Prairie grasses bend west toward the sea and I lean with them, tilting my head. My shins brush up against the tiny yellow flowers that are reaching out across the path and into the sunset. Birds flit from where I tread and little crawling things scurry into the crackling underbrush. I hear their retreat and absently wonder, what are you? Frog? Lizard? Rodent? Garter snake? Around a bend I stroll beside a swampy lake, with algae and foam coalescing at the edges. Is it salt or freshwater? I touch a finger dipped into the cool surface against my tongue. Salt. Mystery solved. A cracked mudflat mosaic stretches out before me and I test my weight upon it. I’m guessing at animals as my eyes run over the different prints splayed out around me. A sandpiper cries out overhead, “intruder!” And I am. The occasional group of chatting humans on the trail are much the same as the sandpiper views me, “intruders” busting into my private reverie. I lag behind and let them pass.
Looking up, I behold a cloud swirling endlessly inward on itself, like a snail shell. In front of me, a hunk of driftwood catches my eye above the tall grasses. It’s shaped like an elephant rearing up on its hind legs, majestic tusks piercing the sky. A few minutes later, the angle changes as I move ahead. It loses its animal form, reduced to just a log. The snail cloud too is unrecognizable now, another wispy cirrus in the atmosphere.
The ocean comes into view, and I hear before I see, a flock of seagulls screaming as they descend hungrily onto a school of herring at the water’s surface. A feeding frenzy. An apt name, because they are a frenzy of wings beating amongst kelp.The furious cacophony of passion lasts a few minutes. Then it’s done, and I am again bathed in silence. The waves and the wind rustling the dry grass remain as white noise punctuated by the hum of crickets.
My soul swells.
The beauty of nature inspires it to loose it’s bonds, and my mind, as it is want to do, chases it. I’m running, my thoughts like the bumblebees racing my dusty shoes as they pad the soft, sandy path. My consciousness is stretching out with grasping hands, trying to get in and around the mysterious expansion. To comprehend, explain, and know. And that’s the ultimate frustration of this existence, that it cannot. That my finite mind cannot keep up with an infinite soul. And my flesh groans at the incongruence.
I reach out uncontrollably with fingertips that dance across dried weeds, picking off heads and lifting them like offerings out into the wind. They blow away, light and airy. I will do the same one day, my flesh an empty husk born away on a breeze. I fear the end of my body, and yet also fear the unending infinity of my spirit. And I know it’s true, that what my mind cannot wrap in understanding, it fears. But for now, in this moment, I absorb the last rays of this summer evening. I suck in the salty sea air. I allow the Spirit of God, my familiar friend to walk beside me and within me. My soul unfurls into the majesty of the world around me that He created, for His delight and my pleasure, and I don’t try to make sense of it. I soak in each new wonder as it passes before my eyes. I hover with Him in this place beyond knowing, where all the beauty comes and goes but is never actually gone. “All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16b-17). This I repeat, until my anxiety stills.
And I hear the question I’ve heard so often lately, like a chant in pockets of stillness. More loudly as I lay in bed at night and recount the events of each day. My daily examen. The words are gentle, and yet they reverberate in my core, in a way that only His voice can.
“Did you live?”
My memory recalls: morning, quiet time, family, routines, school, work, outside, errands, exercise, activities, food, people, bedtime, etc. Each day a little different, but still largely the same. I flip through it all.
“But did you live?”
I know what He means without having to ask. Did you slow down and eliminate distraction? Did you savor the gift of being fully alive?
Snuggles from tiny, warm bodies wrapped in arms. The yeasty aroma of fresh bread. The intricacies of tree bark and the muted brushstrokes of a cloudy sky. The distinct timbre of a familiar voice, the vibrations of its depth. The child’s story that runs on an on with giggles throughout. An ocean breeze tickling wispy, stray hairs. Tangy acidic coffee with just a hint of sweet and cream. The lilting laugh of a friend and the way she tosses back her head a little to the left. Dirt-caked hands from pulling last year’s garlic, now chopped and ready for tonight’s supper. The scent of sweet peas wafting through an open window. Sipping and chewing while the flavors of a home-cooked meal envelop me. The bright green hints in my love’s eyes. Smooth skin traced with roughened fingertips. Cool, cotton sheets. A bright, starry sky.
“Did you live?”
A mantra for me to remember to be fully present. To allow my soul the freedom to compose poetry instead of well-formed theses. Because this is the part of me that is infinite, and it must be nurtured. The sun dips lazily behind the bluff and I shut out everything else. I admire it with the whole of my being. I live.
