet, when a coil of gold, the color of the moonlight, flashed across the sand. ‘Good evening,’ said the little prince courteously. ‘Good evening,’ said the snake. ‘What planet is this on which I have come down?’ asked the little prince. ‘This is the Earth; this is Africa,’ the snake answered. ‘Ah! Then there are no people on the Earth?’ ‘This is the desert. There are no people in the desert. The Earth is large,’ said the snake.

The little prince sat down on a stone, and raised his eyes toward the sky. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again... Look at my planet. It is right there above us. But how far away it is!’"


~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (ch XVII)


Writing a one-sided commentary on the topic of paradox is itself an ironic contradiction. But it’s surely worth a try (or two), especially as the unconscious becomes conscious and as life’s complexities that purport to run in opposites actually manifest in an unspoken unity. So, here is at least a first attempt. Surely, part of what happily liberates those of us who write alongside our days is the simple criterion that some matter must occupy our thoughts enough to warrant writing about it. Thus far, I have found that articulating the unspoken gives way to new awareness, rather than spoil any gained momentum of thought. The beginning of a change is sparked at the moment we notice something.

Rich Mullins, whose songs had a startling sense of raw poetry, had a song called, "We Are Not As Strong as We Think We Are," in which he observed, "we are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made." These lyrics come to mind, when considering such entwined paradoxical ideas as weakness and strength, provisional and eternal, with proximity and distance. Mullins’ refrain concludes with,

"Forged in the fires of human passion
Choking on the fumes of selfish rage
And with these our hells and our heavens
So few inches apart
We must be awfully small
And not as strong as we think we are."

It’s been pointed out to me, over the years, that I live between worlds. In art school, I heard numerous comments about my work and the ways I see the world, straddling ideas and ages. Being repulsed by all that "artspeak" all of us who endured art college had to put up with, I just ignored all the clichés alike. My classmates who fell for such trends as the oversized fields of empty space, the grainy hip-shots, or the shaky strobe look, would offer their insults at my sun-printed kallitypes and quiet reportages. There is, indeed, a fine line between perseverance and stubbornness. Later on, gladly leaving college behind, I had the experience of producing high-tech color composites to pay the bills, then turn around and continue exhibiting my monochromatic meditations. And there was some respect! However, beyond the morass of triteness, following years of experience and changed life circumstances there emerged some truth in this notion of drawing worlds and paradoxical ideas together in one modest life. Many have pointed this out and now I realize some validity, especially as I make note of life’s complexities. And in this terra nova to which my journey finds myself, this time is one of taking stock.


Living between worlds causes me to think of how I’ve never quite fit squarely into any one camp. And perhaps I don’t wish to any more. Those of us who have lived with having been branded as "odd," eluding typecasts, and thus frequently left out of the mainstream (and how that can torture a defenseless child’s soul!), might prefer instead to exult in the kind of eclecticism that frees an individual to weave a range of influences and connections. There is a fulfilling enjoyment in applying the knowledge and background of one side of life and work into another; it becomes possible to relate the unrelated. Why not bring an artist’s intuition to academia, or poetic sense to technology- or reciprocally a logician’s sense to creative processes? If someone notices my use of one lexicon (say, musical lyrics, or sports, or philosophy) interpolated into the verbiage or methodology of another (say, computers, or cooking, or classification), the opportunities for creative kindredship are really quite endless. In fact, you really know you are ever "between worlds," when it happens as a matter of course and your friends are the ones who notice it.


Eclecticism may be noticed when our vision manifests by our actions, but when life between worlds is profoundly at our core, we can see how many facets have shaped who we have become. For my part, I ponder how I inherited stories and traits from various forbears, but have lived an immigrant’s experience of my own. How I moved from ancestral religion to a personal faith, and what enormous cost I endured. Never squarely in one camp or another. European and American; old world and new world. Between community life and solitude, sorrow and hilarity, material culture and spirituality, the temporal and the eternal. What is engraved in granite, and what is sketched in graphite. To connect and to watchfully stand fast; to strive and then to surrender. My comprehension of hopefulness is to seek "third ways," away from intolerant extremes. Having to reluctantly participate in this culture of competition, my compromise is to not be overrun by it, trying to keep a view of what is sacred and timeless amidst such harsh materialism. Articulated so well by the apostle Paul, it’s not "a struggle against flesh and blood,*" which is to say material limitations, but essentially the challenge is to contend with what darkens our paths (les ténèbres de ce siècle).

And being a true eclectic, my paths have been those of pilgrimage voyaging, and searching for the stability of home. There are very few things in life I have consistently cherished more than a heartfelt sense of belonging. It is one of those threads that for me has neither beginning nor end. Little tastes, here and there, of the rarified solace of belonging brought my hungered search to the fore. Place can be both physical and spiritual. Suddenly, during a protracted spell of grieving and desolation, I surprisingly found myself strongly rooted to the place I live. The beginning of coming back to life came in to the form of investing heavily in my city. During that time on a long stay of several weeks in Chicago, when I looked at moving there, I hurried back to Maine homesick, and finding my car at the Portland airport instead of driving home I went directly to the ocean and climbed out on a big seaweed-covered rock. The salty, swirling waves welcomed me at my perch like a big savory soup. In a profoundly definitive way I knew where I was meant to live. Far from where my family had gone, but home where I belong; what a strange and deeply intuitive feeling.


Then there is the kind of belonging which is that of the heart. Certainly, reflections and essays can be devoted to this one concept. Once again, for those who have intimately known exclusion or neglect- benign as that may be- the yearning to belong has a fire that flares in both the presence and the absence of belonging. It is a desire to be embraced by the heart of another, to be recognized among peers, and to tangibly see divine promises we hold dear. Yes, there is the strength of faith, but yes indeed I want to see, too. Rich Mullins said it best, indeed "we are not as strong as we think we are." Fine enough, and so to ponder the value of articulating the paradoxes illustrated in this continuum between worlds? For the moment it suffices to try to understand my own self, and be an understanding presence to others. The savour of the home I seek is the compassion I wish to embody.





* Ephesians 6:12

libera nos, Domine

“Crash me, wash me up on your shore,
Drifted way too far from my moorings and more.
Overboard the oars went,
Relentless was the roll.
Of the restless sea set me free
from its treacherous shoals.
Don’t let me go.”

~ Mike Roe, The Boat Ashore

The desire to move forward, and not look back, is vital to the energy of persevering in this voyage of hope. Longing can be for what irretrievably was, or for what we hindsightedly wish had been, but indeed also a palpable yearning for what can be. The language of physical movement, of navigating between the known and terra incognita, is entirely applicable to the interior life- the life from within that aspires to manifest in the open air. For me it is a determination toward continuous renewal, as the very antithesis of how past discouragements become insidious snares on the paths of trust. Along the way, I have witnessed the hopeless consequences of how the present can be darkened and dictated by past setbacks. To acknowledge the outward gifts encompassing the life given to me, the inner life must be ever cultivated- even to the extent that when presented with the option to look back, I will choose the vision of the future enlightening this day. Such vision yearns to be applied, in every situation.

Living in a world of opposites, part of the vigilance for renewal is an abhorrence for what fetters the soul. While we remind one another to look up and look ahead, we are attesting to the fact that regrets constitute a drain to the best potential of our energies. Now to really internalize perseverance! And certainly our history is for us to inform, but not to burden. The old consolation in sports of “wait ‘til next year,” exemplifies ameliorating what didn’t work (wishing not to repeat errors) and transforming past defeats into confidence. Red Sox fans will consume New England winters with such discussions, effectively tapping into the stuff that makes for great philosophers and historians. We become skilled at nurturing cynicism, but do we dare to embrace our hopes fulfilled? Will we give ourselves to a knowing hope that we will see realized? It means audaciously looking at reality in the light of mercy that comes from beyond ourselves.


Comprehending what is past and trusting there really is a promising future, represents the balance of contrasts we embody. A wise friend, who has given me invaluable advice, offered the metaphor of returning to the ruins of the burned-down building and exhuming the treasures worth saving. Wishing to be unfettered by discouragement and old baggage is balanced by the desire to hold on to what is hopeful. While I am training myself not to capitulate to self-defeat and old condemning judgments, alongside that is the balm of recollection reminding me of what liberates and encourages. For Saint Paul it was a struggle he described as warring factions within, between delight in his discoveries against the captivities of what weighed him down*. The past is gone. I want to release and to hold on, as I embrace and begin to believe in the embrace that is given to me. It is the paradox of unbinding one side of life, while espousing inestimable promise.


These steps and strides are willful. In the midst of this society’s distracting noise, such paces can be silences. The counter-balance of proving grounds in this overtly competitive world, is to recall that assuring spirit which frees us from fear, from imagining there is some need for us to pretend we are more than our intrinsic selves. If hope is essential to trust, then surely our reminders to one another of the freedom from fear is integral to being unburdened from defeatism. Within that acceptance is the release of an expectation that my pace won’t still comprise fits and starts. Participating can be actively at the center of life, and at other times our actions become listening and observing. For me to actively participate, it has been vital to occasionally retreat to lonely places- even briefly- and listen to the heart’s depths which can so easily be overwhelmed. Yesterday while speaking to a group and alluding to this vital balance, I offered that we need times for reading, so as to provide for times of writing.

_____
*Romans 7:22, 23.