The Darkling Thrush

Photo by Ankhesenamun on Unsplash

I leant upon a coppice gate

          When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

           The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

         Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

                      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware. 

— Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush

Can you see it? A barren field, grey skies, lowering clouds, and scraggly weeds whipping in the wind. The year is closing, and for Thomas Hardy, the nineteenth century was closing; buried in crypt like a corpse. Everything looked bleak, grey, gnarled, and worn out. 

Though much of 2020 was fairly normal for me at a daily life level, it was not without its pall. A dear family friend taken in death—the mother of my best friends growing up. No Holy Week and Easter Sunday gathered together with fellow believers. Nine months of not being able to worship side-by-side with other believers. The death of Mike Adams. The bleak reality that there is no longer free speech in America. The sudden removal of one of our delivery drivers, someone who had been on our route for years. Normal-person-sickness cancelling our Christmas plans with extended family and friends. 

Break-ups. Ageing. Cancer. Suicide. "The ancient pulse of germ and birth / Was shrunken hard and dry, / And every spirit upon earth / Seemed fervourless as I." My sister described her normal-person-flu symptoms as leeching the colour from life. "Everything seems grey and un-enjoyable." Being sick is like that, insipid, uninspired, listless, and dull. Christmas felt like that for me, even though I was (blessedly!) with my immediate family. The year 2020 felt like that for many people. Like a corpse outleant o'er all the land, like weeds against a flat, grey sky. Colourless. 

At once a voice arose among

   The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

    Of joy illimited. . .

In the midst of death, decay, and listlessness a song of joy breaks over Hardy. The singer isn't a young bird, a hearty bird, a colourful bird. It is "An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, / In blast-beruffled plume" who has "chosen thus to fling his soul / Upon the growing gloom." We often think of children being resilient or hues of colour in a bleak setting. And they certainly can be... But what I love about this turn in the poem, what made tears streak down my cheeks today, was that this was an aged, frail thrush. There is no freshness, no innocence here. He knows hardship. Yet he full-heartedly flings his very soul out into the gathering gloom.

I don't know what 2021 will bring. But I'm tried of being told it will be dark and fearful. It may be. Given the evidence of how the masses have been led by the media to believe outright lies, how the Left is openly saying they want to put people in "re-education" camps (sound like Hitler pre-WWII to anyone else?), and how Christian companies are being dropped by their credit card services for having normal Christian morals, I don't anticipate that 2021 will be better than 2020. It may be much, much worse. Things I never thought could happen in America have happened, are happening. . . I'm not sugar-coating that or denying what could be.

But. 

      But I want to be like that frail, weather-beaten, aged thrush.

                      I want to fling my soul out into the gloom of the gathering storm.

Not in recklessness, not because I've given up, not because I'm saying "Oh, to Hell with it!" and calling it quits. I am not. I will not. I want to—God help me!—throw my soul out into the great big world and let it be a note of beauty, a moment of colour, a breath of inspiration, and a glimmer of Hope.

If ever there was a moment in my lifetime with "So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound" this is it. I've personally had worse times. But this is bigger than my own griefs. This is a gathering gloom of national, global proportions. And I want to put my finger in the dyke, if only as a brief stopgap, a clear note in the pre-storm silence of "Some blessed Hope, whereof [I know] / [Yet the world is] unaware." I want to sing "In a full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited." And that means, to be clear, that I want my soul to be filled with Beauty and Truth, which both flow from and point to Jesus—the Word without whom nothing that exists would have been at all. There is no limit to the joy which flows from Him. Let there be no limit to His joy "trembling through" me, either.

“...that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

— Mary Ann Evans (aka: George Eliot), Middlemarch                 

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

Things I'm thankful for today. . .

• Little birds twittering in the trees above my porch
  
  
• Gentle warmth and cloud cover and sunlight dancing through leaves
  
  
• Delectable tea... I blended Black Cask Bourbon, New England Breakfast, and Tippy Yunan for this morning's brew.
  
  
• Colours! Gentle yellow-white light filtered through verdant leaves; pale green avocado, bright red strawberries, creamy orange apricots, and Polish pottery cerulean; magenta geraniums peeking out of the flowerbox next to a cheery yellow watering can... Colour, colour everywhere!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Music. I adore music. Good music, that is. Today that is Joy Williams. Recently it has been The Petersens, Hollow Coves, Peter Bradley Adams, and The Western Den.
  
  
• Friends. I am oh-so-thankful for friends! Whether it is friends I have known a hundred years (give or take a zero) sitting across the way journalling in quiet, or friends I haven't seen in years who text me "Less than a week!" when I am finally going to see them soon, or friends I've only known a year or two... I'm thankful for their presence; their heart-sharing; their life-sharing; their love; their wisdom; their differences of opinion (even when I don't like it); their grace; their truth-telling; their e-mails with links to books, poems, sermons, music, and more; their sharing the face of Jesus with me in different facets.
  
  
• Kindness from almost-friends. What to call these people whom I pray for and care for, but I'm not really "friends" with exactly? Almost-friends, that's what. They are the people who remember that you would like them to deliver this big box to an address not on the box (please-and-thank-you), the ones who stand at your door and chat about random things for a few minutes in their busy day, who deliver the mail, who make your day just a little brighter by being them and by being kind.
  
  
• The dobro (resonator guitar). Seriously, this is a cool instrument. [My favourite line in this song is "tea leaves steep"—of course.]
  
  
• Words—luscious, rich, bright, deep, painful, heart-splitting, heart-healing words.
  
  
• Prayer. Specifically the prayers of Every Moment Holy. There is a liturgy for all kinds of things: sunsets and birthdays, first snows and the the lament of finishing a good book... All kinds of prayers to make us stop and attend to this life we are living.
  
  
• There are a hundred other things I'm thankful for, but one of them is work, which I need to do right now...   

Glory!

That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes...

—Sleeping at Last, Saturn

Fearless

Grey trees have barely given up their leaves before dark, swirling skies trace those limbs with white. The rising and falling of the seasons in their steps of the Great Dance have nearly made their circuit. Consequently, my mind is recalled to the beginning of this year, with all its fresh hopes and vague possibilities. Memories step out, one by one, only to be swept back into the dance of time. Grief and Beauty waltz together. Sorrow beats time with Joy. Suffering looks quietly into the eyes of Hope. Bitterness clasps hands with Forgiveness. The motif of the Dance this year seemed strange when originally given to me by the Instructor Himself back in those fresh, first days of January: Fearlessness.

In the nativity of the year I thought being fearless meant meeting obstacles and adventures head on. I had inklings of what some of the hurdles might be, hopes of what the adventures would contain. I little knew how difficult the hardships would be. I did not reckon that adventures were risks that could fail and wound miserably.

Much of the year held such sore trials that it seems to replay in black and white rather than colour. Deaths. Friends and family worn out with the things required of them. Betrayal. Being cast out by loved ones. Uncertainty. Deeply wounded hearts. Bitterness. Prodigal children. Loneliness. Certainly not all of these things visited me, but they have been visited upon such close friends and family that they have affected me very personally. I look back upon this year and see marriages crumbled; dreams burnt up; loved ones buried; relationship turned to cold, dead embers—I see ash.

Woven throughout, like intricate dance steps, are flashes of colour: lime and ochre aspens, glowing in warm sunlight. Dazzling white smiles of friends visiting and visted. Lavender and white cosmos along my walking path. Pink, brown, green, and black ink, flowing with words of hope, cheer, and life. Orange-red sunlight, pouring over the foothills at dawn. Bright blue eyes filled with whimsy. A rain of golden leaves falling like a shower over me and a friend. Sly red foxes on night walks and gift-mugs. Green in every crevice of long-dry mountains and sidewalk cracks. Mottled grey, brown, and red stones, illuminated by liquid sunlight in a chuckling, clear stream. Hazy blue mountains and burnished clouds at sunset on my solitude hikes. The navy velvet of the night sky, pierced by silver stars... All the colour of this year radiates from Beauty, love, and personality.

The Psalmist reminds us to worship the LORD in the Beauty of holiness... It is the Beauty that leads us to worship, that breathes life into dead places. When we see a wildflower in the wilderness, hear a single burst of birdsong on a chilly morning walk, know the love of another, it is then that the breath of life rushes into our souls.

I am tempted to look at the snow out my window and see flying ash. So many dreams and hopes have become but fine dust in my hands this year. Instead, I do the only thing I can: I pour every last handful of ash on God's altar, asking Him to raise a flame of Hope. Not a fragile "thing with feathers" as Emily Dickinson calls hope, but a solid, weighty anchor for my drifting soul. I ask for new, richer dreams; for restoration to rise like a phoenix from these pale ashes.

I am learning that to be fearless does not mean to be foolhardy, but to hope in the midst of burning dreams. To be fearless means to love, because perfect love casts out all fear.

Many months ago I read something about pain and fear... It broke my heart then as it does now—and every time I re-read it. It is the real Hope and Beauty in the midst of sorrow that stares at me from these words:

I wrote in my journal: So here is what I want to remember and never forget: Anxiety is the devil. Fear is a taste of hell because it cuts us off from the ever-offered rest of God’s love. And fear cannot do one damn thing to avert the thing feared. 

Sorrow, on the other hand, is a kind friend, and when it comes, grace comes, too, and all the tender mercies of God. All fear is the fear of loss and death; all love comes with a price tag of pain; all true sorrow has its counterpoint of joy. And it’s real. We’re living it in the most vivid way. 

 And if we’re running along the beach laughing at one moment and weeping over the grief that is coming the next, well then, this is life abundant, the full package. And the joy is more real than the grief because the joy is forever and the pain is for but the passing shadow of this life.

Lanier Ivester, Love Begets