A Cautionary Tale

 

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” ---Helen Keller

The steamed-up windows make it difficult to see outside. You strain to get a breath of fresh air. Can’t really spread fully out to sleep. You could simply roll down the windows if not for fear of evil reaching in. Car seats aren’t for camping. Could have cuddled if both of you were talking.

Years ago (in a time before cell phones), much more so than now, ‘Zimmer Fries’ abounded in Germany. It literally means, ‘room free,’ and is a type of accommodation in Germany where a local rents out a spare room in their house to travelers. The property owner posts a sign indicating a vacancy. Find the sign, check in, stay the night. Easy.  

Our travelers left late that day with the assumption that seeing a sign would be easy. Like a Vegas hotel in neon. So it may have been, on a crisp, clear day. But the rain came. Not softly like the gentle touch of a new lover. It came pouring down like it had something to prove. The wipers zipped back and forth with a fury. The only view, ropes of rain as headlights reflected off the road. And what of our couple in the car?

 What would you hear if you could listen in to their conversation? This couple, on vacation in Germany, in the midst of a great adventure? Bickering. Fear and frustration giving voice as blame. “You should have planned better!”, “You told me it’d be easy to find one.” They could have spent the time laughing, or praying, or talking each other through square breathing. The dark didn’t lift and the rain kept coming.

Late into the night our out-of-towners spy a hotel. Before paying for the room they asked if they could see where they’d be sleeping. Tired, grumpy and angry they are ready for the relief of a bed. Peering into the room their hopes are dashed. The bed is not made. Sheets are everywhere. Unkempt. They shake off the imaginary vermin clinging to them and head back off into the night.

If only they had danced off into the darkness, betting on each other despite the lack of sleeping quarters. That’s not how the story unfolded. Driving on roads they don’t know. Shoulders stiff, tension in the car mounting as they motor on. Ultimately pulling off into a rest area where they spend a cramped night in discontent.

It's a cautionary tale I tell. I’ve spent too much time imbibing particular people’s poison. I’ve let the elements and circumstance crush me instead of hoping God’s working things out for the joy set before me. That night in the car was one night on a long road. A day I wish I had embraced and not spurned.

 “Seize the day ' seize whatever you can, 'Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand.” --- Carolyn Ahrends

 Photo by Tahamie Farooqui on Unsplash

 

Rembrandt Has A Pauper's Grave

 

Rembrandt has a pauper’s grave,

The museum tourbook read,

A reminder that my life’s appraised,

By others when I’m dead.

 

How could he lie in such a pit?

My confusion here I’ll confess,

Master of both brush and light,

Off canvas so distressed.

How real he draws the prodigal,

Feel the beggar’s plight,

Oh might your heart be so gripped,

With the words that I would write.

 

His paintings are in the Rijksmuseum

Some are in the Hague,

Bankrupt of wives, children and home,

Possessing only the plague.

 

 

Sing Like A Hobbit

 

 

     

“These Hobbits Will Sit on the Edge of Ruin and Discuss the Pleasures of the Table.”

 A sob sticks in my throat. Images raging on Instagram fill my mind. Winds roar and fires blaze in Los Angeles. Flames flare up on the Getty museum, burning down Moonshadows in Malibu. I took a girl there once. Scorched memories. Seeing the smoke and the ruins reminds me of Mordor and darkness, of Hobbits and hope, of Merry and Pippin enjoying Long-Bottom leaf and the smoke of a pipe at the ruin of Isengard.

When my first marriage burned to the ground I cried with friends. I turned Spotify up loud while singing along with Third Day; ”There’s a light at the end of the tunnel”. Psalmodies of passion, lament and praise kept me going. The Creator has set it up so that these crack open your heart and infuse hope. The act of singing is an act of defiance. Eating and drinking too.

If you’ve never sung from a place of heart-ache and desperate loss take a lesson from Hobbit Sam Gamgee.  Believing the quest to be at an end, he sings, “above all shadows rides the Sun, and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.” When dark pervades, I cry to God in hope. Somehow singing grounds me. As do friends, bread and good ale. Hence the attitude of the Hobbit. May we have the same!

Photo by Sergio García on Unsplash