Night Clouds, God's Light

Liturgy of the Hours, Friday Evening Prayer
Canticle - Revelation 15:3-4

Hymn of adoration

Mighty and wonderful are your works,
Lord God Almighty!
Righteous and true are your ways,
O King of the nations!
Who would dare refuse you honor,
or the glory due your name, O Lord?
Since you alone are holy,
all nations shall come and worship in your presence.
Your mighty deeds are clearly seen.

The hymn from Liturgy of the hours tonight is a wonderful ode to the awesome evenings both last night and tonight. When I arrived last evening the wind was blowing hard in from the east which is very rare for our part of the world. An east or north wind promises the imminent arrival a cold front. Were it during the time from late fall through early spring, such winds would be ominous and those who were aware of what such winds might bring might become nervous or slide into edginess. Ranchers would certainly make an extra check or two of the stock and to make sure there was ample food on hand and wood laid away in case the weather might take a bad turn with the arrival of snow.

During this time of the year, late spring headed for summer in a couple of weeks, east winds also give warning to the arrival of cold front but instead of snow or freezing cold, the temperatures might only drop a few degrees from one day to the next but could also bring a band of moisture into the area which would generate some storms here and there.

The wind puffed up to a 30-knot blow with wind spray blowing off the crests of the broken wave caps. The waves rolled up to as high as 3 feet which is an impressive showing for a midsized inland lake. No boats could be seen in any direction and the sign of life was a single pelican who drifted by driven downwind as if he were being carried by an unseen motor.

A series of muscly cumulonimbus clouds tried to punch up to the 40 thousand level so they could become full-fledged thunderstorms but the setting sun drained away their power leaving them to stretch up in the sky along the northwest horizon over the Big Belt Mountains on the far side of light. The sun bathed them with failing light minting their whiteness into shiny gold and yellow. They slowly deflated like sad balloons after a long party and broke up into scattered gray tufts after the light faded away.

3 or more thousand years ago the ancient Hebrews prayed: "Mighty and wonderful are your works, Lord God Almighty!" Throughout all of the cascading centuries right down this moment 2 millennia after the time of Christ, we still pray the same Psalm and pray for the same reason and our awe at the wonder of his works remains undimmed.

We talk often of being darkness and being called into the light. Last night and tonight when the wind blows with nearly the same vigor except tonight is comes in from the more common direction of the south, I have sat and been pulled out of myself into the failing light.

A nearly full moon brightened from a nearly transparent white splotch hidden among tattered fast flying white clouds into brilliant beach ball size. Gulls made final surveys up and down the beach, flying together like a bunch of young toughs surveying their neighborhood for one more thing to investigate before settling down to roost down the beach. As the wind died down they would move out to the lake to drift in a flock in the safety of the open water.

Right as the sun dropped behind the Elkhorn's behind me, a pair of nighthawks made their first appearance of the year but their flight was buffeted by the still strong breeze. There no bugs flying out over the watery buffet table either last night or tonight. There was just too much window. The nighthawks disappeared after a few minutes. The tree swallows that roost in the magnificent giant cottonwood tree nearby were silent and perched deep within the branches and were virtually silent. I missed their messy, cheerful harmonies.

Tonight as we bow into the darkness, our heads tucked low to miss the still sharp wind, more is revealed. Colors shift into pastels and watercolors and sharp edges soften. A planet shows up low on the southeastern horizon. Green and seemingly large, it must be Jupiter. Lights from a house across the lake begin to blink to existence and twinkle and the airport beacon begins to search the sky.

The waves have begun to flatten some and the rush of the wind started to subside. The setting sun seems to have robbed the wind of its power. Indeed in a couple of hours time, the lake will most likely be glassy smooth enough reflect the stars and moon as it did last night.

We pray: "Who would dare refuse you honor, or the glory due your name, O Lord?" Truly who could look at the wonders he has created and understand the gift we have been given to appreciate wonders and not offer him praise, honor, and glory? Not I. No tonight. Not last night.

Even now as the last of light surrenders to the night, his deeds are clearly seen.

Solitude, Stillness and Solitude

For the past 8 months, or so, I have been flirting with, studying, considering, discerning and dancing around the idea of contemplation. Why? It just seems to be logical next step beyond Lectio Divina and meditation. Not that I have become a master, I am thinking more like third grade. Ok, second grade. At the start of the year.

I know. False humility does not suit me nearly as well as humiliation which inevitably follows many of my attempts at trying to be humble. Moving on, what I desire most in life is peace, peace of mind, peace in my relationships, peace at night, peace in all aspects of my life.

There is a notion that often rumbles around in my head that contemplation, moving into a deep connection with God will bring me the peace crave. So far that has not happened, or, I don't think it has happened. I am not even sure I can state with certainty I have experienced more than just a hint of contemplation. What I felt was not exactly peaceful. Calming, perhaps, but I can't really describe the experience. I can't seem to find any words, much less the right words.

The major obstacle is not being able to overcome distractions. If I try at home, something immediately distracts me. My wife walking around upstairs or having the cat jump on my lap. If not something like those two, then all of sudden I get a raft of mysterious itches here and there or, perhaps, a vague pain somewhere. None of these things pop up as issues when I engage in scriptural or patristic reflection. Sure, if my wife says something or if my phone dings, I will lose my train of thought and have to start over again. More on that later but I can still tune out the world.

As I am writing this now I am outside on lovely albeit cloudy and breezy late spring day. My cat indoor cat is learning to love the out of doors and we are happy to let her as long as she stays close. I have taken up the hobby of feeding the neighborhood corvids, magpies and crows and it is absolutely fascinating to watch. I can watch them for a bit and then come back to writing without much difficulty.

I learned somethings in the past week, however, that makes me wonder of contemplation is really the path to the peace I crave, the peace of a quiet mind. The peace that comes with and from a stillness. I was shocked to learn for the first time at age 64 that I have ADHD and along with with it something called RSD - rejection syndrome dysmorphia. Within minutes of beginning to digest the news, the little wrinkles and ripples that have been part of me for as long as I can remember to make sense. Why does it take enormous effort to complete a mental task list of 4 or 5 things? If I am going to the store for more than one thing, I need to make a list and then hope I remember the list. More often than not, the list remains where it was when I created it.

Why is so hard for me just do one thing at a time, like watch something on TV or read a book without jumping from one book to another. Why I am suddenly fascinated by, for example, earthquakes in Alaska and then proceed to spend the next hours reading everything I can find that might over new or different insight? I can be well into the search and then something will trigger a new curiosity and off I go in another direction with equal passion. I frequently find myself with 20, or more, open web pages. I have always prided myself on having a curious mind that motivates me to learn more and more about more and more and there is nothing wrong with that. Right? Wrong. Knowledge without context and purpose means nothing. I know that. I have said that and I believe it. Perhaps I don't have a curious mind at all. I have a mind with a mind of its own.

When I am formulating a reflection, it can take several minutes for thought to coalesce in my mind. It is like pulling a gem out of the mud with a thin thread. With any break of concentration, I lose my grip on the thought and slip back into the muck and I have to start all over again. I don't if others have the same problem producing insight or understanding as I but the process is very labor intensive. It is also rewarding beyond measure.

I have come to believe, in recent years,  I am on a spiritual and personal journey and I have always been moving from one destination to another. The minute I reach one landing point where some mystery has been unveiled, I put it behind me and trudge off again. With an overactive mind, there is no way for me to discern if I have landed somewhere I should pause and hold for a while because my mind will simply jump the track and keep going.

Learning what little I know so far, I have come recognize I am truly on a journey but one I never saw coming. The title of this piece refers to places of quiet and calm. Today I have to question how I will achieve what I so deeply. Clearly, my intense focus on finding peace is fueled by a lifetime of dealing with an overactive brain. I want to just stop but when I do…. I don't.

Silence is not just about the absence of noise or sound that is audible with my ears. Solitude is not just about being separated and apart. Stillness is not just about the absence of noise or activity. I have long believed the pursuit of the right one these three avenues will lead to enjoyment and immersion into the other two. Here is the question: if there is a hole in the net, how do I capture a butterfly? There is, it seems, a really big hole in my net.

The answer is I don't. Maybe I just sit and wait for the butterfly to find me. I will not learn these things alone but I will need help from others who can see things I can't. Beyond that, I will need help from a God who sees everything and who has created me to find him. These things are important. I can't articulate how important, but they are important. The answers will point to the toward to a destination but, more likely, to nowhere but I will come to accept that I will never fully arrive where I want to be. In the end, is all about acceptance anyway.

Frustration has a New Name

After a lifetime of struggle across the full tapestry of emotion and relations, has the true enemy been revealed?

Depression and Anxiety have been twin dragons that have fired my existence during various seasons and I have, for the most part, been able to keep the chained in the cave where they can ponder the havoc they have loosed on me over the last 3 years. There have been moments when I could feel the heat of the fire but with the quiver of tools given me and the backing of my wife and the support of my faith I have kept them at bay.

The struggles have continued but without a name or real form so my standard state of being has been restlessness rocked to and fro by the hand of frustration. Why, despite great effort, have I still found myself in conflict with my wife and others? If I can see the problem coming, I can head it off with CBT but why do I suddenly find myself falling through the surface of what I had believed to be solid ground into a deep pit filled with murky water? The water takes the form of anger and the silt which clouds the anger can be called fear.

I can usually work out of the pit but not before the damage is done and I have tried to pull others important to me into the pit with me. Once out, I want to just move on and put the event behind me but there has to be a reckoning that turns into another fire pit of frustration because I don't know what happened or why and there is no way I can promise to keep it from happening again. It is as if lightning has struck me from out of a clear sky. No warning. Just the explosion and then nothing to give me a clue what happened.

How about when I know when my work is being reviewed? Anxiety rises up within me like magma and grabs my complete attention, focus and prevents from looking at the process with the clarity that would allow me to see that nothing serious could happen and that I really have nothing to review. I would rather stick my arm in the magma than face a performance review, much the same as I hate, hate, hate any kind of conflict with others, particularly my wife.

What about when I sit down to work and I find myself paralyzed trying to decide where to start first, before I can calm down and use tactics honed from years of practice to get started and actually have a productive day. Still, I find myself bouncing from one task to another until I finally force myself to use a task list to finish all of the tasks that need to be done.

Go ahead and take look at my workbench? Shear chaos is strewn from end to end. When I finally go down to get something done, the time it takes to organize uses the time I had to spend, to begin with.

All these years I thought it was just me and if I could only make a plan of some kind and see it through I would see progress as I have in other areas of strife that have long had a name. I was wrong. I am relieved. I am angry, I am disappointed. I am sad. I am….

Still working things out.