Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Horizons

Horizons





I look out this morning to find a horizon drawn by God's straight-edge.  Put a level on it and the bubble would be right square in the middle...I'd bet on it.  Ocean horizons are defined and dependable.  They are predictable.  They are set and unchangeable.

No they're not.

It's estimated that a six foot tall person with his feet firmly planted in the sand will be able to see out to sea for three miles, and then the earth will rudely curve itself out of the picture.  Should he climb the lifeguard tower, the horizon moves out to around five miles.  From the patio of a Gulf front condo-say on the 10th floor-the ocean's horizon gets really gnarly, somewhere close to twelve miles out.

Where, pray tell, is this all going?  Well, we'll just keep poking at it and see what pops out.

Let's start with Robert Browning, a 19th century English poet, married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a bit of a fox if I may say so.  And it was from inspiration of that foxy lady, I suppose, that spawned the lines:  "Grow old along with me!  The best is yet to be."  From another work, he gives us: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

As I sit here immersed in the white noise of the waves, fifty yards from the slow boil of the tide in the Gulf of Mexico, perched some forty feet above the beach, my horizon teases me from a distance of eight miles.  When, last evening, I stood at ocean's edge, I was limited to a panorama of three miles.  (And, by the way, if you wondered why you had to suffer through the scribblings of Pythagoras in high school geometry, you can't get to these numbers without his theorem.)

But let's keep going.  In order to gain that extra five miles to the brink of the horizon, I had to do work.  I had to experience some level of accomplishment.  And that accomplishment came at some sacrifice.  In the most basic sense, I had to drag luggage and food and every Apple device ever created up a couple of flights of stairs and stow all of it in the condo.  I distinctly remember sweating.  Profusely.  Shouldn't be a big deal but when Bobby Browning invited us to grow old with him, I'm not sure that he was doing a ton of step climbing.  At a secondary level, I had to work for many years and do the correct things around planning for the future so that one day I would be able to meet the financial obligations of a week on the Gulf coast.  Not exactly up to the standard of challenges faced by Warren Buffet, but something beyond a Christmas savings account at the local bank.  Regardless, let's be honest...we're still at the most basic level of meeting obligations and being even remotely diligent.

I could stair-step us right along at this point, but I think I'll just get to it.  Our horizon is nothing more than our reach.  And no matter who we are, we do have the ability to reach as far as we possibly can.  Sometimes we choose to reach...I mean really stretch it out there...and sometimes we simply decide to go for only that which is within arm's length.  It's our choice.  That simple.

So the question is:  is there really a discernible difference between seeing three miles of emerald green and agate blue versus eight miles?  I mean, the sea is the sea, isn't it?

Well, my answer is yes.  The sea is the sea.  And, yes.  There is a difference.  You can continue to climb after your legs buckle, you can choose to reach higher and longer, you can fight harder, and you can maintain a death grip on every foot...every inch...that you attain.  Because that extended horizon means a few more precious seconds of that delicious sunset - that melting ice cream sundae overflowing with cherry and strawberry sky and whipped cream clouds.  It's being able to see that magnificent ship steaming eastwardly six miles from shore, the ship that's not even a figment of your imagination when you limit yourself to three miles of horizon.  You have another zillion gallons of emerald sea for your eyes to relish before it meets that bank of clouds along God's razor-fine straight-edge.  It's the opportunity for another drop of satisfaction, another small bite of life...one more verse of your favorite song.

In the end, when you find yourself blessed to have lived a life that has recognized the value of conscious, dedicated effort, that is a gift in itself.  The bonus is that prolonged reach being rewarded by an extraordinary grasp that we pray we will find a way to be worthy of.

I watch two seagulls breakfasting in the foam of the ebbing tide.  The breeze has picked up, ruffling the feathers of a persnickety blue heron.  The casual dining partners skitter back and forth devouring random treats.   Their horizon, according to Pythagoras, is less than a mile.  Poor birds.  Much less then a mile.  But, after a while, when they take wing with full stomachs and wet, sticky feet, they climb the currents of the sea breeze with amazing ease.  Higher and higher they go, until they are two indistinct dots against the blazing blue sky.  And I think, my God...they have the power to create an endless horizon - no limits, no ending!  And I believe it is just that, my friends, that Robert Browning was referring to when he said that the best is yet to be.  And, yes, yes, yes.  That is what a heaven's for.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Word of the Day




                                                          Photo from Audubon.com


This morning,  the Word of the Day on my Dictionary.com app buzzed its way into my life.  Just a tiny vibration and an almost inaudible purr.  But a word that sent my muse scurrying in demanding that I compose a few words.

My, but this word is unforgivably coincidental, if I believed in coincidences,  seeing that I'm sitting on a screened porch, listening to small waves breaking, breathing salty air, and watching seagulls line up for seafood brunch on the unapologetic white sands of the Gulf of Mexico.

The word?  Albatross.  Al-ba-tross.  And though I'm not sure of the shared DNA between said albatrosses and said gulls, they look pretty similar to a landlocked bloke such as I.

But as you know, we don't really conjure up the bird when we think of albatross.  Unless we picture it hanging around our  straining necks.

Dictionary.com tells us that an albatross is a noun that is "a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility" or "something burdensome that impedes action or progress."

You know, we're in a day where "no news is good news" rings pretty darn true.  We have seemingly unbridled global terrorism.  We have civilians shooting civilians, police shooting civilians, and civilians shooting police.  We have a partisan divide unequalled in my memory and this partisan divide appears to be driven by mutual disgust and distaste for the "other party" candidate.  We are divided on so many fronts that we're going to have to invent new fronts upon which to be divided.  We have what is, in my opinion, a rip in our societal seam that threatens the entire garment of the republic.  We have hate, fear, and anger wrapped in one great big ball.

We have, folks, around our collective necks, an albatross of pterodactyl proportions.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes in "The Ancient Mariner:"

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.


"Instead of the cross...".  Things that make you go, "Hmmmm."


I'm not ashamed of my fellow Americans.  That would be prideful.  It's the whole "he who is without sin" thing.  If I am ashamed of my fellow Americans, that would mean that I stand in judgment of them.  And God help us if someone of my ilk were to stand in judgement of anyone or anything.  I have no business even picking up a stone, much less casting it.

What am I?   What are my feelings?  What are my emotions?

Well, I suppose that there is an exact word I could use, but I'm not sure that I can find exactness here.  I'm alarmed.  I'm disappointed.  I'm concerned.  And I'm a little scared.  Wait, strike that.  I'm too old to be scared.  I think a better word might be "anxious."

I don't like posing issues and concerns without remedies.  But I have none.  In today's familiar parlance, that's above my pay grade.  In fact, I have to question whether there is a solution.  I suppose that all problems, simply by being problems, have solutions, so my hope is that there is a person or people out there who can put us right again.  I'm thinking that whatever the solution is, it's going to take time.  Lots of time.  A couple of generations maybe.

I think of the seemingly endless plight of the Israelites.  About as soon as they had things figured out and found their way back to God, something was already percolating to shove them back into the same predicament they had just gotten out of.  Such a cyclical thing.  And, who knows?  Maybe our current societal ills have occurred before - perhaps many times before - and I'm just not a studious enough historian to know that.

What I do know is that I will pray everyday for America.  I will pray that we will mend our rips, sew up old wounds, stabilize the foundation this country was built on, dispel negative rhetoric and angry words, and find a way to symbolically join hands in the spirit of unity.

I will pray that we will find a way to remove that gargantuan albatross necklace from our stiff necks and walk unimpeded, unprejudiced, and with pride.

In another coincidental non-coincident, yesterday's Word of the Day was cackleberry.  Not nearly as compelling and thought-provoking as albatross, but certainly an honored member of our lexicon.  And it begs the question:  what came first, the albatross or the cackleberry.

Come on.  Look it up if you need to.  I did.  And, you know,  just maybe you'll have something to smile about today.  And that, just maybe, might be the start of something good.  Something really good.