...in the chaos, in the calm

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide thee,

though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see;

Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,

Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

---Reginald Heber, 1826

It has been a little while (ahem) since I last studied child development, so this week I did a bit of refreshing on the concept of ‘object permanence’. The theory behind object permanence is this: once human comprehension develops to a certain level, we can grasp the idea that objects can exist, even when we cannot see them. I was imagining that the age for developing this sense might be a year to 18 months old, and was surprised to find that current research supports a range of three to eight months as the time frame for this understanding to emerge. Imagine how terrifying a game of peekaboo would be for a young child with no sense of object permanence --- when you cover up your face, you are actually gone!

Though we would all agree that God is not object, this hymn suggests that a sense of object permanence is necessary in visioning Godself, for us individually and as a people. At times both the shadows of this world --- hate, violence, disregard, presumption --- and the shadows of our own souls --- hurt, fear, envy, pain, disappointment --- keep us from laying eyes on the glory, the evidence, of God’s presence with us. None of those shadows, though, none of them, keep the reality of God’s presence from us.

As we, then, whatever our stage of human or divine development, seek a sense of communion with Holiness, may we remember: seen or unseen, hidden or revealed, speaking or silent, God is with us, close as breath, holy.

...winter's clear anatomy

I love to see, when leaves depart,
The clear anatomy arrive.
Winter the paragon of art,
That kills all forms of life and feeling
Save what is pure and will survive.
---Roy Campbell

If you look out any window where you chance to be right now, odds are you'll see them. Tree skeletons. Tall ones, narrow as rails. Squat ones, bones a tangled mess. Huge ancient ones, central trunks it would take two of us, three, to embrace, with tired arms nearly sweeping the ground, full of stick bundles long abandoned for cozier, deeper climes. Looking, for all the world, like death. No life here, not in these bones.

But we know. We, who've been around the sun a few times ourselves. We know there is life in those dead-looking tree skeletons. We know they are resting, for a season. Waiting. We know that to count them out now, because they look done, finished, over, would be a grand mistake. We know the purest sort of life is hidden in that bareness, waiting for its time. Distilling, concentrating, becoming more itself, more true, the life waits.

Don't discount the bare trees of winter.