When a prisoner recalls the light, is it the same light that illuminates you?
Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice were the words Paul wrote from prison. Rejoice in the light, wherever it finds you; rejoice in the Lord, even in prison. Rejoice.
I guess the answer to Neruda’s question depends on whether the prisoner recalls light as overcoming darkness, and whether those of us who live in light-bathed freedom are aware that we could find ourselves in a darkness that doesn’t end when the sun rises.
[For more information, click Neruda’s Book of Questions above. Better yet, buy the book.]
For a four year old, four years is an entire life; for an eighty year old, it’s only five percent of a life. 4 may be 4, but the sense of duration can be vastly different.
Toting four pounds of bricks is a lot easier than hoisting four pounds of feathers. Same weight, varying levels of difficulty.
I’m enough of a math geek to confirm that 4 is 4, and I’ve lived long enough to know that 4 of anything may be quite different for one person than another – or even the same person at different life stages.
How about sevens? Lucky for some, assigned other characteristics by others, a seven is still a 7.
If this is true of numbers, which are widely considered constant, how much more true is it for less quantifiable realities? I’m going to try and keep that in mind the next time someone offers a completely different understanding of God’s presence among us or what happens after death.
Perhaps Paul was right: in the end, it’s just these three things that remain constant: faith, hope, and love….and maybe he was wrong.
Book of Questions, Pablo Neruda (Sara Lisa Paulson, trans), Paloma Valdivia, illustrator; Brooklyn, New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2022
Doesn’t this seem to be a time full of questions? Who, what, where, when, why, and how fly around inside and outside my head. Perhaps that’s why this new book crossed my desk and made it onto this blog: Book of Questions (Libro de las Preguntas) by Pablo Neruda. It’s visually stunning and verbally fascinating, and one of the few poetry books that’s ever been on back order immediately after publication (thanks, New York Times book review!). So let’s dive in…
Is 4,4 for everyone?
My thoughts in a few days. Why not add yours – just hit the comment button….
Pablo Neruda (Sara Lissa Paulson, trans.), Paloma Valdivia, illustrator; Book of Questions (Libro de las Preguntas); Brooklyn, New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2022
Last Friday, we packed the car and headed to Philadelphia. I’ve made this drive numerous times, but not recently; I had forgotten the manic driving on full display from lower Connecticut all the way through Philadelphia. Numerous cars, not just an occasional one or two, were weaving from lane to lane, cutting between cars at high speed. Brake lights marked the path each speeding car made as it continued forward, and more than once a car had to swerve to avoid getting clipped.
I wonder what goes on in the heads of the speedsters. Is there an emergency, or something vital that they cannot miss? Do they think about their effect on the drivers they leave in their rearview mirrors – the ones who had to brake to avoid a collision? Are they more than minimally aware of anyone outside their own vehicle? What can be so important that it’s worth endangering others?
Once I got over the Mario Cuomo Bridge and onto the Garden State Parkway, I pulled into a service area. A quick stretch and a snack later, Dave took the keys and drove the last leg of the trip. The reckless drivers continued to appear in the rearview mirror and disappear from sight through windshield.
I wonder if this isn’t a good metaphor for these times. A pandemic has created islands of isolation, interacting but not creating a greater sense of connection – passing by rather than engaging. Perhaps it’s easy to telescope down until all that seems real is our own little reality, and everything else becomes a blur outside the window. If so, I’m really hoping to park the car soon – I’d much rather meet someone than just see a blur passing by on the road.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three. And the greatest of these is love.
I went to a graveside service Saturday, committing to the ground a father and son I’d known for nineteen years. What these two men left behind was a testament to who they were. The love everyone had for them, and the love for each other, was a quiet, palpable presence among us. Toddlers playing, new people who will become integral members of this family soon enough, and the friends who became family long ago are all part of the love these two men left with the living. They abide in God’s eternal love, and they left behind an abiding love that gives all of us a glimpse of what is to come when the partial gives way to the complete.
Gracious God, I am so grateful for Ben the father, and Ben his son. Thank you for their lives, and for the abiding love they leave behind. Amen.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. I Cor 13:12, NRSV
What looks to us a huge flaw seems inconsequential to someone else; to someone who loves us, it may even be endearing. And it’s usually the insufficiencies that we see in our reflections, because we look only on the imperfect exterior. It’s a dim view of ourselves we see when we don’t look with loving eyes.
But this short-sightedness is a temporary condition. Some day, we will see ourselves and each other as God sees us: beautiful, unique, beloved. We won’t be able to separate the spirit from the flesh because love holds all things together.
Sometimes, we get a glimpse of a fullness out of the corner of our eyes. It’s just a glimpse of all things in their beloved totality. Perhaps it’s just enough for the love in our hearts to encompass everyone and everything, ourselves, and God. Perhaps, it’ll do for now.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. I Corinthians 13:11b – 12a
I heard the tantrum in the other room, quickly followed by the sight of a mother carrying her daughter out of story time. What started the whole thing remains a mystery, but the result was a little girl and her mother missing out on two more stories and a craft. If the little girl could have looked past whatever it was that upset her, if she could have held out an extra minute or so, she’d have gotten a musical instrument to play, a chance to point to her favorite kite on the page of the book, and had the chance to pick out a book to take home. Unable to take a longer view, she missed out on all of it.
My perspective isn’t as limited as a two year old’s. I don’t throw tantrums, and I can opt for longer lasting satisfaction over immediate gratification. I have patience, control over my emotional outbursts, and can forego something for the benefit of another. But I still grow impatient when I am needlessly (at least from my perspective) delayed; some people rub me the wrong way, and I am annoyed at their presence more than at anything they happened to be doing; I don’t like to admit my own short-sightedness. The mirror in which I view myself and everything else in creation is dark and distorted, and my partial love isn’t strong enough illuminate it sufficiently.
Paul writes that when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. Paul may have done so, but I’m not so sure I have.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child..
When Jesus was asked how one might enter the kingdom of God, he drew a child from the crowd and replied, “You haven’t got a prayer of entering unless you can become like one of these.” I doubt he was advocating a rewinding of development – a return to childish ways. Children are born with limited physical and cognitive abilities because these are gained by interaction. To grow, children depend on the people around them to foster their well-being and introduce them to an ever-widening reality. With love and kindness, children grow into the selves that were only potential at birth.
Jesus was talking about something else. Children know there’s always something new to learn, and something more complete to become; children are not ashamed of being works-in-progress, unless someone has made them so. Perhaps it’s this quality, this recognition of our own in-progress state, and a willingness to own it, that can foster a childlike faith without the childish behavior…
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ICor 13:8-10, NRSV
Once we know something (barring suppression, brain injury or damage), we can’t unknow it – the end of a book, the punchline to the joke, the last note of a song. Resolution cannot be undone; even if we repeat the experience, we can’t go back to our original starting point because we know how it all ends. Our partial experience ends when we reach completion.
But love is something different than these things that come to an end. We are deeply loved by God in our first breath and our last, and in every breath between. Our days will come to an end, and our lives will end in death, but the love we give and receive is something that abides beyond life and death. Instead of abiding in death, we return to the love that gave us life in the first place. Because love isn’t partial – at least not God’s love.
It gives me hope that God will make out of my own partial love something complete.
In my local library, there are rows and rows of books in the nonfiction section – books about the local habitats, biographies of Bob Dylan, World War II political essays, and more cookbooks and knitting patterns than a person could want. Fifteen years back, there were rows of encyclopedias as well – victims of the digital age.
On a regular basis, librarians go through the nonfiction books, section by section, and remove the ones that in poor shape or out of date. The knowledge contained in the nonfiction books becomes obsolete as new insight is gained, and the old knowledge is revealed in all its incompleteness. How we number the planets (Rest In Peace, Pluto), how we understand the foundations of creation (Big Bang and String Theory, anyone?), whether animals see color as we do – our partial knowledge of these things gives way to a more complete understanding, and our old ways of knowing must be left behind.
This old world holds more mystery than I’ll ever know, and even the things I do know will always be subject to growth and change. If this life were a nonfiction section in an eternal library, it will take a lifetime to read the shortest sentence in a single book.
Since God created it all, it’s a matter for wonder and joy rather than discouragement.
