Grandeur beyond what we’ve contrived
The force of human nature, driven by fear and guilt, insists on owning, possessing and controlling everything on earth that isn’t nailed down. Here in Southern California, I often join with others who materialize at dusk to witness something different: the sun setting over the Pacific. Finally, something of value that can’t be nailed down! That human nature, yearning to complete itself, yearning for Love, can’t own, possess or control.
We can only watch grandeur beyond what we’ve contrived pass out of sight into fading belief. An elusive hint of what is ours if only we knew how to hold it. To welcome it, cradle and appreciate it, without getting in the way of it. Is it possible? We hear the Call for Love, and every day we’re drawn to the last of its light. Left to wonder: What does it mean? What have we lost? Where has it gone?
The use our senses were meant for
Any time we’re moved by sentiment
that wells up from a work of art, like a thing seen
heard or apprehended, a sight, sound, or thought
that moves us
Anytime we’re transported by feeling
from where we thought we were to somewhere else
that belongs to another moment
that gently, imperceptibly replaces alone with not alone
Anytime we feel haunted by Beauty
overcome by the force of its call, captured by a joyous
familiarity we once knew and lost
We hear a Call for Love.
A thing that’s always with us but beyond reach
A thing sensed but from a great distance
Experienced but not in the Here and never in the Now.
As though all of our senses are put to the use
they were meant for without making a mark
or leaving a trace. A thing unknowable and undetectable.
Yet better known and recognized than anything
we’ve ever known or recognized before
Essence so pure, so complete and perfect
in its definition that we’re sure of it,
until we reach out for the Who of it and it’s gone.
The what, where, when, Why, and how of it
Slipped away.
The setting Sun we can’t summon back that,
God willing, will come back another day.