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From the synchronicity of contrasts can emerge strange beauty.
Such was my experience, years ago, while weekending at Cannon Beach, in northwest Oregon. It was July, mid-morning, the sun brilliancing the cloudless sky, and ocean breezes enlivening giant evergreens cascading to the warm sands behind me.
I paused to relish the immensity of this color-world tingling every cell in my body, then trekked toward the ocean, with its basalt Haystack Rock, two hundred and thirty-five feet tall, a haven for sea birds.
Again, I stopped breathless, knowing this monolith had been formed by lava flows emanating from the Blue Mountains and Columbia basin about sixteen million years ago. I blinked, hard, adjusted my sunglasses, and sat down. This was too much.
Then, several yards from me skittered sandpipers, soft waves teasing their clawed feet as their beaks searched for small invertebrates beneath wet sands. More joined them, flitting their small brown-white speckled wings.
The synchronicity of that natural setting contrasted with the fragile sandpipers and spoke of Creator God, in a new way.
It was 1881. A singing lark so fired the imagination of the British poet George Meredith that he composed The Lark Ascending, a paean of joy to his messenger from God, flitting and soaring above a summer meadow. When recited, listeners still pick up his song, a piece of which is quoted here:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake…
For singing till his heaven fills,
’Tis love of earth that he instills,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes…
That same year, the British Ralph Vaughn Williams, composer of classical music and a literary adept, happened upon Meredith’s poem, The Lark Ascending and using the same title, scored notes around his experience, featuring a solo violin and orchestra.
Both compositions still inspire: it’s as if the lark had jettisoned the words/notes that kept it in print, transporting listeners to idyllic fields in which Nature’s freshness invigorate languid spirits. In the face of such beauty, imaginations expand, eyes brighten, another song spirits our steps into the next moment. Again, we feel. Fortunate for us that Meredith and Williams were attuned to the lark’s gift, despite the evils of the Industrial Revolution, colonization, and World War I that besmirched many at that time.
Internally, our times are not that different. We have only to listen with open hearts to Beauty. Psychic transformation occurs, followed by gratitude for Life and new learning, and another day passes.
Imagine the terror of a ten-year-old boy suddenly facing the nozzle of a submachine gun held by an SS soldier, after having been slammed against the courtyard wall with its butt. It was Jo Joffo, waiting for his older brother on the Rue de Russie in Nazi-occupied Nice, France. It was summer, 1942. For over a month nasty inspectors interrogated him and his brother at the Excelsior Hotel until they were finally released. This experience ripped Jo Joffo from his childhood with its games of marbles and jacks, with ringing doorbells and other pranks.
This boy would later become a French author whose 1974 memoir A Bag of Marbles narrates this gripping flight to freedom, a hair-breath away from the enemy. So deep was the memoir’s appeal that it was translated into eighteen languages.
Such stories of survival still speak. From a safe distance, we observe and learn from others who have suffered heart-wrenching losses and survived murderous occupations of their countries. Yet, our times are not that different. Subtle forms of “occupation” still abound: social media, fake news, and addictive substances that manipulate attitudes, thoughts, and choices and keep spirits in bondage to Evil. Indeed, Jesus cautions us whenever we step outside our homes: “Be like sheep among wolves, cunning as serpents and yet as harmless as doves.” (Mt. 10:16)
The Plaza Frontenac Theater in St. Louis, Missouri, is currently showing the second film adaption of this memoir A Bag of Marbles; Christian Duguy directed it with English sub-titles.
Heart Whisperings 