The Desert
The desert could not be claimed or owned–it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names long before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East. Its caravans, those strange rambling feasts and cultures, left nothing behind, not an ember. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape. Fire and sand. We left the harbours of oasis. The places water came to and touched… Ain, Bir, Wadi, Foggara, Khottara, Shaduf. I didn’t want my name against such beautiful names. Erase the family name! Erase nations! I was taught such things by the desert.
- The English Patient, p138
Andrew Stonestreet
Its fall again. I seem to have been seeing this guy every September for the last few years, and we always come away with some great photos. Last year we met up in Felton, CA, this year Andrew spent a few weeks with us here in Portland.
comma,
Certainly we talk to ourselves; there is no thinking being who has not experienced that. One could even say that the world is never a more magnificent mystery than when, within a man, it travels from his thoughts to his conscience and returns… we exclaim within ourselves, without breaking the external silence.
-Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.
Expectations
How can I expect to know God, how can I expect him to do anything for me/with me/through me if I’m not first doing what I can for myself? I’m not talking about success. I’m not talking about love. I’m not even talking about the feeling of peace. I’m talking about my part in the connection. I’m talking about character. I’m talking about work ethic, focus, and persistence to something beyond the bullshit insistence and triumphantism of happiness.
I can expect the dark and the bright times. I can expect and enjoy the repeated shock of cold water jumping into a stream. But without effort on my own part, without the willingness to step/dive/fall in, I can expect nothing in contrast from what I have now.
Laura Dart
Listen! I will be honest with you;
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes;
These are the days that must happen to you:You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d—you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction, before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you;
What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.- Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
So It Goes
Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial ‘doubt.’ This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious ‘faith’ of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.
- Thomas Merton, From New Seeds of Contemplation
Sharing hand-rolled cigarettes, Daniel and I considered the path of those who’ve walked from the realms of contemporary church culture like a salty insect shell they would find somewhat discomforting in making any attempt to return to their shoulders. Our stories include us in this demographic, and we consider the heavy weight of this world left behind, but not as though shoulders were made only for burdons or for looking back over. It is the gift of a contemplative soul to shed the conventional in its falsehoods but its burdon to recognize that the only homes to be found are those that embrace the broken. Contemplation that considers the honest shape of the shell shed and the new home will recognize the cracks and scrapes and holes of any home but will continue the mendings. Like a cigarette that just won’t stay lit, only a bit of fire will bring new life, and with it, new impending death. In such a repetition, I can hear Vonnegut’s chorus: “So it goes..”
To Own and To Serve
“I myself own a flower,” he continued his conversation with the businessman, which I water every day. I own three volcanos which I clean out every week (for I also clean out the one that is extinct; one never knows). It is of some use to my volcanos, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them. But you are of no use to the stars…”
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
Hidden in this passing conversation is a philosophy of ownership that I believe could battle the depths of all that silliness that just doesn’t make sense in man’s (especially the Western Man’s) need to own. De Saint Exupéry is suggesting that man’s role in being and his responsibility in his perceived ownership is an action of pouring out. It is not an action of pulling in or becoming an effectual vacuum. The great responsibility man has been given is that of his active service to the world he is a part of. The world does not exist to service man, man exists to service it.
If you haven’t read de Saint Exupéry, please do.
Hawaii Finale
I’ve finally found the time to finish processing photos from last April’s trip to Hawaii. There wasn’t a lot, but the summer provided enough distraction to keep me from its completion. I hope you all can enjoy these photos. Better yet, I hope they inspire you to see such a beautiful place with your own eyes. See the rest of the collection on my flickr.
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