Breaking Through

Breakthroughs are a fact of life.

While they sometimes usher in exciting new understanding, breakthroughs can also correct misconceptions with wisdom that existed all along, but was unavailable. Both types foster optimism going forward, and prove we are not stuck in some predetermined script, but are living a dynamic, organic experience.

Knowing it is possible to overlook breakthroughs, I try to discipline myself to actively watch for them, and then respond.  They often require me to intentionally be inwardly still, expectant, and observant, as well as deliberately act (do something, as in react). Or I can choose to look the other way and let them drift on by.

Clouds part to allow sunny breakthrough. Technology catapults us forward into the unknown, a common type of breakthrough in our current age.  But also, historical figures from the first century are drawing me into a kind of profound human experience that has been discarded or forgotten in the midst of progressive Western civilization.  In this case, excavated treasures of human purpose, hidden by layers of modern reasoning, are brought to light.  My practiced orientations (not altogether wrong, but limited) give way to life-altering perspectives that break through and change everything in profound ways.

Breakthrough indeed!

“Just as the blessings of God are unutterably great, so their acquisition requires much hardship and toil undertaken with hope and faith.”

-St. Macarius the Great (c. 300-391 AD)

Going Back in Time

I remember a squat, wooden box with four legs that stood just to the right of Granny’s favorite chair like a faithful pet, holding darning eggs and other sewing accessories.  To the left, a window showcased her flower garden.  Imposing gladiolas stood on the other side of that window in late summer, shouting visual glories from their multi-colored trumpets.  I can still picture Granny sitting in that chair with a decorative brooch modestly pinning the V-neck of her housedress, as she methodically darned holes in socks - slowly and carefully weaving threads while spikes of color waved in the background.

Great Aunt Jen’s tatting shuttles were stored in that same sewing box.  The two sisters lived together toward the end of their lives, but Aunt Jen’s near-blindness severely curtailed her activities. Her magnified eyes curiously peered at me like deep, watery pools from behind thick lenses, distorted yet always friendly. I was told that before those glasses, she did lots of handwork: crocheting, embroidering, knitting, and tatting intricate lace edges for pillowcases – her way of inviting weary heads to lie down for rest amidst beauty.

The old sewing box harkens back to a phase when I was interested in playing hide-and-seek with barn kitties, or snooping in the musty-smelling attic with its feather bed filled with down from Granny’s chickens.  There were stories about that attic - how my dad hid secretive things in the floor boards, and how Grandpa used to slaughter a hog that would hang up there all winter, providing cuts of meat as needed.

And yet I was a thoughtful child, and paid attention.  I noticed things, like darning eggs and flowers. I realized Granny’s life was predictably orderly and quiet, and appreciated the resulting calm.  I liked the tantalizing aromas always hanging heavy in her kitchen, and how cookie jars (one in the kitchen, one in the dining room) were dependably full of spicy molasses cookies. There was something unique about all of that that made the world secure and right.

* * *

Today I rediscovered a few relics from Granny’s sewing box: darning eggs and tatting shuttles that had been stashed in a little child-sized trunk belonging to my mother when she was a girl (just slightly bigger than Granny’s box, and memorable in its own right). As memories replayed, I couldn’t help but note how lifestyles have changed drastically.  We no longer darn socks (now considered disposable), and are shaped by expectations for speed and convenience that tend to redefine, or even overlook, beauty.  As I cradled those mementos in my hands, their messages seemed clear: challenges yield character, simplicity renews and nurtures, and hard work pays big dividends in fulfillment. 

Metallic Frosting

My mop of brushed silver

Proves many years have passed.

Styled simply, it hangs straight,

Draped like ripened  

Ornamental grass.

Today, while tossed and wind-swept,

Seasoned seed-thoughts soared

With mature vision and purpose.

Metallic frosting:

The time is now.

Loving Everything

Today I began the job of pulling last summer’s bean vines from the garden fence.  Outdoor conditions were perfect: winter-crisp air with no wind, and the skies were magnetically sunny and soul-brightening.  

The tightly woven blanket of lush green that had draped over the fence for months had become a skeleton of climbing stems: stiff, dry, lifeless. Leftover tendrils - some gnarly like marine rope, others fragile and delicate like curly baby hair - continued to diligently grip the wire as they’d done during warm months of opportunity and growth to full potential. A few overlooked pods still held matured dry seeds, icons of purpose in the rhythm of life. 

Honestly, I felt something close to kinship as I unwrapped the vines and broke them into small pieces for removal.  For months I’d tended these tenacious climbers that had supplied a generous supply green beans even into early November.  However, today they called me beyond that relationship to the profound unity of living things that make up the fabric of life on earth.

The lesson du jour wasn’t just about seasonal cycles of beans.  Rather, it focused me on everything in the grand, divine mystery of earthly life. This was a simple but profound experience...right there in the nippy, sun-stroked winter garden, beside barren forest trees standing tall and bold while the low-hanging sun faithfully pressed its energy earthward as a promise of another season of growth.

“Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light.  Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment.  If you love each fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.”

–Fydor Dostoyevsky

Intervention

Stilled raindrops hang frozen:

Suspended,

Poised and ready

But deterred,
Their earthbound journey interrupted.

This rewritten script

Shouts beauty and glory,

A lesson in intervention.