Perspective In the Wandering

And the heart aches for what it cannot see

The lights have gone out in the cafe.

The wind gusts the leaves outside, orange and yellow fluttering in tufts, and the November light shines through the windows. My shadow on the wall outlines me dimly. I see it on the cream-colored paint beneath stains from coffee splatters and gray scratches where furniture was scraped.

Justin was gone for a few days last week, and I was lonely. It made me think of Berta, my former neighbor, 86 years old, who used to live next door. And Meg, our neighbor on the other side of our house, who also lived alone. After having a houseful of kids—and a dog—collectively requiring my energy and attention for two decades, I thought the quiet would be welcome. But it was strange. I wonder if I like quiet better when I choose it rather than when it happens to me. 

The cafe owner lets us stay and sit for as long as we’d like, using the hotspots on our phones for wifi. She sits in the window with a notebook and laptop, her long hair pulled over one shoulder, and tells us “Good day” when we leave to find lunch, our feet crunching the elm leaves blown in a row on the right side of the sidewalk. These were the leaves I plowed through, making a hurricane in my wake, on my bike when I was eight years old and riding around my grandparents’ front yard in loops. My mind is filled with many inconsequential things. 

A five-minute drive, and we are one town over, where the power still seems to be on. The wind is moving, and I am still—at a different window in a different cafe. A bronze-statued fairy sits meditatively on a plinth across the street. She rests near a mural of a monarch butterfly painted on rich navy, and as I look at her—her beauty, her relaxed posture underneath branches of golden falling leaves—my heart is troubled. I feel God is here, everywhere, and yet not with me.

I see beauty, and my heart aches. In front of the fairy statue, two women are walking on the sidewalk. One wears a yellow pullover sweater and has a kind, open face that reminds me of my great aunt—who laughed and made me feel so loved. The woman’s friend is just a bit smaller, and they lean toward one another and laugh, a white to-go box in their hands. I imagine it containing a lemon tart, a slice of chocolate cake, or some other pastry decorated with precision and care. I can’t hear them, but I imagine the sound, their voices a duet of love and song. 

The sky darkens at two in the afternoon, and I turn inward. Father Chi, my spiritual director, said, “God is always here, no matter how you feel or what you’ve done. You always get to turn.” Ah, but this world is vast, and my love is smaller than it should be. I struggle with being human, and sometimes, I wish heaven would just be here right now. 

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Let me show you the space you see yourself in, the walls and the obstacles. (I move walls. I break through barriers.) Close your eyes. I will help your heart see.

I close my eyes.

What do you see? Is it different from what you expected to see?

A wide, expansive, empty space—with vague, indistinct shapes in the distance. Shadows. Grayness. I am disorientated. I am alone here.

Now look again. Let Me show you what you see when you live in a place of boundaries and limits because you put guardrails around Me. How much smaller is this place? How do you feel in it compared to the other, more expansive, limitless place I first showed you?

I love His questions, His guiding me. 

I am in a place of shadow. I don’t know where I am. I see myself, and yet I cannot see.

Look around again. See with the eyes of my Spirit within you. Do you see Me here in this space? Do you see Me with you? What else do you see? 

Oh, Jesus, you are here.

How does your being aware of Me here with you affect how you see your life (the obstacles, the problems, the challenges)?

Lord…

Rather than Me simply removing obstacles/barriers/walls in your life (for I can do that instantaneously), stay in the space with Me. Focus on Me. Be with Me.

Let the obstacles be the obstacles.

Let the barriers be the barriers.

Let the walls be the walls.

Look at Me.

Be with Me.

Love Me.

I am here.

I am with you.

I am the Warrior.

I am the Father.

I am the Compass.

I am the Rock.

I am the Deliverer. 

I am the Song.

Nothing holds Me back.

Nothing destroys my love.

Nothing is an obstacle to my power.

See Me with you—in the room.

Here, with Me, is wisdom.

Follow it.

Trust it.

Heed it.

Let it catch you.

Let it guide you.

I love you.

See with my eyes now.

Watch Me and what I am doing—that I want to confront the obstacles together.

Yes, together—in my love—is the expansive place.

Stay here.

Let us be here together. 

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All the good that we see. All the good that we can’t. May we let it in.

Amen.

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The Place of In-Between

Over this bridge the traveling
days are long. I stand at 
the rail, look over the
side at the water below,

at the blankness of home
in the night. I feel my
breathing slow, smooth like
the current, the water’s rhythm

(you are soft and gentle, 
you tell me—not dangerous,
not death) 

lulling me so my heart quiets 
and my mind, which knows nothing, 
and my hands, which feel nothing. 

Wake up, wake up, 
dear one, you are at risk of 
drowning. What will we believe
is real, and who will explain such
a preposterous claim?—

All the world, gathered up in
a single dream, bidding us
wait, wait here on the precipice
of longing!

Nevermind all the confusion:
I do not understand.