A place for our eyes

‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified ...' Then [Jesus] said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. (Luke 21:9-11)

I wonder what ‘the burn’ looks like now. Different, I’m sure; better, I hope, for it’s been more than 40 years since I saw it. But it keeps coming to mind because of the anxious Facebook posts and news stories that greet me any time I choose to pay attention.

I saw the burn while backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park. Our guide said he brought all his groups to this place. Slowly … and sadly, he walked us through several hundred acres of blackened pine and aspen stumps, a needless fire, the result of human carelessness.

He had an eye for destruction and a heart for the violated wilderness, but there was another place for our eyes he did not seem to notice.

It was late spring and a profusion of wildflowers and grasses covered the landscape. New shoots from seeds released in the fire had sprouted tiny trees, new growth pressing through the soil.

The whole scene was alive with life … and hope, which is exactly what I don’t read in those Facebook posts or hear in the news since the presidential election.

Fears of a dystopian future are far more common, human rights ignored and violated, immigrant and undocumented workers swept up and sent away, decimating their hopes, their families and perhaps also sectors of the U.S. economy.

More than a few gaze across the broad landscape of our society no longer recognizing the country they thought they knew … nor their churches, which they have long loved.

In so many places, the future looks dark ... or at least murky, the country riven by poisoned politics and a wide variety of ‘isms,’ racism, sexism, nationalism, globalism, isolationism, etc. etc., not to mention old-fashioned vices like greed and narcissism that erodes trust and feeds cynicism about whether things can or ever will improve.

All of this is worthy of our concern and action, but what most worries me about the darkness of our present time is its capacity to convert us.

What we attend to is what we love, St. Augustine said, and what we love we will become. It’s a variation on a well-known contemplative adage: We become what we contemplate.

Fixation on the darkness or troubles of the moment—or the era—desolates the heart so that we see little else. Imprisoned in a world of our making, we no longer have eyes to see the wildflowers that can and will grow because ‘the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and … bright wings,’ as Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in the depths of his darkness.

In his soul, I hear the soul of Christ, who did not shy from the suffering and tribulations that stain human history with blood and tears. Wars, insurrections, famines, earthquakes, plagues, all that and more will come. It’s the stuff of every age and generation. Ours is little different.

But ‘do not be terrified,’ Jesus said, words that echo through history … and certainly through the hearts of martyrs and mystics, who never lost sight of the beauty of our hope, trusting that we and this world are loved with an everlasting love.

Just keep your heart open, one of those mystics, Julian of Norwich, tells us, ‘and you shall see it.’

David L. Miller

Hey, Jimmy. Meet Herb

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

My prayer began in the car, at the intersection of Maple and highway 53. But maybe that’s just when I noticed what was happening.

Jimmy Buffett sang on the radio, Remittance Man, a song I didn’t know, but know all-too well, about a wayfarer wandering from one port of call to another because he cannot return home.

The Spirit blows where it wills, Jesus once said, and the sea breezes of Jimmy’s songs are as good a place as any. And so it was, his lyrics stirred a deep longing.

I kept listening, hoping the song would offer a verse of redemption, of healing, but it was not to be. The remittance man just keeps wandering the world, round and round, ever longing, never home.

The light turned green, and I kept driving, down the hill then back up to College Drive, a left turn then another into St. Procopius Abbey for a walk on a light-deprived November day … and to pray.

I don’t think prayer is a particularly religious thing, that is to say, everyone does it, religious or not. They may or may not ever notice it, and if they do, they are likely to call it something else. But it is prayer nonetheless, the remittance man’s longing for home where lies tender absolution for whatever failures of our humanity may haunt us.

Often as not, our prayers are not bidden by us, not chosen, but are awakened in odd moments, unguarded moments, when a song, a stray word, an old hurt, a familiar face on a faded photograph, or … whatever … unveils the deep hope of our soul for which we have no name other than … home … or love … or God. Maybe they are all the same, or at least so it seems to me.

We are never far from home. The Word, the Living Flame of Love, the Wonder who is God speaks, warms and awakens tears from the deep center of our being, awaiting their moment to remind us that we bear a beauty beyond all telling, welcoming us to know ourselves as temples of the Love from whom all things come and to whom all things go.

‘I am,’ the Voice says. ‘I am the hope of your longing. I am the Love who calls you home. I am the secret center of your soul. I am the home that is now and forever, if you would but come to me and rest.

‘I am the One you cannot conceive, but whose touch you know in all that is good and love and beauty and hope, in the sweetness of joy and the silent tears of your sadness. I am, and I am here.’

Yes, and in Jimmy Buffett songs and in the gnarly briars of the Abbey Woods that snare my hair and tear at my jacket, and definitely in the six, grazing deer who greeted me in the meadow—the gentility of their steps revealing the Grace of the One who longs for my heart, their stillness a call to be still and know the Heart who is the answer to every prayer.

Bidding the deer farewell, I walked to the half-light of the chapel and sat to pray, but there was little need. I sang hymns written by my old friend Herb and his friend Carl, asking God to let them know how grateful I am for the words and music they left us when they went home a few years ago.

I suspect I will continue to sing those songs until it is my time to join them. Then, we can sing together … and Jimmy can join in.

David L. Miller