We have just passed a time of reminiscence, and at my age such memories give greater pain than pleasure. Unusual times come forth, of course. There was that sunny day in March when I was just 21 when my girlfriend of the time and me walked up a small mountain to push the advent of true spring with an early picnic. I had brought a jug of cheap rose in a backpack, a blanket and probably some tidbits of food, but when we got to the top under tree cover, we had to spread the cover across a melting crust of snow. The wine went down slowly as our bottoms froze, along with the rest of us as the clouds covered whatever warmth we thought we had. All said, the picnic was not going well until we heard a crashing that lasted five or ten seconds before an enormous buck appeared from behind a cluster of hemlock saplings not more than ten feet from our frozen little feast. He looked at us not in surprise but anger, but moved on, drawn back to whatever great mission Nature had sent him on. Shaken but also feeling blessed, we retreated down the mountain to await a better time for outdoor frivolities.
Yes, many special memories like that come to light, but they are not the painful ones. Rather, the memories that bite are the small ones that would mean nothing to anyone else. In these, we might be drawn back to a time spent kneeling in the grass, or throwing rocks off a bridge into a river. Maybe they would include summer swims in a cow pond when very young, or a drive with Dad with no specific place to go. It is those that are most bothersome, not for the darkness of them, but for the light they give – a light that we were unaware of at the time. If we could go back and grasp the full meaning of those small events, something in us might turn to become something greater.
I was reminded of the lost meaning of our lives a week ago when the picture on my screen- saver changed automatically to a Norman-esque, square-topped sentry tower on the northern coast of France. What first draws the eye is the ocean and landscape and structure, of course, but then the attention focuses on the images of people walking around the sentry post in their shorts and light shirts, clearly tourists attracted to a building that reminds them of past times. Ah, Normans, they think, those Frenchified Vikings who eventually conquered Anglo England and gave them what was then recognized as high culture in northern Europe. In came wine and forks and knives and who knows what kind of fancy dress and dresses, even as they continued to butcher other tribes and kings with swords and maces, just like everybody else. High society, indeed, the tourists think, standing outside of that curious history that marked the northern races less than one thousand years ago.
But not now, no. Today, as tourists all know, we are above such interesting and strange history. Whether it be in Jerusalem or Flanders Field, we tourists – and we are all now tourists – did not and probably could not partake in such things as those histories tell us. For as we look at ourselves, we understand without thinking that we are beyond history. Even the old McDonald’s hamburger emporiums are from another era, or the bells and beads and long hair of Woodstock. We are now observers. What happens with us is flat and true, without embellishment, so stripped down that our ‘todays’ also feel without depth. We are the shallow men, as T.S. Eliot’s poem of one hundred years ago said, even as he wrote from the colorful era of speakeasies and the Charleston. Even so, for them, they, too, were the shallow men without history.
But it is not so, as it is in our emptiness where those little memories of light lie. The world has always been like this. We take our days for granted as if nothing ever changes and all is normal and well – until it isn’t. Today we feel more disenfranchised, given the world-wide scope of things and the endless promises of objective science, but our reality is has not changed since the last Ice Age, and even before. We are and always have been essential parts of history, and of nature; we were meant to be here now, and greatness as well as doom surrounds us and penetrates us as much as ever. We often see this truth in the rearview, and not only from history. Rather, we might also see it in the little memories of shining light over the hills or the lake, of a child taking our hand, of a chilled morning over a campfire. What we actively think is not what is actively happening, and our memories prove it. We are the Normans and the Crusaders as well as the shepherds on the hills over Bethlehem, each moment filled with the trumpets of angels and the blinding light of eternity, as well as the peace of gentle morning.
What jewel can see its own shine? What chocolate treat can taste the pleasure it gives? We can only see what we have in reflective distance, but it’s a good thing to know now what we have through this reflection. We are all great and small and sad and joyful and part of a movement to somewhere that is fulfilling our meaning even as we cannot grasp it. But to know that, in reflection, should give us the chink in the wall where a small root can grow; just a little opening that reminds us that every moment could be held in breathless amazement, and that we are not bystanders but members of a great army being led by an unfathomably powerful and perfect king.
We have just passed a time of reminiscence, and at my age such memories give greater pain than pleasure. Unusual times come forth, of course. There was that sunny day in March when I was just 21 when my girlfriend of the time and me walked up a small mountain to push the advent of true spring with an early picnic. I had brought a jug of cheap rose in a backpack, a blanket and probably some tidbits of food, but when we got to the top under tree cover, we had to spread the cover across a melting crust of snow. The wine went down slowly as our bottoms froze, along with the rest of us as the clouds covered whatever warmth we thought we had. All said, the picnic was not going well until we heard a crashing that lasted five or ten seconds before an enormous buck appeared from behind a cluster of hemlock saplings not more than ten feet from our frozen little feast. He looked at us not in surprise but anger, but moved on, drawn back to whatever great mission Nature had sent him on. Shaken but also feeling blessed, we retreated down the mountain to await a better time for outdoor frivolities.
Yes, many special memories like that come to light, but they are not the painful ones. Rather, the memories that bite are the small ones that would mean nothing to anyone else. In these, we might be drawn back to a time spent kneeling in the grass, or throwing rocks off a bridge into a river. Maybe they would include summer swims in a cow pond when very young, or a drive with Dad with no specific place to go. It is those that are most bothersome, not for the darkness of them, but for the light they give – a light that we were unaware of at the time. If we could go back and grasp the full meaning of those small events, something in us might turn to become something greater.
I was reminded of the lost meaning of our lives a week ago when the picture on my screen- saver changed automatically to a Norman-esque, square-topped sentry tower on the northern coast of France. What first draws the eye is the ocean and landscape and structure, of course, but then the attention focuses on the images of people walking around the sentry post in their shorts and light shirts, clearly tourists attracted to a building that reminds them of past times. Ah, Normans, they think, those Frenchified Vikings who eventually conquered Anglo England and gave them what was then recognized as high culture in northern Europe. In came wine and forks and knives and who knows what kind of fancy dress and dresses, even as they continued to butcher other tribes and kings with swords and maces, just like everybody else. High society, indeed, the tourists think, standing outside of that curious history that marked the northern races less than one thousand years ago.
But not now, no. Today, as tourists all know, we are above such interesting and strange history. Whether it be in Jerusalem or Flanders Field, we tourists – and we are all now tourists – did not and probably could not partake in such things as those histories tell us. For as we look at ourselves, we understand without thinking that we are beyond history. Even the old McDonald’s hamburger emporiums are from another era, or the bells and beads and long hair of Woodstock. We are now observers. What happens with us is flat and true, without embellishment, so stripped down that our ‘todays’ also feel without depth. We are the shallow men, as T.S. Eliot’s poem of one hundred years ago said, even as he wrote from the colorful era of speakeasies and the Charleston. Even so, for them, they, too, were the shallow men without history.
But it is not so, as it is in our emptiness where those little memories of light lie. The world has always been like this. We take our days for granted as if nothing ever changes and all is normal and well – until it isn’t. Today we feel more disenfranchised, given the world-wide scope of things and the endless promises of objective science, but our reality is has not changed since the last Ice Age, and even before. We are and always have been essential parts of history, and of nature; we were meant to be here now, and greatness as well as doom surrounds us and penetrates us as much as ever. We often see this truth in the rearview, and not only from history. Rather, we might also see it in the little memories of shining light over the hills or the lake, of a child taking our hand, of a chilled morning over a campfire. What we actively think is not what is actively happening, and our memories prove it. We are the Normans and the Crusaders as well as the shepherds on the hills over Bethlehem, each moment filled with the trumpets of angels and the blinding light of eternity, as well as the peace of gentle morning.
What jewel can see its own shine? What chocolate treat can taste the pleasure it gives? We can only see what we have in reflective distance, but it’s a good thing to know now what we have through this reflection. We are all great and small and sad and joyful and part of a movement to somewhere that is fulfilling our meaning even as we cannot grasp it. But to know that, in reflection, should give us the chink in the wall where a small root can grow; just a little opening that reminds us that every moment could be held in breathless amazement, and that we are not bystanders but members of a great army being led by an unfathomably powerful and perfect king.
RSS Feed