Tag Archives: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Afire with Reality

03 Wednesday Nov 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors, Writing

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I looked outside my bedroom window this morning to a blaze of autumn color peeking above the rooftops.

Delivered by the rising sun, the tree’s glowing beauty demanded a second look, so I gazed upon it for a while before finally searching out my camera to preserve the moment.  Yet, as with any sacred souvenir I’ve ever attempted to capture, the image I have is less than what I experienced first-hand.

The autumn-blazed tree reminds me of other numious moments in life that defy tidy summaries:  the birth of a child, say, or the marriage between man and woman or for me, the taking of Holy Communion.   To explain them at all is to explain them away.

I am reminded of words written by C.S. Lewis on the subject of truth and reality:  “truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is.” Somewhere, in all my many readings, I’ve stumbled across the thought that goodness and beauty and truth are conductors of Reality.  Reality with a capital “R” — the very word many Christian mystics use for God.  After all, how can one explain any of the three — in words?  Yet we know truth when we hear it.  Beauty when we see it.  Goodness when touched by it.

One of my very favorite biblical stories — a mystical one, of course —  comes from the third chapter of Exodus.  It’s the story of how Moses stumbled upon God by taking a closer look at a burning bush.  Well one stumble leads to another, and before Moses had barely taken off his sandals, God had commissioned Moses to go to Egypt, to set God’s people free.  To this shocking left-field demand, Moses volleys back a nonsensical sort of “Who’s on First” response, by asking God to tell him His name.  And unlike Moses, not one to beat around a blazing bush, God gives Moses His name.  In two short syllables, it’s often translated as  “I AM” or “I AM WHO I AM.”

God’s name goes to show how much can be conveyed, even when words are few.  Then there are these, found in Book VII of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh:

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit around and pick blackberries.”

 

Slumber Smiles

04 Tuesday Aug 2009

Posted by in Far Away Places, Life at Home, Soul Care

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From the moment I walked out of my father’s nursing home room late this afternoon, I’ve been wondering about death.  Like…when it will come for Daddy?  And what will the nearness of death look like on my father’s face?  And most of all:  Is Daddy’s end near?

But it wasn’t until my husband and I were on the way home from a quick supper that I finally gave birth to my question.

“What does the end of life look like?”  

Asking questions is my way of searching for facets of truth when answers are unapparent.  And as is my wont to do, before my husband could think through his own answer, I began shaping one of my own:      

“I’m wondering if the end of life looks like the beginning of life.  When I think back on those days of new babies and then compare those memories to Daddy’s life now, I see that both ends are consumed with the business of sleep.  Most comes from short little cat naps.  Easily disturbed; yet so easy to drift back to sleep.  And as our “endsters” are busy with their slumbers, the world carries on without them, though they care not about our doings; they are faithful souls who live below the radar of managing the daily ins and outs of their own welfare; it is left to us to make the best decisions we can on their behalf.  Even as they sleep away their life, we cock one ear to catch their next breath and instead find ourselves listening to those sweet and sometimes odd little sleeping noises that come unwittingly out of their mouths.  And before we can wonder whether everything is okay, they’ve unknowingly answered our question by settling back to normal sleep.”

What do baby’s smile at in their sleep?  I love Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s take on this:

“I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling…”

I haven’t yet noticed Daddy smiling while he sleeps.  But maybe that will come, as Daddy crawls toward “that murmur of the outer Infinite.”