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

peregrinus

"Along the road
Your path may wander
A pilgrim’s faith may fail
Absence makes the heart grow stronger
Darkness obscures the trail.

Cursing the quest
Courting disaster
Measureless nights forebode
Moments of rest
Glimpses of laughter
Are treasured along the road.

Along the road
Your steps may tumble
Your thoughts may start to stray
But through it all a heart held humble
Levels and lights your way."

~ Dan Fogelberg, Along the Road


It is consoling to know that pilgrimage as a practical way of spiritual life is not always relegated to the margins of asceticism. Indeed, just as a mystic’s viewpoint creatively interprets symbols and meanings, a similar poetic extension applies when we consider the unending sacred voyage of a pilgrim soul. And there need not be a specific time period for this to find relevance. Sojourning by air and ground transit, or in the newest hiking boots, need not lessen the intentions and substance of our heart-driven travels from the epoch of those who rowed the Irish Sea or braved dark lengths of crime-infested pre-medieval roads, on the way to places of significance peregrinatio pro Dei amore. If the destination cannot be easily reached today, surely by tonight’s rest we shall have arrived at a new stage on the pilgrimage of trust.


Saint Columba, a Celt of the 6th century, asserted that pilgrimage is of the essence for those who will advance their lives as response to the gifts of grace. Some of these journeying Celtic monks would discard their oars, and allow their canoe-like coracles to be simply carried by the tides to whither destiny would carry them. The ocean was the place of desert-wandering, for such island dwellers, and "the land would be reached," wrote Columba’s chronicler Saint Adamnan, "only by those who desire God." The 14th-century Cloud of Unknowing regards the concept of distance at a number of levels, encouraging the hearty young disciple that, "journeying ahead to our future with God is measured by desire, rather than by miles." Obviously the metaphors emanating from spiritual pilgrimage abound, and when the journey is regarded as both interior and exterior, I can easily see how essential is this perspective that makes it possible to view our lives in forms that recognize our very steps. Between the occasional mountaintop experience is the walk home from work, during which the person who stops to talk says something I needed to hear. And I notice the sunset as I turn to my street. The pilgrim’s way-station has been among the vineyards of Burgundy, as well as my simple dining table supporting a steaming bowl of coffee. Our landmarks develop as we proceed. And by this very nature, that of an unfolding, the life of moving forward in trust takes on a liminal aspect that inspires our spirits against stagnation. A threshold is something to be appreciated, particularly when its significance becomes clear. Thresholds are places, indeed, however they are typically antechambers transitioning from an exited space to a new environment.


The first time I’d ever driven halfway across the country, I covered about eight hundred miles on the first stage of the trip. The adventure took me through some unfamiliar roads traversing place names that were equally unknown to me. In the process, a rainstorm tore off my back window wiper blade. My stopping place was surely equal to the mileage, as I was joyously welcomed by complete strangers who were friends of friends of mine. They didn’t know what I’d look like, either, but for the rare sight of Maine license plates. And truly, with all matters being those of the moment, people want to hear a voyager’s stories: not just the weather and road conditions, but “what kind of work do you do?” and “where are you headed?” and “how do you like this part of the country?” Conversely, I want to hear stories, too.


Journeying calls to mind how we attach to places and yet how we detach from our beginnings and stopping-points, even as memories accompany our collected steps. The anonymous writer of the Cloud of Unknowing used the expression “nothing and nowhere,” in a fascinating description of the life of interior devotion. During several days of mountain hiking, I thought and wrote much about this esoteric idea. Suffice it to say for this writing, my musings turned to wonder as it became clear to me that when the medieval writer sought to detach from material justification (or what Thomas Merton called “the false self”) and choose to journey from his inner self, his “nothing and nowhere” was indeed an everything and an everywhere. The grandeur of creation transcends property and place. Sojourning in the spirit of trust can attest to this. If there is truth to the adage that we become the stories we tell about ourselves, might we become our journeys? Perhaps a beginning to a response to this question is to consider what is sought on this voyage of incremental sojourns. And surely, though a destination captivates our hearts- even that which we have neither seen nor heard nor dared to imagine- there is movement to be embraced and cherished.

endurance

"We need not destroy any minor good in ourselves for the sake of a better,
but we should strive to grasp every truth in its highest meaning,
for no one good contradicts another."

~ Meister Eckhart, from his Counsels on Discernment

Aspiration meets a stifling challenge when our hopes shout into the winds of what try to convince us of the impossible. Certainly there is an appeal in a self-portrayal as hopeful, even superficially wearing the "positive" clichés. Indeed there is much to derive by directing ourselves in constructive directions, and clear skies provide plenty of visibility and sunlight for cultivating potential. And what of these beliefs when night falls, when daylight is obscured, and our senses become unusually cognizant of news stories that coincidentally feed the momentum of our fears? What happens when our sense of daring becomes elusive? Yesterday, during a high-speed highway drive a sudden torrential rainstorm struck. In spite of my careful navigation at a more moderate rate of travel, there were enough others hurtling their hydroplaning vehicles into left lanes, rushing to I-don’t-know-where (inevitably ending up a mere car-length ahead of me at the toll gate), slamming tidal waves of rain into neighboring pathways. On several occasions, I experienced that startling phenomenon of moving with a barraged windshield such that it was absolutely impossible to see more that a seamless wall of water. It would be like driving blindfolded among others having to do the same. Seconds as slow as hours. It’s still with me, and causes me to imagine how momentarily obscured vision can intensely differ from an utter loss of spiritual horizons.


Blaise Pascal had once warned that "if the small annoyances can discourage, just imagine what something major could do to you." Pascal was offering some perspective, perhaps speaking from his experience of maintaining determination while suffering incessant physical pain. Equally disciplined, yet coming from another vantage point, Meister Eckhart offered "it is harder at times for one to endure one little word of contempt, which is really insignificant, while it would be easier for that person to suffer a heavy blow against which we can steel ourselves." Further, Eckhart added, "it is much harder to be alone in a crowd than in the desert, and it is much harder to abandon some little thing than a big one." What might appear to be a quantitatively small matter could be qualitatively decisive. Have you ever lost those little pieces of metal called house keys? Ever have a bicycle encounter with a negotiably visible fragment of glass? Well then, what is insignificance, anyway? For those who have endured both scenarios of abrupt brutality and of gradual neglect, the traumatic effects can be quite similar. And so Pascal’s and Eckhart’s angles are reconciled in the wise resolve to choose attentive vigilance.


Our collected years can bring us to either barricade our hearts into fortified resistance, or to a strength of recollection that sensitizes our hearts into open compassion. The latter way incorporates the challenge to vigilantly patrol the heart, to keep focused upon what causes our hopes to surge up above the surface of what we deem as our limits. It is buoyancy in the drudgery, the type of hope that locks horns with the insurmountable. Staying confident while we easily find what appears to be enough evidence to abandon faith. Vigilance of vision can exhaust the human spirit, and invariably, with weary steps, we find the limits to our mortal striving. But thankfully, if vision becomes clouded and soreness derails, we can remind one another that discouragement is the "almost-worthy" opponent, because truly it cannot overpower the brilliance of our passionate yearning.

earth moving

"Looking back at the road so far
The journey's left its share of scars
Mostly from leaving the narrow and straight.

All that I was
So afraid of
Though I questioned the sky
Now I see why.

Had to walk the rocks
to see the mountain view.
Looking back
I see the lead of love."

~ Caedmon's Call, Lead of Love

The ancient trove of monastic thought The Philokalia, comprises the words of desert-voyaging contemplatives who made a tenacious practice of "guarding the heart," or what we might consider a conscious watchfulness, as they lived their common lives. St. Symeon wrote of his community’s meditations as "investigating thoughts and guarding of the intellect," and how his brethren "worked the earth of their own hearts, and in this way they were fed on divine manna." Another of the writers, Nikiphorus the Monk used the expression, "the custody of the heart," and that brings me to consider how we may be conscientious stewards of our innermost depths through which we commune with the divine.

When it’s possible to enjoy some stillness- even simply an intermission from layers of activity and time constraints- I’ve been able to appreciate the panoramic view and "take stock." The first time I’d ever heard of the term "stock-taking," was in English Comp. as an undergrad. It was in the context of assembling knowledge en route to writing term papers. So why not put a spiritual spin on pedagogical directives about putting intellectual material together into something potentially coherent? Here is Taking Stock, according to Kate Turabian’s Student's Guide for Writing College Papers. (ch.4):

"To get anywhere, one first has to start.
And a good way to start the outline is to jot down quickly and at random all the ideas you have about the topic, asking what there is of interest that you want to pass along."

Not that we want to frame our hearts’ yearnings in M.L.A. Format! There is, however, something poetically wonderful about jotting the quick and the random, but rather than as some sort of obligatory task to be graded, it is for the sake of descending silently into the profundity of the heart and then to rise and transcend with the Holy Spirit.


The silent spaces may present themselves by traveling, and I’m grateful for all the pilgrimage opportunities I’ve made in various places and communities. Looking at years of adventurous journal entries written at the Weston Priory, I see my references to the place as "the soul clinic." Among numerous travels there, some of the retreats have occurred in the context of seeking shelter from duress. And very simply, in participating in the common life, my center moves away from self, and thus my baggage dissolves. It brings to mind how Thomas Merton would ask himself, "who is the ‘I’ that you imagine yourself to be?" What is illusory, and what is reality? So, I learn to take stock. The mountain retreats and transatlantic voyages require rather extraordinary resources and time, but with the ancient desert wisdom which bids us to "take our silences with us, wherever we go," it is possible for me to bring that moveable feast of contemplation to simple outdoor errands, and journal-writing in cafés. The important thing, regardless of place, is to listen with the ear of the heart.


Times that allow us to "take stock" provide vantage points to see where we are along the journey. Where have we been, and where are we going? Such can be articulated with the simple luxury of regathering. It seems a luxuriating thing to do, these days, because there needs to be a deliberate effort to quiet one’s environment and clear away distractions. The human soul can "multi-task" only so much, and then purported "efficiency" becomes very costly. What are our points of reference? During a shattering crisis, when my perception was too clouded to see clearly, my sister provided the "stock-taking" for me, simply but assertively reminding me of my options and gifts when all I saw was a personal dead end. Sometimes we are in the role of seeing for one another. Taking stock is also considering what I take for granted, and consciously asking myself "so, what’s good?" while this culture has a slant that emphasizes what’s wrong or what we are supposed to have in order to be "worthy" and "successful." Taking stock is also "taking heart," remembering things that have worked out well, and useful things learned. Once in a while, I’ll read journal entries of exactly a year ago- or two, or three, or four years ago- previous to whatever today’s date might be. Re-reading thoughts can be a startling reminder, even a cryptic guide, mementos from another time. Serendipitous moments, such as when friends stop on the street to chat, remind me of how we can profoundly reassure one another.

Reminders of promise often come from unexpected sources.

another country

"I'm taking these dumb paper lanterns down.
Yards, no, miles they strung along.
And me with them.
And how was I supposed to know?
That was another country;
That was another country."

~ The Innocence Mission, Another Country

Familiar paths are leading to new places, and there are just enough recognizable markers to remind me of my context- and indeed above and beyond the surface is the wonder of advancing in very new steps. Regathering and then choosing to strive toward new places and ways of being led to distant travels and an inner voyage into new lands. Thirsting for renewal neutralizes what is past from unrealistic sentimentality. Distant shores become more prominent as they near, and an unnoticed momentum reveals more than a superficial arrival. All at once, terra cognita is immersed in the mystery of renewal. As one might imagine for any physical journey, once discovering a new place, we navigate and inhabit the territory. Gradually, the departed place disappears from sight, and remains to exist only to the extent that our memories will allow. And even now it amazes me to consider that I have reached across time and terrain, but truly I have been brought, even escorted, to this day.

To consider renewal is to embrace the prospect of a lasting continuum of development and deepening. It must continue, with a spirit that mustn’t stagnate. Gifts which have stood prominently in my midst balance the known and the unforeseen. It is taking time and thought to comprehend what has been transpiring before me in these rapid months. And indeed, transformation is not clearly evident at first, much in the same way we outgrow clothes during our childhood. My close friends are my life’s witnesses, and thankfully they notice changes before I can articulate them myself. For many years I feigned a self-sufficiency, having had profound experiences of being forsaken, much of it at a very young age. Part of this revival is in the acceptance of others’ care, and it has taken years to cease shrugging off genuine concern. Perhaps many of us have been profusely giving out what we long for ourselves: love, reassurance, forgiveness. Being able to start afresh is in itself a humble cause for immense gratitude. I begin to see renewal as an unburdening, and it becomes possible to separate my identity from the dimension that relies on the impressions I might make, and how I have wanted to be known- and even how I think my identity should be. But what happens when we accept an identity that has been given to us? Granted, there are ills that get handed down or perpetuated, traits we may regret and wish to change. And then there is the quiet identity of sacred inheritance. In these recent days of sundrenched roads, vast skies, and genial company I’ve returned to St. Augustine’s encouragement: "Blot out what you have done, so that what is Divine may restore what has been created within you."(from his Commentary on John). All with every good reason to reach forth with hope.

Spiritual renewal inevitably brings me to a healthful detachment. Specifically, old preoccupations must be rescinded, and outmoded perceived desires discarded. Then again, a more appropriate choice of imagery than to discard or dispose, is to release. Such liberating surrender is effectively the opposite of resistance, and an absence of barring creation from being just what it is. The ancient Evagrios’ words in The Philokalia offer that we challenge ourselves to "leave our cells, if we become overly attached to that which buries us in our habitations," pulling us away from humanity and what is sacred. Detachment brings us to stillness of heart. Detachment from façades, false securities, and all that can divert from clarity of mind and openness of spirit. It is a full-scale challenge, and in this society it is no passive gesture to still oneself, but is as much a physical as a spiritual action. The heart’s stillness is an enduring attentiveness, by which it becomes possible not only to welcome renewal but to assuredly continue in the voyage of this new life.

la voie vivante

"...walk, in a newness of life."

~ Saint Paul, Epistle to the Romans (ch. 6)

The road turns, and yet we cannot quite see how, or why, or what specific thing we may have done to cause the change. And even in our bewilderment and wonder, there is a danger in losing consciousness of the very moments in time that simply show us our own transformation. Our culture and society craves root causes and pushes us to seek out weaknesses to be exploited. Those learned habits can infiltrate and limit our comprehension of the eternal, in our lives and those introduced to us. Indeed, we may actually piece together assorted causes to rationally explain our present, but such grasping exerts significantly more effort than to accept and move directly from this moment. Do moments all have the same duration? Seconds, hours, or days? Perhaps there is no universal scale when we examine our unique lives and their transitions, whether through evolving seasons or in the twinkling of an eye. When a new way of seeing comes to me in an instant, old perspectives pass away and are effectively replaced by what becomes new. Some years back, a major new bridge was built here in town- right next to a very old one; and as soon as the modern bridge was in operation the outdated structure was completely torn down. For a very short period of time, the two bridges stood contrastingly side-by-side. Two ways of crossing may run parallel, but for a fleeting parcel of time. We can traverse bridges of our own, and definable transformations can manifest at the instant we recognize the crossing. Leaving the shore that was left behind gives way to a transfigured vision, and thus a view that transfigures the road ahead.


Renewed perspective allows us to see possibilities, even in what appear to be painfully static situations. For about three years, I had to work for an abusive supervisor; it was an extremely trying adventure of running up against anger personified. In retrospect, it’s difficult to pinpoint how I got through that time, but I did- and even saw that manager get fired as a consequence of his cruelty to the employees. During the worst of it, I kept a journal and that helped me maintain some kind of dynamism of vision while the stress seemed to have no end. It was an incorrigible episode of endurance with the sole recourse being that of conscience. The day of that man’s dismissal was something unforgettable, as the corporate body of my colleagues partook in the same powerful unburdening experience. In an amazing instant, darkness was replaced by lightness. In a broader sense, fear in our lives is replaced by hopefulness. They cannot exist side-by-side for long. And, indeed, pretentiousness must be replaced by humility.


Without a genuine sense of constructive humility, how can one be open to others and to what this life unfolds before us? Letting go of built up layers of self-proclaimed credentials and outmoded structures permits us to advance from one renewing beginning to another, and then to yet another beginning. This type of humility has a vitality that balances self-respect with openness, and thus desires for each day to be built anew upon a refreshed foundation throughout a life that is a pilgrimage of trust. It is essential to trust, as moving forward implies knowing without necessarily seeing in order to set forth. Reaching forward with all our heart is a tangible act attesting to a certitude of the Invisible. Thomas Merton, in Seeds of Contemplation, referred to a "certitude without any shred of discursive evidence." Our assurance is connected to our trust. Now, my challenge is to be continually renewed. Reaching the new land has been the part of the journey which has brought me to travel new roads with new vision and new observations. Known and unknowing, alike. The ocean-tinged air of home, and conversations, are nuanced anew and afresh. As Merton pointed out, "The first taste of contemplation strikes us at once as utterly new and yet strangely familiar."

far away on the other side

"The trees that whisper in the evening
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Sing a song of sorrow and grieving
Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Stars move slowly on a silvery night
Far away on the other side"

~ Mike Oldfield, Moonlight Shadow.

Noting contrasts that accompany the sands of time, has become more of an understanding and less of a conflict. Navigating dark nights of the soul produces an acumen with which we can savour our days and broaden our vision. And then, on further reflection it occurs to me the contrasts are rarely quite so hard-edged and extreme as they superficially appear. We photographers are surely aware of the range of fine gradations between what we call "paper white," and a rich black that is the absorption of all colors. At times either brightness or shadows become clear to us, and knowing both sides of the spectrum there comes an appreciation of tones and colors that span and reflect. Experiences of healing, as well as those of grieving, occur to me as fragmented and unpredictable courses which cannot be hurried. Thankfully, transition has varied durations, and that allows for opportunities to acknowledge our lives. Perhaps it’s a bit like looking over travel photos that attest to experiences and context. Re-reading journals often has that effect. Occasionally, as a point of reference, I’ll look at written reflections from a year previous (or even more), to the exact calendar day- even if just to see the time and place of the entry. As it can be on a drive through the old neighborhood, or past the tired old workplace, such landmarks are indeed and fortunately on a very large map. Vivid memories can detrimentally embitter, but instead they can be recollected to draw our gratitude.


In striving and so forcefully desiring to transcend duress, reaching for brighter and calmer paths, something of the darkness does travel alongside. Once more, there is a fine edge between identifying with what was endured, and referring gratefully to the sources of gems and metals brought out of the dark times. Certainly there is more than enough that is best forgotten, giving plenty of space for the moment and confident looking forward, but remembrances of how the dark nights can reshape a soul become worthy souvenirs. Nicholas of Cusa, in the 15th century, wrote that, "to understand the darkness, you need the night-eyes of an owl." Concurrent with our emergence is a sharp awareness of our own luminosity, quite like the frisson of the Emmaus sojourners at the very precise instant they recognized the Stranger at their dining table. It is as though the darkness passes just as we identify the divine spark, and such recollections will reconcile darkness with light. The voyage is replete with visual symbols that serve as signs of what is not readily visible. Emerging from dark nights of grief, and even momentary discouragement, whether protracted or fragmented over time, it becomes possible to refer to our own lunar light. Paradoxically, both leaving behind and reaching ahead are forward movements. The ancient Psalmist had been brought to remember his source of strength as he looked up to the moonlit and sunlit skies alike, as they delineated the mountainous landscape around him.

chemin de férrule

"Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first vow intent
To be a Pilgrim."

~ John Bunyan, Pilgrim Song, from The Pilgrim’s Progress

If the Journey is integral to human experience, our voyages combine strenuous stretches along with those occasional days of unlimited visibility. Between navigating soul-trying storms on few reserves, with the view ahead only measurable in feet, I am surely grateful for pauses that permit time to take stock and respite. Such notable calms are opportunities to crystallize the soul. There need not be seat-of-the-pants crises for us to awaken. Indeed, it is preferable to maintain enough conscious balance so that each day’s adventures are embraced with a consistent perception of the present. Change needn’t be crisis. Setting-forth is a forward motion. The personal pilgrimage may be a movement away from the anguish of the past, and in the direction of open roads of promise. It would be unwise to stare into rear-view mirrors; these exist solely for fleeting references to what trails behind our movements.


Enduring many nautical miles of wear-and-tear, battering storms, and uninterrupted conveyance, ships will steer into port. We commute between demands upon our hours and our energies, and discover the way-stations to answer our souls’ yearnings. Since my life is a pilgrimage of trust, each place and situation comprise way-stations on this route. The way itself, though encompassing both the unknown and the well-familiar, is an unfolding mystery. As it turns out, we need measures of both, traveling and coming home, and carrying reminders of what is most important to us. Stories individuals tell, about how they discovered an important treasure of theirs, animates the inanimate. Keepsakes become personal icons, with experiential significance ascribed to them. Years ago, I knew someone who wore several religious medals on a necklace chain; each came from a different place with a story of its acquisition and the pictured saint. Of course, the uniqueness lay in this person’s juxtaposition of imagery, lives, and attributes: past and present, ancient and future. It’s a bit like visiting homes and noticing eclectic assemblages of books and music on their shelves. Material, too, can attest to a life’s pilgrimage. Our movements can be physical as well as spiritual and intellectual.


The places and circumstances in which we trade our stories decorate our paths. Chaucer’s legendary Canterbury pilgrims met one ordinary night at the Tabard Inn, "all sorts of people who had met by chance," ("sondry folk, by adventure y-falle in felawshipe," reads the Old English). Randomly and marvelously thrown together by chance, in a shared sense of journeying, each could freely disclose something of their lives. Traveling has a way of inspiring that. Timelessly, Chaucer used the setting of a tavern, though it might be a café, a common room at work, or an airport. Hostelries and shared spaces, long and short-term, manifest in numerous forms. For each, our wanderings call us in to port, bedecked much like the sojourners from the Middle Ages- with satchels and rucksacks, sandals and hats, chalices and rations of nourishment, books and reminders. We adorn ourselves like wayfarers and adventurers. On our way somewhere, but stopping en route. The landmarks may be transitory, or places in which we are recognized. At one coffeehouse, the staff already knows what I’ll order, and they simply fill a mug for me. At another which I’ve patronized for a dozen years, there is always a welcome; it’s where I used to do my homework. That particular café is written into my journals as The Familiar Perch. It’s good for me to walk there and write, especially when I sense a loss of direction. But the journey is sweeter when shared among travelers, the stories being colorful biographies spoken forth by their respective authors. In so doing, we discover our context, and it matters less if such settings are fleeting and not to be seen again, or in our own neighborhoods.

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.