You Have Come to Journey's End

 Dear Aaron,

I didn't know how this day would go; but I've known it was coming. . . I've known it for nearly a year now. Today is September 3rd, you see. A year ago today you thought your final mortal thought. Breathed your last breath. Faced your final fear. Was your parting thought a Switchfoot line? Was it a prayer? Were you afraid? Determined? Relieved? I don't know—and on this side of the Kingdom coming, I can't know. 

What I do know, is that for the last twelve years, I have thought of you as my elf-friend. How could you be anything but kin of Legolas, with your tousled blond hair and impish grin? With your skill in music and lyric-verse? With your love for the stars and the sea? You, a tree-lover and earth-wanderer, you must be of elven blood. So what song is more fitting in memory of three hundred and sixty-five days ago than this one?


INTO THE WEST

Lay down

Your sweet and weary head

The night is falling

You have come to journey's end

Sleep now

And dream of the ones who came before

They are calling

From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

How desperately I wish you were only sleeping. Sleeping—to awake at any minute and laugh with mirth over simple joys. . . Sunsets, snowflakes, songs strummed on the roof. I want you to be safe in my arms, no more clamouring fears, no longer weeping over your lost Love. But, oh! You sleep a different sleep. The unwaking-on-this-side sort of sleep, where you no longer dream of those who came before—you have crossed to the distant shore.

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All Souls pass


You, who spent so many years along the edges of the water, you know the mournful, lilting—haunting—cry of the gulls. Their voices break my heart and comfort me, all at once. Can you hear their calls? Perhaps for the rest of my life, whenever their voices reach my ears, I will think of you. You, battling the noise and wheeling confusion in your own mind. You, with a whoop of delight, rushing to ring a solitary church bell. You, taking a wounded gull to the bird lady, even though it cost you your job. You, your soul home at last.

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say
We have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping
And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West

The last year has felt like one hell of a dark night. Like hope fading and shadows falling. So many memories have crowded in on me—or eluded me. For months (and even still), I wanted someone who knew you to talk with me about you. I just wanted to hear a new story, an old memory—something tangible to remind me of you. My grief is different than the ragged storm it was in those first weeks and months. But different doesn't mean absent. Sometimes the storm redoubles and leaves me gasping for breath. Sometimes, just beneath the calm surface, grief runs hard like a riptide. 

Don't tell me we have come now to the end. It can't be the end already. It's too soon. Too soon, can't you see? I don't want you to be across the waters, I don't want you to have answered the call of those gleaming, distant shores. I don't want you to be there without me. So many years ago you set sail, away from me and from unmoving earth. You sailed out into the pitching waves. Did you ever look back? Or did you set your face, unyielding, toward the sunset? 

A lithe grey ship has passed into the West. Yet you and I will meet again. You better be ready for a bear hug, O Westward One. Do you remember quoting Wordsworth to me, years ago? Let me return the gift, as tears of rain pour blessed relief upon this night. . .

‘What, you are stepping westward?'—'Yea.’

—'Twould be a wildish destiny. . .

The dewy ground was dark and cold;

Behind, all gloomy to behold;

And stepping westward seemed to be

A kind of heavenly destiny. . .

— William Wordsworth, Stepping Westward

       

  

"Into the West" Songwriters: Howard Shore / Philippa Boyens / Annie Lennox

I miss him in the weeping of the rain

Dear Aaron,

It rained today. Spicy pine-scent lingers about my porch. . .can you smell pines in the Kingdom? A few days ago (and for the first time in weeks) I went hiking away from my little valley. I saw wildflowers, dark clouds, and green, green fens. I breathed deep, sniffed in the sweet scent of the douglas pine. I heard the breeze fluttering through the aspen trees—could you hear it too? Today I saw, really saw for what felt like the first time in weeks. The lowering sky, dark, with one hill all crested, crusted with tawny light spilling over it. Everything else was in shadow but that one, golden place. What are sunsets and summer storms like in the Kingdom? The Big Dipper is hanging close enough to touch, just off my porch; each star bright, crisp, and close. What are the constellations like in the Kingdom?

It's coming up on a year. Sometimes I can talk about you without crying. Sometimes I'm a little too far removed, too numb. And sometimes the tears well up in my eyes when I hear a song, or when I realise how long and fast this year has been. Today it was kindness that caught me off guard. Just a kind word of thanks and encouragement from a stranger. . .and it made me think of your memorial, where people I didn't know came up to me and comforted me like I was family. The kindness is unbearable, because in that place I can't be numb—the feelings come, and in them there is sorrow, there is pain.

A whole year. . . Grief swells and ebbs, it doesn't go away. It is etched on the inside of who I am—even when others forget, I remember. I remember your smile and your voice. I remember that I forgot to tell you how thankful I was for your friendship when I had it. I remember that miserable day in the airport in Anchorage, feeling like the person I knew had died—like our friendship had died. And I ached, feeling abandoned, feeling unwanted. These last eleven-ish months have dug up those buried feelings, only to wound me afresh. To kill the tiny, internal flame that still burned—the hope that one day, somehow, we would be friends again. That somehow the medicine would help you become you again, and you would remember that I was your friend. But that day didn't come. A different day came instead. A day that I didn't expect to wound me so deeply. A day that cut my heart open in a way that nothing else has in all my life.

Sometimes I think of life being divided before and after 9/11 (nearly half my life ago this year). And sometimes I think of my life as pre and post Summit, or Semester, or Oxford. There are several lines of demarcation in my brief existence. But now there is life before and after 9/3. Few others will recognise that date as a timeline. As an arrow lodged in my heart, and in the hearts of your parents and your sister, and the few others who were part of your tribe.

Did you know that I almost called you? Either last summer or the one before. I found out something. . . Something kind and generous about you. And even though I had no reason to believe you would speak to me, I almost called. I still wish I had. Even if you wouldn't talk to me. I wish I had said thank you when I could. I wish I could have talked with you one last time. But then 3 September came and there is no two-way phone line to the Kingdom. Not for non-Incarnate mortals to one another. And that's good. . .I suppose. I know I can talk any time to the Incarnate Mortal who lived and died and stood death on its head. I know He speaks to me.

Maybe I've been too busy, too pulled in every direction to really feel much this summer. But the wind whispers your music in between the aspen leaves. The stars in the sky reflect the laughter and fun in your eyes. The warm sunlight takes me back to a hayride on a different Monday that was also the third of September. I have wondered what it will be like to go back to Pagosa after 9/3... I haven't been there since... For a while I couldn't sing the Doxology at church without ending up in tears. It made me think of meals at the lodge. But now it feels like a friend taking my hand and walking me through the pain. Will going to the lodge again be like that? But more than the going back to a place where I remember you is the going to a place where you should be and aren't. Briarwood Ave. The woods at Fort Barton. Sunset hill. Your room. . .your roof. Your memory (in some way) is there—even though I never saw you in those places, you wrote or talked about some of them. But you aren't there. Now comes a different hard. What about your sister's home? What about when your parents move? What about all of those places where you never will be? What about my own home and town, where I hoped to show you my bookshelves and my friendly walking paths and all my favourite things? You should have been in those places, too, but you never came. . .


Time does not bring relief, you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear To go—so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, remembering him!

—Edna St Vincent Millay

The World is Full of Weariness and Wonder

Light rain is singing on the shingles, dripping to the carpet of pine needles by my porch. Darkness has descended in earnest, as it has threatened to do during several waves of thunderheads today. Evening has come, but I am bathed in warm light—my porch transformed into a quaint café with the help of several strands of twinkle lights wrapped 'round the rafters. I am pleased with my handiwork this day. 

It has been a long weekend of learning to rest well. . . I didn't accomplish any of the handwritten letters I planned to pen, but I organised various things in my home, put up lights, went hiking with a friend, read, walked slowly through a garden at sunset, and sat on my porch simply watching the rain fall. There is something to be said for the hours I spent accomplishing things around the house, but there is more to be said for the quiet moments of holding a mug of tea and listening to the raindrop chorus. There is something magical about sitting under twinkle lights as grey clouds melt into black skies. There is a grand sense of awe staring up at a waterfall a hundred feet high, pounding with spring snow melt. There is wonder in turning to stare up at a seagull-coloured house set against dark pines—a house etched with stars and trees at the cornices, its windows echoing the pink evening clouds. 

There is weariness in this world—but it is contrasted with all the glowing wonder sprinkled in the crevices. That huge glimmering star on the Western horizon reminds me that sadness is not all there is. That sorrow doesn't swallow up every ounce of joy. The hurts, the losses, and the fears that parade through the lives of my friends and family—that stab my own heart—are not all. Beauty also pierces us through. Wonder freezes us in our tracks. Glory bows our hearts. Desire makes us ache. But the piercing, pause, praise, and pain are not mortal wounds—they are healing hurts. They make us whole. Our yearning reminds us that there is more, so much more, than our narrow field of vision.

A thumbnail moon glimmers through the pine boughs tonight, and I breathe my thanks for its glory. A keen air, fresh and faintly perfumed with spring, whispers in my ears as it passes. Too many times I forget to praise, so the mountains cry out the Maker's goodness and grandeur. Too many times I tuck my head down and get stuck inside my thoughts, not seeing the stars and trees and painted sunsets. Too many times my own wallowing blinds me to the pain of others—others to whom I could show the stars and the piercing Beauty that reminds us that the shadow is but a small and passing thing. 

May I see beauty in unexpected places and in the features of men's faces. May my words point back to the Creator, who is forever blessed. May His words ring out from me in thanksgiving, in asking for forgiveness, in kindness, in giving grace as I have been granted grace. . . Amen.

Rain-glory

Yet again the eaves are drip-drip–dropping, and thunder throbs above the clouds. Rain scent falls, hushes the neighbour children, and breathes its sweetness in at my open windowpane. Pattering droplets sing their song slowly today, and my heart is glad. Glad for slow rain to cool the day. For dark clouds brooding over the mountains, so I might see their creases and lines differently, like an ever-changing face on those long-standing rocks. 

If you ask me, the glory of Summer is not sunshine, but storm clouds. Rain makes me want to shirk my work more than any other Summer attraction. I want to write, to read, to sit on my porch feeling the keen wind waken my soul. There is a holy mystery in the shroud laid over the far foothills. Wet pine is the incense of this moment, the fragrance lifting my senses to the Storm-maker. With the first crack of thunder I throw off the torpid stupor of Summer heat and come alive. Suddenly, all my senses are engaged, awake.  

Rain is a revival of the earth and of the soul. It is life and drink to a thirsty ground, a communion of the heavens and the earth. Perhaps the mystery behind the silver veil made by sheets of rain, the incense of rain and pine, the eyes dazzled by lightning, the earth beneath my feet shaken by thunder, and the cool wind rushing over me engage my whole self in revival. Like the holy mysteries of bread and wine, the scent of smoking incense, the act of kneeling in prayer, and eyes drawn to the cross at the altar bring my whole body to worship, repentance, and renewal. 

Like a lightning bolt to the heart, I see it: I love rain because it leads me to worship. Rain stills my soul and quickens my creativity because it affects all of my self. Those icy droplets, fresh wind, solemn thunder claps, and the life showered on the earth are a reflection, a pantomime, of my worship and communion at church. Ah! Rain really is the glory of Summer. The glory and communion of this season. Each season has its own reflection of the worship service, of communion, of coming alive. Even the Autumn and Winter speak of death as but a precursor to new life. 

I inhale the scent of wet earth. I feel the flecks of cold water in the breeze. I rock gently with the thunder's thrumming. I peer through the veil of rain at shadowy wonders. And I give thanks to God for watering the earth and the flowers and the trees. I give thanks that wildfires are not ravaging the foothills. I give thanks for the break from the heat. I smile in joy, just listening to the rain. It is the worship service of the Summer, and I am invited. I attend.