Cure For A Heavy Heart

Out my window a squirrel reclines like John on Jesus’ breast.  A summer night in Joshua Tree I watched meteor after meteor streak across the sky in a Perseid shower.  There are small delights in nature as well as great grandeur and beauty. On the flip side she can be a horror, a “howling wilderness.” As I write this hurricane Melissa has savaged Jamaica and is bearing down on Cuba and the Caribbean. It is in this tension between its enormity, power and beauty that man continues to find perspective and peace.

“There is but one spot on El Capitan’s upper margin where one can lie down and look into the abyss 3,300 feet beneath him. If a man is a little touched with self-conceit, let him seek this position. Then in his humility and thankfulness would he exclaim with good old Job, “What is man that thou shouldst magnify him.” So writes James Mason Hutchings, the father of Yosemite. I had a similar experience hiking solo down the Narrows in Zion national park. As I stood in the river with towers of red rock rising on either side, I felt immense peace and an assurance that God was in control.

Spurgeon, the great preacher struggled with deep depression. He wrote, “He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods…needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy.” I have sensed God in wind whipping down a canyon and grass growing beside a pond.

Cycling up the west coast years ago a friend and I got stuck in a storm. Hail pelted our helmets as we climbed hills overlooking the ocean. In that beauty with nature fiercely hurling herself at us, I felt very much alive. When soul and heart grow heavy there is no cure like hurling ourselves from our creature comforts into an encounter with creation.

When God Is Difficult To See

Yosemite’s webcam feed was white with slight color around the edges.  Half Dome hidden behind cloud, mist or fog.  A novice, unfamiliar with Yosemite, viewing the web-cam might decide that there wasn’t much to see.  A tourist dropped into that scene would never see the splendor the other side of the clouds if they left the park; would never experience the grandeur if they didn’t wait it out---if they refused to persevere. Psalm 23 might look like that if viewed through webcam.

The wife and I are walking through a valley right now.  We are a week out from her father’s passing.  Our jobs have been difficult this year so that we are stressed about them even off the clock. My bad work schedule means we don’t connect. God’s been difficult to see.  Like the webcam view; He’s visible around the edges. Peace is hard in coming. 

The whiteout condition doesn’t mean Half Dome and Yosemite falls don’t exist.  The anxiety in my chest is a response to what I perceive.  Mentally I meditate; “…Thou art with me.”  There is a trail ahead---though it looks like the mountain drops off.  For a minute the mist breaks---the traveler shouts, “There it is!”---as their view of the valley affirms what they knew to be true all along.  

Periods of Pressure and Future Escape

“Mommy, is Pharaoh’s army going to kill us?”  The little boys’ mom hesitated.  The Red Sea in front of them and the army behind them left little room for a positive answer.  Remembering their spiritual father Abraham, she responded, “God will deliver us.”

Often what makes a trial bearable is the assurance of future escape. Trials present us with this Red Sea motif; we are stuck in a situation.  The options for escape look grim; diving into a churning, dark river. My job feels that way today. 

 Weeks ago the wife and I went to Yosemite!  We had the chance to see Yosemite in the spring for a week-long vacation.  Before going we spent an evening choosing lodging.  We viewed waterfall live-cams and sunset still pics on Instagram. After days at work we whispered, “We are going to Yosemite!”  Before sleep we’d share with each other our expectations. Our upcoming escape pulled us through; tough day after tough day.

Heaven should have the same affect.  Not some dreamlike escape but a solid place that I’ll be at home in soon.  The still-pics stir imagination.  Being close to Jesus; an eternal escape from sin and pain; mansions of glory and fullness realized.  The New Testament refers to heaven 217 times.  Obviously I should focus on it more than I do.  Much, much more.

The blessing in a period of pressure is this crying out for escape. The hand is jarred loose.  Eyes, God willing, are refocused on heaven; on deliverance, on deliverer.  “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” 

Wanderlust: Blessing or Curse?

Is wanderlust a blessing or a curse?  I don’t understand the lack of hunger to explore.  It extends beyond that; music and the arts; museums and live theatre.  Why am I so hungry to plunge into these when others have no interest?  I envy their contentedness—at a shallow level.  I find I am most content when I have calendared the next seminar; get-away or road trip!  Sometimes I wonder if the problem is me and not them.

Am I looking to be filled?  Does adventure equal ego?  Is it all my flesh looking to the next new thing?  Is it topographical ADD?  Certainly there is some synchronicity of personality involved.  It maybe that this tangible want for more is just one side of the coin.

Here’s the flip.  It’s that same wiring (good or bad) that keeps me from being content with the status quo.  Here’s a short list of things that the wanderlust fallout impacts: my hunger for God (“Like the deer pants for the water so my soul pants after You…”), my performance at work (good service should mean pushing for better) and how I date my wife (wanderlust drives me to creative dating.)  Those are some positives. 

So what purpose then?  At the core is the desire for stillness, peace and worship.  Perhaps this is best typified through the words of John Erastus Lester, a reporter and visitor to Yosemite in 1873; 

“To attempt to describe the grandeur of this scene (from Inspiration Point) would be folly; to tell of the feelings of awe, of humility, or reverence, which are here aroused, is all that can be done.  He who tries to believe there is no God is here at once converted in the twinkling of an eye; and his feelings of reverence and veneration, blended with love and beauty force him to a worship at once pure and creedless.”
 

The partial answer---and perhaps the answer in full---is that the quest for beauty is the quest to taste of Heaven.  In the end it remains C.S. Lewis that said it best; 

"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 worshippers.  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.”