Just got home early in the morning from a very late night out that spurred a fury of activity in a recently dormant mind. Bought what is so far a phenomenal book from and Irish author and watched Inception which had an Irish born actor as a central character, which may explain the happy melancholic mood I seem to find myself in. This evening brought so many thought s to the surface like shoots from fresh seeds after a spring rain. Tonight I felt frsh earth between my toes as I went out to see the verdany green of the new growth. The intoxicating scent of wet soil taking hold of my mind like a drunken sailor offering a tour of the evening's highlights.
Though there is a lightheartedness about how I describe all of this there is a certain weight to it as well. The book is about a conversation between a man digging his own grave and the man who is appointed to see him fill the hole in the cold earth of a European winter. The movie also bears a weighty message of the power of our own memories upon the course of our souls. In the book there is a wonderful statement from the protagonist when the invading armies come into view of his home in the shape of a tank:
This lead me to pondering the sparse crowds that populated the wee morning hours of a return trip to Cheung Chau after the movie. Pondering where their paths are taking them. Pondering what they have done with the knowledge the Father says He has given to all of us. Pondering as I looked out the window of the fast ferry at the barely slumbering city rushing by. This city rolls fitfully in a shallow sleep as it dreams, lusts, and clutches for the spoils of the next day, never reaching the rem realm where the Spirit seeds revelations into passing souls. Perhaps this is why it is the poor in spirit that Jesus said are blessed, they have relaxed their grip on the insanity of a somnambulist's dream in the face of an unrelenting reality. These are the ones who lift their eyes and see the door of heaven swung open wide on blood stained hinges. These are the ones who surrender the illusions for a taste of the real. These are the ones who light up like beacon's at Christ's invitation to come and find the eternal quenching of their thirst in Him alone. The surrendered ones.
Oh to be more fully surrendered and forever leave the delusional meanderings of this world. To embrace the knowledge of the grave as Ecclesiastes 7:1-4 enjoins:
What a terrible sound, that rumble. My house was paper, my skin water, my life transparent all of a sudden. I thought, I am going to die.When I read these words I knew that I had a small taste of what he meant. That tenuous grip on a frail mortality in the face of imminent extinction is a place I have come across on occasion, both in imaginings and reality. Many evenings as I have struggled to slip into natural unconsciousness these thoughts have played out in my mind, leaving their tangible touch in the beads of sweat dotting my brow. Many times I have replayed the evening when I saw my life's blood spilling relentlessly from a facial wound inflicted by the steering wheel of a totaled Ford Pinto as I crawled away beneath the lamplight of a deserted onramp in the wee hours of a morning many years ago. The fragility of my life, and the foolishness of how I treated it has sent numerous chills through me. At the end of these thoughts there is, thankfully, the grace that has lead me to the safe harbor of my Father, but the trip easily grips my thoughts, and arrests spurious speculations of other, darker, possibilities.
pg. 18 "Schopenhauer's Telescope" by Gerard Donovan
This lead me to pondering the sparse crowds that populated the wee morning hours of a return trip to Cheung Chau after the movie. Pondering where their paths are taking them. Pondering what they have done with the knowledge the Father says He has given to all of us. Pondering as I looked out the window of the fast ferry at the barely slumbering city rushing by. This city rolls fitfully in a shallow sleep as it dreams, lusts, and clutches for the spoils of the next day, never reaching the rem realm where the Spirit seeds revelations into passing souls. Perhaps this is why it is the poor in spirit that Jesus said are blessed, they have relaxed their grip on the insanity of a somnambulist's dream in the face of an unrelenting reality. These are the ones who lift their eyes and see the door of heaven swung open wide on blood stained hinges. These are the ones who surrender the illusions for a taste of the real. These are the ones who light up like beacon's at Christ's invitation to come and find the eternal quenching of their thirst in Him alone. The surrendered ones.
Oh to be more fully surrendered and forever leave the delusional meanderings of this world. To embrace the knowledge of the grave as Ecclesiastes 7:1-4 enjoins:
1A good name is better than a good ointment,Fearsome words in a slumbering age. Cold water to a parched soul.
And the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth.
2It is better to go to a house of mourning
Than to go to a house of feasting,
Because that is the end of every man,
And the living takes it to heart.
3Sorrow is better than laughter,
For when a face is sad a heart may be happy.
4The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning,
While the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.
The Starbuck view where I delved into "Schopenhauer's Telescope"
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