Swan Joy

Joy is a longing,
a passageway with the white wingbeat of swans overhead,
and the silent current of a spring river beneath.
You cannot live in water or air, and yet they push and lift you into realms of beauty and desire,
so much the more powerful for their being out of reach.

Joy is this pulling of the soul right out of the body and onto the swan's back,
a dreamscape more alive than your waking vision.
It is forever captured in your mind's eye,
a trumpet call from a far country,
which even now sets your feet dancing on the rippled water,
dazzled by the bright sun toward which you run.

Joy is the elemental force you cannot contain,
yet which defines your every movement,
now from beneath, now from above,
the wave that buoys,
the wind that breathes,
the holy, humbling wild of spring unleashed.



This poetic reflection draws on C.S. Lewis's understanding of joy as desire, and is formed by memories of canoeing down the Salt River with my father one spring. In an afternoon I will never forget, we set up a tarp sail and the wind carried us downstream toward hundreds of white tundra swans that had returned to the river. As we neared, they rose up by the dozens and dozens, and flew overhead to resettle behind us. We were surrounded. I look back on that day as a gift of beatific vision. 


~lg

The Fear of Longing

We have been walking this road a long time, and have seen a thing or two, oh yes. We weren't born yesterday. We have been through too many reality checkpoints. Hope can be a dangerous thing in this day and age. We manage just fine without it, feet on solid ground.

And so we have come to a smiling, sterile place where we are afraid to long.

Afraid to long?

Yes, that is it. It's not worth the taste of disappointment.

For that has been the result of my thirst. A mouth full of sawdust. So I have learned to take the hunger pangs and paralyze them like so many moths in a spider's web. I have made a web to catch the longing before it takes wing.

Afraid to long?

Yes. I fear where the longing may lead. Out on a limb and into the dark where I have no map. What if it leads to a place where there is no choice but metamorphosis because the ground beneath my feet is no more?

Afraid to long?

Yes, because my discontent may mark me as a stranger. What if my comforts no longer soothe? What if my qualifications no longer serve? What if my riches are no longer palatable? What if my cultural cocoon is no longer habitable? Oh then, I may have to search for another kingdom.

But here's the thing - when the emptiness of a life without longing confronts me in unexpected moments, the despair is too great. I know it will crush me.

Beauty calls, and it is like thunder. A change is coming on the wind.

If you feel hope calling, why not consider a little journey to Bethlehem? 

Abraham's Advent is a four week Advent devotional which follows the footsteps of one who knew what it was like to be a stranger in a strange land. Your copy is available here. 

~lg