Peering Through a Mist
The smoky haze arrived a week ago, a haze so thick we can no longer see the mountains. Now the sky is heavy with grey smog, the sun choked, the majestic Rockies hidden from view.
Did you know a few months into lockdowns, when the world slowed and cities shuttered, when factories ceased churning out fumes and pollution for months on end, that Mount Everest was perceptible from Kathmandu for the first time in decades? Locals were stunned to wake up one morning to discover views that had been there all along. In an Apple TV documentary, David Attenborough documents the various ways creation seemed to heal within a few months, when pollution lifted and the earth was quiet enough from wildlife to feel safe entering town squares and temples and once crowded beaches.
Occasionally Facebook serves as a humility check for me, an uncomfortable reminder of the ignorant and tone deaf things I once posted when I was steeped in absolutism, fueled by certainty, convinced my “rightness” was an excuse for “truth-telling.” This morning was one such morning. I tapped on my memories and read a post from over 10 years ago that sounded so unfamiliar and yet vaguely familiar, the ignorant ramblings of a young girl shrouded in her own smog, unaware of the utter vastness of the world. I didn’t know the perspectives, the theologies, the lived experiences that existed beyond my bubble. I was like the people in Kathmandu, unsuspecting that the most awe-striking mountain peak on the planet could be viewed from my front porch. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
For months I’ve been considering this idea of certainty versus mystery. It’s taken me years, a lifetime really, to release my grip a bit on answers and embrace the unknown, the likely reality there’s much I can’t see or comprehend beyond the smog. Rabbi and philosopher Abraham Heschel wrote in “God in Search of Man,” “what is highest is hidden. Faith, believing in God, is attachment to the highest realm, the realm of the mystery. This is its essence. Our faith is capable of reaching the realm of the mystery.” What’s often missing, Heschel argues, is imagination, humility, awe. We want answers and in our confusion create entire theologies and religions based on human-made facts.
In the Message version of 1 Corinthians 13:12, The Apostle Paul says (so absolutely perfectly), “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us.”
Maturity has meant casting aside the temptation to debate, to act (and even believe) that I’m a fount of knowledge. The word one side fears and another side embraces is “deconstruction.” And though this word may be currently trending, it’s not anything new. To accept mystery, to question, to grieve the loss of certainty, and reckon with our complicity in holding up toxicity rather than freedom, is an ancient practice. Jesus himself entered a highly religious culture. His ministry hinged on rebuking oppressive rulers who used religion to keep the most vulnerable in bondage. To borrow a twenty-first century word, he deconstructed the religion of the powerful. And he spoke and taught in such a way to encourage imagination in the people who listened. Jesus’ parables weren’t obvious, boring lists of dos and don'ts. They were creative stories shared in such a way to inspire wonder.
Mary Oliver writes, “Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.”
The people who believe they hold the answers may be the ones who deny the existence of mountains beyond the smog, the ones who buck against change to their traditions, clinging tightly to their rules and legalism and certainty of the divine.
...
A few months ago we drove 15 hours south to see the Grand Canyon. It was early spring. But out west, that still means unpredictable weather. We arrived as the sun was setting and the temperatures were plummeting and the snow was beginning to fall. And after a frigid night tossing and turning in a 16-degree tent, we finally ventured out to stand on the edge of the world’s grandest canyon, only to be disappointed (especially my husband who’s never been) by fog so thick we could barely see the scraggly trees and sagebrush in front of us, let alone the other side.
So we waited, sitting in the car with the heat blasting, driving over to the national park’s general store for hot coffee and a reprieve from the cold. As the hours passed, the fog began to lift. So we returned, the fog still hiding every single view. But as we stood shivering, the dense clouds began to lift. Slowly, ethereally, little by little, illuminating the crags and shadows, the plunging valleys within the valleys. I’ve seen the Grand Canyon before, but never like this. It truly was like seeing it for the first time.
We peered through the mist and it lifted before our eyes.
The massive canyon within the clouds, the highest peak obstructed by smog, the certainty within the bubble, the dimly lit glass... we are all working with just a little knowledge, the tiniest view. To behold the wonder that the magnitude of the unknowable deserves is a sacred place to be.
Loving & Savoring
“The Year the Earth Changed” — David Attenborough’s narrated documentary on Apple TV on how lockdown affected and changed nature and wildlife within just a few months.
“Dangerous Business” — An essay I wrote a few months ago for Fathom Magazine on stepping outside our bubbles of comfort.
Writing Chill 2021 Playlist — This is the playlist I write to. It’s a mix of instrumental, acoustic/folk, and some hymns, just the right amount of chill to get me in a writing space.