Desperately Seeking Seclusion

At one time I was a student of the forests. I’m sure I mentioned that somewhere. For nearly four years, I spent every other day in a Cypress-Tupelo swamp by myself measuring trees, listening to the wind in the branches and the barred owls calling to one another, avoiding copperheads, and gazing in wonder at a world that few get to see. I didn’t have to talk to anyone or see anyone or interact with anyone for 8 hours at a time. I delighted in Uvularia and Laportea and Botrychium and Dicentra, as well as hundreds of other wildflowers. I felt like the herbalist in “The Harvester”. When it rained I got wet, and when the sun came out I got hot, but it was never terribly trying ... well … maybe the mosquitoes were. I was periodically surprised by Great Blue Heron coming home to the rookery, or the sweet licorice fragrance of Ozmorhiza, or a covey of Woodcocks bursting from the brush as I made my way along the transition zones. I saw grapevines as old as oaks, and fawn still wet from being born not an hour before. I had a taste of what I thought paradise was like.

I’m an introvert. And sometimes I miss home.


Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Gene Stratton Porter, The Harvester
John Muir, Into the Wilderness
Franz Schubert, “Unfinished” Symphony
Jonn Serrie, Planetary Chronicles Vol.2

Gridlock

I’m watching the rhetoric heat up over the 800-billion dollar stimulus package being promoted by some of our illustrious representatives. In one report it was said that the President has been compelled to remind Congress who won the election in November.

It humors me to see those who rode a wave of adulation into public office now get to work with the reality of a wisely crafted representative system. Winning an election to public office in the United States does not mean that one has now been given a mandate for the exercise of power. A President is not a king, but the chairman of the committee. A senator is not a Lord, but a State’s representative ostensibly promoting the interests of that state. A representative in the House is not a nobleman, but a messenger of the regional concerns. Election to office means that one has been trusted as a public servant. And the public has a mixed notion of what it deems suitable … hence the battle of ideas and intentions and language in getting a bill passed.

Our founding fathers observed first hand man’s inclinations toward totalitarian power. They built a system that would immediately grind to a halt if there was fundamental disagreement about why a law is needed or how it should be structured. And if some in office choose to be an obstacle for others in office because there is a disparity of conviction, then I’m all for it. There is safety in gridlock.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Founding Fathers, The Declaration of Independence
Constitutional Convention, The Constitution of the United States
Constitutional Convention, The Bill of Rights
Samuel Barber, Essays for Orchestra
Aaron Copeland, Appalachian Spring
Tony Rice, Backwater

Blessing My Pain

Slumdog Millionaire is a painfully wonderful movie. If you have not made plans to see it, do so. This is a “must see” at about half a dozen levels. The crafting of this film captures one’s interest and builds a sort of expectation that doesn’t let go even after it ends.

I am not going to tell you much about the movie at all, except to say that there is not a single wasted scene. One scene in particular, representative of nearly the whole film, is the finest love scene in all of celluloid history. The protagonist gives a first kiss to the girl he believes to be his destiny. That kiss is not on the lips, but on a scar which had been inflicted by his brother. That simple act struck me to tears. It is one thing that I long for.

Smoldering in my heart is a strong and undilutable hope that at the end of all things, someone stands waiting who has remained true to me, who will kiss my scars, and affirm and consecrate them by love. My very being hungers for this.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Richard Gamble, The Great Tradition
Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark
Franz Schubert, Symphony No. 8
Tim Weisberg, Party of One

When Is It Really Bad?

I was thinking this morning, staring into the frig looking for breakfast, reading expiration dates on labels and lids. It was more of an unconscious, glazed-over, passive kind of activity, until I came to the edge of the cottage cheese lid. The expiration date was two days ago. I stared at it. I sniffed it. I stirred it and sniffed it. But that evoked a related question. When does cottage cheese truly go bad? Could anyone tell anyway?

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Luke the Physician, Acts of the Apostles
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth
Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark
Scott Joplin, Rags
Lyle Mays, Fictionary

LOTR

A few days ago, I watched the complete 12-hour, extended version movie trilogy of Lord of the Rings. I only do this once a year because it is such a huge investment of time. The only thing I’ve ever done in one sitting that took longer is traveling to Hong Kong, or driving from New York to Chattanooga.

What made the viewing so enjoyable this time was having an Atlas of Middle Earth open in front of me. The maps included timetables and paths of travel so that one could get a sense of the effort involved for the characters.

Tolkien created a world that is indeed a world. Geography, geology, seas, lakes rivers, topography, vegetation, peoples, migrations, languages, histories, battles, dangers, family trees and histories that cohere, purpose, prophecies, poetry, stories. It’s all there. What’s so impressive about this story is its remarkable internal consistency. All the things that makes our world so wide and rich are all present in his stories. It is genuinely inspiring.

Some might feel that the movies seem to go on and on. (I actually had a friend grumble that they are little more than a lengthy video game!) In the actual story, however, Frodo and Sam left the Shire in September and never made it to Mount Doom until mid-March. Six months of foot travel through tough circumstances. They didn’t actually return to the Shire until 13 months after their departure. The story is a quest in its rightful form, and thankfully the movies capture that sense of arduous, extended, demanding, hazardous, obstacle-filled travel through mountains, swamps and enemy territory.

Whenever I watch the movies in one sitting like this, my appreciation for Peter Jackson and company increases. I know he made alterations in the story line so that he could produce a watchable movie, but he was profoundly faithful to the story, to geography and to the movements of action, reproducing what the written story lays out.

Tolkien believed that what one creates continues as reality beyond this world (thus a strong motivation to be creative). He lived it out. The fact remains that Tolkien created a complex, multi-layered world of remarkable detail and if his notion about “sub-creating” is correct, then he (and hopefully others like myself) will get to explore it someday.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Patrick O’Brian, Fortunes of War
J.R.R. Tolkien, Leaf By Niggle
Karen Fonstad, Atlas of Tolkien’s Middle Earth
Vaughan-Williams, Norfolk Rhapsody I & II
Kaki King, Legs To Make Us Longer
Lyle Mays, Lyle Mays

Backward and Forward

Like Janus, I face two directions at once this day. Usually when I do this it is with the intent to find growth, and to anticipate opportunity. The trouble with looking for grow over a single year is that the kind of growth I want will likely not be found taking place in such a short time. After all, it only takes six weeks to grow a squash; and eighty years to grow an oak tree. I want to be an oak. The trouble with looking for opportunity is that we can’t actually see any further than the minute that’s in front of us. To try to see further is like trying to see around a corner that’s a quarter mile down the road.

What have I learned from the past year?

Walk in wisdom today. It can be agonizingly difficult these days because there are so many voices telling us not to bother. But it is absolutely necessary because there are myriads of fallout consequences for doing the imprudent thing.

Good family relationships are to be treasured while you have them because they can change in the course of a few days through no fault of your own.

Your days are few and fleeting, invest them well. Invest your energies where the return will positively influence others when you have finished running your race here. Build a legacy that leaves the lives of others better off than when you found them.

To what do I look forward this coming year?

Simple pleasures, mostly. (I wonder if the years have beaten lofty dreams out of me. I’ve seen too much tumble into wreck and ruin; lives of young people, families, businesses, churches.) Teaching, serving, gardening, bike riding, writing, reading, good music, good conversations with friends over a bottle of wine. The kinds of things I can do on any workday or on a week-end or on a vacation.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Patrick O’Brian, Desolation Island
George MacDonald, Phantastes
Ben Bova, Orion
Dave Matthews, Under the Table and Still Dreaming
Pat Metheny, A Map of the World
Gorecki, Symphony No. 3

December Nights

Cold weather is on the march. We’ve had snow twice in the past week and for Saint Louis, that isn’t the ordinary case this early in December. More snow is forecast for Tuesday. It promises to be a real winter. Oddly enough, for some it means coming out of hibernation.

Silence doesn’t always mean absence. Sometimes it can also mean insecurity, uncertainty, shyness or perhaps despondency, or maybe caring too much whether anyone cares what one thinks. It strikes us all sooner or later.

Snow is more noisy when it falls onto dried leaves, and with it comes the compulsion to be heard above the noise. Winter solitude can be healthy.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Hosea of Beeri, Oracles
Harold Best, Creative Diversity
Chopin, Preludes
Handel, Messiah
Bon Iver, for Emma, forever ago