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 Mailing address: bo@bo-hemian.com |
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2 February 1998 -- Held in place for the moment
The January/February boundary is a time I've frequently called "the pit of winter". Back where jet planes are easy to board, this becomes an inviting part of the year to fly South. Outside the window today, the snow cover looks nicely accustomed to its place of rest, knowing very well that it has at least a month, and maybe two, before the sun can bring enough to bear upon it to send it down the stream and into the town at the bottom of the road.
Early February is such a tentative point in the year, in any place that has seasons of cold and warm. I will end up in the balmier times of April and May, looking back, saying, "I really lived it out, didn't I?" In the city, this is the Season for indoor cultural and sporting events, as well as an indisputable time to be in class for those who still have school. I start to get the temptation to ignore the outdoors at this time and make the inside spaces my entire world. This practice can be a bit restrictive here at the Cabin, which has so little indoor room.
I spend some time looking out the window, knowing I can't really be out there long, reminding myself of the wide open spaces that will again be livable, when spring arrives. I try to project myself outwards, into the clearing where my resurrected snowman stands, as though I did not have this human limitation of heat that I cannot afford to lose. After enough of this, I turn to look back towards the interior of the Cabin. I am, as I said, committed to this particular place, for the time I visit this getaway, just as people in earlier times were committed for real to their wintering spots.
But then, I realize the degree of commitment my job and home in the city also represent. I might see a larger, open realm in the country as a whole, but the social and economic ties; the community, of which I am a member by necessity, restrict my mobility to a circle like that I might pace about the inside of the Cabin's main room. I know this is not a Christian way to feel, since the others have use for me, and a few actually seek my presence just because of who I am. I do not know why it is that I always want to have a way out.
So many can settle nicely into their community, obtaining so much ongoing satisfaction that they can stay and not feel held against their will. Indeed, I see the value of having a sense of place; a sense of identity with a location in real life, but it takes me a very long time to feel so "centered". It is an easier task to feel that way in a setting such as this peaceful Cabin living room, for I do not have the unrelenting extremes of sensory input to agitate me every time I want to come to rest. I wonder at times if I'm using this place as a metaphor for that "home" with God that is so glowingly mentioned in Scripture; the building not made by man. This seems a bit shallow, since I would neglect and underrate the structural beauty of human society about me, built of persons with as much, and usually far more agitation than myself. I spend awhile in front of the fire, pondering how and where I should go about seeking the Kingdom.
RB
6 February 1998 -- All things coming to pass
It is once again time to settle in for the evening. I have the stove's firebox burning again, both for cooking and for water-heating. All these days; same routine...and it was routine I sought to escape in being here! I'm thinking how I'll enjoy hiking up the trails toward the ridgetop again, when there is no longer the barrier of snow and cold that begins where the heat of the Cabin stops, just outside the front porch.
Maybe I need a little time tonight, getting back to basics; remembering what was in the Dream last August that so inspired me. The Cabin was and is, above all, quiet. It is so quiet when all the noise of city machinery and audio output are removed that the absence of sound seems itself a sound. I begin returning myself to the ideal of the dream; silence that spends its time with me and lets the tension dissipate outwards into its spacious ability to absorb. And yet, the resonant emotional vibration of my city living will not escape by merely being shown the way out.
I have begun to approach perpetual internal motion, I think, as my mind must always have something to concern itself over, and some crisis at every instant in time. So often I am extended a sincere benediction of "peace", but then, of course, the show must go on. I sit at the kitchen table, eating from my austere Army-surplus tin plate, trying to savor the time I have up here to practice the pursuit of peace. In the Dream, there seemed to be ample time for all things, and all things happened in a sequence that was proper.
I finish my portion from the stove in such time as to appreciate it, unlike eating those fast-food carry-out meals in my office at work. I am trying, best I can, to break the cycle of hurry, worry, and despair. I know that these will eventually dissipate, by analogy with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and I must be putting forth great effort to sustain them. The water in the tub on the stove is now hot enough for use in washing, I note, as I set the dishes down on the rough wooden cabinet-top.
Outside the kitchen window, dark is falling upon the layers of snow in the trees along the stream. I stand for a moment, letting the tension find its way out, just as the heat will leave that washtub, the minute I take it from the stovetop. This is a spontaneous event under proper conditions, I remind myself. In the frustration of keeping a city schedule, it seems my greatest gratitude is that the proper things happen; that is, they occur because some combination of circumstances and myself will let them. Other things, ones, perhaps of a nobler character, simply do not happen; the threshold to be surmounted is too high.
In this almost-artificial removal of expectations in my Cabin visits, the list of things that should happen has been reduced in size and composition. The threshold has fallen nearly to the floor, and I become grateful for anything that transpires. To lower one's standards, where they are foolishly high and serving no use--that indeed is the objective.
RB
10 February 1998 -- Maintaining the exterior
Outside, the bitter cold is back again, and the snow crunches severely under my boots as I work outside on what must be done. There is little time to spend out there pondering, unless I'm involved in a heat-generating activity like bringing in wood. Needless to say, using the outhouse is not a casually undertaken function! Now, the stream has finally frozen up, and I'm melting snow on the stove to pass through the filtration stand and into the cistern. Things outdoors seem to be locked in a suspended state, although occasionally I'll see one of the many species of wintering bird come to the feeder by the kitchen window or a squirrel run past, on its own unspecified business. At least the sun has been with me these last few days, although it can have little thawing effect with this amount of cold.
I try to take the advice of this natural setting and adopt some of its quiescence into my own attitudes and reactions. There is little that matters as much as I would let it, since most "crises" simply pass into the readily-discarded annals of trivial, forgotten times. I wonder why it is, then, that events of the moment seem to hold such terror? Am I simply hypersensitive? Do most of the so-called "normal" within the population not feel things as I do? Maybe they have a better ability to live with discomfort, and endure so much that they don't think about it any more.
For the inward-looking such as myself, this constant monitoring of how one feels can blow the significance of internal reaction out of proportion. It would be better not to think so much of the sorry condition I picture as my inside, and how it is buffeted about by external events, since those external events are so hard to control. Attention, then, seems well directed towards the actual interface between myself and the world. I would not keep out the cold drafts by improving some fixture internal to the Cabin, but instead spend time working on the walls, roof, and outward structure.
I think at times of the way I carry myself about my city routines in real life, and even in some of my recreational affairs. So dismayed by internal discomfort have I become that it "shows" externally and the cycle deepens by what happens next. It seems, then, that we become faced with two choices--the two polarities of attitude; positive and negative. "Well," some of the "normal" would wonder, "why would you ever take a negative attitude? Put on a happy face!"
But these who might succeed in that Way do not realize the cost to the still-weak of that good-natured attitude. It must be defended against all manner of insult and forces that would drive it down. The low mood is easy, on the other hand, to maintain. Just let it sit there. But it eventually starts to give out, and in a frenzied effort, I must effect neglected repairs on my countenance, to keep out the reality of destruction's utter cold and finality.
RB
15 February 1998 -- Looking for good signals
I'm sitting on the muslin-slipcovered sofa, my place of much reflective rest, at yet another end of a time spent dealing in the affairs of that real world, down the hill. The kerosene lamp hangs nearby, filling the room with its soothing yellow light, so different from the continual motion of my standard television screen in every room in the wired world. That or the networked computer monitors, both office and home, always coming forth with new information to act upon, or simply react to in the somber realization that the new events are beyond my control.
My fireplace and hearth, though changing in appearance with the flames and the care with which I feed them, are with me as a faithful ally and not an intrusion. Thoreau describes his fire as a similar "second resident" of the Walden cabin. At this particular visit, I also feel the faithful third presence of God very much at hand. He tells me I am his own, and I become settled in this thought. So much of the content beamed across telecommunications channels would lull me into a similar sense of belonging, but to what ultimate end, and to whom? There is never the certainty or steadiness of the kerosene glow or of God's love for me.
I think at times that I am selling my fellow human wanderer short when I discount his or her "sincerity" of the moment as merely the cloaking of another sales pitch or a passing call for my attention, soon to be attenuated by the next program on the schedule; the next message in the bin. There must indeed be other voices, in that wilderness of the commercial and secular world community, that speak first from a hunger and thirst after what is right; after what God assures me in his own way he has as my interests.
I think, sadly for a moment, of what it is to have been too young to know the fullness of the 1960's youth culture--and yet, they stubbornly call me a "baby boomer". This means I must share their general optimism about so many things without having known the spirituality of the founding conventions, such as Summer 1969. Seven years old, right. A hit song of that time assured me, "Jesus loves the little children / All the little children of the world". And to those adolescent and young adult others, yes, "Everything was beautiful, in its own way". But indeed, I overgeneralize and use stock cliché. This has been said.
I begin to think of the worrisome days that must be spent by certain of those "business leaders", who know they are telling mistruth or suppressing complete truth for the sheer interest of profit and "getting theirs". The truth might make them free, but it won't always make for lots of sales. And then my mind wanders to the ones who cannot speak their complete feelings (myself included) for various contrived and selfish agendas. "Why does it have to be this way?" I ask the Lord, now that I have his attention. "Why do I, in particular, seek isolation so often?" I think of the light set on a stand to shine before men as I look over to the kerosene lamp, which illuminates the pine-board walls back into the alcove, where my bed awaits.
RB
19 February 1998 -- A solitary walk in the snow
A bit of "warmer" weather has decided to visit me these last two days, so I have made it a point to don my waterproof boots and Gore-Tex brand knickers, for walking around more outside. Beyond the well-worn, shovelled-out tracks to the woodshed, outhouse and river, I have made brand new tracks, at a much slower rate, out around the clearing and into some of the trees at the very bottom of the hillside that leads to the encircling ridge. It feels close enough to freezing that the knee-deep cover does not seem to threaten my lower limbs with immediate attack.
I had sat a great number of days, simply staring out the window in a sense of futility over an environment I thought I could not inhabit without hardship, so I am glad to have seen this combination of good spirits and an inviting appearance of warmth. The various rocks that jut upwards from the clearing floor are a constant concern, since they are less distinct with the snow there to average out the landscape to a single, gently-flowing surface. I should not like to have to be on my bunk for an extented time with a bad bruise or twisted ankle.
In this thought-exercise, of course, I can simply pull away if I am
badly "hurt" and imagine treatment by some unspecified medical practitioner
who disappears just as fast when the work is done, like pressing the attention
button on one of those "virtual pets". Those who have really
lived like this, of course, would not be so fortunate.
I stand today at the farthest reach of the clearing from the Cabin
door, looking back at the snow-layered roof and the continuing smoke from
the fire I decided was safe to let be. I think often in real life
about what it is to live alone and not have the immediate support from
"loved ones" that was standard in distant times, when many more people
lived in such conditions.
I'd imagine that I know enough "community", were the truth known back there, to preclude real isolation. The city, by definition, places people close, and if it gets down to it, there are always those who'll contract out the services of support, such as taxi drivers. Here, at elevation in the woods, there is no phone to call out, and who would drive all those miles up my snowed-in dirt track road, anyway? But then, this is my creation, the hollow, the river, the Cabin, and the ridge, and it is meant for simple relaxation, without continual fear over immediately-impending disaster.
I have written on many occasions of the largely worthless load that constant vigilance places on my urban nerves. I wonder today if perhaps I am getting a bit too relaxed out in all this snow...it is snow, after all, solid-state water. But it is good to be out and walking around in the open. I note how much longer the days are getting to be; Equinox is only a month away now. There will come that time, yes, when the Cabin door is only an artificially-drawn frame between an indoor space to organize things and a larger world of greater mobility and diversity of scenery. Nothing is forever.
RB
23 February 1998 -- Temporarily poor in spirit
After spending some time today attending to basic housekeeping chores, I have stretched out on my bunk, into the down comforter, trying to reduce my concerns to their proper priority. I'm trying to remember what it is that I am doing, as a human, in this world of ours, anyway. Real life has put such a burden of artificial concern on my back these days that I have started losing track of the wonder of life itself.
I think of what it might be like if I could actually force myself away from the information outlets and take a good solid, solitary look at myself and what I'm trying to do with the person I've found myself to be. Somehow, this is not the most pleasant of thoughts; facing what really is. This explains why I so readily take on more diversions, which only become resented distractions at a later time.
I just rest myself against the fabric, alone in the Cabin, looking over at the fire. How I have become so reluctant to see my "real" self is still a mystery to me. I ask the Lord, "what is it that causes us not to love ourselves?" Clearly, it cannot be as bad as I picture myself from within. I have read in his Word that God has called me by name; I am his; he loves me. And this is not enough? For the time being, I have to rely upon the curious and non-intuitive testimony of others who would call me "good". This is the ultimate act of faith, I say to myself, as I move to a slightly deeper spot in the cover and listen to the winds blowing past, over the roof of the alcove.
I now begin to cherish the solitude here in the Cabin, in a way I haven't in a long time. I tend to place more emphasis on the first portion of "nothing ventured, nothing gained", when I recall what losses in the face of overextended ventures can be like. I should like to stay here quite some time, with the insulation of the vast woodland keeping out the inevitable conflict and hardship that I find in social dealings. I have retreated for awhile to that position, though I know it to be fallacy, where I think I can get by with God alone, and the basics of life within these scant walls. I hear the call of the hermit. Collaborative living has lost its lustre when I feel so worn.
As I sink into the bed, I try to ride out the storm, by loosening myself from all those concerns that await my all-too-soon return to city life. I have observed, as truth, that I need far less of this kind of rest than I think at the outset. I always have the ability to pick up and go again, although that never seems the case when true exhaustion strikes. Indeed, the point of complete exhaustion is, in itself, a blessing of sorts, for the only way to go is up.
I know I'll be out there in those woods one day again, amid the budding trees and smelling the new earth below, enjoying it all with a renewed appreciation because I got myself through a state so basic as this, one of complete spiritual poverty. To lose my fear, even, of death itself and simply accept God's will, no matter what comes next, is an attitude of humility that I should like to experience without feeling humiliated instead. Yes, I have run out of things to venture at this time. The gain will come another day, when I am ready to establish a new market position. It is time now to pay basic living expenses out of the reduced capital I have at hand.
RB
27 February 1998 -- The acceptable sacrifice
The weather has remained cold and grey, with occasional snow here and there, for the last few days. I'm still thinking of the poverty of spirit; the broken, contrite heart that I mentioned the last time I wrote. I find it hard to believe that Scripture would have me bring something like that for a sacrifice, rather than the standard, well-recognized and valuable forms of material gifts. Surely, I must be reading all of that wrong. The "standard" heart, out there among the "normal" world, must be one that is headstrong and irreverent indeed, if it must be broken and brought low to achieve a state of grace.
In my city life, the Lenten season has always been a time of desolate feeling, like that brought on by the scene, day after day, of the snowfields and the barren trees outside the living room window. But then I realize that I am engaging in certain impermissible and extravagant indulgence, when I carry bitterness about as my battle-standard. I also realize that I am entering now into a world of paradox upon paradox. I would have my false pride in self-pity replaced only by another pride in what I truly am. I would humble myself among men by no longer making myself to be the least worthy of them.
I stare at the rafter-beams for a time, wondering what manner of man I have truly become. I think, too, of the unbridled love and forgiveness I see out there in the world of the "normal". I see how it is that they can drop in an instant what would become for me the grist of a long-lasting resentment. I think to myself, "if only I could play along with their 'game;' let this forgiveness take full effect and come to complete equilibrium! Why, I'd learn some of the rules of the 'game' myself!"
But no, my inherent cynicism tells me that their optimism is ill-placed and ultimately doomed to disappoint them. And if this is so, I find it hard to understand why they continue. The joy of walking in that light, which makes them smile as they do, has to be the only answer. It must be a joy beyond anything I can use as reason for giving up in my tired internal dialogue, pro and con, on the life of optimism.
I pick up one of my WWII-era magazines and start reading from February 1943. I see an Allied effort that cared not for the utter suffering that lay ahead in its attempts to turn the tide on so many fronts. The people built each other into a frenzy of unquestioned commitment to the Cause against "tyranny". They rallied 'round their flags and sang the battle cry of "freedom", in so many tongues. They would do without, for certain, in ways the propagandists should have little problem exploiting in their attempts to instill defeatism.
I look up from the pages of unified smiles, selling War Bonds and building piston-engine bombers, and wonder why it is that I cannot become infected with similar patriotic fervency, towards life itself, a good thing to most. Only those who have been here can appreciate this feeling, and the others will not understand--and I'm so glad they don't.
RB
