Driving Trappe backroads I had to stop the car on a small bridge, mid-conversation, just to take in the scene. To recognize and capture the moment: the mist on the river, the slick calm surface of the water, the way the sun froze everything in time, just for a second.
“… After the kingfisher’s wing
T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, “Four Quartets”
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.”
That’s how Eliot puts those iridescent moments–they can become the still point of a turning world. If there are a handful of books that we get sent back to over and over again in the course of our lives, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” is one of those books for me.
This weekend it was Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples,” that sent me either down the chute or up the ladder to the kingfisher’s wing. Williams compared prayer to birdwatching (two things I dig and want to spend more time doing). He said:
“I’ve always loved that image of prayer as birdwatching. You sit very still because something is liable to burst into view, and sometimes of course it means a long day of sitting in the rain with nothing very much happening. I suspect that, for most of us, a lot of our experience is precisely that. But the odd occasions when you do see what T.S. Eliot (in section IV of ‘Burnt Norton’) called ‘the kingfisher’s wing’ flashing ‘light to light’ make it all worthwhile. And I think that living in this sort of expectancy–living in awareness, your eyes sufficiently open and your mind both relaxed and attentive enough to see when it happens–is basic to discipleship.”
And that’s it–having our minds and hearts open and expectant, so that we can catch those moments when they happen. Eliot pointed it out for me years ago, Williams reminded me and sent me back to Eliot, but God presents us with those moments every day.
Running through John Ford Park on a Friday morning after a Thursday night rain, and a magnolia blossom all but audibly called out to be noticed and appreciated. It’s so easy to put my head down and pass those moments by, but thankfully I am easily led when it comes to opportunities to marvel and wonder.
Another one of those books to return to countless times over a lifetime is Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” particularly “Song of Myself.”
“Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
pass all the art and argument of the earth”
Have you had those feelings, possibly brought on by those kingfishers’ wing moments that we happen to catch? When you are sitting there, drinking in the day, firehose style, where you know you are missing a lot of what you are trying to take in, and you breathe, and look over and the moment transforms into a feeling and you are in it and it is in you.
