Pondering the Pacific (With Poems at the End)
There is hardly a day that goes by where I do not quote C.S. Lewis.
As many of my friends can attest.
So it should be no surprise that as I returned to Chicago after a wild few days on the west coast a bit of Lewis was tumbling around in my brain.
"What is the colour of things in the dark?"
It was still dark out when my plane landed away from the beautiful woods and mountains and back in the Midwestern flatlands. It was still dark when I hopped on the train, crossed the road to a bus, and walked the remaining distance to my apartment.
"What is the colour of things in the dark?"
Lady Reason posts this riddle to the Giant that was holding weary travelers in a prison of fear. Everywhere he turned his eye it exaggerated the grotesque possibility of the hidden things, like entrails and dark corners, making the mind go wild with terror. Yet when asked for an answer to this riddle the giant was stumped.
Without light, there is no colour.
This trip by the sea was one which was a dream, an unexpected luxury in the middle of a semester. It was a family gathering to celebrate the anticipated arrival of a wee little man, my nephew. My Great-grandfather was with us, soon to see and hold his own Great-great-grandson. The last time we had so many generations in one room I was nine and my great-great-grandpa Bob was dying in his bed. He, however, was anticipating recovery and made us all promise to go skinny dipping after he mowed the lawn.
As we all were gathered this week watching the sunset on the waves I felt a feeling I had been sore to meet with, something like home or belonging, let's call it peace.
Everyone I loved was with me, the ones that I felt connected to deep in my roots, from the mighty branch of Great-Grandpaw, to the hardy laughter of my brother-in-law's parents. How was this possible in the wake and shadow of Paradise being lost?
We ran on the sand barefoot searching for sand-dollars to exchange for real ones, we splashed in the salt and squished dead jellyfish in our hands. As long as I have been in the city my heart has been in the wilderness, the Ocean, the deep woods, or the shelves of the bookshops that dust the hills. When I called Chicago home it was more like you do a rented space, you have to believe it when you come back to the dorm bed that this is where you belong, because while in the dark it is.
As I am waiting to know my steps, I have to understand that home is where I am now, that it is Who I am going toward with every faithful slumber even when I know I will wake up and feel out-of-place.
"What is the colour of things in the dark?"
As I took in my surroundings in Oregon I found it was full of the best parts of Paradise, the woods, the odd people on the side of the road, the winding mountain passes of pine trees with sudden verdant valleys. But I was in the dark, all the depth of meaning was lost on my limited perspective rooted in the present. Sleeping beside my sister in the upper room of the seaside cottage we rented for the week there was the familiar peace from years ago when I first came home from college.
How was it possible that my family is how they are? That no number of days or distance kills the warm loving-kindness that dwells in every moment, the immediate quiet forgiveness, the laughter until your sides hurt, the tasteful teasing when my little brother raises his elbow to rest it on the heads of those who are now that much shorter than him.
Considering the grief that we live in how can we be such a warm place where ever we go? Weather and storms, fire and tragedy, yet there it blooms in the roots of our family tree: Hope and Resilience.
There is no colour in the dark, all things are colourless without the light, they are unknown.
Lewis expresses the things hidden in the dark do not even exist. What he means is the man is something else than his entrails, if you cut him open you are not looking at the man, instead if you don't hurry to sew him up again you will be looking at not a man but death.
This rejection of darkness must be something we have been in the habit of doing, choosing to see things for what they really are in the Light. The dark things have never held a significant power on us contrasted to the lighted ones. Even moments where those we love transgressed us, how quickly forgiveness sprang up to greet them!
Reality was not in the shadows.
Once or twice the position has been presented to me that I should not expect to understand or get along with certain individuals because they had experienced more of "real-life" which of course is never a reference to anything miraculously good, but rather something abnormally bad. As if hardships could only be proven and weathered by becoming shriveled up and either distrusting or hard-hearted.
This has not been the practice of my family and has not been the prescribed response to hardships as seen in scripture. Yet we persist to call it "natural" or "realistic" which is the same as calling the entrails the "real man" Reason explains her riddle to the giant like this,
"I am not denying that death is ugly," says Reason, "But the giant made you believe that life is ugly."
Death, as we know, is not natural, instead, it is the least natural inevitability that everyone must encounter. It is not something that we easily accept and anticipate like air or water, or food, or love. Death is a mighty scar on nature, a pressing proof of time, and the outcome we speed to avoid at every cost.
These last few months since the fire of November 8th have been a series of glances in the dark. Most of the time I feel the same nightmarish dread I did as a child sitting wide awake in my bed trying to decipher the shadows. A few days feel less like I am in my own room but staying over in the unfamiliar surroundings of a friend's room. Everything is only slightly recognizable since everything has changed.
The way in which my family has handled grief and hardship, hunger and tragedy are not unnatural, but maybe it has been supernatural. Our laughter and persistent hopefulness that is thick with garnered wisdom, not from having it easy, but from being built-up through what was terribly hard. Nevertheless to stand before those who ask us how we bear these woes and say like Jane Eyre, "I have no tail of woe" because of the conscious effort to ensure that Woe has no tale to tell with us.
We have been scattered and we have been misplaced, we have lost friends to the fire who were really family so dear to our hearts. We have lost memories and hopes, baby blankets and wedding dresses, we lost books, so, so many books. We have starved together, we have wept together, we have been mistreated and abandoned by those we trusted.
I suppose what you could say is we had the comfort of doing all this together. We have had the beauty of choosing to cherish and protect one another instead of tearing each other apart under anger or stress. Our parents set an example of love through hardship and patience through pain. Forgiveness is more like a reflex now, even though some things are harder to forgive than others.
Wrapping these things together you can understand my family, they are the fresh air of the mountains and the openness of the sea, the intrinsic complexity of the Fibonacci produced in our artistry by word or music, the inspiring touch of the Creator. We have been built stubborn as the mountains, and weep like the snowcap streams. More than anything we worship like the trees, branches sensitive to the Spirit, roots deep in His word, like aspens joined together.
Having been settled in the city the last few years I was amazed at how unsettled I felt returning to it in the darkness to my own bed.
There is so much I don't see or understand, many things I felt sure of were made of dust and clay, they fell away. The last months have been a long winter's night. I was wandering, not because I was lost, merely because home was so transient. Maybe there is something more solid racing forward with the daylight.
I suppose these roots are being strengthened by the winter, therefore something good is about to bloom.
There is no colour in the dark, yet wait a minute, the dawn is approaching and will be all the sweeter for anticipation.
It is not foolish to celebrate anticipations with faith, just as we celebrated together Little Aspen even though he is still a few months away from being born. Anticipate the dawn, Anticipate graduation, Anticipate finding home again or finding someone to build it with. But above all Anticipate the glory after glory, we've seen here the ashes of the wedding dress I'll never wear, I can consider the joys of one that may or may not come about in the next decade, but all the dresses I can anticipate wearing as a bride are nothing compared to what garments bright and clean will be given us to wear in the end.
When light never darkens again.
Portland:
Is this the cause of truth
Or because my soul is searching
For a place like Paradise
I want the mountains back
Back beneath my feet,
Barefoot in the creek
With pine sap glued to my soles
Avoiding a car that is rusting out.
Books were burning in the fall
With more consuming colors
Than the evergreen leaves,
The only change lighting up Judy Lane
But even autumn was all ash and sulfur
Becoming perfect toxicity
A home buried in the reduction of flame.
Why was Portland so welcome,
To a heart that ached
Bearing a burn notice under my skin?
Is this inspired by G-d
Or the work of wishful man?
Or was this hope my own hope
That my road will end with Him?
Surrender:
What is the colour of things in the dark?
Alas, they are perfectly colourless.
So rest my soul, through the night
As we wait for dawn to show
Us the colours darkness will never know.
Sit down in hopeful ignorance
Until the light brings glory
Casting out the doubts of night.
Do not cower in this not knowing,
But stand in dignity awaiting
The coming of the Day
When all the world is lit and knowing
Has been fulfilled where only Love remains.
Stand still with the inward working
So you do not stumble forth
In further blindness
Rather trust He will bring the day,
As the world turns in its power
To greet the glory rising with the Dawn.
As many of my friends can attest.
So it should be no surprise that as I returned to Chicago after a wild few days on the west coast a bit of Lewis was tumbling around in my brain.
"What is the colour of things in the dark?"
It was still dark out when my plane landed away from the beautiful woods and mountains and back in the Midwestern flatlands. It was still dark when I hopped on the train, crossed the road to a bus, and walked the remaining distance to my apartment.
"What is the colour of things in the dark?"
Lady Reason posts this riddle to the Giant that was holding weary travelers in a prison of fear. Everywhere he turned his eye it exaggerated the grotesque possibility of the hidden things, like entrails and dark corners, making the mind go wild with terror. Yet when asked for an answer to this riddle the giant was stumped.
Without light, there is no colour.
This trip by the sea was one which was a dream, an unexpected luxury in the middle of a semester. It was a family gathering to celebrate the anticipated arrival of a wee little man, my nephew. My Great-grandfather was with us, soon to see and hold his own Great-great-grandson. The last time we had so many generations in one room I was nine and my great-great-grandpa Bob was dying in his bed. He, however, was anticipating recovery and made us all promise to go skinny dipping after he mowed the lawn.
As we all were gathered this week watching the sunset on the waves I felt a feeling I had been sore to meet with, something like home or belonging, let's call it peace.
Everyone I loved was with me, the ones that I felt connected to deep in my roots, from the mighty branch of Great-Grandpaw, to the hardy laughter of my brother-in-law's parents. How was this possible in the wake and shadow of Paradise being lost?
We ran on the sand barefoot searching for sand-dollars to exchange for real ones, we splashed in the salt and squished dead jellyfish in our hands. As long as I have been in the city my heart has been in the wilderness, the Ocean, the deep woods, or the shelves of the bookshops that dust the hills. When I called Chicago home it was more like you do a rented space, you have to believe it when you come back to the dorm bed that this is where you belong, because while in the dark it is.
As I am waiting to know my steps, I have to understand that home is where I am now, that it is Who I am going toward with every faithful slumber even when I know I will wake up and feel out-of-place.
"What is the colour of things in the dark?"
As I took in my surroundings in Oregon I found it was full of the best parts of Paradise, the woods, the odd people on the side of the road, the winding mountain passes of pine trees with sudden verdant valleys. But I was in the dark, all the depth of meaning was lost on my limited perspective rooted in the present. Sleeping beside my sister in the upper room of the seaside cottage we rented for the week there was the familiar peace from years ago when I first came home from college.
How was it possible that my family is how they are? That no number of days or distance kills the warm loving-kindness that dwells in every moment, the immediate quiet forgiveness, the laughter until your sides hurt, the tasteful teasing when my little brother raises his elbow to rest it on the heads of those who are now that much shorter than him.
Considering the grief that we live in how can we be such a warm place where ever we go? Weather and storms, fire and tragedy, yet there it blooms in the roots of our family tree: Hope and Resilience.
There is no colour in the dark, all things are colourless without the light, they are unknown.
Lewis expresses the things hidden in the dark do not even exist. What he means is the man is something else than his entrails, if you cut him open you are not looking at the man, instead if you don't hurry to sew him up again you will be looking at not a man but death.
This rejection of darkness must be something we have been in the habit of doing, choosing to see things for what they really are in the Light. The dark things have never held a significant power on us contrasted to the lighted ones. Even moments where those we love transgressed us, how quickly forgiveness sprang up to greet them!
Reality was not in the shadows.
Once or twice the position has been presented to me that I should not expect to understand or get along with certain individuals because they had experienced more of "real-life" which of course is never a reference to anything miraculously good, but rather something abnormally bad. As if hardships could only be proven and weathered by becoming shriveled up and either distrusting or hard-hearted.
This has not been the practice of my family and has not been the prescribed response to hardships as seen in scripture. Yet we persist to call it "natural" or "realistic" which is the same as calling the entrails the "real man" Reason explains her riddle to the giant like this,
"He showed you something that is not, but something that would be if the world was all other than it is. But in the real world our inwards are invisible. They are not coloured shapes at all, they are feelings. The warmth in your limbs at this moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in, the comfort in your belly because we breakfasted well, and your hunger for the next meal-- these are the reality: all the sponges and tubes you saw in the dungeon are the lie."
"I am not denying that death is ugly," says Reason, "But the giant made you believe that life is ugly."
Death, as we know, is not natural, instead, it is the least natural inevitability that everyone must encounter. It is not something that we easily accept and anticipate like air or water, or food, or love. Death is a mighty scar on nature, a pressing proof of time, and the outcome we speed to avoid at every cost.
These last few months since the fire of November 8th have been a series of glances in the dark. Most of the time I feel the same nightmarish dread I did as a child sitting wide awake in my bed trying to decipher the shadows. A few days feel less like I am in my own room but staying over in the unfamiliar surroundings of a friend's room. Everything is only slightly recognizable since everything has changed.
The way in which my family has handled grief and hardship, hunger and tragedy are not unnatural, but maybe it has been supernatural. Our laughter and persistent hopefulness that is thick with garnered wisdom, not from having it easy, but from being built-up through what was terribly hard. Nevertheless to stand before those who ask us how we bear these woes and say like Jane Eyre, "I have no tail of woe" because of the conscious effort to ensure that Woe has no tale to tell with us.
We have been scattered and we have been misplaced, we have lost friends to the fire who were really family so dear to our hearts. We have lost memories and hopes, baby blankets and wedding dresses, we lost books, so, so many books. We have starved together, we have wept together, we have been mistreated and abandoned by those we trusted.
I suppose what you could say is we had the comfort of doing all this together. We have had the beauty of choosing to cherish and protect one another instead of tearing each other apart under anger or stress. Our parents set an example of love through hardship and patience through pain. Forgiveness is more like a reflex now, even though some things are harder to forgive than others.
Wrapping these things together you can understand my family, they are the fresh air of the mountains and the openness of the sea, the intrinsic complexity of the Fibonacci produced in our artistry by word or music, the inspiring touch of the Creator. We have been built stubborn as the mountains, and weep like the snowcap streams. More than anything we worship like the trees, branches sensitive to the Spirit, roots deep in His word, like aspens joined together.
Having been settled in the city the last few years I was amazed at how unsettled I felt returning to it in the darkness to my own bed.
There is so much I don't see or understand, many things I felt sure of were made of dust and clay, they fell away. The last months have been a long winter's night. I was wandering, not because I was lost, merely because home was so transient. Maybe there is something more solid racing forward with the daylight.
I suppose these roots are being strengthened by the winter, therefore something good is about to bloom.
There is no colour in the dark, yet wait a minute, the dawn is approaching and will be all the sweeter for anticipation.
It is not foolish to celebrate anticipations with faith, just as we celebrated together Little Aspen even though he is still a few months away from being born. Anticipate the dawn, Anticipate graduation, Anticipate finding home again or finding someone to build it with. But above all Anticipate the glory after glory, we've seen here the ashes of the wedding dress I'll never wear, I can consider the joys of one that may or may not come about in the next decade, but all the dresses I can anticipate wearing as a bride are nothing compared to what garments bright and clean will be given us to wear in the end.
When light never darkens again.
Portland:
Is this the cause of truth
Or because my soul is searching
For a place like Paradise
I want the mountains back
Back beneath my feet,
Barefoot in the creek
With pine sap glued to my soles
Avoiding a car that is rusting out.
Books were burning in the fall
With more consuming colors
Than the evergreen leaves,
The only change lighting up Judy Lane
But even autumn was all ash and sulfur
Becoming perfect toxicity
A home buried in the reduction of flame.
Why was Portland so welcome,
To a heart that ached
Bearing a burn notice under my skin?
Is this inspired by G-d
Or the work of wishful man?
Or was this hope my own hope
That my road will end with Him?
Surrender:
What is the colour of things in the dark?
Alas, they are perfectly colourless.
So rest my soul, through the night
As we wait for dawn to show
Us the colours darkness will never know.
Sit down in hopeful ignorance
Until the light brings glory
Casting out the doubts of night.
Do not cower in this not knowing,
But stand in dignity awaiting
The coming of the Day
When all the world is lit and knowing
Has been fulfilled where only Love remains.
Stand still with the inward working
So you do not stumble forth
In further blindness
Rather trust He will bring the day,
As the world turns in its power
To greet the glory rising with the Dawn.
The light is coming. The love has never left you alone in the dark for even a moment. Your roots are deep and strong , the branches you will one day add to this family tree will provide nourishment and comfort from the heat for generations to come. ❤️
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