Simply at Peace

In some sense, the future is always uncertain. Get too entrenched into your dreams, and if they must change, it’s a great pain. I am a tree who wished but to be, but the storm uprooted me, the man carved and fashioned and set thee out to sea, until my roots become but memory and what’s left? Only to be drifting now to dream.

I’m locked and loaded into a cannon, and I can plan my trip into the sea, but what if I land on the moon? There’s joy there, too, just of a different sort, and one I didn’t see coming. Part of contentedness is knowing of the uncertainty of the future, and seeing the difficulty of the past, and still being joyful in the present. It’s in the passage in Matthew 6, regarding the sparrow, and not simply a dreamy naiveté of “don’t worry, be happy”, but a conscious effort of joy and peace.

I’m often good at this, and still must remind myself of it.

Words from Winnie the Pooh

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.

~ AA Milne - Winnie the Pooh

I'll admit a certain fascination with Winnie the Pooh as a child, though the Heffalumps and Woozels terrified me. There is something positively frightening about every ignoble character in every childhood movie I watched that forced me into watching from around corners. I couldn't watch the flying monkeys from wizard of oz, or stick around for the cheshire cat (still creeps me out, even in the book a bit), or numerous other baddies that rattled my bones with fright. Luckily, most childhood movies provide easy musical and visual cues (thunderstorms and minor chords) for indicating a scene wherein the villains are present: "time to hide behind mom" cues.

But I was looking through some Winnie the Pooh and stumbled across these gems. I love rivers, the snaking waters slithering down hillsides and mountains and stretching lazily across the plains on an adventure into the seas. Sometimes I remember these when playing Pooh-sticks on long hikes, or just when running along the riverbanks, or crossing the Columbia into Oregon or Washington, or when canoeing or kayaking, remember that I know everything needing knowing. It is like Keats said, though nature speaks fewer words:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all  

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

~Keats - Ode to a Grecian Urn

In those moments of beauty, watching the rivers and the mountains and the trees, all at peace, do I need know anything else? The Lord is near. 

And the second quote, which shames me sometimes in my busyness or impatience. It is like Abraham, when promised a son that is not forthcoming in many years, loses patience with God and goes in to his wife's maidservant. Sometimes that same quality of impatience is upon me, and I, without waiting on God's timing,  make a fool of myself and miss the mark. ...there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. Paulo Coehlo (author of the Alchemist and Veronika Decides to die - the latter is where this quote comes from) writes, "The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter." I'm forever leaping too early, or too late, and rarely listening to the whispering and shouting, beckoning and patient voice of Yeshua.  Wait. Listen. Leap into the arms of God.

I conceived a sunrise poem this morning, which I've temporarily named, "The dawn of day in beauty". In it, I discussed some of these ideas in verse, and I rather enjoy how it came out. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, a glad morning of fellowship and friends. I'm ready for the week, though patiently so. Let's go.

Three Thunderstorms, Rosh Hashanah, Home to Home

Last night, another thunderstorm crossed over the hills where my parents live, this one by far the most frighteningly awe-inspiring. There is that edge, I think, to beauty sometimes. The beauty of the canyon, staring down over the precipice; the beauty of the spider or the panther, elegant in their predation; and  in the volcano and depths of the ocean. The tension of safety and magnificence snatches our lungs and squeezes, and even in the thunderstorms, I felt a little of such. There was lightning like I've not seen since my childhood, too numerous for even calculating seconds between strikes, most of the time. One bolt struck not far uphill, less than a soccer field's distance away from my house, temporarily knocking out a street lamp. A fright possessed me, sitting with my nose to the screen and watching the cracks in the skyline. What if someone's house was struck? What if someone was hurt? I stayed up many hours, watching the lightning crackle and the thunder rumble, and listening to the rain tumbling down. I slept little and enjoyed myself immensely in the cradle of the valley, in the nook of the night.

Rosh Hashanah is the feast of trumpets and the Jewish new year. Rarely is a year's beginning so early in the Gregorian calendar. Unfortunately, I was in the wrong state to feast with friends, but I'll probably celebrate it in some capacity, regardless. (Matthew why you leave the country? Phil, why you at work?) I like the Jewish holy days. Especially the high holy days. Most people, often even Jews included, do not celebrate many of the Jewish holy days anymore (a land and temple thing, but also a parting from belief that the holy days are sacred). I'm not religiously Jewish, but I really appreciate the value in the appointments God prepared. Plus, they are always an occasion for a special celebration. A special appointment holy-day celebration ordained by God? Please and thank you.

And now, after a fantastic visit home, it is time to go home. With slightly more laden packs filled with new books, my heart is light and my drive looming. Goodbye beautiful forest backyard with its large maples and droopy pines, its jolly firs and wild blueberries, its garden and hills. I'll miss the nightly games, family dinners, and my charming closet of a room. Hasta luego, Redmond.