So, over the course of just about a week or so, where I live, we’ve gone from blizzard-like conditions, to super-jogger-friendly 80+ degree sunniness, and back to considerable big-flake (and, I must say, rather beautiful) snow again today. I realize that’s just the way Spring is, but it’s felt like a fitting context within which to ponder the idea of stability irrespective of circumstance.

It felt striking, earlier this week, listening to a podcast partly about the fortitude and persistence expressed by Johann Sebastian Bach after the tragic loss of his ability to hear. While I have pondered this before, of course, because I’ve been giving so much thought lately to how sight-oriented were St. John’s revelatory writings on the Island of Patmos despite physical surroundings and conditions, Bach’s receptivity to and insistence on producing such divine-sounding melodies touched my heart in a new way. How did he, and how did St. John for that matter, not only continue not only to progress, but accelerate, in their journeys of discovery and expression despite seemingly insurmountable and jarring resistance?

Pondering this, I felt inspired to listen more intently to some of Bach’s most famous compositions and felt reminded of how deepened a more informed appreciation for Vincent Van Gogh felt several years ago as described here and here. This is a gift I am enjoying that is from my friend, I find myself sometimes feeling. Having used to consider artistic artifacts to be little more than sawdust only a little bit descriptive of the spiritual exploration from which their existence arises, lately I’ve begun to understand them to be more like breadcrumbs with much greater meaning.

More and more frequently, anytime I seem to encounter challenging – and, sometimes, very challenging – circumstances, I remind myself of the idea that whatever I experience in life, on some level, and perhaps even before I was born, I agreed to in advance. I know that, in A Course in Miracles, for example, this kind of agreement is often characterized as a sort of self-sabotage; and I feel I understand that. But, I am not certain this is always necessarily the case (nor do I always feel certain of the Course’s meaning on this topic). I wonder often whether some people encounter particular difficulties precisely because they love the world so much that they are willing to go through them with an eye toward healing – for their own sake, of course, but for others’ as well. I suppose both can be true.

So often, there seems such a tendency for an ideal, and even transcendental, existence to be characterized as being “wild” and “free.” But, I wonder, do these terms really necessarily have anything to do with one another?

Lately, I suppose because I find it comforting in some ways, I’ll occasionally put the “Heartland” channel on background when doing other things. But, increasingly, I find it important to take pause and acknowledge how I am feeling anytime there is talk of “gentling,” or even “breaking,” a horse. Who who has observed herds of “wildies” in nature wouldn’t chafe at the idea?

But, at the same time, I find the practice as an analogy relevant to what may be termed the taming of the ego, or the confrontation of any tendency to experience negative emotion as the process can sometimes feel a little like staying on a bucking horse.

I’m so grateful to be “friends” with some of the habituated wildlife who live outside my bedroom window, and I loved being able to respond to a window knock earlier today, mid-snowstorm, from beautiful Remy with a gift of birdseed. I’m so happy he and they live outside where they can fly wherever and whenever they want, of course. Personally, though, and in terms of my growth spiritually and correlate, increasing, sense of freedom, I”m not sure I want to exactly be “wild.”

A recently-aired episode of “Heartland” showed main character Amy dreaming repeatedly of an otherwise mundane moment with her family shortly after becoming widowed and I related to it so directly. Not that I have ever been married, much less widowed, but because of the way it felt, especially for the first few years after seeming to lose so much of what had externally felt indigenous and comforting to me in my life and career. For a very long time, not feeling fully able to understand why it felt almost impossible to see the restoration of the idea of career, home, and relationships in some form, I dreamed often of the mundane, but still loved, moments of my life before agreeing to work for the Larry King Live organization.

I remember having felt so at home, not necessarily in the presence of a particular physical home, job, or person, but, having felt I’d truly given my life over to God, just reveling in a sense of confidence He was the author of my life, feeling happy in general about this so consistently over a period of years, and seeing part after part after part of my life simply seem to fit into place. I recall feeling so carefree – not knowing what life held for me next in terms of work, community, whether or when I would meet someone I’d like to date, or very much of anything else – but loving the idea expressed in the John Mayer song (then a new release!) Why Georgia, not only because I, too, always seemed to be driving up 85 but because the ballad was written as a question. The songwriter didn’t know the answer, clearly, but he did know there was Someone to whom it would be worth directing it. In the same way, not having all the answers in my life was actually comforting to me because I didn’t want to be the source of them.

So often, after agreeing to work for the Larry King Live organization and regretting the decision sorely, I wondered, why, why, if I’ve learned my lesson, do I not seem to be experiencing a fuller sense of restoration in so many areas of my life? Part of the answer, of course, I believe, was that there was more to my lesson than I first realized. But, I sometimes wonder even still whether there is more to it than that. Perhaps there was and is some deeper part of me that, despite surface feelings was and is actually willing to have gone through all this because the benefit – both for myself and others – may be so worthwhile. The answer to this question certainly does seem to continue to be playing out, but I still do not feel abandoned by God by a longshot.

Earlier this week, I happened to be sitting in the lobby of the church my family has attended for four generations now while the violin soloist played a beautiful hymn and, for some reason relating to the aesthetic of the ironwork, I believe, felt touched in a new way by the tale of the musicians who played their song so faithfully right up until the sinking of the Titanic. Not because, under most circumstances, I believe their course of action would define wisdom, exactly, but because, under theirs, it expressed love so kindly – not only to those around whom they were surrounded but even to hearers of their story today.

I’m grateful that, despite what sometimes seem to be challenging circumstances, my ability to lean on God increasingly – and mercifully – feels just as intact and comforting as ever; and I guess it makes sense. God is closer to me than any person or thing has ever been or could ever be. And we’re much more, of course, than just in some kind of question and answer dialogue. We’re even more than going steady.

Two kinds of sacrifice

He seemed not just not to welcome me but to almost actively hate based on my appearance alone

Church leaders rail against race