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.

hiraeth

"What is longing made from?
What cloth is put into it
That is does not wear out with use?

Gold wears out, and silver wears out,
Velvet wears out, and silk wears out,
Yet longing does not wear out.

The moon rises and the sun rises,
The sea rises in vast waves,
But longing never rises from the heart."


~ Welsh poem, 17th century

The ancient language of Wales has given the world its poetic language, including the word hiraeth* which roughly translates as an abiding sense of longing. Not simply a momentary yearning, but to the strength of a sort of homesick longing. Something that is intrinsic to the human spirit. Martin Lloyd-Jones used the word to refer to a consciousness of one being out of their home place and that which is dear to them; he equated this hiraeth to a soul’s yearning for the Divine. And in that context, Saint Augustine’s legendarily penitent restless heart looks more to me like a heart longing for a home place of recognition and acceptance. Home can tangibly manifest as a knowing and unconditional embrace, even more profoundly than as an edifice of bricks and mortar. We long for signs that we belong.


Light sources and shadows live noticeably side by side. When I have endured crises of traumatic loss, the longing followed later, after the stabilization of survival with a quieter yearning to regain my sense of self. But indeed, when what we imagine as our selves has broken to its foundations, the yearning desire is to rebuild- but indeed the new structure will not be the same. It takes time to believe the new will be better. Of course, there need not be crises to set off a profound sense of longing. There can be simple reminders, and such insights are well worth our attention. Longing for the familiarity of home, especially when far away from those reassurances for extended periods of time. One afternoon, during a sojourn in Paris, my customary long walk along the Seine caused me to notice the absence of the salt aroma of the Maine coast. My adventures along the Great Lakes were wanting for the deep dark blue of Casco Bay. More overtly, I recall being aboard an eastbound, cross-country Amtrak train reaching the Berkshire Mountains. A man stood up and began regaling nearby passengers about his home town, with a hiraeth worthy of the Welsh definition, but with an eastern Massachusetts accent thick enough to place him in Dorchester or Southie. He was pronouncedly homesick. It was all really entertaining (especially the anecdotes about his favorite bar), and it seemed to syphon off some of my own sense of displacement. All it seemed to take was for the Lake Shore Limited to transition from the flat Midwest by barreling across the Housatonic River.


Finding ourselves far from home, and far from those who recognize us, will set off longings we may had forgotten about. Distances may be geographic, and they may be metaphorical. Reminders can be subtle, but what they reveal comes with a tenacity that can span many years, even to childhood. A profound sense of disenfranchisement and disregard that I knew as an adolescent brought its tiresome residue into adulthood. Having endured harshness so many years ago- surely enough years for anything to lose its strength and worth- challenges us to choose to treat ourselves with the gentle compassion by which our hearts and souls were created, in order to retrain the mind away from cataloguing and maintaining regrets. Loss and absence can provide the crossroads of our vision. One evening, a few years ago, I had been awarded an extraordinary honor at a special reception. Many of my friends and students were there, but during the drive home I glanced at the inscribed plaque on the passenger seat, and powerfully felt the absence of my parents- not just then and there, but for nearly all of my years. Along the road that night after eating and enjoying, in my good clothes and hearing my gold watch chain whenever I turned with the contours of Route 302, it became vital to enjoin myself to remember who was there, and my own profound gratitude. We must recollect what confirms to us that we belong- especially that which transcends our titles and trappings. Our friendships, our soul’s kindredships, have the potential to be the witnesses our lives long to have; and I am certainly part of the reciprocal. By caring, we instantly become earthly signs of grace, drawing from sources that far precede and exceed us. A very wise friend once reminded me to “treat yourself the way you treat your friends,” and I have never forgotten that gentle admonition.


How we long for a communion that will reinforce and confirm us! Reassurance comes to us in the forms we are best able to comprehend, and can be thankfully unpredictable (unconfined by our finite notions). And then our longings are reciprocated. “The assiduous heart is an open door,” wrote Saint Mark the Ascetic, in The Philokalia. Our souls’ yearnings, the prayers of the heart, can be catalysts that turn our embrace toward the present, giving a renewed sense of what is yet ahead of us. Such thirst for authenticity of spirit keeps us from standing still, quite like Augustine’s aggrieved and restless heart motivated him to reach for a place of peaceful abiding. But our hearts’ desires are surely meant to be answered, and when that happens we can surely rejoice and be strengthened in our hopes and the hope we are for others. Truly we temporarily can only know in part, but it is well worth looking ahead to the time we will know even as we have always been known. Such longings founded upon our faith bring us to risk everything in order to gain everything. Thomas Merton called it “gambling on the invisible.” Merton wrote, “we have to risk all we can see and taste and feel, but we know the risk is worth it, because there is nothing secure in the transient world.” Steadfast love is the good investment, the treasure compounded in heaven, and a worthy risk. I have seen the forward steps of trusting faith as embodying the very opposite of cowardice. Hesitation represents a fearful clinging to what anchors us to the temporal trappings of this world, and such hesitating will cloud what dynamic hope- even our heart’s deepest longings- can clarify.

___
* rhymes with "clear scythe"

keep watch, take heart

"Be watchful as you travel each day the narrow but joyous and exhilarating road of the mind, keeping your attentiveness humbly in your heart."

~ St. Hesychios, On Watchfulness, in The Philokalia

The past few days of traveling to my teaching assignments have provided opportunities for me to take to some rural roads and have more views of this new season. The new growth on awakened trees is catching up with the now well-established lengthened days of bright light. A turn in the road can reveal sudden sweeping views of great distances, and such realizations bring to mind a consolation similar to that which I’ve experienced on mountain hiking travels. Consoling, because it is possible to see the vastness of this world, thus contrasting how anxious thoughts can close in upon an individual. References to the splendor within which I participate- be it among friends, or the wider society of community, or even the seeming anonymity of being one among a great many- brings comfort to my heart. It is part of the mystery of belonging. And from that sense of solace comes the idea of watchfulness as essential to maintaining a sense of the present.

When left in the abstract, descriptive words are left lifeless; they must be animated by a spirit of application and specificity. To be watchful is for me to turn and return to that vital perspective of being the observing presence behind my thoughts and emotions. It is to keep vigil, from my depths, and find, as Hesychios wrote in the ancient compendium, The Philokalia, "the stillness in which the heart can breathe and invoke." Stillness refers to the discipline of freeing the heart from excessive thought, especially that of the past. As the outdated is superceded, all things do become new. I am finding that to be watchful is to sustain an alertness- not a grasping, anxious wariness- but simple remembrances of being aware and conscious of life within and around me. Not as it may have been, or should have been, but as it is now. And from that watchful perspective, ways to possibilities open up and out.


Having experienced measures of how the mind can be retrained and the spirit renewed, it is ostensibly confirmed to me that a new nature coincides with putting off what clouds the pursuit of authenticity. Part of this learning causes me to accept the essence of patience in the process. At first, the brilliance of something new engenders an impatience for all processes to accelerate! But I’ll have to accept that any forward motion is good movement, whether it is on an open highway or in dense traffic. Putting on the new nature is requiring a balance of determination and adaptation, and thus a watchfulness without unusual effort ensues. Far from passive, for consciousness to become "second nature" it is both observance and application, both keeping vigil and participating. Thomas Merton expressed a contemplation within a world of action, describing the renunciation of our limited ego-selves, and "entering into a whole new kind of existence, discovering an inner center of motivation and love which makes us see ourselves and everything else in an entirely new light." Such balance is possible, and I have already known this when all that each moment simply comprises starts with everything that is before me. I’ve especially lived this perspective when I’ve realized my context as one person aware of being among many others. A humble component in an eternity’s expanse. I live not only for my self. With such vision, self-transcendence opens up to new capacities.

graphite height

"I hope you are on your rooftop now,
in the sun, in the middle of five hundred flowers,
and the warm wind blows your scarf around,
flying like a flag.
I hope you are on your rooftop now."

~ The Innocence Mission, Rooftop.


For me to believe this new perspective is not a passing fancy, I have found it necessary for to test the new vision over these recent months. Rather like a rigorous road-test, I’ve needed to cover the range of weather conditions and countless miles of terrain, continually inspecting and tuning. Having but a mustard seed’s worth of faith can be exhausting, and some healthy diversions have been helpful counterbalances. Such as landscape-varying travels, retreats- and- visits to the Boston Athenaeum. Indeed, on a fine day off, I’ll make for a philologist’s Eden filled with ancient books, prints, archives, and sculptures. There is always something to learn, some 19th century French book that hasn’t been borrowed since 1930, and hidden mazes of shelves still to be explored. On the first of May, they open out their rooftop area, and it becomes the finest of reflective perches. This had been a thinking place for the likes of Emerson and Thoreau. Good enough for me. A change of scenery is useful as a departure from a changing perspective. Departing in the sense of moving away from emphasizing transition, as it seemed to be necessary for some time.


With new eyes there is still transition, but of a less abrupt, reflective kind I cannot yet articulate. After identifying so closely with losses and struggles over a period of years, my identity then became enwrapped in a recovering quest. From there, in the past year I have worked at a sincere renewal, and for a time such intense focus has been necessary. Now it’s a bit ironic to notice how I seem to require a lot of convincing evidence to believe things really are changing, and changing for the better. Indeed, the wish for change takes a great deal less time than enacting the new ways and living with them! And further still, a new vision requires vigilant mindfulness with a commitment to adventurous processes of moving from the stagnancy of dead ends to discovering a capacity for joy and wonder. Have you ever had a substantial conversation with a friend, perhaps with a good long walk, during which you’ve lost track of your abiding miseries? Somehow the here-and-now of the visit with your friend throws enough light on your path that you wind up reminding yourself about what was wrong, because the sorrow begins to look as temporal as the sudden consolation. If faith is the opposite of fear, then surely wonder must be the antidote for despair; and my gratitude only intensifies for such compassionate friends whose words and gestures point out the choices that manifest at the crossroads of despair and wonder. Such experiences allow me to do this for others.


Living a mutual availability does risk burning-out, and that adds great importance to identifying the sources in our lives. In my experience, an oasis is a place or situation with reminders of hopeful direction to propel us on our way. Oases are also transcendent of the limits of place, though there can be an attachment to place, as well as the consolation of a familiar embrace or a gentle voice. Realizing I can’t always be out on the roof of the Boston Athenaeum, or in its hallowed reading rooms, there is certainly the neighborly café near my employment, and other such consoling perches along the ocean. Years ago, a colleague referred to my love of Kettle Cove with the observation, "there’s nothing like having a reference point on the globe." Those kindred souls who witness our lives (and we recognize theirs) are vital sources of encouragement and belonging. Inevitably, knowing the vivacity of encouragement, the wellspring of spiritual life beckons me to seek to be an oasis in its endlessly creative forms.


Ambitions are meant to evolve alongside our development. The provisional has a dynamism all its own, and this is a time "between" dreams. New hopes send our lives into new directions, and they are cultivated and refined as our life situations change. Trepidation has run its weary course, and the open-endedness of my days carries an abiding excitement along with it.

émerveillement

"et ascendet sicut virgultum coram eo et sicut radix de terra sitienti non est species ei neque decor et vidimus eum et non erat aspectus et desideravimus eum."

~ Isaiah 53 : 2

It’s easy to accept the concept that we cannot predict the details of future events. We can make our plans, and our places of employment will prudently assemble five-year strategic timetables- most of which will be eventually implemented. But, indeed, our best may be set forth up against numerous variables. Inevitably, it is mutual and wholehearted vigilance that is assured a future, however not all the details can possibly be known by mortals like us. Wrapped up in faithful forward-motion is the essence of confident trust. It’s a looking ahead, even without knowing each length of road.


Almost similarly, we cannot always see our spiritual beginnings. Effects emerge above the surfaces of our complex lives, but causes require a closer look- and the search for how things manifest in our lives may take demanding and expeditionary searching. "How late I came to love you," exclaimed Augustine, in the 4th century. "O beauty so ancient and fresh, how late I came to love you! You were within me, while I had gone outside to seek you... Always you were with me, and I was not with you," he continued in his memoir The Confessions. And so the beginnings, the antecedents of our realized thoughts are the roots which are as captivatingly perplexing to me as they were for the ancient Augustine. Isaiah, from the 8th century B.C., used the marvelous metaphor (in the above quote) of the root sending a tender plant up through the dry and thirsty ground. Of course, Isaiah is pointing to something majestic and eternal, but yet from a most un-spectacular and common beginning, adding there was nothing about an emerging seedling that would cause us to pay special notice.


But truly, how fascinating- especially at this season of life- to notice the ordinary eloquence of those tender green shoots manifesting out of the dormant ground and from embrittled trees. These are resounding signs of hope, of the spark of life whose renewal does not grow weary. The literary character, The Little Prince made the astute remark that "what makes the desert beautiful is that it hides a well." For me it is a wonder, a marvel, to watch the renewal of life- not only from a dormancy, but from brokenness. The desert indeed hides a wellspring, and it is a bottomless fount of creative love, and reveals itself as a delicate seedling that is both barely noticeable and also undergirded by far-reaching networks of perennial roots.


Recent years have been the ground upon which I have learned much about the way our crises can be the ferments that fall to thirsty soil below. Even the word crisis is itself a fascination, implying turning-points that demand regathering and confrontation in order to recover. Of course these analyses are only admissible after the recovery. The nature of crisis is an unknowing beyond the precarious point of immediacy. Similarly, traces of the origins of our ideas become more evident when we begin to bring abstract concepts to solid results like works of art or work projects. Then we can look back- just enough. How well I recall anguished times through which my closest friends would assure me of the future fruits of all my tears. Looking back, the sure but unbeknownst signs of hope came in the forms of listening friends. When my own home was too much to tolerate, there were other welcoming kitchens and sitting-rooms. One friend forced me to sit outdoors and look straight up to the sky, instead of down at the ground. Others would ask me what I ate that day, and still others would share their stories with me, enabling me to recognize the complexities of their lives. But over and again I learn the moment we dwell in at this very instant is what we truly possess, and it is the place of action and change.


Whether or not I saw, but failed to realize, or caught sounds and hadn’t completely listened, indeed when the grain of wheat falls to the ground and does not surrender its life, it remains solitary. But in the cessation of seeking its own advantage, the grain germinates and bears fruit from a place of profound rootedness. The evidence of spring’s reality comes so late in northern New England, and that makes for an abrupt, celebrated arrival. Something new, let alone something both new and good, can take time to embrace into our days. And perhaps along with the tangible signs of encouragement that we all need for the journey, our wonderment itself may be the most assuring of signs.

lumière intérieure

"No limit can be set on our progress towards God: first because no limitation can be put upon the beautiful, and secondly because the increase in our desire for the beautiful cannot be stopped by any sense of satisfaction."

~ Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses

When my journeying steps began to comprise movements within, I first thought my own heart to be a small, closed-in chamber of limitations. But then, in the monastic silence in Taizé, my experiences of physical travels were paralleled by descent to inner depths of which I had not been completely aware. The human heart and its longings need not have any limits, and boundaries dissolve with an attachment to the Divine. Strength seems best unforeseen, and I find this both when old rugged assumptions get thwarted, as well as when I am joyfully surprised by what I did not dare to expect. Even looking back at outdated unfortunate experiences of betrayal and incomprehensible misunderstandings, it is pleasing to consider the newer, stronger desire not to view any person as an enemy. Better still, to challenge myself to refrain from the very idea of labeling. I receive others' graciousness with immense gratitude of my own. The disproving moments are a wonder to me.


By discovering how the life of pilgrimage thrives beneath the visible surface, deep into the heart, from within I venture out. From those hidden inner spaces within which my soul can hear the Spirit, there is an emergence outward to the expanse of living. But surely the naïvété that presumes one simple solution for all problems is long past. We all know how trust is earned and then frequently tried even after proven. We need to grow to trusting faith, and through the winter I found how gradual my own sense of trust can be- whether to others or to my own self. Perhaps overly gradual. With strength those hesitations will be transformed, but indeed a sincere and bold transcendence is not a sugar-coated fantasy. More enduring than unreality, the new course steers into a sea of reconciliation, and it is now for me to emerge from the pettiness of self-burial in my self-centered perceived setbacks. Further to rise up from those existential anxieties that fictionally portray what is temporally set before me as all there ever will be in life. Still further, to leave behind such deceiving notions that draw me to believe my value as a human is determined by the flawed judgments of inexperienced people. Finally, to quit the defeatism implying that life's journey intrinsically deteriorates with the passage of time.


Being lit from within, a realistic courage stokes an enduring ember. The challenge to be vigilant is well worthwhile, and is becoming increasingly effortless. But truly the nature of vigilance is that of awareness, of conscious recollection and a necessary remembrance of what I left behind. All the while the journey turns in the direction of renewed hopes. If I found out how discouragement drains out strength, right at the juncture between defeat and hopefulness, indeed it is peaceful abiding that nurtures confident vision. The tomb is empty, and the ethos of defeatism must be deemed unacceptable. To be realistically resolute is to comprehend the verity that although obstacles are inevitable that is still not enough reason to give up to encroaching currents of cynicism. Such opposites dwelling side-by-side strike an astounding contrast, yet the soul can thrive by reaching right through the encrusted barricades of apathy, and toward the limitless.

aspiration

"New styles
New shapes
New modes, that's the role my passion takes
Oh, my visage

Visuals, magazines, reflex styles
Past, future, in extreme

Oh, my visage."

~ Midge Ure, Visage

A moment's pause, to record some thoughts. New starts are sweeter for seasoned souls. With enough winters to not forget years of experiences, I am far more aware of the grace of new beginnings. When we are able to pause from our day and recollect, it becomes clear as to what it has taken to reach this moment. And it isn't so much the "summits" that I can appreciate, but the numerous paths and way-stations unbeknownst to me without stopping to ponder.


And so, between sojourns and goals, I can distinguish my aspirations- and then pursue them. Wishing, and working hard at achievement is the honourable start, but the followthrough, the movement generated by inspiration, comprises the tangible difference that we, and those around us, can see. While running some errands today in the city, I was remembering a talented Boston Bruins forward, who had all the extraordinary skills it took to manoeuver the puck far into the opposing team's side, dodging and skating around practically anything- but- rarely able to actually take that decisive shot to the net. I'd be among the crazed fans, all of us on our feet, waiting for this player to shoot- only to watch the almost-goals batted away by gathered opponents. This player (perhaps a bit unfairly) sometimes comes to mind as a kind of caricature, representing the embodiment of skills without the completion of followthrough. I've become increasingly mindful of the vitality of continuance after contemplating and seeing something through.


All of which brings me to draw the breath of pause, in order to see the "big view." Today, I sat outside a café, and pronouncedly felt the caress of sea breezes. That was more important than writing. Suddenly having a longer view, though exhausted and rejuvenating, I am still finding the will to persevere and continue on. About the contemplative life, Thomas Merton once wrote about how he was perfectly content to consider himself a beginner and to view himself afresh as one who knew little or nothing of the climate of contemplation. I am now seeing how far I have traveled, and at last the momentum is surpassing the road-weariness. In time new strength will follow new strength.

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.

le feu qui ne s’éteint jamais

"Prisoner of the dark sky
The propeller blades are still...

Climbing out - climbing climbing
Five miles out - climbing climbing

Five miles out
Just hold your heading true
Got to get your finest out
Your number one anticipating you"


~ Mike Oldfield, Five Miles Out

My traversals of lands and waters, the known and the unknown, through deserts of crowds and solitude, have brought my steps well into this new habitation. I had been eager for the shock of the new to wear itself into the din of daily chores. And yet, even with tangible signs of living hope, I cannot completely refrain from looking back. It does happen, though with less frequency. There is still more area to cover. At times, the faith my friends notice is more a lack thereof, but strength notwithstanding- it is faith indeed. Like the biblical Thomas, I say tangible signs are certainly useful, at the very least providing the spiritual abstract with something solid to behold. Indeed, though it may be necessary for me to entertain more doubts now, it may not be later on. My own sea-change becomes evident to me, with each morning's venture; I tread the old familiar streets with the renewed stride of perseverance. Perhaps that is sufficiently a start, for me to believe in my own transformation.


At last, I have navigated to the other side of a protracted, albeit intermittent, sea of anguish. Most surely, the journey has never been without oases, little islands and way-stations of respite and celebration. One does need to be faithful to the letter of happenstance. And with that in mind, I am consciously acknowledging those souls whose paths mine have met, and whose steps have paralleled mine. It is a well-established dividend of friendship, that conscious presence sown inevitably reaps harvests of communion. After a certain number of years, and discovering enough concern from close friends to displace some of the isolated, solitary suffering, I became far more capable of earnestly supporting others. Perhaps it is the upside of down; the vitality of knowing despair equips a soul to savor the intangible gifts of compassion- and to witness and attend to others' lives. How I have always desired to be useful to people around me! And indeed, I am surely not so naïve as to expect that after barrages of storms there will never be another. Among the residual uses of the past is preparedness, and a prologue to the present. All need not be perfectly well-and-smooth; that would be unrealistic. The Great Apostle knew how to be brought low and how to abound, both to be full and to suffer need. About nine weeks ago, a monk suggested to me that I tout jettez en Dieu : Not simply surrender all that I am, but throw. As in a courageous leap. This thoughtful brother added that if all eternal spiritual things were accomplished in this provisional life, he'd simply retire; there'd be nothing left for him to do.

Brightness in the simplest tasks, familiar voices and embraces, and in even in the taste of food, attests to the sea-change after lengthy and battering storms. The dark night of the soul has another side, and I have traversed from desolation to consolation. I did not fully know this, even though I'd experienced this before, and had helped others through theirs. But it is clear that a transforming crucible, what can cleanse me of my obstructive attachments to selfhood, has brought me to a shore- not to encamp there, but to inhabit the new land. It is good to go to the water, and I gratefully do so, but there is a world upon which to live, to move, and to be, and be there for others. I was driven from my old purported paradise, and am evolving another storey to my soul. The depth and breadth of hope must exceed the shadows of fear, and the inviting passover is to embody the life of trust- even as a partaker of the divine nature* in this flawed world. For the indefinite time being, it is sufficient for me to know in part, to accept to see some things through darkened glass. But I am sure I shall see, as it becomes unpredictably necessary. The light after dark reveals a transmuted self , an embarkation, and suddenly evidence of having already covered some miles in this new life.


* 2 Peter 1:4

open hands

Deep water
Black, and cold like the night
I stand with my arms wide open
I've run a twisted line...

I could not see for the fog in my eyes
I could not feel for the fear in my life
From across the great divide
In the distance I saw a light...


~ Daniel Lanois, The Maker

My steps along roads and through woods had brought me to a captivating river. It was just the other day. Strikingly bright light and saturated blue expanses drew contrasts against flowing ice, breaking away from the riverbanks. I needed to climb down to the water, and establish a clear memory of warming sun above stinging icy currents. Amidst a voyage, even a personal exodus, arriving at the side of a river represents the accomplishment of having covered some rugged undetermined distance, however this is but an encampment. The river must be traversed. The arrival is but a departure, and my crossing-over is with gratitude rather than regret. So I go.


With open hands, my intention is to release and not grasp at what was, or is incalculably yet to be. But this released grip is not a rescinding of my responsibility, rather an embrace of the moment and to look forward. For me to extend an openness- to others and to this springtime- there must be an unburdening of all that encumbers my being. And further along, surpassing roads and rivers, must come the recollection of maintaining the true meaning of the open gesture and not to be brought down by the weight of what is past. For me to let go is to make room; not for more self-defeat, but for the presence of those I encounter, as well as for the present that is given.


On my work-day breaks, when I can collect my thoughts, a sense of what my inner vernacular calls "losing the silence" becomes troubling. And that seems to me as something contradictory. Experience is now reminding me how silly it is to worry about not wanting to worry! It is rather like Meister Eckhart, in the 14th century, pondering the notion of the feeling of God being far away. He wrote that when feeling a "loss" of the Creator's presence, one should return to doing what they did when they felt the greatest spiritual consolation. It is as if to say I must retrace to where I knew I left off, along many miles of travel. Even if that might be in the simplicity of sensing of my own breathing.

north point

“Have you ever been to North Point
To spend your time and pray.
The prison walls so cold and dark and grey.

Then on a bright day at North Point
The gate was open wide.
Chancing to look at what was inside.

And then it all came back
Somewhere far above has a new day risen
Way beyond the searchlight
Comes alive.”


~ Mike Oldfield, North Point

Though I have lived my life along the Atlantic, the sight of the ocean has always been a welcome refuge. At times, I will go to the water’s edge simply to look, to be near, to remember my point of reference in this vast world, and as the weather permits- to jump in. Sometimes during an intermission in the work day, there will be a pier upon which I can perch- even downtown. At other times to simply abide amongst the large and uneven crags and the sands that emerge from the sea-salted waves, is where I sense my consolation. Going to the sea is reassurance and solace, reminding me of the great incalculable and unbridled forces that are far beyond any of us, grander than any structure or squabble of the day’s details. All I have to do is show up. The ocean needs no help to be able to move; it is not borne upon any pair of undependable mortal shoulders. On the northern New England terrain, this is where one can see out to the horizon, and up to vast and endless skies.


Years back, my sister and I used to wade in from the beach sands and squint to try and see France on the other side. Of course we did not know that was impossible, but as little children we did know the Atlantic was the divide between our two countries. Or perhaps the ocean expanse is what connects the land masses. Our lights and shadows, our confidence and doubts, dwell within us at the same time. In the same sense, our isolation and our connection are at once before us. The ocean has helped me come to terms with desolation, as well as providing a powerful sense of belonging. It has been good for me to witness places so boundless yet intimate, ever-changing yet certain. A topographical end, with precipices of decision, however an immense beginning.


There is a dear and meaningful Jewish new year’s custom which entails casting breadcrumbs into a body of moving water. It cannot be ponds or lakes, but can be rivers or oceans. Tossing the breadcrumbs is a tangible action representing the rescinding of regrets and remorse, to be carried away with the forces of creation. To do this is to invite renewal. The ocean of light and rebirth supercedes the ocean of darkness. Newness of life is a new land, and such things can be called to recollection on the journey. I went to the water’s edge this evening. At first it was to distract myself from my thoughts, and later through the freezing winds it became an immense gratitude for the changes in my life. When anguish has been so pervasive an experience, there is a danger of it becoming an identity, and that must be prevented from happening. I cannot really tell whether it is visible to others, but suffering must never be an identity. It has been tossed upon the moving waters.

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.

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.

next right thing

"Take, take 'til there's nothing,
Nothing to turn to.
Nothing when you get through.

Won't you break,
Scatter pieces of all I've been.
Bowing to all I've been running to."

~ Silence, by Jars of Clay

Mountains of transfiguration are not purposed ends, but means. And indeed, far from contrivance, a life of presence that attends to the moment cannot predict whither the wind blows, where it comes from, or where it is going. What I can do is be present enough to realize what is happening to me, internalize what I learn to be new ways to reverence the situations and souls in my midst, and then to venture out. As in the parable of the talents, the investments of which I am entrusted are not for me to bury in the ground. Gifts are useless in underground coffers, and it would be an injustice to overcautiously squander wealth that is designed for gentle and generous conveyance. In my experience, there has been less emphasis and even nostalgia about places and events when there's a continuum of giving and receiving.


This new adventure bears the colors of paradox. By moving forward with a heart full of confident hope, I have also surrendered an obstructive resistance to the spectrum of this life as it is presented to me- of which I am undeniably an ingredient. Resisting the present is not only exhausting, but it endangers becoming a personal identity. Why be negatively identified, as those who are known by what they oppose? Resistance spends a whole lot of energy, talents as it were in the classical sense, better applied for the cause of encouragement and improvement.


What a worthwhile challenge, to engage in dis-identifying from the detrimentally cerebral sphere of unconscious thought. I say swing that wrecking ball right here, right on those obstructive barriers. And then suddenly there follows the prospect of not being identified with painful suffering. The landscape does change, when the outmoded, tyrannical East Bloc architecture is razed. But that deep inner pain can be so profoundly embedded as to become something of an implant. Crises which cause us to clamor for metaphorically life-threatening surgery, are really the crossroads between an interminable self-condemnation and what has been called by Eckhart Tolle as "a complete alchemical transmutation of the base metal of pain and suffering into gold."


There is a new season on the runway. Just a few days returned, after weeks of milder weather in France, through the bracing and icy Maine air, I can see an undeniably evident spring light. It is a Springtime of the soul. The passage of time needs no permission to occur, however it is for me to actively embrace the present, and not look backwards for either an identity or an approval. It is the worthwhile vigilance.

la nuit comme le jour est lumière

"My thoughts cannot comprehend Divinity, and so I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love even that which I cannot know.

Let loving desire, gracious and devout, step bravely and joyfully beyond and reach out to pierce the darkness. Yes, beat upon that thick cloud of unknowing with the dart of your loving desire and do not cease come what may."

~The Cloud of Unknowing, ch. 6

Learning a new environment, so as to find the comforts and become aware of the pitfalls, means figuring out the preferable shops and eateries, understanding the local culture, and memorizing the streets and regulations. Hardly a week back into the routine again, my steps are simultaneously measured and bold, though surely borne from strides that have covered ancient and faraway paths. A life that proceeds cannot stand still, even in the glow of communion, and it is for me to cultivate, increase, and give of what I continue to receive.


Today, after too many draining meetings, I smiled to myself as I recalled one of the monks in Taizé gesturing with his hands clasped tightly together, describing to me how the more fiercely we seek the things of God, the stronger the response that comes to us in return. Here are my proving-grounds: the meetings, relationships, material concerns, and the day's extemporaneous situations that cause me to practice what I learn. Will it be a conscious attentiveness, or the old tiresome resistance? With old habits clashing with new consciousness, I am noticing a lot of new "no U-turn" signs on familiar streets. The unknown is preferable to what I have seen not to work, and now looks so much more inviting.

sólo la sed nos alumbra

"And you would think now hope would be tired,
But it's all right.
You would think tired, ragged and oil-brown,
But it's all right.

Since everything's possible,
We will still go,


~ The Innocence Mission, Go.

The phenomenon of an interior renewal, whether occasional or continuous, is a tremendous mystery. We might simply resign our thoughts with an expression such as "well, the sun rises tomorrow, and shall assuredly each day." But that is at best a surface observation, and is insufficient. How is it possible that a barely visible grain of hope becomes enough to move a mountain? What happens in the dark night of the soul when, for a seemingly interminable span of time, thoughts of an apparent tomorrow offer no encouragement- and then a palpable aspiration arises? Sure, my friends have heard my "I hope so's," and "I think so's," uncertain to the same level as my wonder that a newness of life should be delivered to a doubtful person like me. Is it a question of strength at all?


Breaking the bonds of time begin to resemble the ways we can jettison our past's dead wood. In this I am learning how the future lights the present, not the other way around. My natural skill at perseverance would now be little more than status-quo, without a mysterious undergirding force that has not emanated from me. A flickering signal light can increase to a persistent fire within, and beneath what I can hardly describe is the sure call to courage. Now to maintain this spirit. But then as a true paradox it would be subverting to be concerned with the distance ahead and any sort of grasping, rather than to be about the immediacy of being.

conduis-moi sur le chemin d'éternité

"Blessed is the one whom you choose and call
to dwell in your courts...
You keep your pledge with wonders;
The hope of all the earth
and far distant isles..."

~ Psalm 65

The ancient life-practice of pilgrimage extends to far more than a limited journey. Yes, there is a setting forth, with a destination that combines spiritual and physical places. The way-stations in between are limitless in form and personage. My own life of pilgrimage has involved numerous homes, roads, vehicles, airports, diners, offices, and welcoming ambulatory personal spaces. They are unpredictable, and that is the beautiful and formless nature of a pilgrimage of trust on earth.


In 2002, after an immortal experience- and nearly home to my doorstep in Portland- I stopped at a convenience store at about 1:30am, realizing that for a long absence from home, I'd not left any perishables at home. Setting the half-gallon of milk on the counter, the equally-drowsy cashier exhaled with, "what brings you out this time of night?" I simply responded nonchalantly with "I just drove fourteen hours from Toronto," that was enough to bring the cashier to tears. Apparently, she had been watching the World Youth week of events on television; over and over she said, weeping, "I know where you were. I know where you were. I prayed for all of you." Somehow, she knew correctly. The moment was as poignant as anything I'd experienced as a simple musician amidst a million pilgrims with Pope John Paul. My own extraordinary pilgrimage wended right through the aisles of a Cumberland Farms store on Woodford Street.


We needn't deceive ourselves into thinking that our journeys are without significance. It surely isn't about pursuing the next morsel of personal recognition, or making achievement into a narcotic. And once that burden is thrown off, but the positive momentum maintained, the pilgrimage continues as a flourishing voyage instead of a closed loop. For myself, the sea change is so powerful that with this return I will cultivate what has taken root. Moving from belief to convincement is to realize the pilgrimage of trust is eternally hopeful- and- that just as those I welcome are strength for my travels, the welcoming souls I encounter embrace me in turn along their ways.