Lone Moutain and a Pair of Psalms

I am privileged to live in Montana and I am further privileged that my job allows me to attend a conference at the Big Sky Resort which is located literally at the foot of Lone Mountain. This evening as darkness fell, I left the party inside the Lodge as the noise of the party rose higher and higher and quality conversation became harder to find. The sun had already set directly behind the mountain and twilight was hard upon the country. While day and night last for hours the distance between them can be breathtakingly short.

I found a quiet place with a view of the mountain to read Evening Prayer. In the short 15 minutes between the invitatory and the final blessing, the western sky shifted from daylight blue to white to red to orange and back to blue but, this time, the darkening blue of night. A new crescent moon was hung to the left of the peak as if it were dangling from the remains of the day clouds that were now rose pink against the ancient night sky.

When prayer ended, I found myself reflecting not on anything I had read in Morning Prayer yesterday from Psalm 139:

Lord, what is man that you care for him,
mortal man, that you keep him in mind;
man, who is merely a breath
whose life fades like a passing shadow?

Looking from my vantage point up to the top of the dog tooth shaped peak and from there left up the Gallatin Range and back to the right and up at Indian Peaks, I felt very small against the primeval immenseness of the mountains.

Who am I that, God should care for me, a mere speck in the spread of the universe and the span of time. My life is merely a breath and for a few minutes, as the blueness of the sky faded to black, I truly felt insignificant.

In twinkling, literally, I saw the first stars poke through the blanket of the night darkened sky, and one of the Psalms from this evening’s prayer slipped across my consciousness. From Psalm 144:

O Lord, you search me and you know me,
you know my resting and my rising,
you discern my purpose from afar.

Later on:

O where can I go from your spirit,
or where can I flee from your face?
If I climb the heavens, you are there.
If I lie in the grave, you are there.

And later still:

For it was you who created my being,
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
for the wonders of all your creation.

Finally:

For it was you who created my being,
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
for the wonders of all your creation.

Understanding finally filled the empty spaces and what small moment was before suddenly grew tenfold. The hugeness of the mountains and vastness of the wilderness was not meant to make feel small. They are there because God is big. I should wonder at creation and in my wonder continue my trip toward salvage. Worshiping God because he created my very being and gifted me with the ability to see the glory of His creation that I might wonder at it defines me. Tonight God revealed more of Himself to me through His words handed down to me through the generations and through His creation.

Lord, I thank you for the wonder of my being and for the wonders of all your creation. 

 



Words

The late poet priest John O’Donohue once wrote that a blank sheet of paper represents silence. To put pen to paper is to cover up the silence by words. The white space that surrounds words frames the words and gives them perspective. Just as there a two sides to a coin, there are two sides to words – what is written and what is not. The words draw us in but the white space gives us rest and room to absorb what is said.

Looking at a blank sheet of paper with a pen in hand, searching for  the first word is to look deep into a vast wildness that is both compelling and repelling us in the same breath. To look at empty page of white space on a computer screen with the cursor blinking remorselessly and relentlessly is less poetic, however. Poetry can be captured on a napkin, in notebook, on blackboard or even a matchbook cover. The computer screen, however, seems sterile but within the sterility there lies the hope of fertility. The mind is where words capture images that are both visible and invisible to the eye and given the images form that can be shared.

That first keystroke, like the first pen stroke, shatters the silence and page becomes a place of both sound and silence. We struggle to balance those extremes in our limited understanding of that place we live that is life but is moving toward death and a new life. More keystrokes fall and letters appear on screen, seeming random at first, but then words appears and the words create sentences that become something we can grasp.

The words we create – do they mean anything? What do they sound like? What do they feel like? What do we do with them? Word’s make us feel the softness of a baby’s breath against our neck as we cuddle our child close to us. Words help us hear the hard scratch of the lilac branches against the brick outside our house animated by a hard night wind. Words can help us sense the love our pets have for us as our dog looks upon us with an unbroken gaze that is both soft but also direct.

Words allow me to describe a giant yellow moon peering over the brown and tan distant mountains that are fading toward blue and black as daylight fails to hold its grasp on the sun.

Words save me when I find them in time to make a connection that needs to be made. Words fail me when I wait too long and they no longer have the power to make a connection. Words define me. Words define us. Words connect us with God. We call those words prayer.