Breathtakingly beautiful. In fact, with each incremental rise of the sun into the morning the sweeping scenes passing outside the window have become more hypnotic. Montana since the earliest graying of dawn.
The Empire Builder pulled out of Portland exactly on time, but through the night fell behind. Again, the hour or so tardiness is hard to begrudge; on time we would have driven through these mountain forests in the dark. Snow-covered fields occasionally interrupt the woods, an orphaned farm implement up to its axels in drift. Deeper now into the mountains, wildlife tracks are evident ascending the slopes, but I can’t imagine how they managed the steep grade. As we pulled into Whitefish – a ski area at which many departed the train – I found myself thinking this vertical ocean of God-flocked evergreens “out-Vermonted Vermont”, before deciding such an idea blasphemous.
Now east of Whitefish, in the midst of the Glacier Park expanse, the train has snaked alongside a snow-banked river with the mountains towering up beside. I’ve tried a few desperate but feckless pictures; the results can’t begin to capture the grandeur. A few buildings peak out from between the trees and beneath the 3 or 4 feet of snow frosting the roofs. Here and there in an open space, horses dot the snowy landscape. Crossing over a high trestle, the valley below opens into such an emotionally beautiful vista that tears well and a lump rises in my throat.
No music – no jazz, no train songs; just the centering drone of the train and the occasional laughing banter of car steward Darryl. Work – the books, the sermons, the thinking – are hopelessly overpowered by the compulsion to simply sit, absorb, marvel, float, as it were, along the river, and give thanks. What is happening through the windows is sermon enough.
2 comments:
"...hopelessly overpowered by the compulsion to simply sit, absorb, marvel, float, as it were, along the river, and give thanks. What is happening through the windows is sermon enough." Amen. And that which are you seeing and experiencing is a good part of what moved me to become a Landscape Architect (I experienced most in the mountains of Colorado, but have been to Glacier), although as you can see, our Creator was THE original Landscape Architect!
"Work – the books, the sermons, the thinking – are hopelessly overpowered by the compulsion to simply sit, absorb, marvel, float, as it were, along the river, and give thanks. What is happening through the windows is sermon enough."
Hence the reason it's difficult to do a real "retreat" in a couple of days. It often requires the first two or three days just to disconnect -- not only from the clamor left behind, but from the baggage of "to-do" expectations brought along. You know you're really on retreat when you finally reach that place where to just BE is sufficient, where one can enter into a contemplative place.
The difficulty in switching between the being & doing modes; between the quiet place away and the active place of serving in the midst of the noisy world, is part of why the balance between the two is so difficult to attain. (Another factor might be that -- unlike Jesus' world -- we don't have that "wilderness" within walking distance, to which we can withdraw whenever we need to!)
We gravitate either to that for which we are most suited by nature, or the one in which we spend the most time & energy due to the demands of our vocation or lifestyle.
Making the intentional break with the mode in which we find ourselves often seems to require more od us than we have to give to it. (While returning to our default mode often happens without a deliberate choice.) So, it seems to me that the need is to create the intention and practice to engage the mode we generally don't experience. It will never happen unless we choose it.
Sometimes, an extended period disconnected from one's regular life is required as a starting place, from which one can genuinely experience the desired alternative state. Perhaps it becomes easier to incorporate it into our daily life once we know what the experience is like in the first place.
Even those -- such as monks -- who have a life in community focused on a life balance between work, study, prayer, rest, and recreation, find it can be difficult for mere mortals to keep all those in proper balance. How much more so for those of us living in the "world" with a culture which does not support that search for balance?
Maybe we can turn the top floor into a mini-monastery! ;-)
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