Lessons and Carol
This evening I participated in a beautiful Christmas ceremony at the Vassar Chapel; led by my friend Sam Speers, the service was very much a homage to a God who, as Thomas Merton has written, is out of place in this world. “His place is with those who don’t belong, / Who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, / Those who are discredited, / Who are denied the status of persons, / Who are tortured, bombed, and exterminated.” What I found moving among all those human voices singing and praying together was Sam’s repeated invocation of spirituality as a blessing or grace–not as politics or its deathly absence, but instead, among darkening days, and amidst doubt, as an opening up to love and light.
I read out aloud to the congregation a poem chosen by the Reverend; it is “The Hammock” by Li-Young Lee, whose closing lines are:
Between two unknowns, I live my life.
Between my mother’s hopes, older than I am
by coming before me. And my child’s wishes, older than I am
by outliving me. And what’s it like?
Is it a door, and a good-bye on either side?
A window, and eternity on either side?
Yes, and a little singing between two great rests.
“A window, and eternity on either side?
Yes, and a little singing between two great rests.”
Lovely. I expressed a similar sentiment a few months ago in writing of:
“Whales passing
through the eye of a needle, this life,
this life that’s flanked
by eternities.”
And that, itself, was (I now see) a subconscious echo of Nabokov’s formulation at the beginning of “Speak, Memory”:
“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”
Comment by Teju — December 4, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
This was lovely, and a welcome read for those who are at the crossroads. .
Comment by Naveeda — December 4, 2006 @ 2:51 pm
It reminds me of a verse in Scripture: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” ecclesiastes 3:11
I love the idea that as humans we long for things that are lasting, and our lives are nestled in the little space that is now, between all of history and all of the future.
Comment by Brooke — December 5, 2006 @ 12:23 am