Luminaries

[I tried posting this a couple days ago, and my wise and loving wife was concerned about those who know me and might be concerned if they weren't familiar with this particular style of my writing.  One of the skills as a writer that I have been trying to develop is to watch for events that happen in my life, or mental snapshots of a place I am, then see and write the story that is contained in it.  This story was sparked by the thunderstorm that passed through Swaziland last week, and I've also taken a little from an experience I had in Sudan almost ten years ago.  But for those who know me and care about me, this is NOT an autobiographical account of what happened last week!  This is the story of the moonrise on the night after the storm; and the story seeks to delve into what light and darkness mean to us, not simply on the surface, but deep within our souls.  The photo is from our front porch here in Swaziland.]

Yesterday a violent thunderstorm passed through the valley, the wind howling and the heavens dropping pebbles of hail to the earth.  We lost power in late afternoon, and many hours passed by before it could be restored.  As dusk approached and still the lights were not working in the house, anxiety began to swell up inside my heart.  The clouds were low, beneath the hilltops, and once the darkness came, there was no light in the entire valley.

The rattling hum of a generator filled the air, and one little light shone in the darkness.  But when the appointed hour came, the generator gasped its last breath then choked off, for the sake of saving precious dollars of electricity.  Instantly, terror like I have never known gripped me, its tentacles wrangling out from the blackness and wrapping themselves around my very soul.  On my bed, I held my hand before my face, but still all I could see was a vast nothingness.  The night is evil.

I cried out for help, again and again; but the night did not end, nor the fear, nor the helpless blindness.  What if I am attacked?  What if a thief breaks in and steals?  What if I am torn by wild beasts?  I dared not get out of my bed, even to go across the room and get the flashlight.  What if a snake has come under the door?  What if a scorpion hides inside my shoe?

When I am afraid, I will trust in God.  And finally, after a lifetime of nights, I fell asleep.

Tonight, the clouds have lifted, and the full moon rises over the rocky hills.  I see the light, that it is good; and I am thankful -- for the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.

Tabernacle

I am outside.

I see the tabernacle inside.  I see the trees and the granite spires glowing in the western sun.  Within, I hear friendly people chirping greetings and pleasantries in the lilt of late afternoon, as well as the melodic cascading of water rippling down the city creek.  I smell the flowers in the gardens and the fragrance of freshly cut grass wafting over to me.

I want to go in, but how?  I don't see a door.

I circle around, hoping for a break in the concrete, a chink in the armor, an opening in the cloistered wall.  One corner ... then another ... and two more after that.  The square seems complete.  Until, at long last, I come to the place.  There is only one way.

Enter in at the strait gate.

Dakota

I crested the rise and saw the hills splayed out across the plain before me, gloomy yet majestic. With the clouds above and the sun behind, they were blacker than I had ever seen before. Who would have thought that such beauty could arise from such - my thoughts probed for the right word - such plain-ness?

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A giant gash, a crooked fissure, a jagged hole in the earth ... a canyon painted in browns and reds and greens sinks below the striped highway streaking along the prairie. There is beauty in the heights. There is beauty in the depths, too. But this range is not my home.

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I lift my eyes to the hills, can these men help me? I see faces, but they do not smile. Their eyes do not see, nor their ears hear. Their mouths do not speak, so I cannot hear their voice. And I rush about, each day more quickly than the next, searching ... searching ... searching.

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I have walked through a barren wasteland, alternating between sunshine and shadow as I went up each mound and back down the other side. This is a bad place. I do not wish to remember it, yet I cannot forget. This land is silent and lonely, full of grief and sorrow and anger.

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Do not hold back your river of tears, my love. Do not shut them up like a dam that contains the mighty torrent. The fort you build for protection will become a prison in the end. Do you feel pain? Name it, as you would a child ... George, or Louis, or Randall. And then, like a child, let it go. There is power in the release.

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Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The time of singing has come, and the voice of the dove is heard in our land.
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!

Turner

[Katahdin, as seen from South Turner Peak]

June 9, 2010

South Turner Peak, elevation 3,122 feet, is a small outcropping of rock jutting from a massif opposite the Great Basin of Katahdin in the Maine wilderness. Katahdin forms a giant bowl that opens to the east and drains into several small bodies of water, one of which is named Sandy Stream Pond. Just beyond this pond begins the steep slope of South Turner Mountain, offering the most majestic views of Katahdin, its granite walls rising 2,000 feet above the valley floor.

I awoke at 2 am to begin my ascent. This part of Maine is so far north and east that the sun often rises before 4 o'clock, so I needed to start early. I wanted to watch the sunrise from atop the peak. Some rain had fallen during the night, which made the trail muddy and the rocks slippery. When I first started my trek I was afraid of coming across a coyote or a bear in the dark. [This was my first attempt to hike in darkness.] I soon realized that I was much more likely to fall and hit my head on a rock than to be attacked by some wild creature in the night. My fears subsided as I focused my thoughts on the trail in order to maintain secure footing on every step.

The small mountain rises about 1,500 feet in less than a mile of distance, not steep enough to have to climb on all fours, but almost. I got wet and cold as I made my way up the wooded face, but the journey was thrilling. The light from my headlamp refracted off the water droplets still clinging to the needled pine branches. The effect made it look as if the trees were studded with diamonds. I made a sudden turn to the right and burst through the timberline as the eastern sky was starting to glow. I could see fires burning in the distance to the southeast, I don't know where from exactly. I scrambled over the last couple hundred feet of scree (quite an adventure in the dark) and sat down to watch the spectacular event about to unfold around me.

The rim of Katahdin looked like nothing more than a faint black line scrawled across the western horizon. A northern wind brought some rain through the valley below, so I dug out my space blanket from my pack and wrapped it around myself to keep warm. I found a spot to hunker down between some rocks that sheltered me somewhat from the wind and turned back to the west to face the mountain towering above the surrounding landscape. The clouds blew across the northern plateau and, quite literally, poured down over the rim and into the basin of Katahdin. It was a stupendous sight, the clouds filling the great bowl from top to bottom and soon shrouding the rocky heights in dense fog. The sky was brightening now, so I turned my attention to the east to watch the breaking of the dawn.

The partly cloudy sky obscured some of the more brilliant colors, but nevertheless, the sunrise was magnificent. I watched the entire valley come alive right before my eyes. The morning light burned away the mists below me. The numerous ponds within the basin, which at first appeared like voids of blackness, transformed into pools of reflected light. And as the minutes passed one after another, the dark valley floor became a plush, velvety green carpet of conifers.

An hour passed, and I ventured down the mountain again. At the bottom, I paused for a while alongside Sandy Stream Pond to view the same scene again, this time from below instead of above. The sun was well over the horizon now, and the entire valley radiated the orange light of morning. It was glorious; no other word will do.

So evening came, and morning came ... a new day.

Foursquare

[I wish I had a photo of this house, but alas, I don't. Perhaps I'll be able to take one sometime or happen upon an old one. When I do, I'll include it in this post.]

On the plains of Iowa stands a two-story house that belongs to my grandparents, my mom's mom and dad. While we were driving across the country back in 2009, my wife saw it for the first time.

It had been at least 10 years since my last visit, and I'd forgotten how much I loved that old house. Like Chesterton, I suppose that I've sinned and grown old. That house was always full of joy, maybe because Gram and Gramps had things that we didn't have in Wisconsin (where I was born), things like chicken-and-stars soup and Mr. Pibb cola. When I was a very young child, the entire family would go there for Christmas. It was like a giant slumber party, with cousins spreading out sleeping bags in various rooms throughout the house.

My wife and I slept in the same room my brother and I had slept in years and years before, in the same twin beds on opposite sides of the room. The same pictures were on the same pink walls, the same tree outside the window, the same creaky door, the same crooked driveway, the same feelings of unfamiliarity and longing that came with living far away from this place. Everything was the same, except Gramps. Gram had weathered the years like the stalwart German that she is; her face didn't reveal her eighty years. But Gramps ... well, Gramps was old. He came down the stairs for breakfast then had to sit in his chair and rest for half an hour. In his midwestern way, he "asked" me to help repair a leaky gutter that had caused some problems the previous winter.

"There's this one spot in the gutter leaking real bad down onto the sidewalk. It made a terrible icy spot last winter. I don't know how I'm going to fix it, because I can't get the ladder up there anymore."

"You know, Gramps, I'd be happy to do that for you." I gave the dutiful mid-western response.

"Well, I would really appreciate it. I've been worried sick about how I was going to get that done."

So I helped him, of course, especially since the gutter was twenty feet up in the air and Gramps' wooden extension ladder was old, rickety, and very heavy. Gramps had always been a fix-it man, and he couldn't bring himself to let me handle the ladder myself. His hands quaked with age as he feebly grappled with the ladder. I was afraid he would hurt himself, so I assured him that I could move it alone; but he kept on going anyways. Eventually the gutter got repaired, and the ladder got stowed back under the house, and we had a great time doing it all, and nobody was injured. [Thanks be to God.]

At last, we all sat down to supper in their wonderfully nostalgic Craftsman-style dining room filled with the latest photos of all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As always at Gram's house, the food was plentiful and good, in the Iowa way. I think we took hands (although I don't remember exactly) and bowed our heads to ask God's blessing on the meal. When the old man prayed, his voice trembled, just on the verge of breaking, the same as his rugged hands. He spoke slowly and in mumbling tones, but his words shook with love.

I had almost forgotten, but now I remember that house - an old house, tall and square, full of joy and memory.

Cottage

On the wall above my desk hangs a picture drawn in pencil, an old gift to my wife from a dear artist friend who, along with his wife, became Allison's second parents while she was in college. I like this picture because the artwork is so elegantly simple and beautiful. Every time I look at it I think of Dale, a rare kindred spirit to my creative soul.

The winter is cold. Cloudy skies cast a shadowy gloom over a snow-covered meadow. Two wind-stripped beech trees, sketched in intricate detail, reach upward in front of me, with a towering evergreen forest far behind. The land is bare. Tufts of grass poke through the snow in the clearing. And the cottage, squatting below the pines like one of those Lincoln-log houses I built as a boy, lay in the distance with a rugged fence around an empty pasture.

But where is God in this picture? That is what I want to know. My first thought leaps up instantly, "God is in the cottage, of course!" And it makes sense that He would be there. He is our home, our eternal rest, our haven of warmth in the midst of winter's chill. But the cottage is so far away! God is there, and I am here. He is within, but I am without. He is warm, I am cold. And I do not know if I can span the distance, for I have traveled far and am weary from the journey. If God is in the cottage, what if a blizzard comes? Alas, I am lost.

This cottage has been long forsaken. The firewood is neatly stacked but none of it used. No smoke billows from the chimney. There is no barn for livestock, and the pasture is barren. The clouds have obscured the sun and moon, no light remains to rule either day or night. The stars are scattered throughout the cosmos and offer no guidance, no comfort, no granted wishes. Where, then, is God?

God is not in the cottage.
God is not in the snow.
God is not in the trees.
God is not in the clouds.
God is not in the picture.

Where are you, God?

Redtail

I went out the door one frosty, autumn morning to be greeted by a sight of such beauty and hilarity that I still laugh to myself every time I think of it.

It was my final year of seminary - we lived about thirty miles outside Boston in the area of Massachusetts they call the North Shore, not more than a ten minute drive from the Atlantic. The seminary campus sat on Brown's Hill, the highest point in Essex County, and on its 80+ acres could be found any number of interesting species of wildlife: orioles, goldfinches, porcupines, squirrels, ladybird beetles aplenty, and this particular year, a pair of redtail hawks.

I didn't see them very often, I presume because they nested high in the trees. But every now and then, usually when I wasn't looking, my eye would catch a flash of red tail feathers in the morning sun or glimpse one of the majestic birds standing proudly on the ground or perched on a branch. One time I had been driving up the hill when I saw them both circling barely above the treetops, not hunting, but gliding effortlessly in repeating spirals, just for fun.

This morning I was walking across the parking lot of our apartment building, shivering on my way to class. Suddenly, one of the great winged predators swept low out from the trees to my left over the parking lot. He couldn't have been more than a hundred feet in front of me and came within twenty feet of the ground. He was magnificent, covered in silky brown, milky white, and rusty red tones glimmering in the early morning sunshine. He was moving fast, very fast, like a pilot barnstorming the rows of parked vehicles still covered with crystalline dew-drops. I don't think he flapped his wings even once as he crossed over the lot and deftly wafted up to a perch atop one of the dormers of the apartment building across the way. There he stood for a moment, regal and stately, like a king surveying his land from the castle tower...

...and dropped a deuce off the side of the building that fell forty feet to the earth below.

Agassiz

[Big Agassiz Rock, on the North Shore of Massachusetts]

Summer 2010

I love the rock. I don't really know why -- just because, I guess -- maybe that's a good enough reason. I like climbing rocks; on them, over them, around them. It makes me feel like a kid again, playing on the ultimate playground. One foot after another, rock after rock, until at last, I reach the mammoth boulder with the ocean far, far in the distance.

The rock is not safe, because it is hard. Yet for precisely this reason it is secure. One tremor of the finger, or one lapse in concentration, and the foot is dashed against a stone. Pain upon pain! But I cannot turn away, for I am in a weary land and need a shelter in the time of storm. I crawl under, lay my face on the shady coolness, and hide in the cleft until the Glory has passed by. First the lighting and the thunder, then the wind and the rain, then silent, peaceful sleep.

In my dream, the rock comes alive! then grows larger and larger as I worm my way down the ravine I see in front of me. From the valley floor I see it rising, expanding, filling up the hole in the earth. The rock is pushing me now, hard against the crags, squeezing me so that I cannot breathe. I am enveloped in stone! I take one final gasp of air, and then, in a start, I awake.

So I cling to the rock once again and drink my fill, body splayed against its rugged face. Toes aching, fingers splitting, legs scraping, muscles burning, mind churning, I search for the next place, then the next, on which to stand. And the rock does not give way; for it is heavier that I, with greater mass and density. Never mind the blood or fatigue, they are only temporary. For now, resting firmly on the rock, I will keep the memory of this vista forever.

The rock is hard, but it is trustworthy.

Cathedral

[St. Patrick's Cathedral, in NYC]

July 28, 2010

Two hours in New York City. That's all the time I had.

I'd been traveling for three days already, trying to get home from half a world away. I had slept on a sofa the night before, one that belonged to some good friends of ours who live in Queens. It had been a random meeting scheduled on account of an overnight layover at JFK, and we had had a fantastic time catching up on life and theology over Thai food delivery and white wine. My flight back to Boston was scheduled to leave at three in the afternoon. Subtract an hour to ride the E Line from the Port Authority to Jamaica Station, twenty minutes for the AirTrain to the terminal, another hour to get through airport security, and that left me with two hours to kill. So I slung the camera over my shoulder, stuffed ten dollars in my pocket, grabbed my already-too-full backpack and set out to catch the bus. I was on pilgrimage to midtown Manhattan.

I had visited St. Patrick's Cathedral once before, almost twenty years earlier, while on a State-side mission trip with the youth group. I grew up a Baptist and had never seen a real, bonafide cathedral before. That day in New York City, when I was fifteen, had been one of the most memorable experiences of my life - climbing the Statue of Liberty, eating thick-crust pizza in Little Italy, touring the UN building, riding the wonder of modern transportation called the subway, and finally, toward the end of the afternoon, seeing the stunning beauty of St. Patrick's. We had also gone to FAO Schwartz (the world's largest toy store!), but had arrived fifteen minutes past closing time. Except for that part, it had been a very full and wonderful day. But of everything I had experienced, St. Patrick's stayed with me, although I didn't understand why.

Now an adult in my thirties, I was going back. I had decided to spend my two hours in the Big Apple photographing the church and stealing a few quiet moments of prayer. Fifteen minutes on the Q32, fifteen more on the F Line express to Rockefeller Center, a few blocks walk down 50th St. ... and there it was again, the Gothic grandeur of St. Patrick's Cathedral. It looked old, older than I remembered. The masonry was starting to crack and crumble along the base. Years before I had looked up at the two spires and marveled at how tall they were, but now I was struck by how large everything else appeared in comparison. It seemed an apt symbol of modern American culture - an aged and decrepit Christianity overtaken by the skyscrapers of commerce and ambition. I wondered if there had once been a time when the talk of New York was the twin towers of St. Patrick's.

The building had matured, but was no less beautiful for it. I walked around the entire structure, looking up and snapping pictures as I discovered interesting angles and perspectives. Eventually I made my way back around to the front, so I took off my hat and went inside. The sanctuary was even more awe-inspiring the second time. As I walked up the center aisle, my eyes drank in the dozens of flickering candles, the cloudy glow filtering through the stained glass, the medieval magnificence of the altar and the immensity of the tabernacle. I wearily plopped myself down in one of the pews toward the front, quietly set all my things beside me on the dark walnut, and reveled in the moment. After a while I pulled out my journal and scribbled a prayer, but mostly, for the next forty-five minutes or so, I just sat.

The LORD was in His holy temple, and I kept silence before Him.

Nebraska

(written in the summer of 2009 while driving across the US)

I love the land. Not in the same way that I love my wife, of course, nor in the way that I savor hot coffee in the morning or a long hike up the side of a tall mountain. This love is not as full as the one, but deeper than the other. I discovered it by digging, digging, digging until I held broken tools in dirty hands to match a broken heart. It was in that place - there in the soil - and in that moment - when the wind was the most still - that the sun rose above the land into space and shone bright, right in my eyes. I sneezed, then I wept, and laid down to rest.

At that time the land was strange to me, but not unfriendly. I came to it as an alien might land on a distant shore; naive, inquisitive, impatient, and a bit frivolous. In return, the land showed me its mystery, its wonder, and, as all who tread upon it must experience sooner or later, its dry harshness. After making our introductions we got on cordially enough, the land and me, but we were never close enough to be considered life-long friends. There just wasn't enough time.

I came here when I was seventeen, to this place so different from where I came from but reminiscent of my very early youth. I had come from the city, where glass and steel had long ago begun to sprout from the earth instead of corn and beans. There, life had been full of friends and cars, as every teenaged boy's is, racing from one day to the next but never winning anything. All the same, life was good there.

But here, in Nebraska, I was alone. Here in Nebraska, I was unknown. And here, in Nebraska, I was home. Yet as strange as it may sound, all these things were true at the same time. For - as it is with everyone, I suppose - it was in leaving that I arrived; in standing still that I leapt forward; and in dying to self that I was raised to life anew. Because though I had lost my way, it was here, in Nebraska, that I was found.

There is healing in the land, and rest.