Fear of the Dark

"Man has never been the same since God died. He has taken it very hard...

He gets along pretty well, as long as it is daylight,... but it's all no use.

The moment it begins to get dark, as soon as it is night, he goes out and

howls over the grave of God."

~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay, Conversation At Midnight

The other night, my dog was walking me down a very familiar sidewalk.  It was late, dark, yet she knew the way.  Suddenly, she just stopped dead in her tracks. She lifted her paw and looked intensely straight ahead.  I scanned for the neighborhood fox, the deer, or somebody coming the other way.  She took a few steps forward. Then she backed up. Hesitantly….she stepped forward, peering ahead. I thought to myself—it couldn’t be? She was afraid of the campaign sign in the yard!  As she inched forward, I tapped the sign, and she flew backwards—a real panic to get away.  

Okay—you get the idea and that it had nothing to do with the candidate!  This same yard sign was there every day.  She passed it without incident.  What is there about the night that brings out the fears?  

The quotation from Edna St. Vincent Millay is a powerful one.  The “dark” represents our lack of perception to see things as they really are.  Exactly what does the world look like without faith in God?  We can get by already in the light of the routine, but when the lights suddenly go out, we stumble around in darkness until our eyes adjust.  

I equate faith in God to a vision that sees God penetrating the darkness to come for us.  Let me say that another way.  We go into the darkness with less fear if we know that God comes to us and meets us there.  

One of the most memorable things said to me came in my college years—“if your God can die, let him get it over with.”  Only a God that lives in the worst of times and blackest of nights will do.  Sometimes it takes the lights going out to force us to learn how to see in the darkness. 

Rainbow Connection

Rainbow Connection

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
And what's on the other side
Rainbows are visions but only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
                                          Kenny Loggins

I’ve enjoyed Loggins’ song sung by Kermit the Frog.  Not much too it, I always thought, until I went to a wedding the other day.  We gathered in a vineyard—what a wonderful symbol of God’s creation!  What a view, the future beckoned for the bride and groom.  The only hitch? We had a torrential downpour and a tornado in the neighboring city.  The clouds were still foreboding.  They rose up over the mountain range as if to dump its next wave on us. 

The ceremony did more than go on.  Not a drop fell.  Grapes glistened with rain.  As we walked back for the reception—you guessed it—what an incredible rainbow crossed the sky!  My goodness—it began with a broad band of mixed, almost pastel colors.  It grew into dark waves of primary colors as the sky darkened for night. 

The guests declared God’s special blessing on the couple.  Another Noah’s Ark story—and trust me—we had sailed out of a deluge that day.  I had another take from Psalm 144:

Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down.

The sky had literally opened up for us and we saw it in a whole new light.  Rather than some illusion, the rainbow showed us that the light and water gave us a whole new vision.  Certainly everyone saw that couple in a new vision, a whole new reality of their lives joined as one stepped out of the day colored in a whole new light.  

Maybe the rainbow connection is not found at the end of the rainbow.  Maybe it’s a glimpse of heaven.  Fresh eyes on tired lives – celebrated in a bride and groom. 

September 11

9/11 Questions for a New Day

Can you see the twin towers rise,

For this September anniversary,

After they fell into rubble of shattered

lives that broke across the world?

Never lost, now taller than ever in

families who dare to stand up and

live another day. Who would have

thought that such grief could melt

steeled retribution and give rise to

Phoenix wings soaring on lightness

of lives freed from hate? No ceremony

that looks back for proud towers,

rather solemn song beckons ahead

from families for the family of Earth.

The EYE of Death

The EYE of Death 

Our suburban neighborhood has a Cooper’s hawk that breaks the morning silence with its call.   The birds at my feeders know when the raptor is around, and their songs fall silent. They huddle in bushes.  I watch it perch with majesty, master of skies, until crows chase it off.  

The other day on my woods walk, I stopped in my tracks when I suddenly saw a hawk right in front of me—dead at the base of a tree.  So close up, the colors were so distinctive, the broad bands of grey/white feathers, yellowish legs, and the beak and talons that had spelled death from above. It was equipped for the top of the food chain. 

I hearken back to the vision of poets like Mary Oliver and William Stafford.  They take the majesty of nature and display it embraced in death.  They begin with soaring descriptions which plummet into certain demise.  What they show is death the great equalizer which interconnects all life.    

How do we look into the eye if death?   Bernie Siegel, in his book Love, Medicine and Miracles, says that we don’t really begin to live until we contemplate our own death.  In fact—meditate regularly on your death!  You are that hawk, living with great powers to be powerless.  Siegel claims that we really begin to live fully when we reckon with our finitude.  

What’s Siegel getting at? When we look into the eye of death--we see more than death.  We see what makes our time of ultimate worth.  Dare we waste a second of it?  Our life span increases in value as we accept and live with its brevity. The shortness of life reveals the depth of its meaning.  Put simply, turn out the light, sit in the dark, and then live with the light on. How much more do we value the gift the necessity of light? 

It’s said we live in an age of the tyranny of the urgent.  Responding to everything, we gain nothing.  The urgency needs to be replaced by what is necessary to really live.  Of course, I am not talking about ignoring your daily tasks.  Just don’t make a task of life. Live it for the gift that is—and soar.  

More Daily Dog Wisdom

 
 The Art of Racing in the Rain?

I am still following Enzo the dog as he narrates from Garth Stein’s book, The Art of Racing in the Rain. The purpose of using the dog as the narrator is to allow us people to step out of our skins and see ourselves in a different perspective.  So why not a dog—“man’s best friend?” 

Enzo is the pet of Denny the race car driver. During days alone, Enzo watches countless DVD’s of Denny’s races.  He concludes that:  “your car goes where your eyes go.”  Put another way, you cannot get to a new destination without a vision of it.  Your life follows your vision. 

Now, when you are racing in the rain, this becomes even more important if you are not to lose traction and spin out.  You have to cast your eyes in a different way, so that you can feel the “edge” of the tires, and not accelerate beyond that edge.  Translate:  Know your capabilities. Don’t run off the road. 

Now, I leave Enzo alone. We also never race alone.  There are others on the track.  Is the point of the race in daily life to win—it is for some.  Is it to run in tandem, which helps dry the track, i.e.—work together and increase safety?  The very first thing I learned in Driver’s Ed is this—“the art of the driver is power under control.”  We remain under control by respecting the right of way, which we do not automatically have, but take slowly and can always give to others.

No matter.  The point is that living is an art and needs an artist, not a mechanic.  

Dog Day Wisdom

Out of the Mouths of Dogs 

I fell in love with Garth Stein’s book—The Art of Racing in the Rain.  Put simply—it’s wisdom distilled from a dog’s point of view as the narrator of the story.  This is not a dog book, but dog lovers will love it.  Stein offers the place to step back and reflect on daily living.  He allows us to reenter our world and enrich our lives.  Take for example, the commentary which Enzo the dog makes after listening to human beings. 

“Here’s why I will make a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen veryu well. I never interrupt.  I never deflect the course of a conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of each other’s conversations constantly.  It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street.”    (p. 101)

I have heard it said that listening, really listening to another person is a priceless gift for both people.  A moment of grace…it allows each person to really be.  It conveys the mutual respect, unconditional regard—for both the speaker and listener. Listening is also some of the most arduous work—we have to work at it to make it work.  

Listening is also a spiritual discipline.  Before Enzo narrated this book, Brother Lawrence wrote The Practice of the Presence of God.  The heart of it is listening in daily activities for the presence of God who often speaks in silence.  We “practice” being still to hear “the still small voice” of God in our lives—which is always there, seldom sought.  (1 Kings 19:12)  

Wouldn't it be helpful if we could "click on" ourselves to "Look Inside" and see for ourselves what goes on when we listen?   How would we narrate our lives? 

Food Fitness for the Spirit

F-A-S-T   FOOD

Did you hear that Micky D's opened its first series of vegetarian restaurants in India?  That's right!  Nobody asks where the beef is over there.  What matters is not so much the diet (really!) but the speed with which we eat.  It is entirely possible to inhale your food so fast that it may barely touch your teeth.  Or, how about the trend of driving and eating at the same time to cram in lunch?  The point is that how we eat is just as important as what we eat. 

I love the Buddhist tradition centered on "mindfulness."  Every morsel is eaten in small bites, rolled around almost to dissolve in the mouth, so that the spirit is nourished along with the body.  The food is savored, or respected, because you are aware of feeding the inner spirit along with the body.  Regretfully, how many eat so fast that they do not even feed the body with nourishment.  Malnutrition comes in many forms.

True story.  I watched a lady with brain cancer eating only one thing day after day--an onion bagel with cream cheese.  It just hit the spot--and stayed down.  She broke off small pieces, dipped them into the cheese, and placed them on her lips.  She herself laughed that somebody could literally bake another bagel in the same amount of time!  Then she added: It tells me I am alive.   The way she was eating affirmed her life, gave her the capacity to respect her body, and one opportunity to feel good about herself.

Of course....
The meal of simplicity is bread and wine for body and blood.
Do you suppose the manner in which we receive Communion is the model for how to eat our meals?
Don't answer that one too fast!