…today, the unseen was everything. The unknown, the only real fact of life. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Purposefully lost in the willow stillness of a late summer meadow in the deer-filled dusk—a silver evening following a blue and amber day. ~Tim Hawkins “Purposefully Lost” from West of the Backstory
I search for the unseen, purposely lost, hoping to find meaning in the unknown.
I am bewildered by this life much of the time. Anyone looking at what I share here sees my struggle each day to discern how to make this sad and suffering world a little bit better place.
I have little to offer you other than my own wrestling match with the mysteries we all face.
Then, when a light does shine out through darkness, when a deer steps out of the woods into the meadow, I am not surprised.
I simply need to pay attention. Illumination was there all the time, but I needed the eyes to see its beauty laid bare, brave enough to show itself even brighter in the light of day.
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I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain; A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly. This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Moonrise”June 19, 1876
how you can never reach it, no matter how hard you try, walking as fast as you can, but getting nowhere, arms and legs pumping, sweat drizzling in rivulets; each year, a little slower, more creaks and aches, less breath. Ah, but these soft nights, air like a warm bath, the dusky wings of bats careening crazily overhead, and you’d think the road goes on forever. Apollinaire wrote, “What isn’t given to love is so much wasted,” and I wonder what I haven’t given yet. A thin comma moon rises orange, a skinny slice of melon, so delicious I could drown in its sweetness. Or eat the whole thing, down to the rind. Always, this hunger for more. ~Barbara Crooker “How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn into a Dark River,” from More
The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought.
The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise.
I return from one walk knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name.
Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth. Ailinon, alleluia! ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
The greatest gift is the one I stumble upon rather than having desired, sought out, fought for. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m missing, so oblivious to being surrounded by hidden treasures.
Surprise me, dear Lord.
Though I regularly lament in the shadows, though I try to hide under the blankets each morning, slumbering through the tragic, the painful, the sorrow, you send your gentle crescent light to awaken me.
So I lift my voice in praise and gratitude for your unexpected gift that I didn’t know I needed, would never had thought to seek, the pearl of great priceheld out for me to take each day.
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The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. ~Alexander Hamilton, from “The Farmer Refuted”
What sparkling flashes of God’s wit and brilliance— His coruscations— have caused your mind today to run back up the sunbeam to the sun and given you cause to give thanks and to worship the Lord? ~C.S. Lewisfrom Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
photo by Nate Gibson
God illuminates through His Word, not once but twice.
In the beginning, He created the sun and the moon to shine upon bodies, hearts, and souls.
Then, He came to light the world from below as well as from above so we could be saved from darkness.
By His descent to us, because He leaves heaven’s light to be in our arms and by our sides- He illuminates us so we reflect the light He brings: loved saved despite all our efforts to remain in the dark.
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Every morning, cup of coffee in hand, I look out at the mountain. Ordinarily, it’s blue, but today it’s the color of an eggplant. And the sky turns from gray to pale apricot as the sun rolls up…
I study the cat’s face and find a trace of white around each eye, as if he made himself up today for a part in the opera. ~Jane Kenyon, from “In Several Colors” from Collected Poems.
If you notice anything it leads you to notice more and more.
And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking at this and that.
If I stopped the pain was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe the world can’t be saved, the pain was unbearable. ~Mary Oliver from “The Moths” from Dream Work
I try to look at things in a new way as I wander about my day, my eyes scanning for how the hidden dusty corners of my life become illuminated by a penetrating morning sunbeam when the angle is just right.
The rest of the time, cobwebs, dust bunnies and smudges remain invisible to me until the searching light finds them.
What was “blue” becomes “eggplant” in the new light.
Trying to clean up a grungy messed-up upside-down world of pain is hard work.
It means admitting my own laziness, while falling down on the job again and again, I must always be willing to get back up.
If I stop acknowledging my own and others’ messiness, if I refuse to stay on top of the grime, if I give up the work of salvage and renewal, I then abandon God’s promise to transform this world.
He’s still here, ready and waiting, handing me a broom, a duster, and cleaning rags, so I shall keep at it – mopping up the messes I can reach, seeking what tries to stay hidden.
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May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
This is a song in praise of hard, dark nights: no firelight, no afterglow, but the sliver of a crescent moon and a few stray stars flung out into the wilderness, calling you into the great Alone with your animal self, falling down on tired knees broken against the ground. Then prostrate— cross-like— face down and stretched to the end of yourself by how wrong you’ve been— because, of course, this is the end.
But there is still some warmth coming up from the Earth, and a humming in the sweet black air— some great vibration of life that goes out before you. And though you can’t see them, the birchwood and pines rustle inside the wind’s divine pull— in a dance of wills— and somewhere, a great horned owl bellows his clear, determined hoot like a psalm across the land.
So, you learn to breathe, again, with his heralding— a rhythm that beats electric blue like a pulse: “It’s not the end— it’s not the end—”
No, this is not the end— hardly an end, but a hard beginning. There will always be a morning— a rebirth.
So, here in the dark— in a night bleaker than bleak— in a time outside of time— there is a mark on the Holy map of your soul where you found your Maker in the hard, dark night— and then lived to see the light of dawn. ~Kimberly Phinney “An Ode to Hard, Dark Nights”
So many seem lost without a map, unable to find their way in the dark, wrecked and wandering, weeping and wretched, believing they have come to the end.
Yet this is not the end, only the beginning. A hard start – all rebirths are hard.
As I have been shown mercy, so I must become mercy, be loving where others show hate, be giving when others take away, build up while others tear down.
We walk together in the emerging light – it’s right there – on God’s holy map of your soul.
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Why do I resist calling it a miracle, this light that in eight minutes and twenty seconds has travelled ninety-three million miles
through solar wind particles and radiation and countless numbers of solar neutrinos to land here on my living room floor?
As if because it can be measured and tracked it is any less divine. As if, just because it’s been happening
for four point five billion years it is any less extraordinary, this journey of warmth and radiance.
I let the light-loving animal of my being curl into the spaces of the room where the sunlight pools in bright welcome,
and I soften, soften into the wonder of being alive in this very moment in this very body with this very heart
meeting with very gentle amazement, this: even as the heart breaks and burns, bliss. ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “Smack Dab in the Middle of a Thursday” from The Unfolding
Down he came from up, and in from out, and here from there. A long leap, an incandescent fall from magnificent to naked, frail, small, through space, between stars, into our chill night air, shrunk, in infant grace, to our damp, cramped earthy place among all the shivering sheep.
And now, after all, there he lies, fast asleep. ~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2
photo by Nate Gibsonphoto by Nate Gibson
Then Jesus told them: You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. ~John 12:35
One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun… ~C.S. Lewis from Letters to Malcolm
I want to be the sun that gives and gives until it burns out,
the sea that kisses the shore and only moves away so that it might rush up to kiss it again. ~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “And Again” from Hush
God illuminates through His Word, not once but twice.
In the beginning, He created the sun and the moon to shine within hearts and souls.
Then, He came to light the world from below as well as from above so we could be saved from darkness.
By His descent to us, because He leaves heaven’s light to be in our arms and by our sides- He illuminates us so we reflect the light He brings: loved saved despite all our efforts to remain in the dark.
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This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
Lyrics: What if instead of more violence We let our weapons fall silent? No more revenge or retribution No more war or persecution.
It could be beautiful.
What if instead of our judgment We soften our hearts that have hardened? Instead of certainty and pride We love and sacrifice.
It could be beautiful.
Can we see the other as our brother? Can we sing the darkness to light? Sounding chords of compassion and grace Set the swords of judgement aside
Let mercy’s eyes See the other human face. ~Kyle Pederson
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In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls Across the open field, leaving the deep lane Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon…
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence. Wait for the early owl.
Dawn points, and another day Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind Wrinkles and slides. I am here Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. There is a time for the evening under starlight, A time for the evening under lamplight
Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. ~T. S. Eliot, verses from “East Coker” in Four Quartets
I’m reminded daily of my limited point of view; I can scarcely peer past the end of my nose. It takes a special kind of vision to see the young barn owl, still covered with downy blonde feathers, sitting among the stones outside its big barn home.
How can I possibly begin to understand the increasing complexity of the world around me as I try to look beyond, behind and through the here and now right in front of me?
I’m not alone. For uncounted generations, people have sought answers when confronted with the indecipherable mysteries of existence. We create massive monuments to the living and the dead to honor, appease and somehow maintain access to them.
We make up our own stories to explain the inexplicable rather than seeing and listening to what has been handed to us.
The Word as given is all the story we need.
All shall be revealed – still, we wait and wait as our lifetime burns through every moment, watching the Light illuminate our darkness as Love is laid down as never before.
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See, the grass is full of stars, Fallen in their brightness; Hearts they have of shining gold, Rays of shining whiteness.
Buttercups have honeyed hearts, Bees they love the clover, But I love the daisies’ dance All the meadow over.
Blow, O blow, you happy winds, Singing summer’s praises, Up the field and down the field A-dancing with the daisies. ~Marjorie Pickthall “Daisy Time”
I still can’t say what life is for, but it can’t be to pretend that every part of it is knowable, or that what appears to be to the naked eye or in the middle ground or documented on paper approximates a person any better than a daisy does our sun.
When at a loss for what I am, I know I must be feeling it deep in the layers, where a turbulence gives rise to clouds so massive they collapse in a bliss of gravity, condensing into this music I can daisy into morning as it daisies me into morning. ~Timothy Donnelly from “Habitable Nebula”
It is possible, I suppose that sometime we will learn everything there is to learn: what the world is, for example, and what it means. I think this as I am crossing from one field to another…
At my feet the white-petalled daisies display the small suns of their center piece, their – if you don’t mind my saying so – their hearts. Of course I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and narrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know? But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given, to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly; for example – I think this as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch – the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the daisies for the field. ~Mary Oliver from “Daisies”
I realize I can’t understand what all this world means.
No, I will remain in the dark until I cross from this daisy-strewn field to the next. I have to wait for heaven itself to see why we are illuminated by the Sun.
It is all cloud-covered mystery in the meantime, and sometimes a mean and joyless mystery – with pain and heartbreak and suffering, but just enough loving sacrifice to make it worthwhile.
How are we different from that stone, or that tree or that daisy?
We are breathed on.
God’s breath surges within us, as we laugh out loud, weep mightily and sing out His Words – struggling to be suitable for this field of stars, so often trampled and broken, but with plans to flourish under the illuminating stars created by the Son of heaven.
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Caught out in daylight, a rabbit’s transparent pallor, the moon is paired with a cloud of equal weight: the heavenly congruence startles.
For what is the moon, that it haunts us, this impudent companion immigrated from the system’s less fortunate margins, the realm of dust collected in orbs?
We grow up as children with it, a nursemaid of a bonneted sort, round-faced and kind, not burning too close like parents, or too far to spare even a glance, like movie stars.
No star but in the zodiac of stars, a stranger there, too big, it begs for love (the man in it) and yet is diaphanous, its thereness as mysterious as ours. ~John Updike “Half Moon, Small Cloud”
Children in a Garden with Nanny by Mary Cassatt
Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing.
I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside. ~Flannery O’Connor from her journals
photo by Bob Tjoelkera full moon in Ireland
Like a vigilant nanny watching from the skies, the moon keeps its pale eye on me, no matter where I am on the globe. There is comfort in seeing its illumination from various vantage points in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Yet, through no fault of its own, the moon is constantly inconstant in its “thereness”, phasing from full bright orb to missing-in-action.
I know my own inconstant “thereness” gets in my way all the time — casting a shadow of darkness on the light and beauty around me. With human “blinders” on, I can’t see beyond where I stand, where I move, what I feel, what I fear, what I see and hear.
And I certainly get in the way of my knowing God in His divine and overpowering radiance.
It’s all about my blindness when I declare God “missing-in-action.”
He’s there, though partially hidden by my push to be front and center. He’s there, His glory and truth manifest over me, if I look to see. He’s there, gently instructing me to get out of His way. He’s there, fully Light and fully Love.
I step back, in awe.
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…to bear in her womb Infinite weight and lightness; to carry in hidden, finite inwardness, nine months of Eternity; to contain in slender vase of being, the sum of power – in narrow flesh, the sum of light.
Then bring to birth, push out into air, a Man-child needing, like any other, milk and love –
What could a baby know of gold ornaments or frankincense and myrrh, of priestly robes and devout genuflections?
But the imagination knows all stories before they are told and knows the truth of this one past all defection
The rich gifts so unsuitable for a child though devoutly proffered, stood for all that love can bring.
The men were old how could they know of a mother’s needs or a child’s appetite?
But as they kneeled the child was fed. They saw it and gave praise!
A miracle had taken place, hard gold to love, a mother’s milk! before their wondering eyes.
The ass brayed the cattle lowed. It was their nature.
All men by their nature give praise. It is all they can do.
The very devils by their flight give praise. What is death, beside this?
Nothing. The wise men came with gifts and bowed down to worship this perfection. ~William Carlos Williams “The Gift”
The uncontained contained infinite made finite humble made worthy a Deliverer delivered hungry sated on mother’s milk unsuitable made perfect darkness illuminated with possibilities the eternal here and now
How can you measure the love of a mother, Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry? Candlelight, angel light, firelight and starglow Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn. Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo! Angels are singing; the Christ child is born. Shepherds and wise men will kneel and adore him, Seraphim round him their vigil will keep; Nations proclaim him their Lord and their Saviour, But Mary will hold him and sing him to sleep. Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger: Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay. Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation: A child with his mother that first Christmas Day. ~John Rutter – words and music
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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