Thirty Minutes to Calm

I sought simple things,

Hunted beauty within reach:

Peace, tranquility, quiet.

In half an hour I pursued them,

Quested after small delights:

Pleasure, satisfaction, rest.

One by one I witnessed glory,
Discovered finery and splendor:
Mystery, form, life.

“Again I resume the long

lesson: how small a thing

can be pleasing, how little

in this hard world it takes

to satisfy the mind

and bring it to its rest.”

-Wendell Berry, Sabbaths

The Good Life

The current display at our local art gallery about a mile down the road might be entitled, “Summer Frivolity.”    I invite you to accompany me for a vicarious viewing.

First, forget any image you might have of a typical studio with spotlighted masterpieces and carefully positioned benches to encourage contemplation.  This is an open-air gallery featuring of freehand chalk drawings on the road.

Now.  Ready?  If you were to walk this stretch, you would first encounter a genderless fisherman, or rather the ghost of one, with a ghostly white fish on the line.

Next, you’d discover two smiling girls poised amid flowers, one holding a cluster of balloons, the other on-the-run.

And finally, you would no doubt marvel at my favorite: a panting runner with hair standing straight up, advertising a “toot!”

These drawings, and others of an oversized orange ice cream cone surrounded by orange flowers and butterflies, stand alone on the quiet, less-traveled fork of the road like horizontal billboards advertising youth’s lightheartedness. I unfortunately have not been privileged to meet the artists.  But their works speak for them: life is good.

Theon

In little bits of spare time, I’ve recently been reading historical records of certain individuals living in the 4^th and 5^th centuries.  These vibrant souls chose to separate themselves from the expected lifestyle of their age in order to seek the Lord.  However, they were not isolated, but integrated in exemplary ways with each other and all who crossed their paths.  They were known to be merciful, kind, and compassionate; quiet, humble, and gentle.   Their service to others was willingly sacrificial, a kind of “holy toil” that cultivated patience, perfect wisdom, and wholeness. 

Take Theon the hermit, for example.  Theon was a scholarly man, learned in Egyptian, Greek, and Latin. He reportedly was noble in appearance with a reverent countenance, joyous eyes, and a gracious, almost angelic, presence.  For thirty years he chose a reclusive lifestyle, keeping a discipline of silence.  His worshipful stillness of soul reflected the heart of God in the form of holy service.  Ill people flocked to his window daily where he reached out his hand to touch them.  They left changed, many healed of their afflictions. One source states, “He did so many miracles that he was esteemed among them as a prophet.”

Biographies such as Theon’s cause me to think about the higher good, the more hidden treasure.  We are on a journey, and are easily tempted to be satisfied with less, to set our own diminished limits.  And yet there is a higher calling: divine wisdom that yields honest deeds of mercy and compassion borne of Perfect Love.

The Best

The sun’s late afternoon trail spangled a trail to our pier as our two leggy guests, twin girls soon to turn 12, prepared for their next challenge.

The flexaboard!  We dragged out the scarred, splintery-edged old homemade board dating from the mid-70’s (like skis only attached at the top) after an otherwise full afternoon of tubing and kneeboarding behind the ski boat.  They eagerly zoomed over the water with immediate success, two turns each, this time behind the little fishing boat. The almost-forgotten flexaboard was the hit of the day!

Moral to the story: sometimes the good only gets better, and the best really is saved for last.

Hypnotized by Beauty

I stood beside the lily-pad-choked inlet where delicate wildflowers and heady green incense pressed deep: a sensory feast.  Drunken bees hung from white pom-poms, unable to control their addictions.

Clusters of tiny ruby stars with white centers, and flyaway lavender puffs, charmed me with their detailed perfection.

Cloud fingers softly stroked the sky, multiplying grandeur on the face of the lake.    

I remembered my camera in my pocket, and recorded the moment for posterity: hypnotic.

Lewis and Clark

A two-man expedition launched a high adventure trip from our pier this afternoon.  The explorers, alias Lewis of Narnia and Clark Bar of Hershey, headed for a destination worthy of investigation: a large cove with wild shoreline featuring cattails, lily pads, red-winged blackbirds, wild swans, and maybe beavers.  Euphoric wilderness.  The challenge real men seek.

“We’re off – to the other side of the world!” exclaimed Clark Bar, the elder of the team.

The two headed into open seas toward the wild blue watery yonder. “Look, a floating bottle!” (Note speck between kayaks in the picture below.)  “Check it out – maybe there’s a letter or instructions to hidden treasure…”

Chivalry

A tiny rowboat approached our north shore this evening from the east, one of those old-fashioned, blunt-nosed dinghys with no motor.  From a distance I thought it was occupied by a couple of kids, probably teenagers.  It progressed slowly through the still water, stroke by stroke, magnetically drawn toward the setting sun that was preparing to drop out of sight behind the horizon.

As this antiquated watercraft passed in front of our house, I was surprised to see an elderly, white-haired gentleman rowing.  He seemed slender and bony; his head jutted forward from humped shoulders the way my grandpa’s did before he died. Intent on his job, he pulled the oars like one practiced from youth. His strokes were strong, synchronized. In the back of the boat sat his similarly-aged sweetheart, dressed in a loose long-sleeved blouse and sunbonnet with ribbons tied in a bow beneath her chin.  Her hands lay quietly in her lap.   

I found myself staring at this scene from another age, and wondered how far the couple intended to go – if they were indeed chasing the sun on its way down, down, down below the trees.  But I couldn’t know their destination.  The blinding reflection on the water forced me to look away, which seemed right somehow.  This was their boat ride after all, their private moment, and I was an intruder.  

Perhaps they were imagining themselves to be younger, I thought.  Perhaps they were replaying some favorite memory from a summer day years ago. How romantic.

Chivalry is not dead.