Autumn Bicycle Ride

An Autumn Bicycle-Ride

by Owen Barfield

The leaves, grown rusty overhead,
Dropped on the road and made it red.
The air that coldly wrapped me round,
Stained by the glowing of the ground,
Had bathed the world in the cosy gloom
Of a great, red-carpeted, firelit room;
It filled my lungs, as I rode along,
Till they overflowed in a flood of song,
And joy grew truculent in my throat,
Uttering a pompous trombone-note;
For this elegant modern soul of mine
Was warm with old Autumn’s rich red wine.

______________

Re-printed with permission of the Owen Barfield Literary Estate

Arise, O Morning

Arise, O morning, arise!

The fog comes down

and the praise goes up,
lilting toward the skies
somewhere above, outside
this silver mist, tilting
out of the Maker's cup.

~ Johanna

Secondhand Stories...

Honey-coloured sunlight pours warm across my shoulders, across the flyleaf of the little book in my hands, where a name is neatly inscribed. The name on the opening page is not my own—no, this little book was purchased used, from a cottage crammed rafters to floorboards with many of the book's kindreds. In such cases, I often wonder what would happen if the owner ever sold out of a stack—or even a single tome in the stack—in a crucial placement. Would the roof cave in, leaving a hole of sky-light rushing through?

Ah, but it was the name on the page that captured my attention, not said book's fascinating location when I came across it. The name was common enough, written in neat penmanship in the right-hand corner: Hunter Swanson. He must have been anxious to prove ownership or have his book returned to him, because he had also crimped the page with a 'From the library of Hunter Swanson' stamp. 

Why, then, is his book amongst my collection? By reason that I had inquired after that particular title in the curious, brimming bookshop. From those copious stacks, the proprietor went straight to a single column, fished out the book from sheer memory, and placed it in my hands. I was so impressed with his knowledge of the book towers that I bought the book on the spot. Granted, as I had entered the shop partly in search of that particular title, it was nearly inevitable that I would purchase it if found. 

Yet again I have strayed from Hunter Swanson and his book lying upon my glass-top table. Who would get rid of a book in which they had both stamped and inked their name? Or perhaps I should ask why? Why would a person give or sell their book to a fellow whose shop is held up by mounds of tomes? Did they despise the writing-style of the memoir? Was the book given to them by a Love, no longer part of their life? Maybe those names we see printed on cover pages have been printed in newspaper ink followed by date of birth and date of death. I do not envy the souls who have to sort, share, and sell a beloved's books upon their death. Or perhaps one has a small cabin which cannot store all of their books, so they give away the ones they have never read or do not plan to read.

There are simply handfuls of reasons why one might give away or sell their library. Still, it seems to me that if you wrote and stamped your name inside the cover of a volume, it must be one you like or would like to have returned to you. Perhaps Hunter Swanson will read this and ask for his book back, which would be a bit sad, because I would like to finish it. But I almost wish Mr Swanson would read this and request his book, because then I could ask him if it really was important and what he liked about it. I could know why this slim book ended up in the tottering piles in the first place. 

Sometimes people are like books in a secondhand store—you wonder how they are in such-and-such a state. Are they like they are because they have loved and lost? What has shaped the story of the person walking by in the airport, on the street, at your church? Where are they going? How will our stories overlap? If Jesus has written His love into our stories, does that love spill into the lives of those we meet? If Jesus has written His name across the cover page of our lives, that means He has claimed us, that He wants us back if ever we are lost. He sees something inside of us that makes us precious to Him—He sees His own signature written on the very first page. We are His, and that makes us valuable.

All these ideas germinated from a name scrawled in a small paperback edition of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. For now, the book lives in a good home, producing much thought—and I have only read the flyleaf.

_____________

* Cross-posted at humanepursuits.com

Old-Fashioned Virtue amidst Newfangled Technology

Cricket songs in full thrum and twinkling hosts of fireflies—that was the world I lived in as a child, until either the mosquitoes or my mother corralled me into the house. Then there would be stories with Dad, during which I would draw horses or a poor replica of the Dawn Treader—or whatever else happened to be the subject of the story. We had a Saturday night show or two that we would watch as a family; there were stints of Captain Kangaroo, Reading Rainbow, or Disney afternoons, and the occasional film. Yet, by and large, my childhood was spent out-of-doors, riding my bike, playing ‘pioneers’ or ‘office’ with my neighbour girls, drawing, or reading.

Screens entered my daily life in high school, when we obtained our first family desktop computer. I started typing out my stories and editing a magazine for some school fellows. When dial-up internet made it to our home, I stayed up until the wee sma’s instant messaging friends or keeping up long e-mail correspondences with comrades scattered across the country.

Some parts of my imagination were laid to rest about the time I began having a screen in front of me often. Playing ‘pioneers’ with the neighbours was abandoned and I sorely neglected my model horses. I began writing stories instead of acting out the plots I had read or thought up with my friends. This may have been a natural shifting point for my imagination, but natural or not, technology facilitated the change. I had taken a step away from tangible reality, putting up a screen between myself and a first-hand experience of  life.

I was—and admittedly, still am—drawn to that flickering blue light like a moth to a flame. Yet something in me rebels, too. I have tried, in recent years, to take a child-like step backward. Now I often take the screen from betwixt myself and the colourful, sparkling,real world around me. I have a cell phone—a flip phone—that I turn off when I don’t want to be bothered. I read real books and write letters by hand. My upbringing without much ‘screen-time’ resonates all these years later in what feels life-giving. Though work and leisure often involve some form of glowing technology, when I write by hand or take an evening walk, or when I make dinner or fix my car, I feel more alive.

Screens seem to eat away at imagination and ingenuity. Sometimes it frightens me how prevalent screens are—I can’t hide myself or my yet-to-come children from them. But I have learned that there are ways to encounter the tactile world without the screen-barrier. Though we live in a different age than the technologically limited one in which I was raised, when I have children, I still want them to know the smell of a rose before they see one on a tablet. I want them to learn to roller skate and ride their bikes; to love going to the library for good books to read together; to want to colour or draw rather than watch a cartoon; and to know that if they say “But I’m bored!” they can do chores, not watch television.

This does not mean shunning technology; it has its place as a useful tool. The fact that I can call home whenever I want to without long distance charges is wonderful. My computer aids me in all kinds of endeavours—from looking up recipes and getting driving directions, to listening to music or audio books. Still, I want my children to learn how to use a map before they learn to use MapQuest; how to play music as well as listen to it; how to cook by ‘eyeballing it’, as well as by measuring every last thing; and how to read out loud proficiently, by listening to others and by practising the art themselves. I would like to have a big enough piece of the out-of-doors to let my children run around. A place to try to catch a squirrel through their own inventiveness (as I amusingly watched my neighbour children attempt recently).

You see, my desire is that ages and ages hence, my children will send handwritten thank you notes for gifts, and that they will text to let me know they made it somewhere safely. I want to be part of raising inter-dependent adults—persons who can use common sense in taking care of themselves and their possessions, but who know they are part of the Body of Christ, the Communion of Saints. I want them to have ‘old-fashioned’ virtues and to know history as they walk among ‘newfangled’ technology and speak truth into the present.

*This essay originally appeared at HumanePursuits.com

Beauty in Things Not Seen

Would a flower of the field still be Beautiful even if no one saw it? This question has followed me to many swaths of alpine tundra this hiking season. I have gazed on lavender thistles, white marsh marigolds, and tiny forget-me-nots amongst a host of other hearty flowers. My hiking companions often set their sights on the cathedral arc of a mountain range, a sun-dappled emerald lake, or towering waterfalls. Whereas, I am enthralled by daubs of colour in every hue, painting slopes and stream beds as we wind upward, always upward. Tiny tufts of moss delight me; so do mushrooms of various shapes—brown, white, and poisonous red. While my friends want a wide angle view from the top of our climb, I am seeking to catch the golden mead of light in a buttercup.

But, no, the dichotomy is not so stark. My breath is drawn away by the soaring heights of snow powdered rock-rims. My eyes burn salty as I watch the footprints of the wind twinkling on the surface of a mountain lake. My friends bend down to frame their photos with tall clover and clusters of yellow-headed flowers, though they are soon lost in the grandeur again. I am being taught to see the bigger picture, to look up from the detail and see the vast whole—making me feel small and a bit frail. I hope I am helping others to see the details that piece together the whole, to see the points that paint the image we behold.

The mountains and lakes I have seen on my array of hikes have long been landmarks, have long looked as they now look. The minute white and purple flowers dotting the springy turf will only last a few days or weeks. They have bloomed on purpose for this season, this day. After they fade, those specific blossoms will never again be seen. Their children will rise up next summer, but this year's will be gone forever.

On one particular hike, I threaded my way through thickets and early summer snow to see a crop of white marsh marigolds. No other footprints marked the path I took, and I wondered if anyone else would see these lovely little flowers this season. Then I wondered what hordes of flowers existed that no one would see at all this summer. Various wildflowers would bloom in nodding hosts, remote and unseen by human eyes. They would still be beautiful, breathing their fragrance out as an incense of praise to their Creator. They would still dot the land with beauty, even if no eye beheld them. Their beauty would not be wasted, their plant-lives would not be in vain, because they would be blossoming. They would be doing what they were made to do, whether anyone noticed them or not.

Flowers have no cognisance of their purpose, no understanding of being or Beauty. Humans, do, however—we desperately want others to notice our existence, our efforts. Often, we feel like our work—our very selves, even—only have purpose when validated and praised by others. Yet, human beings are worth more than all the flowers covering the surface of the planet. We are valuable before we even start doing anything. Our intellect, looks, and work are not what give us worth or purpose or acceptance. Being fully human, what we were made to be, is our act of praise. Perhaps I should say it is our being of praise to the Creator.

We are given this span of life, ephemeral like the summer's flowers. We are given now—not the past or the future. We may never do something monumental and lasting for the eyes of future  generations to see. 'One day...' may never come when we planned to do this or that, or to be such and such. We have today. We have now. Let us give thanks in this moment. Let us love God now. Let us speak a true word of encouragement, of kindness, today. Not in neglect of the hope of tomorrow and a multitude of tomorrows to come—rather, as a point to live in the present, which builds a foundation for tomorrow and the days to come.

Wanderlust

All those golden autumn days the sky was full of wings. . . The wings and the golden weather and the tang of frost in the mornings made Laura want to go somewhere. She did not know where. She wanted only to go.

"Let's go West," she said one night after supper. "Pa, can't we go West when Uncle Henry does?"

. . . "I know, little Half-pint," said Pa, and his voice was very kind. "You and I want to fly like the birds. . .”¹

Wearing long-sleeved flannel shirts and seeing snow geese—all glossy white with black-tipped wings—are among the signs that September has arrived in all her tawny glory. The incense of woodsmoke, the vaulted vibrant blue skies, and the slant of the afternoon sunlight all beckon me to come out and play. “Come West,” they whisper. And I do. I nose my car through fresh winds, snaking over mountain passes until I find a place to get lost in the wild and the beauty. Like little Laura, I ache to go West, to live freely. Free from schedules—the ever-pressing fist of time—and free from others’ expectations.

Familiarity feels like the level ground I need to leave behind on the hunt for paths that climb ever-upward. What is it that I long for, that I can’t get out of my blood no matter how often I hike until the stars wink open? The leaves of my favourite books rustle with the answer. I would never have believed just one of them; but when the overflowing shelves all carry me from an unassuming front door to wild lands, beasts, and men, only to arrive back at home, I take notice.

Home revolves around the familiar, the mundane. It is family and friends going deeper, butting heads, holding hands, reaching out, being still, being vulnerable. Though the familiar and intimate draw things out slowly and graciously, I often find myself like a ruptured seed buried in the earth. I struggle toward the surface, feeling the urge to keep pressing upward, though I don’t know why or what lies ahead.

Often I vacillate, wanting the routine and familiarity of the daily—yet restlessly craving the freedom and thrill of the untamed, the unexplored. I want to run away from all I have known and taste something wild and fresh. Restlessness, however, stems from dissatisfaction—named or unnamed; whilst imagination breathes life and satisfaction into the daily and the anomaly—the level ground and the arduous uphill climb.

How little I have learned from those tales of adventure—everywhere I turn, home is the way things end. Like Chesterton’s farm boy seeking a giant only to find he always lived upon one, or dissatisfied John in Pilgrim’s Regress, I suppose I will have to hike the whole globe ‘round to wind up at my own front doorstep, with my own mountains out the window.

“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place. . .”²

Tolkien ends both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings with the Hobbits’ return to the Shire. To be sure, the quest challenged and forged those who dared to go on it—fitting them for both the scouring of the Shire and the honest work of rebuilding and guiding it. But it is the cosy hearth fires of home and the minding of one’s own garden that the Hobbits are about for most of their lives. The quest of the Ring made each character wiser, nobler, and deeper—fitting them richly for the quotidian tasks of Shire life. The love of home is worth leaving it and fighting for it, in order that others might have that very home, even if they are unaware of those who have gone to great lengths to keep it free, peaceful, and beautiful.

If our ancestors and those in our military have sacrificed what is most precious to them that we might have a home, why do we often fly from it like so many birds on the wing? It is not the familiar and comfortable that stop my ears and blind my eyes to the gifts I have here and now. It is my own sins that make me “grow old” as Chesterton puts it. Adventure sounds alluring, but the heights are so windy that tears blind us, the ground is rocky and hard to sleep on, the uphill climb makes our lungs and legs burn. Do harshness and denial make us grateful for our everyday gifts of running water and a comfy beds? Does the beauty of a new place resonate in our hearts because it calls to mind that which we first loved, the beauty learned at home?

How do we live on the level ground, the familiar and cosy, whilst still pursuing the upward trek of adventure and all its hardships? We need both. The adventure takes us far enough away to see that what we have been looking for is in our own gardens, as Dorothy says in The Wizard of Oz: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard.”³ It took quite the journey for her to gain that perspective.

Some find home by staying there, but others of us must circumnavigate the globe all the way back to our own cosy Hobbit holes. It is a long journey, but perhaps when we land, we will learn to appreciate what we had all along, rather than taking it for granted—to see life abundant in the mundane, and beauty all around. After all, “there’s no place like home.”⁴

---

1. Wilder, Laura Ingalls, By the Shores of Silver Lake (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers) 126, emphasis mine
2. Chesterton, G. K., The Everlasting Man (Garden City: New York, Doubleday and Company) 11
3. Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (Directed by Victor Fleming and George Cukor. 1939 MGM studios)
4. ibid

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

“Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts, and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never gave much attention and which we do not want to surface. 'Being busy' has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion. From a distance, it appears that we try to keep each other filled with words and actions, without tolerance for a moment of silence.” 1

—Henri J. M. Nouwen

On a breezy, rainy evening a few weeks ago, I sat on my porch, thinking. It was too dark to read or write, too Beautiful to do anything but sit still in the ferocious gloaming. It was an evening empty of plans—a dangerous thing for one's thoughts. On such occasions, I tend to corner my thoughts and make them own up to what is lurking behind various façades. This particular evening, I had a sore head, having hit a soft spot on a metal beam at work that day. Without warning, my thoughts strayed to the fear of my own mortality.

I have vaguely considered that 'one day' I will die, and I am not afraid of what lies beyond this life. . .But this was different. I came nose-to-nose with the reality that I am mortal, terminal. Fear bristled in my head, blossomed in my heart. Why, I could easily fall on the uneven stairs leading to my cabin and hit my head. I could be incapacitated for life—or even die. All it takes is a moment—a wrong step, not looking twice in my car mirrors—suddenly all of my vitality is shown its frailty.

Fear spread its talons in my thoughts, surging on to think of my parents, now in their sixties. My parents are not immortal. Tears pricked my eyes. I will not borrow trouble! I told myself. I began to tell God my fears, not to give them a rigid reality, but to name the fears so they could be defeated. Yes, I am temporal, I could die on my stairs or in my bathtub or whilst driving—but the possibility of death is not going to stop me from living. You may breathe a sigh of relief, I still plan to shower. . . And to walk to work, drive my car, and hike as I please.

Rather than allowing fear to paralyse me, I choose to let it galvanise me—to dare to live life. In the face of fear I have fresh appreciation for hearing my parents' voices, in giving thanks for my beating heart. I will not live in fear's shadow, I will not allow it to dog my steps. I will enjoy this evening's sunset, this summer's wildflowers, this hour of thinking and writing. Daily I take it for granted that I will awake in the morning; that my heart will keep beating—even if I forget that it does so and don't remind it to keep on. In this instant I am thankful for this organ that circulates my blood, that allows oxygen to flow to my brain so I can think of the right words to pen.

The fears and questions I often push down with daily tasks, with reading copious amounts of Harry Potter, with unceasing strains of music—these questions and fears surface in empty moments. I am the one who chooses the still evening on the porch, to sit under a tree on my walk and marvel at the burnished clouds. But I am not the one who brings to mind the thoughts, the fears. Those come unbidden. The fears of being alone or not being enough. The questions about why I chase freedom or attention from various individuals. Questions I cannot answer—like why I still crave sin when I know it doesn't satisfy. I would rather avoid “confronting the painful questions”, the craven fears—but if silence is part of my life, I cannot stop them coming.

It is here, in the stillness, that I disagree with one word in Nouwen's quotation: create. Empty space does not create fear, it only gives it the time and place to bob up in the stream of our thoughts. I can distract myself at work, around others, with my reading and correspondence—but not in the silence. Our culture is one that fears silence first, because from it, deeper fears arise. Yet how can any of us meet our fears head on with truth, with life, with hope if we suppress those petrifying questions? We must allow silence in our lives in order to know the fears and questions that motivate or manipulate our actions. Only then can we confront fear with truth and life. I find, indeed, that the antidote to fear truly is the perfect love of God giving me courage to live, to do, and to make room for stillness.

____________________

1. Nouwen, Henri J. M., Reaching Out (New York, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group) 73

Cross posted at Conciliar Post and Humane Pursuits

Darkness Comes to Cudgel My Brain

The leaves of the oak tree glisten with rain

As Darkness comes to cudgel my brain

Tonight with fingers, clenched fists—

Probing, pummelling, heaping on shame,

Thick as ghost-fog and obscuring mists.

Birch boles are black in the shade,

Their creamy skin can only fade

Away, shrink away, hide from eyes

Ever-watching since the day they were made,

Swaying into the snare of the lies...

...Lies that enter the heart, rotting the core

Of the trees-turned-dark; of me, a whore

Inside—my mind, my heart—broken,

Fallen in love with myself, wanting more,

Always insatiable for a counterfeit token

Of love—which is only lust thinly masked,

Glossy outside, alluring as red wine, long-casked

And flowing free—with no thought of tomorrow

When the head-shattering pain remains, unasked,

And Darkness leaves in its wake only false sorrow

Which we call guilt, that cannot cover up lust

Any more than gilt leaf can make a bust

Pure gold all the way through, or trying hard

Can make us new; we can only rust

Under sin's corrosion, once innocent, now marred.

Tomorrow arrives, is today; and the heart-shattering 

Pain of disfiguring corruption is scattering

All faculties of feeling, of sorrow, of true shame

And the eruption of sin, full-fledged, isn't flattering—

I am excoriated, a shell, with only myself to blame.

Night drones on within, filling the hollow

With nought but shadows. Here I wallow

In self-pity and despair, I cannot heal

Myself, save myself—this is hard to swallow,

And know with my life, as I no longer feel

Alive, feel at all, or know repentance-giving-grief.

Inside, the Darkness flutters, kicks, seeks relief

In a wail, a cry for life-breath, for the burning

Spirit of Holiness to come as the thief

Who steals my heart, plunders me back, returning

Me to the rightful King of the world wide—

Eyes wide, as feeling returns with the Spirit inside

Of my fragile heart-shards—redemption is here.

Apathy drains out, life surges in to veins long denied

Its crimson tide by the strangling fingers of fear...

Of being found out, found wanting—ludicrous pride

Kept me locked in the gnawing, growing dark

That threatened to keep me trapped like a lark,

Caged. Enraged at my own selfish choices,

But powerless to save myself—the truth, stark—

I begged for mercy, "Yours." A Voice says...

My face is in His hands, turned toward His eyes,

I see them glistening with tears at my cries

For help, desperate though they were,

I couldn't get out of the dirt, I surmise,

Because I was so focussed on me, so sure

That I could do something to save my soul,

Yet always giving up or in, a wobbly foal

Unable to even stand on the legs given me

Without the Spirit's breath standing me whole

And upright—from Darkness I am made free...

"The Light, the Light!" I cry, covering my face,

Feeling crushed by glory's weight in the space

Of my small frame. The holy, searing Light

Is what I need for healing, soundness—both grace—

To fix what I cannot, to cure me from sin's bite.

The Liturgy of Home: Place and Practise

Fog diffuses light and shadow, shrouds the world around me in unfamiliar shapes, bringing with it the damp smells of earth and balsam. Raucous calls emanate from the rook perched amongst the pines. Watching, listening, I sit still—allowing the morning’s wild silence to feed my soul. I revel in weekends and mornings; their hours hold out strong fingers of life and help to me. A cheery kettle often whistles its tea-song as I poach an egg or wipe the table. Benedictine’s chant a Psalm whilst I wash the dishes, my own prayers rising with their strains and the water’s steam.

Morning rhythms thrum through my day, setting the tone for the day’s song. If I begin with a Psalm and moments for prayer, the first melody is strong. If I add to that the kitchen tidying and sweeping, a chord of harmony twines into the day. Weaving in reading or writing—if I have given myself enough time for leisure—the chorus grows more substantial by the time I greet my fellow workmates. This is home—this practise of cultivating habits and routines which chart the course of days and weeks.

I grew up in a home that was less focussed on punctuality and more concerned with ‘life together.’ My mother set routines both around the morning meal and reading Scripture aloud to me and my sisters. My father would engage us all in conversation over dinner, leaving time to read together after the table was cleared or just before bed. Sometimes we would shift our evening routine, having friends over for dinner or coffee. We would hold hands and pray together. There we were, gathered around the table, listening to stories and laughing over the trifling events of the day—glad for friends with whom we could share both words and meals.

Time swirls on as ever—I cannot believe how many years ago I grew up in my parents’ home. I have since moved to my own cottage, a tiny cabin peering out at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Here I have scrubbed, dusted, and decorated. I have laughed and cried, both with friends and alone. I have acquired and organised books and bookshelves. Here I have stocked cabinets with tea and food to serve at the whim of a knock. And here I have learned that being still is a practise—not an intrinsic right that comes with living solo.

It seems safe to say that home is a place of comfort and cheer, of peace and pleasure. If you do not believe me, think of the households where there is chaos, violence, stony silence, instability, or abuse. Out of these dens come hurting individuals, hungry for peace, yearning for safety and love. Acceptance and care, feeling like they belong, is the home-feeling they are looking for—whether it comes from a gang or a healthy family.

Indeed, home is a place, not a nebulous placeholder, like your internet browser’s so-called ‘homepage.’ Yet home is much more than a tactile frame of timber and glass. Home is a practise—the practical application of routines and daily liturgy. Home is private—a place to rest and a bulwark from the buffeting tempests of life-storms. Home is public—an open-door-hospitality sort of shelter for friends and family in times both of laughter and tears.

We live in a culture that is anything but home-like. It separates, drawing individuals off into solitary pursuits, or keeping families so busy that a meal together is an anomaly. Busy-ness and individualism are the antitheses to home life, community, and sanity. Keeping a frenetic schedule allows precious little time for reflection, an act of both soul and spirit that is needed to balance reality and dreams.

Knowing that reflection is an essential need, I make space for it in my mornings and weekends. Sometimes this means setting aside books and screens, simply looking out the window as I enjoy a meal, or sitting on my porch watching the rain drip from the pine needles. Other times, this means going for a solitary walk. As I was reflecting recently, I realised that the way my parents raised me and my sisters was not perfect, but it was good. The ‘life together’ aspect of the dinner table, of evening recreation, of opening our home or going to friends’ homes, of working together in the garden or to make dinner set a theme for my life. These things painted a robust and rich picture of home for me.

We need flourishing homes in our lonely, fragmented culture. Are our homes the sort that cast a beam of warm, golden light out into the dark of night? Do the weary, worn, busy travellers along the road of life find us—and our dwellings—places of solace? May the habits we practise—order, hospitality, togetherness, and reflection—shine out into the inky night as a beam of hope for all who see it and choose to come inside.

Wintering Others' Discontent

Dusk is falling all around me, silently painting green leaves a crisp black silhouette against a living grey sky. A planet blinks open its eye, peering at me sitting here in the gathering darkness—alone. Winding down the day with a London Fog, staring at the sky all by one's self may not be ideal for many; yet for me, this is my favourite part of the day. It is cool and quiet, a time of reflection and being.

In the comforting twilight, hiding me from prying eyes—save that of the aforementioned planet—I have time to mull over the conversation I had with a friend recently. He had asked if I was happy where I am, as so many of my friends are transitioning into relationships, moving away from the ministry where I work, or going on adventures. Owl-like, I blinked at the question. Had I given the impression that I was unhappy or dissatisfied with life? No, he simply thought it must get wearing to always be the one plugging along while things happened to everyone else. What did I want more than this 'provincial life?' he questioned.

Should I want something more than enjoying the work of my hands, the leisure I have, the family and friends I have been given, or the home in which I live? Spiritually I want so much more—more holiness, more discipline, more love, more of Jesus. Yet physically and emotionally I am content. Content, not complacent, mind you. My relationships have their ups and downs, there are days I want to run away and get lost in the woods not to find my way out again until starlight—but I still love my life.

Why are people so constantly nagging me to move on, move forward, or to move away? On to what? Away where? What do they think I should be chasing, if not a contented life? What if I like to listen to the footfalls of rain on the leaves or to sit in silence on my front porch? What if I don't want to have someone waiting for me when I get home from my day? I am thankful to come home to a dark, quiet house, ready for me to fill it with soft lights and stillness, or sometimes my friends and family.

Curiosity that must restrain itself from becoming bitterness wells up in me, why do others want to foist their discontentment upon me? I struggle to maintain balance and to have enough solitude in my days and weeks, but my frustration at my lack of discipline does not mean I don't like my job. I might not like how much time it takes away from my mornings, but I like the work that I do. It lies on me to rise earlier so I have more morning to enjoy before tromping to my little mail room. Sometimes I overcommit my evenings, then feel drained or harried because I have not recharged in quiet thanksgiving to the Maker of the stars—but that doesn't mean I need to run off to a new place. I am my own worst enemy—my lack of managing the time I am given frustrates me deeply—but finding a new position at work, moving, or getting married will not fix that. Any of those things would simply sap my time and provide me with a score of more stressful considerations. I must learn discipline and rhythm here and now before I can implement it at any other point in the future.

When I see the source of my frustration—my own failing at discipline—I puzzle over the discontent others have for me. Why hasn't someone snatched you up and married you? they want to know. Maybe because I haven't let them. I enjoy being single, why do I need to pursue something I don't have if I am content with what I do have?

Why don't you try to move up into a different position at work or find a different job? I hear often. Why should I seek a job I'm not suited for—or wouldn't like—when I enjoy the one I have now? More money and benefits are not always worth the mental or emotional strain certain positions bring. I can leave work at work—I can come home without it weighing on my soul. Peace of mind and a flexible schedule that allows me to spend time with those I love are more valuable than the prestige of a bigger title (and the stress such a title brings).

What are you going to do next? someone is always wondering. Live life each day. What are you doing now? I wonder internally.

Don't you want to change the world or go on adventures? That, at least, is a sensible question. I want to influence my sphere of friends and acquaintances with the love and light of Jesus. I want to be hospitable and gracious. I seek to be faithful with the gifts I have been given, whether it is my home, time, words, or material goods. I may not be serving meals to the homeless, but I try to open my front door to my neighbours. Who defines adventures? Does hiking in uncharted snow for miles and seeing an avalanche count? Does scaling a fourteener make the list? How about travelling all over the country because I have friends to visit? And what about the adventures that happen on my front porch? From chasing away black bears to chatting with skunks and squirrels, or watching magnificent lightning storms. I think I have a pretty interesting life.

Maybe I am too easily satisfied. Perhaps the discontentment I hear in the comments others make ought to spur me toward bigger goals, but it does not. I am not inclined to be discontented with life. So many persons have been conditioned by culture to think there is only one way to be content or successful—whether that is always manoeuvring one's way up in the working world, or getting married, or doing new things, or being constantly busy. If those are the things that make one content, why is it that the friends I know who are chasing those goals are so often miserable and dissatisfied?  

I take risks, have friends, go on adventures, enjoy coming home to quiet, and get to sit under a starry sky alone with the night and its Creator. And I like it. The hardest parts of my life are things I inflict upon myself—namely, lack of discipline and love—and the pall of malcontentedness others seem to cast on me in their search for a good and meaningful life. The winter of others' discontent is made glorious by the Son of God—in realising that He does not leave us in the squalor of our sin; in giving thanks for that which is good, even if it is hard. These things bring us to Jesus, shaving off our selves and allowing His likeness to be seen in us.

It can be difficult to meet the discontentment others pour on us with the warmth of the Son's joy. Yet joy is a choice—often in the face of hard, unpleasant, or uncontrollable circumstances. Joy is a choice—even when our fellow Christians are not choosing it, we should. We are free in Jesus to choose to be content in the good we have, rather than to be discontented over what we have not.

Are you a person who freezes others with your discontentment about their life's progress? How can you choose to encourage them where they are instead? Perhaps you are like me, prone to get bitter when someone asks me yet again why I have not moved up the corporate ladder or why I am not married. What do we need to do in order to halt frosty replies with genuinely warm contentment? Most often the answer for me is very simple—though hard to practise: to choose to hold my tongue, to pray for kindness, and to enjoy where I am, even if it confuses others. Now then, this evening, I’m going to enjoy nightfall, cricket songs, and the blesséd silence the slower-by-choice single life permits.