Wind is rattling in the range hood and the rain is drumming a brisk rhythm on the shingles. I mindlessly tap out the beat with my fingertips on my chest. I was a wide-eyed kid, when I lovingly nicknamed this island “windy Whidbey,” and so it has been since I can remember.
The bones of the house shift and groan beneath me and something inside me aligns; my body recalling all the summer nights spent camping as the wind gusted through the 5-acre forest on my parent’s property. Our old camper was parked on the grass, and we would lie awake listening to the rush of the wind against its metal siding, the creaking of the Douglas firs, and the thumping of small branches, pine cones, and needles hitting the roof. We would always say the trees looked like celery stalks as we huddled at the campfire watching the conifers lean back and forth. A memory recounted so many times sifts to the surface, my sister squealing in delight “look mom, the trees are dancing!” Even now in adulthood, my imagination can conjure them, this regal committee of elderly celery, discoursing amongst themselves in raspy voices as they sway to the music of the wind.
Truthfully though, the wind here is not always so forceful, it is often pleasant and gentle. The salty ocean air is clean and alpine fresh. Just a few days ago, my children and I were sprawled on a blanket in the middle of a field while the breeze tickled our faces. The fragrance of blooming wildflowers enveloped us in heavenly sweetness. We were counting birds and discussing billowing cumulus clouds as they marched across the sky. The silence was punctuated by shrill eagle cries, like a damp cleaning cloth squeaking down a window, and the occasional throaty ruckus of a raven. There were paint supplies scattered all around us and I was just lying there trying to soak it all in. It was one of those moments you wish could go on and on forever. Even now I bathe in the memory of that afternoon, tinged in gold around the edges, and I find I am grasping, reaching, trying to hold on to it.
Blurred in daydream, my eyes trace droplets as they race and glide down the glass pane. All the trees slant sideways in the wind, and I think I need to tilt the world a few degrees to the left to set it straight. A Hebrew phrase resonates somewhere deep in me, written by a wise king of old. He wrote that life is like רעוּת רוּח Reh-ooth‘ Rûach—“grasping at the wind.”1 I repeat the words out loud to myself, making sure that last consonant appropriately emerges from the back of my throat. If that doesn’t capture it all so accurately. I am a professional at this skill of “grasping at the wind.” I horde memories like trinkets, cling to them in photos and paintings, in journals and crumpled notes. I am desperate not to forget, not to let the goodness slip away. And yet life, much like the wind, slips between my fingers. I cannot travel back in time and stop it from moving on. The moments which hold the most substance tempt me to take hold of them, and yet all of my anxiety cannot strangle them into stillness.
In me wages the war I can never seem to completely overcome. I am fully present to wonder and delight, all my senses drinking in the beauty. And yet simultaneously that is when the clenching terror or the aching sorrow creeps in and grips me with the whisper of “… at any second this could all be gone.” I can be both entirely immersed in the moment while also acutely aware of its passing. I am grieving it’s ending while it is still happening. The golden-hued edges turn brown, crinkle, and disintegrate.
The fear of loss is often my unwelcome companion.
Is it the trauma of having witnessed so much suffering? Is it my personality? Is it just a part of the collective human experience as we age and grapple with our mortality and the fleeting passage of time? Yes to all of the above, and more I am sure.
Time and experience are patient teachers. With the wisdom of age, I am slowly becoming aware of my shadows, though I still have a long way to go. It is ironic and irritating how the least complicated truths are often the most difficult to put into practice. I tease out the thought, and it’s nothing wildly profound. It’s embarrassingly simple actually.
The fear of loss can only be replaced by trust.
This truth is settling into my soul. When I trust in the kindness of Christ, when I believe that he is ultimately working all things in all of creation towards wholeness, beauty, and restoration that is when I can lean back and experience the wonder of each moment, untainted by the fear of its passing. I am seeking to live this way, even when it is not easy.
I am choosing trust. And it is a choice. Love always offers a choice, because without choice, it is not love. But the opposing option that sits heavily in my other hand, the alternative to trust, is despair, constant anxiety, or at best dissociation that feels like happiness at times. Not much of a choice my head knows, and I am teaching my heart and aligning my actions with this belief.
I am trying to let trust outweigh my worry. Because even if I had the power to stop time, I know in my heart of hearts that doing so would actually steal its beauty.
I instinctively have always known that life is beautiful not in spite of its fragility, but because of it.
Like a breeze rustling the leaves, we can hear its whisper, feel its gentle touch, smell and taste the scent of it as it whirls by—but we cannot hold it captive. And because of that, it is rendered more precious. It is meant to be treasured, it’s sacred worth honored in every stage.
The tea kettle whistles in the kitchen and my feet hit the ground. I turn the dial off but let the kettle sit on the stovetop and hiss as I pace to the window and shove it open. A new truth is working its way out, fluttering in my gut as the wind tangles my hair and the rain sieves through the window screen. The tea seeps in, staining the water a rich amber.
רוּח Ruach means wind or breath, but it is also the Hebrew word used synonymously for Spirit.
My heart beats rapidly as I picture it, the wise king bowed his weary and remorseful head to the page as he recounted a futile life spent “grasping at the wind.” And I see it now so clearly as I suck in a shuddering breath—he grasped at the wrong wind.
It’s not that the grasping was wrong. Saint Augustine wrote that “the whole life of a good Christian is a holy longing.”2 We were made with longing etched into our genetic framework. It is innate, this holy desire, but it has been fractured and misplaced. We were created to reach, but not for these impermanent things—these temporary moments that pass us by, the quick fix, the dopamine-hits, everything that fills us with short-lived happiness but cannot sustain us.
I take a long sip and swallow. The earthy liquid warms me as it filters down, seeping into me.
I can choose where I grasp.
Like the wind, his Spirit “blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going…”3 I cannot control it, predict, or contain it to assuage my own fears. This is both terrifying and freeing all at once. The future is uncertain but that doesn’t mean it is unstable. Anxiety bows its head when I choose to trust.
All of my frantic grappling can be transformed into an adventure of discovery. I can stretch out my arms toward the eternal Wind, the One who is immovable, unshakeable, and always enough. My longing can find a center, a home, the place where it belongs. Like a child playfully thrusting their arms up towards a loving parent, this kind of grasping does not breed fear, instead it is secure.
So in the moments I find myself looking to clutch tightly, and also in the ones I wish would pass right on by, I am instead training my hands to release and reach out for his Spirit.
With a trembling voice I am asking,
“Where are you in all of this?”
And I am finding him, playing hide-and-seek with a parent who so desperately wants to be found.
Today’s wind is a wild, frigid, sideways thing. A far cry from the perfection of that summer day. But I will still pause for a minute and, with courage, let the gale blow through me. I will savor his presence as it passes through my fingers, through every strand of my hair and blade of grass humming in the breeze. I will let it rush into my lungs with each inhale and exhale. I will engage in a life spent straining and wrestling for more of him. A life spent grasping after his Spirit is never wasted.
1 Ecclesiastes 1:14
2 St. Augustine: Reflections on the First Letter of John
3 John 3:8
