“April is the cruelest month…” T.S Eliot, “The Wasteland”
I grumble and joke about this one famous phrase every April when I start bicycling again. I usually begin on the first warm-ish day in the first week, but shortly find that one cloud, one change of wind, one passing day or even a few passing minutes can change everything from “nice” to horrible. Back when our son was only about 7 or 8, he and I started out on a tandem bike on a fine sunny day, only to find ourselves deluged with cold, wet snow and an icy wind some 5 miles from home. As we were instantly wet and had no place for shelter, I made the decision to peddle on like crazy until we got home. It was miserable and exhausting. When we finally arrived, I stepped off the bike with trembling legs, only to find my son covered in icy mud spun up from my back tire. My wife saw him too, and I did not receive any kudos for rescuing our child, to say the least.
The poem goes deeper than that, however. From the very beginning, it lets us know that any hope we might have in spring is really only a cruel joke. All that new life that is stirring will die, just as you and I will. The joy of the wedding and of the healthy birth are more than matched by the sorrow, even horror, of sickness and death, both of which are inevitable. Hope, then, is an illusion. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we shall die.
`Such we find in any study of nature, no less so than in a new and very popular non-fiction book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, by Jonathan Slaght. This is the autobiography of an ornithology doctoral student doing a five-year study in Primordia, Russia, a coastal wilderness near the Sea of Japan just south and east of Siberia, on the rare ‘fish owl’ species. Talk about the cruelties of nature. Dogs chase deer that cannot move in the deep snow and tear them apart, thawing rivers drag down game and flood the forests, ticks burrow into hosts to suck blood while they spread disease, and Amur tigers are driven to eating humans by infestations of parasites in the brain.
Humans are a huge part of the cruelty as well: in National Geographic style doom and gloom, we hear of habitat loss through poaching, over- fishing, over- hunting, man-made fires, and personal anger towards entire species driving, some to kill them on the spot. The people are also often brutal to one another, both in broad resource wars where roads are seeded with spikes to ruin tires and cabins are burnt down, and in vicious personal fights, often within families (nothing new there). In such instances, humans mirror the harshness of nature.
And yet the author loves the land, referring to it towards the end as a near paradise. Humans are disturbing that paradise, but Slaght is no preservationist, believing that humans can live and work within the land at a sustainable level. Balance and beauty and bounty can reign. Paradise, while not within our grasp, can remain at least within our distant view. Done right, the Earth can truly be our benevolent, although strict, mother.
This view brings to mind an eternal question: if God is all light and love, and God made Earth, should Earth not be paradise? Slaght studies the workings of nature within and between species and finds the relationships to be as beautiful and varied as infinite structures of snowflakes. They all fit together so well, not so much as a law but as a ballet, with some species moving this way and another that, going to and fro and back and forth within the loose confines of a limited stage ruled over by the oscillations of weather and climate. He is right. If you can begin to grasp the intertwined patterns of nature, nature becomes a marvel of art and architecture far beyond the abilities of man, a display of cosmic might that is beyond measure. For some, this marvelous union of complexities might be defined as paradise.
However, if one means by “paradise” ease and gentle beauty, one would be horrified by the savagery of actual nature. We could all compose an enormous list of the discomforts and downright tortures we that we are subject to, knowing that some of them are unavoidably coming our way sooner or later. Here is the eternal conundrum and why many sincere people simply cannot believe in a wise, just and loving god. As Jesus himself said, what father would give his child an asp when he asked for fruit? And yet, there we have it: not only are children born with hideous diseases, but nature itself doles out pain and death on a regular and unstoppable basis. What father indeed.
The conundrum, however, is not a problem at all when looked at from an eternal perspective. It is this that I wrestled with in my novel, Hurricane River. Horrible things happen, but to what end? In the novel, I discovered (I write to learn far more than to teach) that for those who are still alive, life continues after tragedy, and often good things follow from the bad. Those who have died are promised a greater and eternal existence, but we don’t have to focus on that. Instead, we can plainly see that new order eventually arises out of chaos, just as it does in nature. Equilibrium is reached again, even after such horrors as the Nazi holocaust.
So we read it again and again. In another note from the New Testament, Paul tells us that all things work out well for those who have faith in God. The key is the phrase “work out,” given God’s infinite timeline. While paradise was supposedly on Earth in the epic of Eden, imperfection was then brought into the world – a world made perfect (as it only could be) by God. The horror we see was brought on by a change in our perception, one that included an historical timeline. Still, perfection exists, as our ornithologist Jonathan Slaght tells us, as seen through the marvelous and intricate balance in nature. As a species we screw up this balance, just as we did with the mythical paradise, but perfection is still inevitable through timeless reality. In the end – as we perceive things – balance will be achieved, both within us and without us. As is nature, so are we, both entities existing in an eternal and undeniable truth that may be seen to reflect the power, glory, and yes, the love of God.
We do not have to believe in the Christian definition of God to see the beauty and balance. One can be a Jeremiah Johnson (of the movie, as played by Robert Redford) and come to understand that tragedy in human life is part of the natural flow of things in nature, which is overall a marvel and a glory. But hundreds of millions have experienced the being of God, just as millions will experience Him this very day. To those with this experience, God is self-evident, most declaring that His presence is more real than our natural reality. For those without the experience, this tells them little except that this Presence is no passing dream or illusion or hallucination. Just as the piecemeal understanding of nature and its cruelties can be broadened into a perspective of awe and wonder, so God can emerge from an abstract cloud as an undeniably real being. And this being, say the experienced, is love. Just as a real appreciation of the beauty of nature goes far beyond a colorful sunset, so the experience of the love of God goes far beyond the love of a puppy or a child or spouse. In this love lies the timeless balance that we see in nature, and that we can see in the human sphere. Perfection is found in love, along with everything else that is timeless.
Love is the beauty, the forever, the joyful embrace of a universe. It is the spawning of salmon as well as the movement of stars. The laws of nature are from love, but they are not love. The laws of Man are often from love, and if they are not, they will fail, but even those that are good are not love. Love is the total and can only be the total. When ‘being’ is seen in pieces through time or space, it cannot be love. It is imperfect, and in that, bad things happen. Even then, though, perception in time reflects the wholeness of love when taken as a greater whole. We can experience that when studying nature and its marvelous balance. We can grasp that when studying the gives- and- takes in human history. In this, the skeptical might begin to understand that the spiritual is something real. From such observations can faith be strengthened; from such studies might we understand that what is broken will be made whole, and that perfection exists in the timeless.
So we can say that T.S. Eliot was wrong. April leads not only to winter, but to April once again. There is perfection and beauty and love in the whole. Sun and warmth will turn to snow and mud and back again, but there is something gained in the entirety. No moment is a fraud or a trick. The waterfalls and tides and forests and birds, all of it, are never isolated and contained. They all work within the boundless wonder of divine law. And so do we.
“April is the cruelest month…” T.S Eliot, “The Wasteland”
I grumble and joke about this one famous phrase every April when I start bicycling again. I usually begin on the first warm-ish day in the first week, but shortly find that one cloud, one change of wind, one passing day or even a few passing minutes can change everything from “nice” to horrible. Back when our son was only about 7 or 8, he and I started out on a tandem bike on a fine sunny day, only to find ourselves deluged with cold, wet snow and an icy wind some 5 miles from home. As we were instantly wet and had no place for shelter, I made the decision to peddle on like crazy until we got home. It was miserable and exhausting. When we finally arrived, I stepped off the bike with trembling legs, only to find my son covered in icy mud spun up from my back tire. My wife saw him too, and I did not receive any kudos for rescuing our child, to say the least.
The poem goes deeper than that, however. From the very beginning, it lets us know that any hope we might have in spring is really only a cruel joke. All that new life that is stirring will die, just as you and I will. The joy of the wedding and of the healthy birth are more than matched by the sorrow, even horror, of sickness and death, both of which are inevitable. Hope, then, is an illusion. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we shall die.
`Such we find in any study of nature, no less so than in a new and very popular non-fiction book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, by Jonathan Slaght. This is the autobiography of an ornithology doctoral student doing a five-year study in Primordia, Russia, a coastal wilderness near the Sea of Japan just south and east of Siberia, on the rare ‘fish owl’ species. Talk about the cruelties of nature. Dogs chase deer that cannot move in the deep snow and tear them apart, thawing rivers drag down game and flood the forests, ticks burrow into hosts to suck blood while they spread disease, and Amur tigers are driven to eating humans by infestations of parasites in the brain.
Humans are a huge part of the cruelty as well: in National Geographic style doom and gloom, we hear of habitat loss through poaching, over- fishing, over- hunting, man-made fires, and personal anger towards entire species driving, some to kill them on the spot. The people are also often brutal to one another, both in broad resource wars where roads are seeded with spikes to ruin tires and cabins are burnt down, and in vicious personal fights, often within families (nothing new there). In such instances, humans mirror the harshness of nature.
And yet the author loves the land, referring to it towards the end as a near paradise. Humans are disturbing that paradise, but Slaght is no preservationist, believing that humans can live and work within the land at a sustainable level. Balance and beauty and bounty can reign. Paradise, while not within our grasp, can remain at least within our distant view. Done right, the Earth can truly be our benevolent, although strict, mother.
This view brings to mind an eternal question: if God is all light and love, and God made Earth, should Earth not be paradise? Slaght studies the workings of nature within and between species and finds the relationships to be as beautiful and varied as infinite structures of snowflakes. They all fit together so well, not so much as a law but as a ballet, with some species moving this way and another that, going to and fro and back and forth within the loose confines of a limited stage ruled over by the oscillations of weather and climate. He is right. If you can begin to grasp the intertwined patterns of nature, nature becomes a marvel of art and architecture far beyond the abilities of man, a display of cosmic might that is beyond measure. For some, this marvelous union of complexities might be defined as paradise.
However, if one means by “paradise” ease and gentle beauty, one would be horrified by the savagery of actual nature. We could all compose an enormous list of the discomforts and downright tortures we that we are subject to, knowing that some of them are unavoidably coming our way sooner or later. Here is the eternal conundrum and why many sincere people simply cannot believe in a wise, just and loving god. As Jesus himself said, what father would give his child an asp when he asked for fruit? And yet, there we have it: not only are children born with hideous diseases, but nature itself doles out pain and death on a regular and unstoppable basis. What father indeed.
The conundrum, however, is not a problem at all when looked at from an eternal perspective. It is this that I wrestled with in my novel, Hurricane River. Horrible things happen, but to what end? In the novel, I discovered (I write to learn far more than to teach) that for those who are still alive, life continues after tragedy, and often good things follow from the bad. Those who have died are promised a greater and eternal existence, but we don’t have to focus on that. Instead, we can plainly see that new order eventually arises out of chaos, just as it does in nature. Equilibrium is reached again, even after such horrors as the Nazi holocaust.
So we read it again and again. In another note from the New Testament, Paul tells us that all things work out well for those who have faith in God. The key is the phrase “work out,” given God’s infinite timeline. While paradise was supposedly on Earth in the epic of Eden, imperfection was then brought into the world – a world made perfect (as it only could be) by God. The horror we see was brought on by a change in our perception, one that included an historical timeline. Still, perfection exists, as our ornithologist Jonathan Slaght tells us, as seen through the marvelous and intricate balance in nature. As a species we screw up this balance, just as we did with the mythical paradise, but perfection is still inevitable through timeless reality. In the end – as we perceive things – balance will be achieved, both within us and without us. As is nature, so are we, both entities existing in an eternal and undeniable truth that may be seen to reflect the power, glory, and yes, the love of God.
We do not have to believe in the Christian definition of God to see the beauty and balance. One can be a Jeremiah Johnson (of the movie, as played by Robert Redford) and come to understand that tragedy in human life is part of the natural flow of things in nature, which is overall a marvel and a glory. But hundreds of millions have experienced the being of God, just as millions will experience Him this very day. To those with this experience, God is self-evident, most declaring that His presence is more real than our natural reality. For those without the experience, this tells them little except that this Presence is no passing dream or illusion or hallucination. Just as the piecemeal understanding of nature and its cruelties can be broadened into a perspective of awe and wonder, so God can emerge from an abstract cloud as an undeniably real being. And this being, say the experienced, is love. Just as a real appreciation of the beauty of nature goes far beyond a colorful sunset, so the experience of the love of God goes far beyond the love of a puppy or a child or spouse. In this love lies the timeless balance that we see in nature, and that we can see in the human sphere. Perfection is found in love, along with everything else that is timeless.
Love is the beauty, the forever, the joyful embrace of a universe. It is the spawning of salmon as well as the movement of stars. The laws of nature are from love, but they are not love. The laws of Man are often from love, and if they are not, they will fail, but even those that are good are not love. Love is the total and can only be the total. When ‘being’ is seen in pieces through time or space, it cannot be love. It is imperfect, and in that, bad things happen. Even then, though, perception in time reflects the wholeness of love when taken as a greater whole. We can experience that when studying nature and its marvelous balance. We can grasp that when studying the gives- and- takes in human history. In this, the skeptical might begin to understand that the spiritual is something real. From such observations can faith be strengthened; from such studies might we understand that what is broken will be made whole, and that perfection exists in the timeless.
So we can say that T.S. Eliot was wrong. April leads not only to winter, but to April once again. There is perfection and beauty and love in the whole. Sun and warmth will turn to snow and mud and back again, but there is something gained in the entirety. No moment is a fraud or a trick. The waterfalls and tides and forests and birds, all of it, are never isolated and contained. They all work within the boundless wonder of divine law. And so do we.
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