"For if I could please myself I would always live as I lived there. I would choose always to breakfast at exactly eight and to be at my desk by nine, there to read or write till one. If a cup of good tea or coffee could be brought me about eleven, so much the better" and on to reading, writing, talking, walking. But "It is no doubt for my own good that I have been so generally prevented from leading it, for it is a life almost entirely selfish. Selfish, not self-centered: for in such a life my mind would be directed toward a thousand things, not one of which is myself" (Surprised by Joy 142).
For if I could live to please myself I would always have times like this morning. The thunder startled me awake soon after five, and I wrapped myself in a flannel blanket and went unwillingly downstairs. But it was a weekend, so instead of preparing for work I could go and stand on the porch, watching the lighting freeze time as the air became a three dimensional curtain of motionless raindrops. The sound of falling rain went on and on. I soon came back inside and dressed, created breakfast, taking my time, enjoying the food. Then, with the thunder still sounding but the lightning far off, I went and got my food and cash for the week. I drove home in the dark with flashes of lightning and the music filling my head and heart as it always does when there is nothing else around. Time slowed and stopped again, as I disappeared in the darkness and the music, being filled with nothing of myself; being filled with something else.
I came home, put the groceries away, and choked on the jalapenos in the newly-made cornbread my roommate offered me. It was good to make her laugh. I went upstairs, where my candle was still flickering and the lights were off, took off shoes and coat, and went for a walk in the rain.
The first part of the walk was the river, the river roaring, its sound louder than my own singing. The tenseness left my shoulders as I turned from sidewalk into forest. The stream had become a river, for the storms had been pouring themselves out to the earth for three days. The river rose so close to the path the beginnings of the fenceposts between the path and the drop were under water. I walked for almost an hour, avoiding streets, and gradually entered the borders of the faery realm. It began with an awareness that there would be no-one else around, for it was before seven on a weekend and raining, so only the eccentric or the mad were out and about. I could not see under the trees, and could barely see the path, but the watery pools and soaking leaves were cool beneath my feet. I became aware of the faerie when a deer paused just ahead, its stillness an indication of its caution. I slowed, stopped, and barely moved as it stood waiting for me to declare myself foe or imagination. But at last I wiped a raindrop from my face and it fled, my movement scaring it back into the woods. Later I saw two fawns, whose caution was the echo of the deer's but whose curiosity almost caused them to come closer; then they too turned and fled, but the presence of others remained. I loved the walk, the river, the life, and the presence in my mind of those who dwelt in wood and shadows, never clearly seen but beautiful beyond the knowledge of the human. I turn back several times when the path led me back to the sidewalks and roads, wishing I could have dwelt in the world I didn't belong in for longer. But the back held beauty too, the man-made flower gardens guarded by pavement borders holding the sense of life and stillness that only comes after rain. Passing by a pine tree I saw each pine needle was letting fall drops of water, and every flower close to the bat was covered with the small circles of water that is finally still. Life was growing, soaking in, and in the wake of the power of the thunder and lighting came the stillness of the life that they give. The passing of one to another reminded me that the loss of something loved can be happen without mourning as something good and beautiful comes in its place.
Coming home, I made some tea, finished the errands for the day, and sat down to read. I'm reading a book I love, A Severe Mercy, where the author and his wife know the hunger to explore the earth, to cherish beauty, to test their boundaries of what their minds know, to study the challenges of life, and have a life filled to the brim with love, laugher, loss, and beauty. In it the two, not yet Christians, record thoughts like this:
The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians--when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. But, though it is just to condemn some Christians for these things perhaps, after all, it is not just, though very easy, to condemn Christianity itself for them. Indeed, there are impressive indications that the positive quality of joy is in Christianity--and possibly no where else. If that were certain, it would be proof of a very high order. 85
Or perhaps like this: "Then we encountered the Germans--the 'demythologizers' […] our real 'salvation' from these wreckers came through our recognition of the quite unverifiable fundamental assumptions […] Christ's word were misunderstood by His followers and the early church though quite clear to [these] critics. Assumption: the mind of the infinite God is not unlike that of a German critic" (106-107).
I would I could spend most of my life like this, thanking God for rain and thunder, walking in the beauty of His creation with the knowledge that so much more lies beyond what I see, whether it be fairy or just the miracle of His creation happening and rebirthing, then coming back and reading with errands done and work accomplished, then recording a morning to the glory of God. I would I could spend all of life with eyes wide open to beauty from early in the morning on, though I would it would be here and in Japan and Africa, in Europe and Asia. Those are my dreams, to travel there, but dreams can be different than desires, and I desire more mornings like this one. God's gift of this morning is precious and beautiful.
But even while walking, though less while reading, I was fighting to keep heartache from my mind. Some of it is what I watched, the sad moments in the stories that speak to me perhaps because of what I too have lost. I stopped reading before the wife became ill, not wanting anything to curve my mind away from happiness, then realized too late it already had, for I read the portion where they lived at Oxford, and much in it reminded me of the joy of my own time at school, and then I read where they left it behind, where a friend of theirs says "'This, you know, is a time of taking in--taking in friendship, conversation, gaiety, wisdom, knowledge, beauty, holiness--and later, well, there'll be a time of giving out.' Later, when we were scattered about the world. Now we must store up the strength, the riches, all that Oxford had given us, to sustain us after. She stood there, Oxford, like a mother to us all with her hands heaped with riches" (118). But that chapter ends, too, with a good note, with C. S. Lewis striding away after saying "I shan't say goodbye. We'll meet again," and then on "reach[ing] the other side, he turned round as though he knew somehow that I would still be standing there in front of the Eastgate. Then he raised his voice in a great roar that easily overcame the noise of the cars and buses. Heads turned and at least one car swerved. 'Besides,' he bellowed with a great grin, 'Christians NEVER say goodbye!'" (125).
This morning seems a respite, a cessation of the battle against drudgery, against the mundane work week that makes my soul cry out for life. I'd wondered, on my walk this morning, which was harder, the cross, or Christ's 33 years of daily living with humans. I know our idiocy cannot compare to suffering the wrath of God, but my mind idly wondered which would be worse, hours and hours of agony and grief that would seem like an eternity, or the daily frustrations and temptations of living as a perfect, godly man among those whose sin turns into fools or rebels. But then I realized it wasn't just thirty-three years, Christ--God--has dealt with the fools, the fallen, every since Eden. He's guided, loved, and grown us since Adam and Eve, through history even down to today. His love is overwhelming in its patience and tenderness, in its demand to hold nothing back and yet to be sustained in everything by God Himself. Many of the songs I hear on the Christian radio capture the idea of sacrificing everything for Him, but so often make it a one-time offering, a glory of giving up everything; I find Him asking for the daily sacrifice of working well in the small things. Yet He said those who are faithful in small things will be faithful in great ones, so why am I surprised? Yet even in the small, I fail; even here I need to be sustained by Christ.
But though I fail, He does not forget my desires, the things I long for, and after a day of failure and complaint yesterday, He still gave me this morning, gave me the desires of my heart. God, give me grace to give back gratitude, rather than holding too tightly to time that is passing! The desire to keep what He gives longer than He intends to give it always spoils the gift; under my tight grip it crumples it into ashes, instead of becoming a beautiful memory. I have written this that I may look back and remember, and remembering, thank God for the gifts of this morning. He does give us the desires of our souls, and hears us when we cry for them. Thank God that I am under His mercy, and that it was His pleasure to give me a morning such as this. May the grace given here sustain me as I go into another week, and may I wonder at His kingdom in that week as much as I did here.
No comments:
Post a Comment