Sky-ward Windows

I started off this week, recognizing how often my mind wanders during the day, how in the rush of my chaotic life, my thoughts of God are most of the time nothing more than a far-off sense, something I push farther away so I can respond to the pressing social interactions around me. But each day this week, I tried to grasp that far-off sense when it rose up to the surface of my consciousness, and to hold it in my mind until it came closer, its vague outline sharpening into tangibility and realness. And after praying to God, I truly did feel the Holy Spirit prompting me during the day and giving me the mental strength to grasp hold of his hand. Sometimes, I can get discouraged with how little I'm able to truly keep awake in my spirit-- to keep awake to the invisible kingdom realities swirling around me each day-- sometimes, my day-to-day life feels as though it's one grand sweep of sleeping, spiritual oblivion. But as Emilie Griffin reminds me, "The Lord loves us-- perhaps most of all-- when we fail and try again." There will be moments when the world lulls us to sleep, but no matter how many times that happens, the important thing is to recognize it and lift our eyes upwards instead. George MacDonald writes,

"I can no more than lift my weary eyes;

Therefore I lift my weary eyes-- no more.

But my eyes pull my heart, and that, before

'Tis well awake, knocks where the conscience lies;

Conscience runs quick to the spirit's hidden door:

Straightaway, from every sky-ward window, cries

Up to the Father's listening ears arise"

--from "Diary of an Old Soul: January 24th"

I love the chain of happenings MacDonald illustrates so beautifully here. Even when our sleepy eyes betray us, our mere desire to look upward pulls at our hearts, which in turn knocks on the door of our conscience and lo! we are awake. There seem to be mysterious movements in our unconscious before even the thought that there may be skies above us can surface consciously in our minds. Surely, if our eyes want to look upward, there must be something there. The eyes feel that there must be something above them to see and the heart feels there must be something beyond it to cry out to, however unknown these things are to our mind. Somehow, MacDonald seems to be saying that the concrete thought of there being a something more which we can cry out to isn't independent in and of itself, but that thought relies on the feeling and senses working upon us in the quiet, shifting depths of our unconscious self.

Henri Nouwen writes, "Somehow, somewhere, I know that he loves me, even though I do not feel that love as I can feel a human embrace, even though I do not hear a voice as I hear human words of consolation, even though I do not see a smile as I can see a human face. Still the Lord speaks to me, looks at me, and embraces me there, where I am still unable to notice it. The only way I become aware of his presence is in that remarkable desire to return to that quiet chapel and be there without any real satisfaction [...] God is greater than my senses, greater than my thoughts, greater than my heart. I do believe that he touches me in places that are unknown even to myself. I seldom can point directly to these places; but when I feel this inner pull to return again to that hidden hour of prayer, I realize that something is happening that is so deep that it becomes like the riverbed through which the waters can safely flow and find their way to the open sea" (from "Gracias!").

Nouwen is describing a moment of prayer where he feels that God is distant from him, and I would include in this the other moments we can feel distant from God, such as a busy day or even when we’re grieving.

I have sensed, in my own mind, this vague awareness, this feeling that there is something above me, beyond me, something more for me to see, and I have felt this certain something pulling on me. It's important for us to drag these senses and feelings out into the light of our consciousnesses, to recognize that it was the feeling of something beyond and above which knocked on our mind's door in the first place, even before all those longings for love, knowledge, beauty, truth, before longings for anything really surfaced in our thoughts, our unconscious self felt the pull of the One who satisfies all longings. And when we consciously acknowledge those primal pulls for God on our unconscious, then the strongest most yearning pull of all washes over us and wakes us up. The longing for Him, once it is consciously seen moving beneath the surface of our other longings, is somehow both a yearning and an assurance. When we plunge into the depths of that yearning, letting it overtake us, we not only recognize the invisible, yet very real sweeping skies of that kingdom above us, but we realize it is accessible to us and then our spirit flings wide every upward-facing window to cry out to the One pulling on us, our Father, who hears us. All of this makes me think of a poem I wrote as a freshman in college when I realized how often I can keep my head down during the day:

"To have the sprawling sky stretch out in eternity above you

To bend your neck and turn your eyes to stare into its face

To allow its depths to discern and make sense of your depths in one long gaze

To smile and know in your soul that there is indeed a pattern and a plan and that there is,

somehow,

contained in that heighth and breadth,

a smile of showering stars that showers just for you

To revel in the lovely for just one,

contained

moment and know that,

somehow,

It is enough.

That very same eternity is enough for this moment, and,

somehow,

is enough for every moment.

Enough.

But what is it that stirs within me?

It seems that I am on the brink of that place where boundlessness abounds--

The thought that such an eternity is with me always,

ever stretching its starry smile of a blessing over my head,

enveloping me in its gaze--

My soul has been crystallized and all is clarity.

What was once unfinished is now sunfinished."

When I am out on walks, I often have the thought that the sky and the air and the stars are working upon my soul and I truly believe that merely being out among them does wonders for me, however invisible and intangible. When that thought of God makes its way into our minds during the day, I believe we're getting a glimpse of the sky stretching above us, and if we hold on to that thought, letting it blossom into conscious prayer, the windows will be flung wide and all of a sudden, we're in God's world, his kingdom place. Our desire, belief, faith is a window into the unseen and prayer opens it. No longer will the earth's sky stretch above our heads, but the heavens' skies, eternal and infinite, will sweep around our heads and swirl around in our minds, so inwardly precious that nothing can ever take it away from us. And the more we grasp hold of that thought, that sense of God's presence, the more we open our ears to listen to his words and open our eyes to see his hand working among us, then the more we are opening our souls up to that grand sky above us, and allowing ourselves to be worked upon. When we let ourselves be worked upon like this, we will still have moments of slumber where we are not consciously praying or fully engaged in looking up (we have to live in the world, after all), but he is working on us still. The more time we spend with him in our conscious minds, the more he will work upon our unconscious. The stronger the pull will be. And then, even when we do not know it, we are being pulled nearer and nearer to him.

"No wonder we do not lose heart! Though our outward humanity is in decay, yet day by day we are inwardly renewed. Our troubles are slight and short-lived; and their outcome an eternal glory which outweighs them far. Meanwhile our eyes are fixed, not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen: for what is seen passes away; what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly frame that houses us today should be demolished, we possess a building which God has provided -- a house not made by human hands, eternal, and in heaven. In this present body we do indeed groan; we yearn to have our heavenly habitation put on over this one -- in the hope that, being thus loathed, we shall not find ourselves naked. We groan indeed, we who are enclosed within this earthly frame; we are oppressed because we do not want to have the old body stripped off. Rather our desire is to have the new body put on over it, so that our mortal part may be absorbed into life immortal. God himself has shaped us for this very end; and as a pledge of it he has given us the Spirit” (2nd Corinthians 4:16-18 ; 5:1-5).