So, have you ever been in one of those places where you feel like you belong. Like you've grown up there. Where you've spent countless hours running through the woods and walking down the lanes. Where the sun shines a bit brighter and the rain falls a bit softer? "Perhaps," you think, "I might stay forever here and be happy always?" There's something bewitching about the way the shadows fall across the tire worn path out to the back field, the way the crooked fence stretches down beside it, holding back the pasture on its side, the way the leaves rustle in the still breeze. Something bewitching, and yet so real. My life away from here seems like the dream. The busy life in which we do so much, seems like it means nothing. Rather these lazy summer days seem so much more full. I long to photograph every shadow, every rock, every blade of grass, the field, the tree, the bird, the wind...but they are nothing in these pictures. I know this. I know that we can but live beauty like this; we can but let it raise us to higher things. We cannot keep it for ourselves, can we? Can we become part of it without making a god of it? In it is the glory of God, but it is not the glory of God. I lose sight of this. I would lie down in these green pastures never to rise again if i could. If only i could grasp even the tiniest bit of existence with which they overflow. Man is so much more alive, and yet i feel that we do not know it. We do not grow tall and grand like the maple, nor do we bow gently and beautifully like the hay; we dont even know the length to which a man can grow. There are so many possibilities, and yet, we can't even see one of those possibilities. These things are in possession of the fullness of their nature and yet they know nothing. We, we clever men, do not, at times, even know our own nature. How very ridiculous it is. How we fail to live up to the natural dignity of mankind, let alone to that dignity to which Christ raised us when he assumed our nature. I would stay here forever if it were only to remember this always. But I know man's place is not alone. Why do we like a tree better when it has a swing, a river better when it has a boat, a garden better when it has a bench? The very fact that a worn path and a fence can be poetry to me, speaks admittedly of our social nature. We must go back, if only to keep these things sacred. ...."I go to the hills, when my heart is lonely..." but it is not the staying in the hills that heals one. It is the coming back down that finally mends the heart. It is not the sleep before the big game that gives us glory and worth, even though it is essential. Likewise, it must be the work that we do when we come down from our 'real' world that purifies us, and the time spent among the beauties of the world, is that which refreshes us. I would stay here forever... but then I would long for my mountains and pines. And this place would become my world from which I would want to escape... The shadows would grow oppressive because of the sun that made them, the lanes would become confining because they lead always to the same places, the fence would turn bothersome because it needs attention. No, i will not stay here. But I will return so that I can remember. "My heart is restless..."
07-30-07
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