to know the dark

i was introduced to a lovely poem today by wendell berry. has some of gerard manley's magic to it. (that lovely moment when he says "with ah! bright wings" in God's grandeur)

i have always felt that i was supposed to love light and hate darkness. and that any inclination in me towards darkness was wrong. but there's something about evening that is lovely to me in a way that morning is not. something magical about an ending that is not yet the end. and this poem words a bit of that loveliness that lies even in darkness.

to know the dark
by wendell berry

to go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
to know the dark, go dark. go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

imagination

driving home the other night, thinking about words, i realized that people often use the word 'imagination' to degrade, cheapen or void what someone has said, thought or dreamed.

"you only imagined that."
"it was just your imagination."
"and how do you imagine that's ever going to happen?"

imagination is infused with hope and faith, none of which can be fully seen, explained or understood. it is not easy to hold this mysterious gift loosely; it can be confusing and lonely. but without it, i wonder if we kill off one of the central parts of our identities as God's children -- that of creators.



as a lovely British man i met once said, "dreams? God loves dreams. He's so good with them." He's certainly much better than i am. He breathes life into dreams, lets them grow into bigger things than i would ever trust, doesn't hedge them in mercilessly, or make them dependent on a list of ten steps.

from phantastes by george macdonald:

"do you not know me? but you hurt me, and that, i suppose makes it easy for a man to forget. you broke my globe. yet i thank you. perhaps i owe you many thanks for breaking it. i took the pieces, all black, and wet with crying over them, to the fairy queen. there was no music and no light in them now. but she took them from me, and laid them aside, and made me go to sleep... when i woke in the morning, i went to her, hoping to have my globe again, whole and sound, but she sent me away without it, and i have not seen it since. nor do i care for it now. i have something so much better i do not need the globe to play to me, for i can sing. i could not sing at all before. now i go about everywhere through fairy land, singing till my heart is like to break, just like my globe, for very joy at my own songs. and wherever i go, my songs do good, and deliver people..."

she went like a radiance through the dark wood, which was henceforth bright to me, from simply knowing that such a creature was in it. she was bearing the sun to the unsunned spots. the light and the music of her broken globe were now in her heart and her brain.

words

words are important to me. each one has its own meaning. this can be altered by context or nuance; by tone or additional body language, if spoken. but people seem to have forgotten that words have meaning. they toss them about, misuse them, overuse them, until they become meaningless. or trite.

the other day i was about to remark that something was wonderful when i simply meant it was good. to be wonderful, a person or thing should be full of wonder. or full of something that incites wonder. if we only used 'wonderful' to describe such people or things, i kind of feel the world would be a better place. this is a tiny example, an almost ridiculous one. yet to me there is something sad about words not really meaning anything any more.

if people actually did what they said they would do, they wouldn't have to swear or promise or prove. they'd just do it.

i choose my words & try to mean what i say but sometimes it seems pointless because if people discard or cheapen meanings are they hearing any of what i intended? nevertheless, i am going to try and reclaim 'wonderful'.