Winter

I think I have spoken before of Thomas Hardy’s beautiful, if dark, poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’. For me, it speaks about the possibility of hope and the power of life in the midst of a long, burdensome winter.

Hardy starts by saying that this moment came to him as he ‘leant upon a coppice gate, when frost was spectre-gray, and winter’s dregs made desolate, the weakening eye of day’. This is an amazing poetic painting of what winter and, by extension, the wintry season of the soul feels like. Then, as he speaks further about the evening drawing in before him, he says that  ‘at once a voice arose among the bleak twigs overhead in full-hearted evensong of joy illimited; an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, in blast-beruffled plume, had chosen thus to fling its soul upon the growing gloom’.
                     

Then Hardy goes on to try to make some sense of what this can be about because : ‘So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound was written on terrestrial things, afar or nigh around, that I could think there trembled through its happy good night air some blessed hope whereof it knew and I was unaware’.

This beautiful poem is an incredibly creative vision of winter and too, the wintry season of our lives. It moved me deeply as I thought of the courage of the little bird in its blast-beruffled plume, to sing and hope when all around seems cold and dark. That the thrush is alive as we ourselves are in the wintry moments of our lives, with a beautiful courageous hope that Spring will come; light will come. The gloomy darkness and cold will pass.

But too, this is an aged thrush. It has lived other winters and so have we. But is it not sometimes true that the more winters we live, the longer they often seem? And though we know that Spring will come it seems the longer in coming. Think of how we feel in February when there comes, almost it seems as a gift to us, a warm and sunny day. Our hearts burst and we think of the Spring not too far away; Spring, the very epitome of life. Spring that sends our spirits soaring. Hardy said earlier in the poem, that he heard the thrush just at a time ‘when every spirit upon the earth seemed fervourless as I’ so the thrush touched his heart just as for us the sun and the warmth awaken in our hearts that spark of hope and joy. 

I think Hardy’s thrush is not just hope but courage. It hangs on as we hang on because we trust that the light will come and life will blossom. But as we grow older we also grow in our awareness that hope will not be found just in waiting for Spring or Summer but in the life that is this very moment. I think this awareness deepens our joy . Life in winter is, in its own way not despair or darkness though there may be that too, but it is a time also to hear the thrush and join in its song.

Our value

I was speaking in my last blog about how we search for the meaning of life often in the wrong places. I was also trying to say something about how our life's value lies not in what we do or have done or have achieved but simply, truly in who we are; that we are. However, our world is such that that is very difficult to accept.

The other day while I was on the bus coming home there were two young women standing near me - I think they may have been University students. I have to admit to being a chronic eavesdropper and so I was listening to their conversation. I wish I had counted the number of times the word 'stress' arose in this conversation over about 10 minutes. And it is a word and a reality it seems, that has become a huge burden in people's lives. Why is this so? What is it that we are reaching for that makes life so stressful? Part of my question would also be: if we liked ourselves and believed ourselves to be of infinite value irrespective of what we achieve would we be more at peace?

I have a number of friends who have taught me a lot about the gift of being somebody without worldly success. These folks are my friends at l'Arche - I have spoken of them before and hope to do so many times again. But my point is that here are people who are not only beautiful in themselves but have far less sense of the stress that comes from being a chronic high-achiever. It isn't that each person hasn't felt the sting of rejection or hasn't suffered deeply because most have, but even so, there is a beautiful gift of just being.

Ken Milne

Here are some of my friends
to whose friendship
I owe more than I can
say.

Melina Boote and Gwenda Dunlop

You will see in these people the amazing gift of human dignity that we all desire. And because we are all getting older there is as well, the acceptance of self that brings a greater peace.

I would like to trust that as our world faces more of the trials that seem to lie ahead we could learn to value each other person as a gift - regardless of rank or wealth or place in life. It would be amazing if we could come to a new, truer sense of what beauty actually is and where peace really comes from. 

Finding our center

I was reading an article in the British magazine *'The Tablet' by Daniel O'Leary - a man whose wisdom I admire very much. He is writing about some of the 'social anxieties' of our day. In particular he tells the story of someone he was taking somewhere in his car. They had traveled six or seven miles when his passenger said 'Please turn back. I have forgotten my mobile'[cell phone]. He goes on to say 'Even though there was no emergency in her life just then, and we would be back in a few hours, the thought of being phoneless was very distressing. Full blown FOMO - the Fear of Missing Out - is one of the most insidious social anxieties of our age'.

I of course, had never heard of FOMO but as I read further it began to make sense. The need frequently (constantly?) to check Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites is so ever-present not just for young people but older as well. Daniel goes on to suggest something about what he feels is happening, ' There are, currently, an increasing amount of reports and warnings about people's deep fear of losing a sense of themselves, of right relations with others...anxious teenagers are constantly monitoring their popularity among their peers, tormented by feelings of inadequacy and doubt'.
             
O'Leary then goes on to speak about our human need to believe there is meaning to our lives, to believe that I am worth something. He suggests we need to become more attuned to that sense, deep in our selves, of being valued, loved. 'However driven, drained or damaged people may be, is there not always some inner belief in a feeble flicker of a finer self, a moral, mystical seed still alive in the depths...?' Daniel goes on to say 'From that awareness emerges their true identity. It is a treasure hidden in the neglected fields of their souls'.

I do think Daniel is touching on something so vital in our modern lives which are lived mostly, without an awareness of the God who loves and cherishes us. We seek to be loved for superficial things (designer things, monetary success, etc) and miss the beauty which is there and is true and is worthy without having to prove anything. 

                                                                           How do we get to know who we are?

Which leads me to another article from *Sojourners that someone sent which is about the recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman a most wonderful actor. The author suggests that a very special gift that Hoffman had as an actor was his ability to reflect back to us, our frail, vulnerable humanity...and our dignity in the midst of it. Here is the link: 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/02/04/philip-seymour-hoffmans-invaluable-gift-revealing-our-humanity?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sojourners%2Fgods-politics+%28Sojourners+God%27s+Politics+Blog%29   . 

Modern life presents so many challenges to our humanity; to our ability to accept who we are and how we are. It challenges our yearning to be true to ourselves; to accept our failures (if indeed they are); to love ourselves just because we are, just because we exist and for no other reason.

Both these articles have raised for me, such vital questions about our existence as we move forward in an ever more challenging world. We can help each other first of all, by caring.

 *http://www.djoleary.com    http://www.thetablet.co.uk/
 *http://sojo.net/magazine

Trees and Life

I hope you will forgive me for using my photos again but sometimes when I look at them they suggest things I would like to say. This post is mostly photos of trees of one size or type. The thing about trees is that they are stupendous. They have their own wonderful and unique beauty at any season.

And at each season they reflect in such a fantastically obvious way the amazing processes of nature especially of life and death.

This is Tony the shepherd and the trees at their fullest

Each growing thing, including we humans, starts out with what it takes to grow and multiply and die. In spring the fresh beauty: flower and seed, in summer a coming to maturity - sometimes looking a bit eaten and worn and then of course in fall, the process of death at least of some part of the plant or tree. 

Is this the instinct for survival we all have?

Trees and all growing things also help to keep us alive by providing the air we need - that is why people worry about the cutting of forests especially perhaps the Amazon rainforest which provides our planet with 20% of our oxygen apart from all the other amazing  things that live and grow there. 

This makes me think of community: grow together, help one another survive.

I guess what I am wanting to say then is that the trees around us provide us with beauty, with life, with amazement. So let us love them and care for them, treasure them and protect them.

Is this not breathtaking ?

A quote from that wise man, Thich Nhat Hanh* We can get so caught up in our plans, fears, agitations and dreams that we aren't living in our bodies anymore and we are not in touch with our real mother, the Earth, either. We can't see the miraculous beauty and magnificence that our planet offers to us. We are living more and more in the world of our minds and becoming increasingly alienated from the physical world...Our planet is right here, powerful, generous and supportive at every moment. 

*Thich Nhat Hanh: Love Letter to the Earth, Parallax Press, Berkeley, Calif., 2013