Looking Beyond the Ripples and Falls

“{People} see God in the ripple but not in the miles of still water. Of all the two-thousand miles that the St. Lawrence flows — pilgrims go only to Niagara.”

     ——- Henry David Thoreau 

The sun is rising on a day in which nothing much is planned.  

The calendar is empty.

There are no errands to run.

No packages are anticipated in the mail.

Leftovers will satisfy the needs of all three meals.

At zero degrees, it’s too cold for outdoor projects.

The chickens are fed.

The dogs are snoozing on the sofa.

The laundry is done.

The dishes are washed.

The bills are paid.

It’s quiet — a “still water” kind of day.  

With a sheepish smile I think of how much of my life would have considered such a day a waste of good opportunity.  “Surely,” I would have told myself, “the responsible thing to do is figure out how to make some dominoes fall, some mountains move, some towers get built.”  You know, make something happen....  
     Light a fire.  
          Ring a bell.  
               Draw a sword.

And God knows there is plenty to do — in the world, and around the house.  It doesn't take much imagination to name them.  They are glaring...jarring...clamorous.  Tackling some of them -- checking a few off the list -- in the course of this "empty" space of time certainly wouldn’t be bad.

But busy, it wouldn’t automatically be helpful.  As Thoreau observes, Niagara Falls only occupies one small fraction of the River.   What else might there be upstream?  Or downstream?

It’s easy to hear when the music is loud.  What is to be heard inside the sounds of silence?

Quite familiar  -- and in some ways more comfortable -- with Elijah's experience at the mouth of the cave, hair parted by the great wind, teeth rattled by earthquakes and eyebrows singed by nearing fires...though only occasionally experiencing divinity within them, I will spend this day on different, more muted terms.

I’m rather determined this day to make a pilgrimage to the stillness -- to listen into the "sound of sheer silence" that Elijah described; to attend to the "still small voice" -- rather than the roaring attractions and the ripples that are conspicuously and unusually absent from the schedule, trusting in the holy wonder to be discerned in quiet hours...miles removed from the Falls.

Hungering for Humanity

We are living in a very odd and disturbing time.

I suppose there have been unsettled folk in every “time” who have felt that way, but seriously.  This is an odd time, indeed.  In recent days the press has served up stories suggesting that the U.S. President was placed in office by God Almighty, and that his orange skin is a sign of the Holy Spirit's movement within him.   These are the serious matters with which we are consumed.  Never mind the degradation of the environment.  Pay no attention to the generalized decline of healthfulness in favor of a managed, somewhat mitigated state of illness.  Ignore as irrelevant the violence become epidemic in neighborhoods, houses of worship, dance halls, concert venues and schools.  We’ve got the President’s unnatural skin color to talk about.

Whatever. Never mind my hunch that God isn't registered to vote in our elections, I have larger concerns than political/theological dermatology. I'm too puzzled by — and sleepless over — our culture’s ineluctable and passionate adulterous affair with fear that drives us to belittle and demean each other...

• like the generously hospitable Muslim Imam and his community who have welcomed us to their prayers, their hearts and their table; 
• like the differently gendered campus minister — one of the the most faithfully compelling and spiritually rich Christians I know — who is constantly — constantly — facing charges from her denomination that devalue her humanity and jeopardize her ministry; 
• like the precious Burmese refugee children whose Sunday School Lori and I are privileged to teach on Sunday mornings; 
• like the various hard working immigrants we routinely come into contact with from "suspect" countries whose paperwork is a constant source of anxiety and frenetic maintenance.

We are so afraid; fearful in ways that are robbing us of our heart, paralyzing our souls, suffocating our basic humanity, imprisoning us behind our gated fencelines and blinding us to our neighbors.  It would be one thing if the roof was actually caving in or the infidels were actually clamoring at the gate.  But despite what the politicians are shouting, and the media outlets are repeating, and the social media channels are reposting, the facts don’t support the paranoia toward those unlike us that has become our national pastime.

I know we all don't see these differently raised, differently religious, differently colored, differently oriented people through the same lens, but do we have to be so brutally carnivorous in our disagreements?  Before we became so angry and frightened we tethered ourselves to some fundamental, core beliefs about the value of human beings.  We still pretend to in our pitched battles over abortion and capital punishment, but our behaviors defy our rhetoric.  We may love “humanity” as long as they are kept at some safe, philosophical distance, but we expend a lot of time and heated energy vilifying actual people.

I say let the President dye himself whatever color makes him happy.  While I don’t think it has anything to do with the pigmentational effects of the Holy Spirit, it is certainly his own prerogative.  Meanwhile, I intend to do my best to feed my aching hunger for a little basic humanity.  

To Who Knows Where...

The morning is veiled in fog.  Soft gray blurs the prairie grasses near at hand and dissolves the tree line beyond.  After the successive waves of snowfall in recent weeks and the bitter cold of the past few days, the sudden winter warmup is inviting the intemperate air and all the resident moisture on the ground to dance.  It is beautiful, mysterious...

...and treacherous.  The drive home last night from an outing with friends was treacherous, with visibility extending only occasionally beyond the hood of the car.  We inched along slowly; grateful for the absence of traffic behind us, and for the occasional Sherpa-like taillights guiding from ahead.  The turn onto gravel toward home off the county road was more hypothesis than certainty, but our creeping caution successfully compensated for our lack of confidence.  Finally turning into our driveway, and easing into our garage, we pulled ourselves into the house, slumped wearily onto the sofa and offered silent prayers of thanksgiving for our safety.  It was foolish to be out; a gift to be home.

Today, however, the fog feels more evocative than dangerous — like a Holmesian mystery set among the murky back streets of London.  Anything can happen.  Clearer-headed in the light of day, the prudent are sitting tight.  The roads remain deserted and the airport is closed.  As a sequel to this week’s polar vortex-imposed paralysis, nature has devised yet another mechanism for slowing us down; for summoning us to stillness.  Suddenly there is time to think, to process into insights the data that has windrifted against the fencelines of our consciousness.  Finally, a moment for creative, reflective brooding.  How long we will acquiesce remains to be seen — restlessness has a way of overriding our caution — but only thrill-seeking fools bluster ahead full throttle with their eyes closed.  The more prudent pause, squint discerningly into the mist, and only then pick their way slowly into the ambiguity.  Inevitably, some will sneer at the caution; but it isn’t timidity that fuels the hesitation, rather sagacity.

What, then, shall we do?  How might this wisdom nourish and instruct us rather merely frustrate?  It would be a helpful discipline to learn, after all, for while there are those blessedly clear, blue sky intervals when it seems like we can see forever, in a metaphorical sense fog is more ubiquitous than sun.  It is delusion to think the way ahead in life is obvious or clear.  Most of our steps are best guesses; more intuitive than sure.  On a good day — the sunniest, most cloudless day — the furthest horizon is not actually that far away.  We hypothesize where to turn and best guess at what’s ahead, but finally we walk by faith and not by sight.  We are flying...or creeping...blind.

But caution is prudent; patience, ennobling There is something to be said for pacing our steps, bowing to visibility, and leaning forward with humility...

...to who knows where.