there is a picture in the window, a faded image in the half-glow
and I can see through this night line to the world outside
but first this quiet falling on my mind, and a display of empty things
I think I have forgotten how to dream
and hope, maybe I remember what that means.

there is a story in the white book, a vague memory in my notebook
and I can see through the dead lines to the tears inside
but first this silence pounding on my eyes, and a cascade of simple things
I think I have forgotten what that means
(maybe I remembered how to dream).

(artwork courtesy my brother Josh DeVries)

a lifetime and I saw you, I can see you change
I remember everything (except what I am now)
I remember how I spent all this time looking
a lifetime watching, but I lost myself somewhere
I found myself between what is and what was meant to be.

(for more on a delicate fade, please see this post; this poem "delicate fade" was included at the end of ch. one)

What wondrous love is this,
O my soul! O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse,
For my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse, for my soul.

(photo credit Giuseppe Anello/123rf.com)

When I was sinking down,
Sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down;
When I was sinking down,
Beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown,
For my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside his crown, for my soul.

...

To God, and to the Lamb,
I will sing, I will sing,
To God, and to the Lamb, I will sing;
To God, and to the Lamb,
Unto the great I AM,
While millions join the theme,
I will sing, I will sing,
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

...

And when from death we're free,
We'll sing on, we'll sing on,
And when from death we're free, we'll sing on;
And when from death we're free,
We'll sing, and joyful be,
And through eternity
We'll sing on, we'll sing on,
And through eternity we'll sing on.

Yes, when to that bright world
We arise, we arise,
Yes, when to that bright world we arise—
When to that world we go,
Free from all pain and wo,
We'll join the happy throng,
And sing on, and sing on,
We'll join the happy throng, and sing on.

In addition to the following beautifully sober and accapela rendition of the hymn by The Notables of Harvard University, other recordings available on YouTube include a soulful contemporary version from Marisa and an instrumental from Lifescapes Music's The Celtic Spirit.

(thanks to HymnWiki and Sacred Harp.mus for the lyrics; post edited 5/24/12)

It is common in Lent for Christians to think about this season as a wilderness journey or to reflect on our experiences in the wilderness.  When Christians talk about the wilderness, we’re not talking about a backcountry hiking trip.  We’re talking about an experience of trial and stress – life-challenging and life-changing.

In the Bible, when people go into the wilderness two things happen.  Being in the wilderness is a time of danger.  There is scarcity of food and water.  There are wild animals.  When one is in the wilderness, one is separated from the protection and comfort of community.

(photo of Namib Desert credit Dmitry Pichugin/123rf.com)

But also, God is present in the wilderness.  Now Christians do believe that God is everywhere.  But we would also claim that God is present in particular, life-changing ways in the wilderness.

The Bible is full of wilderness stories.  In the first chapters of Genesis, Adam and Eve are sent out of Eden into the world beyond and in some ways the rest of our story is about life in the wilderness, trying to find our way home.

*****

In the ancient world, when you stop to think about it, there was more actual wilderness than there is now.  There were cities and villages linked by a trail, perhaps a road, and the rest was wilderness.  Wilderness was a fact of life.  In the ancient world, people needed to be alert and wise to be kept safe from the wilderness.

Wilderness today isn’t necessarily less dangerous than it used to be, but there certainly is less of it.  In our world, it’s mostly cities and towns with lots of roads. In between our towns, there’s farmland,- cultivated, ordered.  Most of us don’t encounter wilderness unexpectedly.  Now wilderness is marked off, kept safe, behind a fence.  We don’t encounter the wilderness as soon as we step out-of-town, leaving on a journey.  But wilderness is still out there.

I wonder if we are more surprised by the wilderness than ancient people?  We often seem shocked when wilderness experiences enter our lives.  I wonder in ancient times if people expected wilderness times to come into their lives?

I wonder how our encounters with the physical wilderness, or the lack of them, shape our encounters with the spiritual wilderness?  Does our relative physical safety lead us to expect emotional and spiritual safety?

*****

If you have spent time in the spiritual wilderness, you are for the most part very glad to leave.  At least I was.  When you left your wilderness, how far away did you go?

I have discovered that upon leaving, I didn’t go far.  My life now is lived within view of the wilderness.  I’m out, but not too far removed.  The wilderness is there, at the edge of my sight.  I look up across the way and I remember my time in the wilderness.  I know what I have to do to stay out of that particular wilderness.  My view of the wilderness helps me remember.  It is important that I don’t move too far away.  If I don’t keep the wilderness in view, at least in my peripheral vision, I’ll loose my way and find myself back in the wilderness.  The decision to live near the wilderness shapes me almost as much at the journey into the wilderness itself.

*****

Often we speak of wilderness journeys as solitary experiences.  It is true that each person’s journey is unique.  Your wilderness journey may be similar to mine but it is not identical.

But sometimes, we enter the wilderness alongside someone as their traveling companion.  We can, perhaps, recognize some landmarks and offer some guidance.  Mostly though, when we enter the wilderness with another, all we can do is travel along with them.  We can’t find their trail.  We don’t have a special road map to pass on.  We can’t point out the shortcuts because there are no shortcuts.

All we can do is to be with them.  Be hungry when they hunger.  Be thirsty when they thirst.  Be sad when they are sad.  Hurt when they hurt.  Pray with them.  And pray for them when they can’t.

When we enter the wilderness as companion we practice hesed – steadfast love.  Hesed is the word the Bible uses to talk about God’s faithfulness, God’s decision to stay with us, no matter what.  And hesed is what we bring when we enter the wilderness with another – steadfast love, faithfulness, presence.  Some days it doesn’t seem like much.  Some days it takes every bit of courage and love we have.  In the end, it’s all we can offer.  Ourselves.  Our presence.  Our love.

(a sincere thanks to Nancy for sharing "Thoughts on the Wilderness," originally posted on her thoughtful and compassionate blog Conversation in Faith; more from Nancy is posted here, as well as at not one sparrow)

I owe a special thanks to the friends and family who have generously contributed their own writing, poetry and artwork, and to those who have shared the site with others (including recently Alison Carmack of The Methodist Digest, M. Kent Travis, Valerie McGowan of Black. Female. Christian. Vegan.).  But I'm grateful for each of you who have communicated encouragement and insight along the way.

(photo credit Fabio Alcini/123rf.com)

I wonder if I could ask for your input on a few questions and ideas which relate to already, empathy going forward, including the possibility of setting up a journal.  I would really value your feedback on each of them, but please feel free to respond as much or as little as you'd like, here in the comments, on the social pages or by email:

• Do you have any strong feelings one way or another about the name already, empathy, or have any sense of the meaning behind it?  If the name doesn't seem very clear (and that would be perfectly understandable, if so), does it make any more sense after reading an explanation such as in this post?
• What topics related to empathy and the tensions of living in the already/not yet of God's kingdom are you personally most interested in?  What subjects or perspectives would you like to see more of here?
• Would you be interested in a regular journal (3 to 4 times a year?) exploring the same themes as the blog, but with more exclusive feature writing, poetry, artwork and reviews from others?  If so, would you prefer an online or print format, and would you be willing to pay a reasonable amount for either?

Again, thank you for caring about this blog, and for your friendship.  I'm excited to get your feedback, and hope to have more to share with you soon - Ben

(photo credit Péter Gudella/123rf.com)

"Something in the word 'pilgrim' awoke down in the roots of my ruinous experience memories of what my fathers had felt about the world, and of something from whence I came.  I looked again at the little pictured lantern at which I had not looked for fourteen years.

"'My grandmother,' I said in a low tone, 'would have said that we were all in exile, and that no earthly house could cure the holy home-sickness that forbids us rest.'

"He was silent a long while, and watched a single eagle drift out beyond the Green Finger into the darkening void.

"Then he said, 'I think your grandmother was right,' and stood up leaning on his grassy pole.  'I think that must be the reason,' he said—'the secret of this life of man, so ecstatic and so unappeased.  But I think there is more to be said.  I think God has given us the love of special places, of a hearth and of a native land, for a good reason.'

"'I dare say,' I said.  'What reason?'

"'Because otherwise,' he said, pointing his pole out at the sky and the abyss, 'we might worship that.'

"'What do you mean?' I demanded.

"'Eternity,' he said in his harsh voice, 'the largest of the idols— the mightiest of the rivals of God.'

"'You mean pantheism and infinity and all that,' I suggested.

"'I mean,' he said with increasing vehemence, 'that if there be a house for me in heaven it will either have a green lamp-post and a hedge, or something quite as positive and personal as a green lamp-post and a hedge.   I mean that God bade me love one spot and serve it, and do all things however wild in praise of it, so that this one spot might be a witness against all the infinities and the sophistries, that Paradise is somewhere and not anywhere, is something and not anything.  And I would not be so very much surprised if the house in heaven had a real green lamp-post after all.'

"With which he shouldered his pole and went striding down the perilous paths below, and left me alone with the eagles.  But since he went a fever of homelessness will often shake me ..."

(ch. III, the voice of Louis Hara in dialogue with Innocent Smith, the "man alive"; Manalive (1912) is available in free ebook courtesy Project Gutenberg and free audio book courtesy Librivox; post edited 5/24/12)

I’ve had to fight sadness more than I expected in writing this.  I started out with so much hope and the potential to be objective about what came my way.  But the more composed and intelligent I tried to be, the more I knew that I was only hiding from myself and whatever else I knew to be true.

I was consumed by the study and writing in my first year after college, a very lonely and difficult year toward the end of a long season of depression; and I was consumed by the subject matter I was enveloped by but couldn't seem to articulate half as meaningfully as I experienced it.  In fact, I ended up spending a good chunk of the preface and introduction trying to describe this deficiency:

I’ve stopped and started over more times than I can remember, and I think that I like the times between the best because I feel the most whole then, as if I know what needs to be said, and almost as if I could write more of it next time.  The need to express takes me over like it did a long time ago when I first knew I had to write. And I know I could never let this go until it is done.

I finally forced myself to finish the manuscript later that Summer, with the encouragement of an editor at a publishing house a friend had put me in touch with.  Several months later, a delicate fade was somehow queued for publishing, and saw a small release in the Spring of 2004.  I did everything I could on my end to get the word out about the book, but despite the generous support of family and friends, it wasn't long before returned units started to outnumber the outgoing ones on my royalty statement, and the book was declared out of print within a year and a half.  I've learned this is the fate of a vast majority of books, but it was still a painful disappointment.

I received a handful of positive responses from individuals and a few reviewers which were very meaningful to me, but the mainstream reading and ministry worlds either weren't interested or didn't know what to do with it.  Off and on I heard the dismissive, "You put a lot of yourself into it" or "It's pretty dark," or "We didn't know what kind of book it was."  And for some reason those responses have stayed with me as much as any, including another former professor who suggested I give a copy of the book to someone else.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the book now.  I don't often talk about it any more, and I usually make a point to qualify expectations for the rare person who discovers it and says they want to read it.  A few weeks ago, I started reading it again for the first time in a long time, and was struck by how vague and poorly written some stretches were, but also by other glimpses of value interspersed throughout.  And I especially appreciate the quotes included from other authors.  It's not the lasting work of existential faith I hoped it might be, and I'm not sure it's even worth reprinting someday as I've wondered from time to time.  But here and there it has its moments.  

In many respects, this blog has been a return to the themes I was wrestling with in a delicate fade, both living in the already/not yet and the need for empathy which accompanies it on so many levels, themes which have never really left me since.  So I thought I might share some excerpts from a delicate fade over the coming months, hopefully ones that are meaningful beyond my own experience.  Feel free to let me know your thoughts, either way.  By the way, if you'd like any more background on the book, you can find a personal bio and bibliography as well as the first chapter at adelicatefade.blogspot.com. 

(thank you to Zondervan for initially publishing a delicate fade ('04), and to Brian Phipps for editing; post edited 5/24/12)

I went back to work the next day, hoping to take some time to think through my longing for a more "spacious" existence, and to wonder whether God had in fact given me that word as a way of legitimizing our need, even as a prayer.  I sat down to read a bit more in Psalm 18 before starting my cleaning routine at church, and from where I had left off the night before the very next verses were:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.  He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.  They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support.  He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (vs. 16-19, NIV, emphasis added)

(photo credit bizoon/123rf.com)

I realized my blurry eyes may have scanned down the page the night before and unconsciously picked up the word "spacious."  I've learned through my journey of faith not to look too hard for signs from God one way or another, if at all (perhaps sometimes to my loss), but rather to wait on a more general sense of peace about directions and decisions.  But regardless, I knew I couldn't discredit the timing of the verse as complete coincidence.  I exhaled just a bit as I closed my Bible and got up to set to work, and gave myself some more permission to pray for the hope which the word suggested.

For the first time in weeks if not months I was able to finish my Saturday cleaning shift, my heaviest of the week, with a little more energy than usual and to get home around 8 PM, instead of the usual 9:30 or later which often makes the turnaround to church the next morning difficult, and also to catch my before he went to bed.  I had worked longer shifts earlier in the week to make this possible, and was happy about the small token of self-discipline I had demonstrated. 

But at some point on the drive home I grew suddenly tired as I often do after work, and my mind turned in on itself with one of the mini dilemmas which consume it from time to time.  By the time I walked in the door, despite my intention to be available to my family, I desperately needed some time and space to regroup.  I barely nodded to my wife and toddler son when I walked in, who were eating a late dinner in the living room, which I imeddiately noticed still hadn't been cleaned for the week, and went straight to my office where I found my wife had left her guitar right inside the door.  I generally prefer to find things the way I left them in the one corner of the world I can call my own, but I calmly went to move the guitar case outside of the room, until it burst open and emptied its primary contents and what seemed like a hundred sheets of music onto the floor.  As matter-of-factly as I could, I told my wife she would need to deal with it, and sat down a bit more frazzled at my desk. 

After checking my email and social networking, I quietly went to get my plate of dinner and eat in front of the tv for a few minutes, when my son decided to get out his fake little "vacuum," a toy which loudly pops plastic balls as you wheel it around.  He ran past me with it a few times when I, calmly as I could though I felt like I was about to snap, asked him to stop.  He didn't, and I asked more firmly, calling for some support from my wife in the kitchen.  She didn't hear me, so I grabbed it from him, which threw him into an absolute crying fit, and didn't make her very happy either.  And then I really did lose it.

For the sake of preserving some family privacy and personal dignity, I won't recount what I said at that point, or how I said it.  But suffice it to say that my son grew even more hysterical, and my wife felt compelled to basically say that it was no use my coming home early if all I wanted was to be left alone.  And she took him into his room and closed the door. 

I sat stewing on the couch for half an hour or so, ashamed of myself for how I'd behaved, but also inwardly railing at the injustice of life, in some way even of God Himself, for holding out the hope of room to breathe in front of me, knowing how much of a risk it was for me to reach out for it, only to seemingly rub it in my face just how much negative space we actually have.  I certainly wasn't blameless in the situation, but I hadn't asked for this to happen, or worked to make it happen.  In fact, I had come home with the best of intentions.  It was one of those rare instances when I almost gave myself permission to label the string of events a concerted spiritual attack, which was the only strange comfort I could locate.

I did apologize to my son and my wife before each of them went to bed.  I held him as long as he would let me and told him I shouldn't have been so angry, which he was also kind enough to point out, and that I loved him.  And I told my wife I was sorry and that I didn't want to excuse how I had responded in front of either of them, but at the same time I didn't understand how things had gone so wrong so quickly when I had tried my best to put myself in a better situation.  She told me that my son was so eager to pull his little "vacuum" around because he was going to help mommy clean, as they had gotten in the habit of doing late Saturday night.  There's no way I could have known this, but apart from her graciously accepting my apology, I felt even lower about what had happened. 

It was the type of episode which seemed to play off of and remind me of so many more ongoing ways in which I personally and we as a family have had so little room to maneuver, and just can't seem to make life work: My wife is perpetually exhausted from managing two part-time jobs and a full-time toddler, and I come home physically drained from a part-time manual labor job with hardly any time or energy left over to make any real headway with what I thought was my primary calling.  We barely scrape through one week, only to snap our fingers and see the next one start up with an almost scary redundancy.  And we scarcely survive one budgetary crisis by the skin of our teeth only to fall right into the next one at the end of the month, or even the next week.

It's been three weeks since that ignominious night, and thankfully we (I) haven't had any blowups of that proportion.  But neither has our situation changed in any tangible respect.  I've had days where hope has been hard to come by and asking God to honor the promise I thought He may have given us even harder.  Some days it's a bit easier to open my bible up to Psalm 18 and read back over the passage which I'd love to believe could be true for us.  I sense I've grown better at trusting God to provide for some of the most basic essentials of survival, such as health and safety and the money to pay rent at the end of the month, and I don't want to take those realities for granted.  But to be honest, I have a hard time trusting God that He's interested in addressing some of our other big picture needs which seem to be gradually suffocating us.  I read and pray the words "He brought me out into a spacious place" because I want to and I know I should, but the hope behind them feels hollow or indefinitely postponed at best.

In so many of the psalms, David articulates such an all-consuming need and desperation to God, but still manages to include some affirmation somewhere along the way that God has heard him.  Much of the time I have to really work to believe that, but I suppose even the asking is a mustard seed.

Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me.  You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay. (Psalm 40:17, NIV)

(post edited 5/24/12)

Latey, however, Jadon has taken to telling me something along the lines of, "You don't make my hair crazy!  Mommy is making me handsome!"  And then he'll partially pat down his hair, which was already a bit disheveled like any toddler's, or even go get some water to "fix it."  This makes me smile of course, though also mildly worried that he may completely shun my hair-ruffling advances well before he hits his pre-teens. 

It made me think in a lighthearted way of the line in the bible which says, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children" (Ephesians 6:4, NIV).  Of course, the rest of the verse indicates a much more sober context, which in no way precludes my playful exasperation of Jadon for now.  But every once in a while I think (and pray) about when he'll become a teen and then young adult, and communication might not come as naturally between us, about how difficult it may be not to exasperate him in much more significant ways, but also much more difficult to overcome.

(post edited 5/24/12)

Being a generally private person bordering on anti-social, I've never begun to comprehend why people try to talk to you in line at the market.  I am shy and awkward, and I don't know these people. 

Still, this guy in line in front of me, buying his booze, turned with that forced smile and asked me about my coffee.  His daughter used to work at Dunkin Donuts, he said.  He also promised I'd enjoy it. 

(photo credit Lech Saloni/123rf.com)

It wasn't for me, so I just smiled and said I'd been a barista once, too.  And some other half-hearted, nonsensical tidbits. 

And then he walked away and I never saw him again. 

The cashier greeted me with sorrow in her eyes.  She had to get off her chest what he had just confided.  His daughter, the barista, had just passed.  And from the few details she shared, I realized I knew of this girl.  She was close with all my close friends.  I'd been praying for her friends and family.  And not even in the way where you say you will and then forget.  This girl was younger than me, was well-liked, and she worked at one of my favorite spots in town. 

I knew suddenly what people mean when they say their heart sank. 

Here I was, praying for this man, and our paths meet - and I don't even see the sorrow in his eyes.  He reached out to a stranger who happened to have been praying for him, and I wasn't at all open with him. 

To be cliché, it makes you wonder. 

How many other people's pain have I just not noticed when it's right in front of me?  Opportunities missed that never again come this way.  And so I try, every day, to slow down and feel.  To smile at everyone I see, as much as I can remember.  And to listen, to more than the words people are saying.  To see.

(thank you, Leanna, who has previously shared "forward" and "that girl")

Just one of Josh's first posts which I find myself relating to quite a bit is "On Being Present," where he reflects on how often we're not fully present with our children as fathers.  How many times has my own toddler son tried to share something important to him, only to find me tired and half-attentive, with a computer or tv screen taking more of my attention?  (Be sure to see these poignant images from artist and pastor Phil Nellis touching on the same theme.)  Though the problem Josh touches on, and the simple commitment he calls us to, is one I'm sure not just fathers but most of us bump up against in our various relationships.