Peripheral Ponderings

“He who binds to himself a joy        
Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.”

William Blake

Sometimes being human is a difficult balancing act:  when to act, when to wait;  when to be independent and when to accept assistance; when to chart our own path or remember that it’s God’s story and stop anxious striving.

I recently watched a video entitled “Kosher Love” about a Jewish matchmaker, the “love rabbi,” as he counseled a young couple.  The wife said the rabbi had made such a good match: it was like her husband “must have existed, and then I made the list.”  God had given her everything she’d asked for, but she was upset because if she didn’t think of it, it looked like He hadn’t thought to include it.  It was difficult to understand the problem!

Her question, perplexing as it was, really was about romance in a life that follows society’s script.  What does it mean to have a soulmate?  Matchmaking could help in the recipe, but it could only go so far.  The rabbi’s response was that she was looking for something that didn’t exist except in Hollywood movies, but she challenged him on that, because she thought of it as a legitimate human need.

Like poetry, love’s connecting spark does need a form, but its essence is as elusive as a butterfly.  Because it’s a spiritual gift of God, not something that can be summoned up or scheduled.  You can only create the right conditions, be present and open to its ephemeral appearance.  Spirit-filled love can’t be predicted, controlled, or trapped.  And gives us the same privilege.  “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

What’s true of marriage is also true of faith.  Rules and rituals and planning are good and necessary in a society, but without love, rigid adherence to the letter of the law can kill spontaneity and joy.  Someone may be technically faithful to spouse or faith traditions, but withhold and refuse to engage within that relationship.

Love goes beyond duty to delight in the unexpected, the surprise, the extra mile. Human beings need that transcendence, need that light-hearted fun and laughter and connection.  How wonderful that our God is a God of abundance and creativity who far exceeds all our desires and hopes, “able to do far more than we can ask or imagine.”

Sometimes it isn’t until we look back over many years that we see that it was all  grace.  We’re been surprised by joy, like C. S. Lewis, and “romanced” by our Lord, Lover of our soul.

A little rhyme we learned full well
In my childhood Sunday School
Verses sung to warn us all
To keep from playing the fool.

“Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see”
For the Father up above sees thee.
Keep your eyes from greed and vanity
And linger not in sinful envy.

Be careful little nose, before you follow
(Lest you fall into trickery!)
A scent that suggests the way to go.
And keep from sneering or snobbery.

“Be careful little ears what you hear”
Seems an impossible proposition.
“Ears can’t be closed!” Don’t stay near
To idle gossip’s conversation.

Be careful little hands what you do
Don’t strive to ever increase your wealth
Reach out in kindness to give to others
Always care for another’s health.

“Oh, be careful, little feet where you go”
And in your choice of a companion
Because you reap what you will sow
Stay far from the place of temptation.

“For the Father up above
Is looking down in love,”
So be careful little one
There is joy in a life well done.

                                                                                        Trudy Prins

“At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, this is what you were pleased to do.” Matthew 11:25-26

A course in Science was a required credit for an English BA, and I dreaded the college term ahead.  In high school science labs had been a frustrating experience.  Whether the fault was inattention to detailed instructions or just the normal Murphy’s Law tendency of my universe, there was seldom the predicted outcomes.  So, when I had a choice to complete the requirement by correspondence, it seemed serendipitous.

To my surprise, science proved to be far more interesting than I’d remembered, and another way to cross-pollinate truths of nature with the metaphysical, to see on earth what had been designed by heaven.  I’d always loved the Romantic poets’ appreciation of the natural world around them.  As a child I wandered around bulrush-fringed ponds, through small copses of woods with Jack-in-the-Pulpits, and ditches with their prickly burrs, Queen Anne’s lace and downy milk pods, savouring the berries that grew profligate in the fence rows.

So I linger still, sometimes, on the edges of science, the most recently in a library course on Philosophy and Physics, much of which I can barely comprehend, trying to glean a new way of viewing things.  Quantum physics, for example, implies a very weird world where choices are super-posed until actualized by an observer, Schrodinger’s cat both alive and dead.  I’m comforted in this incomprehension by the number of times the professor acknowledges ignorance as well . . . “Dunno.”  “I dunno.”  “We dunno.”    For every proposed theory there seems to be counter viewpoints.  It gets tiring, like watching a dog chase its tail.

So I’m grateful that God, in his wisdom, told the Creation story in language that is elegant and poetic in its simplicity.  We don’t have to know how everything works to experience peace and joy in our surroundings.  There is a time to intellectually pursue things, and a time to just be transfixed in awe, like a child.

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer when he lectured
with much applause in the lecture room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.”

Walt Whitman

From Olney Hymans, Light Shining Out of Darkness, William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

It does seem, sometimes, that the world is an unstable place, that there are storms of all different kinds, and we can become so anxious about the future.  Living with the ongoing adaptations in the COVID battle, the economic and political uncertainties, other health concerns, hearing of marriages that crumble under stress, can take a toll on our frame of mind.  Our children have had to learn to live with disappointment as plans necessarily have to be fluid in their schooling.

My tendency is to look at the challenges ahead to calculate the costs, forgetting to consider the positive side of a ledger.  Though they aren’t necessarily momentous, they add up just the same.  There are the small delights: a friend’s welcoming smile,  just going out to shop, a book that surprises you with a fresh insight, the irrepressible joy in laughter, beauty as the leaves begin to tinge with the fall colours, the fields strewn with pumpkins.  Sometimes I think that when we get to heaven, God will ask us if we noticed all the beauty He placed along our way: the crimson of that beautiful flower, the swoop of that murmuration of birds against the deep blue sky, the sparkling stars in the night heavens.  And we will be ashamed of our blindness to His provision.

Fear tends to give us tunnel vision, and it is why it is so important to trust that God’s heart is continually loving us in this way.  In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul blesses his audience with this prayer:  “May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love, and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech.”  (The Message).   Paul’s God is an interactive God, continually gifting day to day life, preparing the way with little thoughtful surprises and encouragement, leaving the light shining for you so that you can beware of danger and find your way home, bringing people and circumstances into your life for learning and growth, breathing fresh vitality into your everyday activities.

It’s the little epiphanies, the shimmering of something transcendent that can bring us hope and joy, give us glimpses of the God who is ever-present and Master of even the darkest storm.  What, then, would we ever need to fear?

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.