I become self conscious sometimes about loving words and sounds and pictures so much. It seems foolish, when so much is at stake.
When I am reading Vonnegut or watching a Charlie Kaufman film, the absurdist sublimity of everything becoming so ridiculous assures me life is more hilariously beautiful than I thought. When I am reading O’Connor or watching a P.T. Anderson film, everything glows so tenderly flawed, so scarred and so loved by their creators that the grace of those words and scenes embraces me. I am going to shout. My eyes and ears and mouth are going to shout. But I am completely paralyzed by whatever might come next – by anticipation, by expectation, by readiness to celebrate whatever is going to happen. I cannot move, because this is not my scene or page or sound to make – I have to wait and see what is next.
When I hear Buckley’s “Last Goodbye” or Crowded House’s “Together Alone,” Over the Rhine’s “White Horse,” The Bad Plus’ “Everywhere You Turn,” Part’s “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten,” Stevens’ “The Lord God Bird” – as much as my ears can hold – my body is filling with helium. I am holding my breath, losing my balance, straining to put toe to earth. Everything but the vibration in my ear has lost power. I want to cry out, but I can’t make a sound. I can’t make this sound, or the sound to which I am carried next. I raise my hands, and hope something will reach down for me, because it is far outside my grasp.
These things are not ultimate, are not beyond taste and whim, but they are windows into something magnificent for me. They are glimpses I experience with every sense available to me.
. . .
When we were married, our recessional was Billy Holiday singing the Gershwins’ “Our Love Is Here to Stay:”
The radio, and the telephone
And the movies that we know,
May just be passing fancies,
And in time may go.
I know this is true. There is something in those fancies that gave me the language and the capacity to know when to claim true love had hit. I heard a symphony, and knew I did not make it. There was something in the promises we made that I could not have anticipated, that I only knew by faith, that I was sure would outlast Gibraltar. There are times when I am completely, joyfully incapacitated by her, and I can’t wait to see what she will do or say next. I am so grateful to get to bear witness to her life and her person, and to drift along the current in those moments of the great reward of knowing her. The ocean of our promise fills all the gaps between. The welcome gift of her presence and attention is beyond my ability to navigate. I am eager to see her again, because she will be who she is, and I am constantly astonished that she is for me.
. . .
When he was born, there was nothing about the sound and sight of him that a publisher, producer, or pitch meeting would note. I was silenced by the clarity I had of knowing how different everything suddenly became. When he cried, all I could say was, “you’re okay, you’re okay” (my wife had to ask me to think of something else). It was the most I could promise, in the moment. I prayed he would have everything he needed to enjoy his life.
He is constantly changing, and who he was yesterday barely seems a reality. Who he is is only who he is right now. His right now is spread thick over every past and future moment of my life. I am on the edge of my seat watching him sleep. I want to wake him up for more, even when he has used me up for the day. Anything that Anderson or Stevens can do to me pales compared to my wonder in his movement and sound. No song or film ever took hold of my finger and said, “come, Daddy.” I would go anywhere, and wish that every invitation could meet a “yes.” I can’t wait to see where he is going, hear what he will say or sing next. I am always amazed by how little I have to do with what that turns out to be. Whatever he does next, I will be enthralled, and I will be surprised.
Another boy is coming. And he will be something completely different, and wholly wonderful, I am sure.
. . .
These sensations are not satisfaction. They are not the completeness of a place or time when stillness and comfort and certainty clean out the unnecessary and the unclear things of life; a haven, a respite, a break. Instead, they are full of eagerness and stirred appetite, of an undefined certainty, a promise of stillness, a taste of comfort. They take the shape of great hope, but are contained in precarious mediums. Time and tide, ashes and dust, frailty threatens to overwhelm the beauty of these great joys.
. . .
It is Easter eve. I have been thinking about those disciples, hidden and hurting, most of all fearful. I have generally thought of the Saturday before Easter as the day when they believed God had failed, that Christ had been wrong all along. But they already thought Jesus was wrong about his future. Good Friday just proved the disciples wrong.
He was beautiful, and complete; entirely grace, immeasurably powerful, completely unpredictable. He was so absolutely beyond them, and so unapologetically for them.
We hoped he could not be destroyed, but this is not an unfamiliar story. We hoped Hosanna would lead to Hallelujah, but we still all sing together, “How long, O Lord?”
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Moses and Elijah.
The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord alone.
There is bitter disappointment in Saturday. There is great uncertainty and fear. There is personal despair. But there is not complete destruction.
What is left to do to God’s people that has not already come? What have God’s people done to warrant God’s mercy or the favor of others?
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses and Elijah. The Lord is our God; the Lord alone.
Time and tide, ashes and dust.
The thousandth generation;
We had hoped that was us.
. . .
The beautiful things I love, that cause me to love and that teach me to love, are great gifts and unwarranted mercies. I have to hold them gently, despite my desire to clutch at them desperately and permanently. But they will not outrun the agony of Good Friday and the re-adjustment of Holy Saturday.
At a red light yesterday, I was watching a mentally challenged man waiting for his ride. He had been at work, and held his rolled apron and a few items awkwardly in his arms. He stood near the curb, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, seeming to consider and account for the belongings he held close. I wanted him to step back from the cars that sped past him. I was struck that he did not seem to resent his vulnerability.
The Lord, the Lord,
A God merciful and gracious.
. . .
A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,
comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last.
Do you fix your eyes on such a one? Do you bring me into judgment with you?
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one can.
Since their days are determined, and the number of their months is known to you, and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass,
look away from them, and desist, that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.
For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.
Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground,
yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.
But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?
As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up,
so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep.
Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If mortals die, will they live again? All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come.Job 14:1-14
. . .
Every longing, every groaning in me that reaches through the song or the image, through the love of my wife or loving wonder of my child, the breath I hold in anticipation – I am afraid that if I open my eyes in mid-hope I will not see Easter waiting to catch me. But these things say that Easter is coming.
Resurrection: This final, unsurpassable imaginative act, beyond anything we dream for ourselves. The breathtaking last verse and final scene; the promise fulfilled; the beloved’s arrival; the children of God revealed as the universe rejoices – as they themselves could not have anticipated.
We will see him. We will be like him. He will be satisfied, and our wonder in that moment will fill the new earth with a lasting beauty.
In that city, we will not need sun, or moon, or temple – or music, or film, or promise, or security. Christ in every ear and eye, at every fingertip and under every certain step – breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out – being and doing, receiving and creating, conceiving and willing, loving, and loving, and loving.
Wonderful. Beautiful. Perfected.
If there is no unfulfilled longing in the last day, then certainly there is something we have not yet known which draws us in endless agonizing joy towards the heart of the Father. I believe that there will be, because we are going to sing.
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes
take the water of life
as a gift.
That was beautiful. May God continue to increase your sensitivities and capacity to appreciate the rich blessings he has poured on you.
Thanks.
Dude, seriously. Wow. This is beautiful. Congratulations on another child. (I would use exclamation points at the end of each of those sentences, but that would become tedious.) This is a terrific post that captures the wonder that Easter gives the whole world. The power of God, Christ’s resurrection, and his glory infuses itself all throughout the cosmos, into our relationships, our humanity, and our art. Your post reminds me of the final refrain from Gerard Manly Hopkins’ poem, “God’s Grandeur.” It’s public domain, so I’ll post it here in its entirety:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
“Because the Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” Indeed.
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Thanks for the exclamation marks (implied). I love that Hopkins piece!
I love that my sister has a husband like you, and my nephew(s) have a father like you. And I am proud to know you.
Thanks, Drew. The feeling is mutual.