Wind Chimes
Some unseen presence flits about the far end tunnels of my heart and mind. I lie on the bed and the clock ticks in the same tempo as the sense of my life being lived now and my life lived before and my life to be lived in the far off horizons…where my eyes grow dim with the hidden veil of time. It seems that the November melancholy has took my mind’s eye and, after squeezing and wrenching it in painful grappling, now hovers it, suspending it over my life like a benevolent cloud of hope and good wishes.
I do not know what to make of this great fire-wielding organ within my chest. I don’t know what to make of this heart. For it seems as though infused with the vibrant charges of life. Life unexhausted, life superb and sublime, unadulterated and unbound life….the heart knows its rhythm as it blends into the sounds around. The steady thud, the fulsome beat, they pant in some life-crazed, whirling beat. Life that beams its fitful thrust like the concentrated light on the seat of memory. Or in the open-windowed meadows of our hopes and dreams when the skies are ripped open to the blessed sunlight.
I just got off the phone with a friend and the stories that are told and the themes that are pronounced breaks upon the bitter, grey days of late autumn like a fresh wind tearing the dullness from the dismal setting…and I think upon the person I was and the person I am now…and the person to be…and the change in anything and everything….and how little we all are…and how big another One is….and all the while the wind-chimes outside my window this November midnight are being swept along by the fierce winds in some delicate harmony of serene joy. While I lie on my bed staring at the ceiling trying to make sense of it all…the theme of life quakes and rocks within my chest. I attempt to call it by name but it is too big, too unfathomable, much too untamable with words. It has something to do with the molding of rhythm of all that’s around and its source all trickling down, now, in melodious measures. The clock ticks on and on into the endless highways of the future. Its marching waltz flees from the present mistaking it for the past. How each tick should frighten me into action and deem one last breath breathed. I’ve tasted of this thought and it leaves one not caring to get up in the mornings.
-But I still hear the wind-chimes tingling their songs of solace against winter’s chilling roar and its chorus is one of simple sublimity in the fearsome brawl of storms. If only I could hold onto this song, this music and melody, and forget the darkening pinches that can fall on the mind in the midst of this gargantuan life. Then let the wolfish winds howl and the savage gusts unleash their flailing fury upon me….and may I, in a creative mirror-image, sing on of hope and light and love and joy and laughter….of peaceful day and the sublime night…of gold-traced memories uncapped and unkempt visions bright.
I do not know what to make of this great fire-wielding organ within my chest. I don’t know what to make of this heart. For it seems as though infused with the vibrant charges of life. Life unexhausted, life superb and sublime, unadulterated and unbound life….the heart knows its rhythm as it blends into the sounds around. The steady thud, the fulsome beat, they pant in some life-crazed, whirling beat. Life that beams its fitful thrust like the concentrated light on the seat of memory. Or in the open-windowed meadows of our hopes and dreams when the skies are ripped open to the blessed sunlight.
I just got off the phone with a friend and the stories that are told and the themes that are pronounced breaks upon the bitter, grey days of late autumn like a fresh wind tearing the dullness from the dismal setting…and I think upon the person I was and the person I am now…and the person to be…and the change in anything and everything….and how little we all are…and how big another One is….and all the while the wind-chimes outside my window this November midnight are being swept along by the fierce winds in some delicate harmony of serene joy. While I lie on my bed staring at the ceiling trying to make sense of it all…the theme of life quakes and rocks within my chest. I attempt to call it by name but it is too big, too unfathomable, much too untamable with words. It has something to do with the molding of rhythm of all that’s around and its source all trickling down, now, in melodious measures. The clock ticks on and on into the endless highways of the future. Its marching waltz flees from the present mistaking it for the past. How each tick should frighten me into action and deem one last breath breathed. I’ve tasted of this thought and it leaves one not caring to get up in the mornings.
-But I still hear the wind-chimes tingling their songs of solace against winter’s chilling roar and its chorus is one of simple sublimity in the fearsome brawl of storms. If only I could hold onto this song, this music and melody, and forget the darkening pinches that can fall on the mind in the midst of this gargantuan life. Then let the wolfish winds howl and the savage gusts unleash their flailing fury upon me….and may I, in a creative mirror-image, sing on of hope and light and love and joy and laughter….of peaceful day and the sublime night…of gold-traced memories uncapped and unkempt visions bright.
posted by Brian Harrison | 7:47 PM
11 Comments:
Brian,
I haven't approved your latest comments for moderation yet because the tone of respect and thoughtfulness I'd like to keep conversation on my blog up to wasn't met (see the Rule section please). I would welcome a revision of your post with those principles in mind.
I would however point out that 'us atheists' tended to spend time arguing about the concept of God only after you (strongly advocating statements like "Real truth will always go beyond what is in our own faculties to assimulate" which clearly do not live up to our standards of argumentation). Also, I would point out that the concept of God, and your devotion to it, is relevant to atheists because of the impact it has had (both positive and negative) on ethics, politics, America's foreign policy, stem cell research, the teaching of evolutionary facts in schools, and on and on ad nauseum.
Conversely, if you are so certain about God, why do you spend time trying to prove him to others?
I find it interesting that you, Brett, of all people, talk about respect and thoughtfulness for others. Why do we spend time trying to prove God to others? Because He means that much to us. Because we feel the need, the pull, to share with you that He is the only one you can rely on, the only one who will never leave you, the only one who will satisfy you. He is everything to us, and we want Him to be everything to you. That is why we try to prove Him to you. He is our passion. And we feel a passion to share Him with others.
anonymous (I don't know who you are, so I can't make a snide remark back),
I know exactly why you want to share your idea of God. Reciprocally, I hope you can understand why I value what I believe is the truth as well. What amuses me is Brian's apparent amazement when others who don't share his view enjoy spending time discussing and defending their views. He should understand why someone's beliefs are important to them.
Sorry, Brett, that I got to you. I will refrain from making you look foolish in front of others.
I'm glad that 'getting to people' is your preferred method for furthering the cause of Christ.
If you'd like to legitimately respond to my arguments, I'd be happy to hear it.
I was never planning on getting to you. -But there were, I'm sure, others, on your blog that probably needed a vivid picture of your assumptions. And so a vivid picture I painted them. Which in accordance with that, now that you brought this to my blog, I will paint you a vivid potrayal of what I see...
"Tone of Respect"? You can't be serious. I take it that when you say respect...you are refering to some since of fairness. So what's it to you if one sack of guts steps across a threshold of another sack of guts. The thing that has me amazed is where in this geological habitat are you getting this threshold from and this idea that we all owe each other respect? If you're gonna go and throw the sacred baby out, you might as well throw out the sacred bath water with it.
Stick to your principles and be a man. Toughen up. Don't cower back on values that you do not believe to be there. You're like a little boy who plays pirate. But the second that the boy is cast out to sea to plunder and kill and be hanged...suddenly, he becomes sea-sick and maybe contemplates that if he stayed on land...and maybe only stole when he knew he could get away with it then he could still be something of a pirate and escape the gallows.
But what I say to you. If you are going to play pirate, dang it, be a pirate, and stop picking and choosing which values will guard your own ego. And if you're gonna have values and morals then find a system and submit your life to it.
How can you complain, if tomorrow some confused man decided to stab you and then make your carcass into Chop Suey? What room in your speculations do you have that he in anyway violated you. After all, the man was just hungry (a biological fact). He was stronger than you to overpower you (a Darwinian fact)and he carried it all out with firm resolution. (a positivistic fact.) The man was just surviving and he ended up being the fittest. So as far as you should be concerned...you have absolutely nothing to complain about. Unless the fact that you were not the stronger of the two to overpower him.
And now, you cry, "respect and thoughtfulness." As though you were all the while shadow boxing. Not accepting that even your own ideas would punch back.
Well I can assure you Brett that I know exactly who you are and what I said wasn't a snide comment, but fact. But feel free to make up a snide comment to leave me anyway. I do understand that what you think is truth. However, I happen to think that you are wrong. But you probably think the same thing about me, so it appears that we are at an impass. I'm going to make a huge assumption and say that you probably don't know Brian well or at all to believe that he can't appreciate a discussion with those who don't share his views. I don't think it really matters if one person or ten thousand people legitimately respond to your arguments, Brett. You seem to a) have already made up your mind and b) think yourself (I apologize for my directness)above others.
Brian,
Sorry, I should not have brought this here, but rather should have emailed you privately with my comments.
I am however concerned about your motivation. Mine is to make people think, and engage in conversation with those who I disagree with when it can be productive (note my continuing dialogue with Phil Edwards on several posts on my site). If your goal is to bring me or others to faith in Jesus, is this the most effective use of your time?
Anonymous,
passing judgment from behind a veil of anonymity takes no courage whatsoever. I certainly think myself above that.
Good snide comment! I'm impressed. And way to go on avoiding the issues I brought up.
If you'd like honest talk, take off your mask and email me. I don't play confession with strangers, and I certainly don't feel that I owe an explanation to one.
Post a Comment
<< Home