Things That Resound (Part IV): Echoes of a Song Not Yet Sung

A thing resounds when it rings true

Ringing all the bells inside of you

Like a golden sky on a summer's eve

Your heart is tugging at your sleve

And you cannot say why

Part IV: Echoes of a Song Not Yet Sung

You'll notice a lot of italics in the next two posts. That's because if my suspicions are correct, "things that resound" are old truths, told over and over again, throughout the history of time. In some cases, I feel inclined to write my own account of whatever resounding noise I hear. In other cases, I'm inclined just to listen. These next two posts come from one who has made me feel what Peterson calls the "heart tugging at your sleeve" more than anyone else...

Excerpts from C.S. Lewis' essay The Weight of Glory...

The Christian, in relation to heaven, is in much the same position as (the schoolboy learning Greek). Those who have attained everlasting life in the vision of God doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship; but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognised as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually the tide lifts a grounded ship. 

(...) Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire of our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object. And this, I think, is just what we find. No doubt this is one point in which my analogy of the schoolboy breaks down. The English poetry which he reads when he ought to be doing Greek exercises may be just as good as the Greek poetry to which the exercises are taking him, so that in fixing on Milton instead of journeying on to Aeschylus his desire is not embracing a false object. But our case is very different. If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbological relation to what will truly satisfy.

In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open an inconsolable secret in each of you- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth's expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things- the beauty, the memory of our own past- are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

Things That Resound (Part III): The Basin

A thing resounds when it rings true

Ringing all the bells inside of you

Like a golden sky on a summer's eve

Your heart is tugging at your sleve

And you cannot say why

Part III: The Basin

There is in each of us a garden. In the middle of that garden is an elevated basin, almost like a birdbath. It is large and it is deep, and at the top of the basin- just in arm's reach- we find a lever. If we pull this lever, water begins to pour out of a pipe that descends from above. The pipe isn't perfectly aimed at the center of the basin. Its flow isn't always steady and, in fact, it's sometimes quite violent. When pulling the lever, one can never know exactly where the water will land or precisely the rate at which the water will come out. There are even times when a jet shoots directly at the one pulling the lever- bearing a startling resemblance to what would otherwise be perceived as assault.

Beneath and around this basin is a collection of plants. These plants are at various stages- some mere seeds, others with expanding roots, and others grown with buds or blossoms. If each of us has such a garden, we can in that sense be called gardeners. And gardeners must decide how to best care for their garden.

You see, the gardens we now have were developed in an especially arid climate. The rains are few and far between. They're refreshing when they come, but before you know it they've passed on. Fortunately, there is another source of water- that of the basin, lever, and pipe. Trouble is... the unpredictable nature of this alternate source (as previously mentioned) lead many a gardener to be satisfied with the occasional passing shower. For gardeners in this category, there is danger that the showers will one day become too infrequent- perhaps that they will cease entirely. And then, their garden will die.

Some gardeners have learned to supplement the rain by using the alternate source. There's a risk involved, they realize, but they have a garden to tend to. And so, when they see the leaves begin to shrivel, they put on the raincoat, rainboots, and even, perhaps, some sturdy eye protection- and they approach the lever. They know what could happen. It's happened before. But if they can just bear it for a few moments, they think, they'll get enough water in their basin to last through the current drought.

Those who risk pulling the lever are faced with a curious predicament. At what point do you release it? When do you move on to gathering a pitcher, filling it from the basin, and watering the plants in your garden? When do you reach a reasonable level- enough to feel confident you'll be able to make it 'til the rains come again- that you can turn off the unpredictable, violent stream bursting forth from the pipe? When do you go back to being a normal gardener?

A few gardeners- a very few, in fact- implement a different strategy. The strategy is an very old one... so old that it's now considered by some to be no more than a myth. As the legend goes, there are gardeners who give little consideration to the rain at all. It may rain or it may not, but these gardeners rarely notice. Their apathy (as it's perceived by others) is the product of their methodology. For these gardeners view the pipe not as a supplement, but as a primary source. If you ask them directly, they might even go so far as to say that it's a purer source than even the rain.

Oddly enough, these gardeners don't have pitchers. They may have had pitchers at some point in the past, but they have since lost them. Stranger still, these gardeners spend little (if any) time maintaining the individual plants in their garden. They do not prune, they do not weed, they do not fertilize. As it turns out, they are incapable of doing any of these things- their arms are attached to the lever, their bodies withstanding the force of the inverted geyser above them. The oddest thing of all, it turns out, has nothing to do with these gardeners or their unusual methodology, but rather pertains to their garden.

You see, the basins in these gardens aren't mere storage devices. The water inside of them wells up, grows into a stream... a river... an ocean... and overflows its barriers. This water rains down onto the plants in the garden. It overtakes the formerly barren paths, infiltrates the depths of the soil, and nourishes every plant with all that it ever longed for. These gardens are real gardens. And in them you will find real beauty and life.