3 One Day in December
It was approaching dusk and the sky was grey and overcast. I had finished work early and it had been a long afternoon. I had spent some time reading, but I had a cold and my mind was dull and I was unable to concentrate. I decided to go for a walk to clear my head and get some fresh air. Daily I had walked up and down this very same path on my way to and from work, but today I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, so when I noticed the birds in the coconut trees I stopped to watch: the birds were diving at one another, dislodging each other from their perches, and skipping from palm to palm; as I had always been in a hurry before I had never really seen the trees, the birds, the grasses... on the coconut tree was a sprig of baby nuts looking like overgrown acorns. Next to it was a jak tree with a ripe fruit ready to drop onto the roadside. Munias, small, nervous birds, hopped from stem to stem on the tall grasses, feeding on the seed. A black robin appeared in a nearby tree, sang its song, and flew off again... the beauty and freshness of the present moment revealed the presence of God as creation moved onwards, ever changing, ever new.
A mind that is always trying to be elsewhere never really sees the wonder of the world, the momentary miracle of life. When we become still the glory of God is clear: it was ever there, but perhaps we were not. Why are we always caught up on the surface of life, trapped in action and reaction? Is it not because we have a profound lack of faith in God? We seek activity, entertainment, the stimulation of consciousness, to pacify our unease and cover our lack of depth.
And yet if we saw with the eyes of faith, even if only for a little while, we might notice something extraordinary, something we have missed in our hurry, which is that the transient is born out of the eternal, and the eternal is revealed by the transient. We pass through life always thinking God elsewhere: indeed, we are so convinced of the absence of God that we are prepared to go to any lengths to make Him present! Such is our blindness, such is our vanity. What peace is ours when we abide still and attentive in His presence, our hearts filled with praise and thanksgiving, making the greatest of prayers, the prayer of a heart uplifted, full of joy.
A few days later I was walking up the same path: I looked in the trees, but the birds were not there; I went to the grasses, it was a similar story. I stood still for a while, until my mistake dawned on me. On a far tree I saw a crow perched on a dead branch that somehow ascended up and beyond the leafy tree. It was the highest spot around and the silhouette of the bird was clear against the sky as it made its mocking cry.
Walking down the path the hedgerow was gorgeous, with its multi-coloured leaves, green and yellow, and mauve and brown, each leaf different, asymmetric. From the trees dead leaves had fallen and become trapped among the bushes.
Only a dull mind seeks repetition, goes back with expectation, clouding the vision of the new. We are all subject to this dullness, victims of our desires. It is so difficult to return to a place that has blessed memories associated with it without wanting to have the old repeated. Our thoughts and desires are like a veil between us and the world, between us and reality. Expectations, projections, classify in advance what we find significant in the world, and having found our focus, we are satisfied; that everything else remains a blur doesn’t bother us, we are so used to this lack of clarity we find it normal, we have learned to get by. Concentration, selectivity, is always self-centred. But there is such a thing as open sensitivity, which is uncentred, free and attentive, beyond the patterning of thought, and at such moments we realise how close is the kingdom of God.