This shimmering view through the thick medieval glass windowpane arrests me. The call to Halt, look, see again, seems to whisper into the air that hovers just above me, or all about, or even deeper within. This wavy scene—a thing of beauty itself—in which I recognize yet also see anew the centuries-old traditional European half-timbered house across the street, as I did recently, invites me into a perspective that I rarely have. To get the chance to see a solid historical building as if it were liquid, flowing, melting, dissolving—what a thing! What questions such a sight can give rise to.
As I marvel over this scene, I ask myself, how do we go about seeing things? Which lenses are our go-to ones? How do we arrive at choosing the lenses which we believe give us the true or most-probably-true picture? And just where do our preferred lenses come from—or, better said—how do we, or other lens-makers we may defer to, go about making them?
The medieval craftsman who made this windowpane through which I was privileged to look through over 400 years later used a hand-blown glass technique which resulted in these rippling distortions. Whereas modern glass is flat, theirs was not. Whereas a modern view is one-dimensional, a medieval view offers a fluidity that suggests multi-dimensionality. Here’s a thought: what if, in some ways, a fluid view points to an intricacy about reality which the trusted one-dimensional view resists? Of course, this possibility is both unsettling and intriguing. But perhaps just as we can overlook the fulsomeness of a single raindrop or, alternatively, linger to see how it mirrors a much greater outer reality, so we may find our willingness to consider multi-faceted perspectives very rewarding.
But what is rewarding may also be unsettling—unsettling to what we expected to find. In her excellent article in response to new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, Kay Rubacek writes about how unsettling such discoveries can be, pointing out, “The more precisely we see, the more clearly we encounter limits, not just in our theories, but in what our tools can give us.” And she challenges us to consider what our limitations show us, stating, “reality is more carefully made, more grand, and more mysterious than we could have ever imagined.” Rubacek concludes, “Perhaps the next step forward isn’t to look harder, but to look more wisely, to relearn how to see with the eyes we have been given.”
Relearning how to see things is demanding. I often return to C.S. Lewis’s challenge to us about having a guarded, even dissident, approach to popular opinions. In The Problem of Pain, he wrote, “Now I take a very low view of ‘climates of opinion’. In his own subject every man knows that all discoveries are made and all errors corrected by those who ignore the ‘climate of opinion.’” This statement inspired some interesting discussion in one of my classes the other day. We considered the question, “Can we ignore the climate of opinion?” “And if so, how do we go about it?” I’d say, for a baseline, we should remember not to confuse theory with fact. We would do well to remember that the answers we get depend rather much on the sorts of questions we ask. We have our blind spots. So it takes humility to be able to say, “To the best of my understanding I think this theory explains reality, but I could be wrong.” I’d say that the best thinkers have this sort of humility. The English poet William Cowper put it this way: “Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.”
Then the next question could be this: “How willing are we to question predominant or just very loud voices?” Inertia, an unwillingness to think, is a common malady. Understandably so. It takes hard work to think, and the rewards are not easily measured as we measure rewards in this world. Fear factors into our reluctance to think too because if we do it well we risk being countercultural. Are we willing to pay that price? Alternatively, are we willing to pay the price of always conforming to the culture, never seeking to add our own voices for the possibility of betterment?
To this large topic about seeing things, I offer these further reflections.
Fittingly for this season of Lent, but whenever we enter a season of grief, it can feel like we are staggering through fog—cold, bone-chilling fog which seems too heavy to ever lift, too dark to be shot through with light. As C.S. Lewis wrote in his opening lines in A Grief Observed, it feels like being “mildly drunk, or concussed.” We see only in part and in fact may not even wish to see much at all. In such fog, the promise that we shall see in fullness may not readily come to mind because the familiar surroundings are too heavily blanketed by grief. Grief is a time that requires patience with oneself—patience with oneself and something like endurance, however weak or devastated one is. This is the patience of the weary sojourner who puts yet one more foot in front of the other, again and again and again, not knowing and not demanding to know how much longer the journey will last. Trusting too, in the One who has set us on our journey in the first place, trusting in the good final destination. How can we do it?
Here I am reminded of a note that Alfred, Lord Tennyson made on his famous poem “Crossing the Bar” in which he spoke of the hope that he will “see [his] Pilot face to face” when he has “crost the bar.” Significantly, Tennyson noted, “The pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him.” What a thought. The unobserved Pilot. While the flat one-dimensional view hides perception of the Pilot of our lives, He is there, solid, real, permanent, guiding us through the flowing, melting, dissolving things of this life. The dark glass will vanish on that day when we shall know even as we are known (I Corinthians 13.12). We must ask, “What if, just what if, what Christians believe is true?” What if you hear a voice one day, calling you by name, saying, “The Resurrection is real, my friend”?
The painting “The Resurrection of Christ” by Rembrandt hanging in the museum Alte Pinakothek in Munich beckons such questions. And in Wardrobes and Rings: Through Lenten Lands with the Inklings, Malcolm Guite asks: “Have you had an experience when the veil is lifted and you seem to see things in heaven’s light?” But coming from a fog-driven flattened view of things, we need help. In truth, we need a salve that can heal and restore our weak and wounded sight. A salve, I think, no less than the spittle of Jesus mixing with this good earth will do. Will we accept such salve?
This season of Lent, and looking ahead to Easter, amid the much that we all contend with, maybe we can pause a bit, slow down enough to think about how we go about seeing things. Perhaps we will discard inferior lenses. Perhaps we will ask for this heavenly salve and begin to see afresh. For myself, I hope so. A familiar view dissolving before my eyes can help me to see things differently. May it be as in the words of George MacDonald in Diary of an Old Soul, “Faith opens all the windows to God’s wind.”
Thanks for reading, for listening.
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Watch for my June blog: “Sweet Pleasures.”
This life can be so mind-boggling, so utterly overwhelming, that language fails. In a sense, language will always be inadequate to express what we deeply feel and surprisingly discover. But today I’ll try to form a few thoughts about this wildly beautiful and at once deeply disturbing life that we live: mind-bogglingly glorious and also intensely pain-filled.
This double image of family history is extraordinary to me, the double image of trauma and peace: the picture of my mother kneeling here, cleansing clothing in this very spot, and decades later me standing here with my husband as the water continues to flow. Quiet marvels in a long story. The wonder of it all is that we get to be alive on what Madeleine L’Engle has called this “
When I pass around this rock to my university students, some gasp, “This is history! History!” and some ask, “What was the Berlin Wall?” It is amazing, is it not, that while many of us did not expect to see this wall gone in our lifetime, it went. Today I’m privileged to show this rock as an illustration that paradigms change. Just when we think some things are fixed, will continue indefinitely, they vanish. We ought to be careful, ought we not, as to how we navigate paradigms. The unbalancing through paradigm change, while often disturbing, can be healthy too. I’m reminded of walking on the unevenness of cobblestone paths.
You’d be a fool to just march on as if you owned the road, as if the unaccustomed road would shape itself to your desires, as if the smoother pavement you’re used to walking on is everywhere. It isn’t. But wearing comfortable shoes while treading gingerly on old, cobbled paths helps in rebalancing. And in the rebalancing, it also awakens in me enchantment—the wonder that I am walking where people over the centuries have walked. I catch my breath, realizing anew that I have a small part in a long story. And this should give me great pause, to consider what their lives might have been like, to consider which paradigms they understood that have since shifted or even disappeared altogether, to listen to their words as best as I can. I’d be a fool to not care about what they can say to me.
A small image of the helium hope came to me along a walkway around McMillan Lake on my campus, an old swing from a willow tree beckoning still. Also the words of Psalm 24 on this same pathway begin thus: “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. . . .” Stopping to reflect on such things steadies me some. A few other recent experiences point to ultimate Joy.
If maturation hasn’t fully happened by now, when might it? I do like Walter Hooper’s hearty dismissal of the idea that C. S. Lewis’s attitudes toward women changed from early sexism to increasing egalitarianism, especially through his marriage to Joy Davidman in later life, which goes like this: as if Lewis “did not know what life was about until the age of fifty-eight.”
I recall that pivotal moment in the department store when my eyes first spotted the chair and I made a beeline for it, plunked down into it, and started rocking away, marveling at this chair that was just my size, perfect in every way, and smiling up at my parents in the firm belief that the chair was mine, mine, just waiting for me. I wasn’t getting up any time soon, not until it was clear that this chair was coming home with me. There was no doubt in my mind that this was my chair, though I kind of knew I was getting away with something when my confidence resulted in my loving parents smiling down at me and then buying the chair. (No, my insistence on things didn’t always work, thank goodness. . . .) This child-sized rocking chair is a sweet memento of the childlike wonder and joy that I long to keep alive always. I admit, I had to dust the chair off somewhat just now, something I should really do more often. Yes, the intention to fan the flame of childlike wonder over the decades is no easy feat. Joy is too easily displaced by the grime of unworthy thoughts.
(Yes, you might recognize this loose paraphrase from Lewis’s The Four Loves).
The statement raises important questions. Am I seeking affirmation from others when instead I need to give love? Can I love people more without requiring a return on the investment? The idea is tricky because it could easily slide into vanity, aloofness, but the intention is that as I become more secure in knowing that I am loved by God, I can deepen, heal, grow stronger. And out of that better place I can become more loving.
It’s my privilege and my pleasure to teach some of my favorite authors like J.R.R. Tolkien to university students. More often than not they come to me as ardent Tolkien fans. Sometimes they wonder, “Was he sexist? Maybe racist?” and such questions make for much needed discussion. (Essentially, my position on these two important questions is “No. No.”) But not once have I met a student who doubted the author’s love of nature: of trees, trees, and of all green growing things. This celebration of the natural world, together with the indomitable courage of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and wizards against the forces of darkness, inspires hope. Middle-earth is worth fighting for. There’s something sacred at stake here.
The phrase, “And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears,” from John Milton’s elegy “Lycidas” lingers in my mind as only a sorrowing beauty-filled thought can. Daffadillies, daffadillies—what lovely sounds to have roll off the tongue. Such beauty, and yet, yes, with such beauty, tears. Whole cups of tears, tears to overflowing.
“Weep no more . . . weep no more,
This would explain why the Canadian poet Al Purdy’s poem “A Handful of Earth” resonates with me. He writes,
Monika Hilder 