When the Moments Swell Larger Than Life

The ancient Celtic notion of "thin places" is increasingly recognized -- those specially evocative locations where the membrane separating heaven and earth seems breathtakingly thin.  We resonate with the idea because we have stood in such places.  For my Mother heaven draws near along virtually any beach with their almost hypnotic and undulating intersection of surf and sand thresholding an endless expanse of horizon.  For others it is the golf course and interplay of tree and bunker and fareway and green.  For me it is the mountains -- sun-splashed hillsides of vertical palettes; moist and musty trails illuminated by dappled light squeezing around leafy canopies above.  If Vermont in autumn isn't heaven itself, it is at the very least a place incredibly, heavenly thin.  We return to such places year after year for their predictable and reliable renewal.

But my guess is that more common, but less commonly named, are "thin moments" -- experiential episodes when the breath of heaven breezes through quite by surprise.  The key unlocking the door may be a passage of music or a flash of insight or a baby's coo or the silent fall of moonlit snow or a puppy's nuzzling sleep.  Since moving to the country the staring face of deer just out our window causes me to stop and be almost absorbed into their steady gaze.  Nourishing moments in which we cannot remain forever nor to which we can reliably return, but which reach out into the grandly normal and, catching us by surprise, feed us with awe.  Such moments may not happen often, but often enough, I suppose, to sustain us with the memory, and often enough to keep us looking; keep us hoping that some such thing might happen again.

Talking with colleagues about the familiar story of Jesus' Transfiguration, we noted all the usual clues and typical lessons -- the foreshadowing of Jesus' glorification; the alignment with heroes of the past; the white garment of martyrdom; the identifying voice of God.  I wouldn't dispute the significance of any of those clues, but if any of this report actually happened my guess is that the gift of it for those who chanced to be along was less the details of the symbolism involved and more the simple and arresting power of the moment.  As with any mountaintop experience, the value is less in what you learn in your head and more what you digest in your soul.  And something about such episodic spiritual food, served in such thin moments, keeps us going.

When I mentioned that it is a little like golf, in which even the rare and occasional birdie is enough to keep the golfer coming back, one of my friends replied with the wry observation that "we are cheaply bought."  It doesn't take much to keep us happy.

I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment, but I somehow think I'm grateful for the truth of his words. 
A red leaf.
A perfect snowflake.
The softness of a kiss.
The lilt of a doe.
The roll of a wave.
The familiar pungence of cumin sprinkled into the simmering pot.
A full moon on a snowy, cloudless night.
"I love you."

It doesn't take much to keep me going.

Because it Doesn't Take Much to Get Off Track

Other than the obvious and stated reason, I don't know why he went.  According to the Gospel of Mark, After Jesus had spent a little time casting out bad spirits and healing the ill he got up, "early in the morning, while it was still very dark...and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed" (1:35). 

It could, of course, be that Mark was simply setting Jesus up as a model for spiritual disciplines.  "Start the day off with prayer."  Perhaps; but Mark never otherwise seems to shy away from inserting explanatory notes when he senses a reasonable chance that his audience could miss the point.  If he was telling the story merely to encourage a habit, he likely would have said so -- "this was done in order to encourage his disciples to do the same"or some such clarification.

I am rather inclined to suspect that something else was going on -- like the possibility that Jesus needed to go out to this deserted place because Jesus needed what he suspected he could find there.  He had been there, after all, just a short time before.  Only a handful of verses earlier Jesus had been driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit.  There he had faced into his own demons, so to speak; clarifying and purifying his motives and distilling his guiding principles.  There, one might say, he went about the sacred physics of establishing his center of gravity.  And now here he is, back there again. 

Which reminds me that it doesn't take much to get off track.  A pebble can send the wheel into a ditch.  One potato chip tends to lead to another, and another...  Have a few successes and, if you aren't careful, you start believing your own publicity.  Never mind that his story, according to Mark, has barely begun; Jesus has already generated a tornado of intrigue and acclaim.  "The whole city," according to the story, "gathered around the door" of the house where he was staying.  Heady.  Giddy.  "They have sought me ought!" he must have thought for a moment.  "I must really be something!"  I can't help but think that during the night Jesus realized that he could benefit from a remedial trip to the wilderness -- a little gyroscopic realignment of the soul; reassessing which end is up.

And the wilderness seems to be the place where that most commonly happens -- away from the clamor; away from the seductive acclaim; out where it isn't the adoring crowds catering to your whims, but the very angels themselves attending to your deepest needs.

Because even Jesus had need to get his head together.  Twice, apparently, in the very first chapter.

I take some encouragement from that; and whether or not Mark actually intended it, some compelling example.  

How About a Nice Sky Blue?

The problem, of course, is identification.  The reading suggested this week from the Hebrew scriptures listens in on a portion of the briefing given to the people of Israel about the days ahead of them.  "Do this; don't do that.  etc."  It is cast as a sort of tutorial on how to live and what to expect when they eventually settle into their destination.  And, in what strikes me as a prescient anticipation of the kind of eventual ambiguity that can lead either into mischief or paralysis, the people are told that "God will raise up for you a prophet...from among your own people.  I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak...everything I command" (Deuteronomy 18:18). 

Great!  We can all relax now. 

Except, wait!  How will we know him?  Or her?  We are surrounded by people -- all kinds of people -- claiming the voice of truth.  They only problem is that they don't seem to agree on what that "truth" is.  Which helps explain how it is that we have been down this road countless times before -- listening to one after another of those "truths" that promised to lead us out of the woods, only to find ourselves deeper into the thicket.  The current crop of Presidential contenders comes to mind; as does that bicameral brothel known as the United States Congress that seems unable to recognize a point of principal that isn't written on the back of a significant campaign contribution.

Authentic prophets, it turns out, don't wear fluorescent jump suits, carry indisputable credentials in their wallet, or garner the highest number of votes.  Or poll ratings.  And they usually don't seek out the camera...or votes.

In fact, if I read the record right they are usually the ones who find themselves, typically against their own wishes, telling us what we don't want to hear.  This being a democratic society, we typically opt not to hear it, opting to drop another quarter in the jukebox and make a different selection.  If we are in a church when we hear what we would rather not hear, we simply change churches.  If we are listening to the radio or watching television we simply change the channel.  "Fair and Balanced", after all, is really in the ear of the beholder; commonly defined as "does it agree with what I already believe." 

That's the problem with voluntary associations:  we typically choose to voluntarily associate with whatever it is or whoever it is that validates my previously held conceptions. 

Which makes "speaking the word of the Lord" a pretty dicey business, unless God has previously taken a poll and determined in advance what the "truth" of the Lord ought to be.  Alternatively, on the off-chance that people really would like to know the mind of God if only we could reliably identify the messenger, maybe God should consider that whole florescent jumpsuit idea. 

As long as it isn't orange.  I mean, you know how I feel about orange.  How, after all, could you take seriously a prophet wearing a florescent orange jump suit? 

The Wind and Snow and Anticipated Embrace of Winter

There is something cozy about the winter.  I know, it is a coziness that comes with a price.  The wind, just now, is howling, blowing the new-fallen snowflakes like swirling and looping paper airplanes.  It is, I know from puppy breaks outside, bitterly cold -- double-digits, but only barely; neither of us has initiated a trip to the greenhouse for watering or the mailbox to check delivery.  Tir, in fact, has only begrudgingly left the love seat where he has been curled up and lost in a contented snore all morning.  I certainly haven't pushed.  I am no more interested in bundling up and braving the storm than he. 

That said, as much as I have enjoyed the unseasonable mildness and the outdoor walks it has beckoned; as much as I have appreciated the simplicity of movement sans heavy coats and extra time required to assemble and arrange the bundling, I have looked forward to days like this one -- cold, settling, almost paralyzing days viewed from inside the window looking out; appreciating the reassuring hum of the furnace through the duct work, heart beat synchronizing with the flickering in the fireplace; skin indulging the hugging softness of a neglected sweater excavated from the bottom of the drawer; spirit held by the companionable silence too melodic in its own way to violate with the stereo or TV.

I understand that others temporarily migrate out of these kinds of days -- east to Florida, south to Texas or west to Arizona.  I even comprehend why.  The season can take its toll.  But I have looked forward to a day like this.  The holidays and their particular magic are behind us; the decorations have been lovingly and finally stored and the house rearranged to its more typical order.  It is time for the simple descent of winter -- else how would we know to appreciate spring?

And today, it is finally here.

Vocational Sipping and Spitting

Last summer, while in the Willamette Valley of Oregon exploring the concept of "terroir," three colleagues and I heard more than one farmer and winemaker exclaim that "these hills were made for pinot noir."  Of course the hazelnut growers who had been there first might quibble with the assessment, but that clarity of discernment was striking.  By that time we had come to the strong conviction that places are particular and best suited for certain things and not others.  Agriculturally speaking, soil and climate, accumulating valleys and sunning slopes mean certain plants grow well while others flounder -- or require the vast amounts of artificial inputs that we now think of as "modern agriculture."  The right crop in the right place, however, doesn't have to strong-armed.  It simply flourishes and fruits.  Pinot Noir in Oregon; apples in Washington; onions in Georgia; grapefruits in South Texas.  Etc.  Sure, a lot of places do pretty well with a lot of crops, but a few places accommodate a few things exceedingly well.

And people.  This isn't ultimately about raw talent or innate ability, although those are relevant markers. I'm talking here more about "doing" than "being"; less about who we are and more about the particular things we are up to.  In one of the most-quoted definitions of vocation, Frederick Buechner observes that “… The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC) 

It is, in a way, finding the groove; cutting with the grain instead of against it.  Admittedly, that "place" is not always that easy to locate, and I'm not sure that everyone would agree that a great pinot noir counts as one of the world's deep hungers.   Those farmers' clarity about that soil's purpose, however, is animating.  Unlike some of us who flounder around trying to figure out what we are supposed to do when we grow up, hoping it will simply hit us in the head one day, they, at least, have analyzed and experimented, taken notes and compared them with others who were trying to accomplish the same thing.  They have noticed how the soil drained and where the daylight hours cast their shadows.  They have watched and tasted and observed and been willing to fail.  They have planted and uprooted, sipped and spat and above all been patient.  And they have discerned, gleaning the insights observed and connected the dots.  And it has all brought them to strong convictions about what those hills are for.

I think of those farmers as I read the Apostle Paul's reflections in Ephesians 3. He speaks forthrightly about the "commission that was given me...to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ..."  Paul is not confused about what he needs to be up to.  He has a particular job to do, and he is working it.  It is his "groove" -- the intersection, he is convinced, of his deep gladness and the world's deep hunger.

In a way, of course, it almost feels like he cheated.  He didn't have to nose around for grain like a blind hog; he was knocked off his horse one day and struck temporarily blind except for the vision that filled him in on the details.  For most of us it doesn't happen that way.  Our discernment process will bear more resemblance to the Oregon farmers than to Paul's blinding vision, but the clarity about the work we have to do is worth the patience. 

That kind of sipping and spitting wouldn't be a bad way to spend this New Year just beginning to bud. If those hills were made for pinot noir, surely I have been made for something precious and needful as well.

Just Call Me Back

The problem, it seems to me, is that we no longer have rubrics for triage.

While in college I worked at Cox's Department Store selling Men's Furnishings -- shirts, socks, ties and belts.  We also sold underwear, but that didn't take a lot of "selling."  During the training phase of my employment, I remember how insistently the manager told me that an actual customer in front of me took priority over a prospective customer on the phone.  I thought he was right about that ordering, but the philosophy, I suppose, could be debated.  The point, however, is that there was no mystery as to how I was to handle contests for my attention.  Unfortunately for our culture, we don't have life managers who will provide the same service.  As a result, we fall prey to the presumption that every knock on our figurative door is equally important.  If the phone rings, we answer it even if we are already engaged in a conversation with someone else.  If we receive a text, we read it -- and likely respond to it, never mind that we happen to be driving.

You get the idea.  Gone is any concept of a hierarchy of importance -- those rubrics for triage to which I earlier referred.

Someone recently told me of being in the company of an individual whose cell phone began to ring.  Worried that the recipient wasn't hearing the summons, my friend asked, "Aren't you going to answer that?"  To which the other replied, "No; I carry that phone for my convenience, not everyone else's." 

A recent article in the New York Times reported on the practice of some ultra wealthy to "...part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms."  And then there are those, the writer goes on to observe, who "pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago."

We have become expert, the author ultimately hints, at sensing what is new, but not what is essential.  Maybe we have lost the ordinary and common art of simply asking the question.  Modern brain research refutes the much-beloved premise of "multi-tasking."  Our brain, if the scientists know what they are talking about, can't ultimately attend to multiple things at once; it simply becomes speedier at shifting back and forth.  That, it seems to me, is a sure recipe for superficiality.  In the course of our multi-tasking dizzyness, careful assessment and thoughtful evaluation -- essential components of prioritization, along with basic life and relational values -- are abandoned in service to simple attendance.  Stimuli come our way, and we duck and dodge or, as is more commonly the case, allow them all to strike us full in the face regardless of how trivial or secondary they may actually be.

By contrast, one of Stephen Covey's principles for enhancing effectiveness is expanding the gap between stimulus and response -- something our grandmothers taught us in their admonition to "count to ten" before reacting.  Scripture uses the larger language of sabbath to beckon us off the merry-go-round, less for simple rest -- although that never hurts -- than to regain orienting perspective. 

Some things are, after all, more important than others.  Which brings me back to that ringing phone, why we carry it, and how we will ever figure out who the actual customer is in front of us.  I'm not at all sure of the answer to that question, but on your way to figuring it out for yourself try this:  next time yours begins to ring, check the caller ID.  If the caller happens to be me, feel free to finish whatever it is that you were doing.  You can, after all, always call me back.

Looking Life in the Eyes

Waiting is not our long suit.  At the very least I am speaking autobiographically, but I think I am not the only one.  Speed is of the essence.  I curse the minute or so it takes for my computer to boot up, and I gnash my teeth at the slower internet connection at our new house.  I can't wait for Christmas, but then once it arrives I rue the endless months between now and the next one.  Even though we apply the query to matters of lesser and lesser consequence, we have made the plaintive cry of Martin Luther King, jr. and the Hebrew prophets our own:  "How long, O Lord, how long?"

I could blame our mounting impatience on technology.  Horses gave way to trains which gave way to automobiles which gave way to propeller-driven airplanes, which in turn gave way to jets.  Dial-up was consumed by DSL, and the U.S. Postal Service is being/has been replaced by e-mail.  We have come to expect that wherever we need to go we can get there quicker; whatever needs to be accomplished can be checked off faster and faster.  We have, in a sense, been trained that way.  Even major life issues we see encountered and resolved within the span of a 30-minute sitcom or at worst an hour-long drama.  Shouldn't our lives work that way as well?

And so the rub when we read one of the texts often scheduled for this Sunday of the year:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”  (Luke 2:25-34)

Luke doesn't tell us how patiently Simeon had waited; only that he had done so -- presumably for a long, long time.  He had waited.  Day in and day out; watching and waiting.  As a friend pointed out, this isn't really a "waiting" story but rather a "fulfillment" story -- Simeon is finally able to prayerfully exclaim, "OK, now I can die because I have finally seen what I was looking for."  Fulfillment.

But isn't the reason we tell fulfillment stories is to reinforce the significance of the waiting still to be endured?  Not even Simeon, after all, could claim with any honesty the waiting was really over.  Moses, near the end of the Exodus through the wilderness, was finally able to see the Promised Land across the way, but there was still some distance to travel before their feet would actually land there, and that ultimate accomplishment would be beyond Moses' scope.  Simeon looked into the baby's eyes and could see the salvation of his people, but it was looking through a telescope lens not a window.  If it's possible for some to see a world in a grain of sand, it was apparently possible for Simeon to see the culmination of God's desire in a baby's eyes; but there is yet a vast difference between the "seeing" and the "arriving."

And we have not yet arrived.  There is waiting still to be endured for the time when all hungry bellies are full, when all naked backs are clothed, when all lonely hearts are comforted, when all estrangements are reconciled, when every human being is honored, and when all of creation is recognized and revered for the fingerprint of God that it is. 

We have a ways to go.  And so we wait, taking inspiration from the likes of Simeon who somehow managed the suspense and the lengths of days while never ceasing to watch and listen.  Eventually, after all, he recognized the sound and the sight he was after.  If he can do it, well...

     ...perhaps we can, as well.