As I sit on the ground under the tree that is extending itself in every direction to meet the explosion of sunlight, my son runs in the field with a kite dancing, fluttering, taking height, crashing, being wildly dragged, and dancing, dancing, dancing behind him. The day is structured for joy. The wind is set to match the rapid rush of feet barely touching ground. The abundance of space holds up the joy of vibrant life asserting itself in stillness. The light that comes as an unending smile reigns upon us all. The architecture of the day makes me well from inside. Yet, while dwelling in all of this, I am sitting on the brown grass. I am on a dry carpet of dead things. The grass is so dead that it feels like it would kill the cow that would devour it.
This moment in the joy of the day feels like eternity. Joy is precisely like that—a still day swelling with sunshine. One does not feel the day in the shade as moving—especially as something moving toward something else or to sometime better. It does not serve a better time nor is it intending a future or past. The joy of this moment is that there is nothing else than this moment—nothing further. There is nothing past this moment, there is only this event of the dancing kite, the flying child, and the man in the shade given to himself as the blessed one to whom the day is given. I do so love the pleasure of this day despite the fact that I am nested on the remains of dead things.
Sitting on the grass, watching a boy find joy in the wind his running generates, I being grateful in the shade—how can one not beam back at the sun? And still I am very aware that the ground beneath me which a few months ago was so saturated with water is today beginning to turn into dust, and soon it will be cracking. It is cool where I am. When the wind blows it is refreshing. Still the grass has stopped growing and further north in this country, crops and livestock--more truly plants and animals--are drying up unto death. Here in the shade I cannot see this but I know and cannot help but know. Despite this I am happy and content and my heart cannot help but murmur joy, joy, joy!
At the end of the world as we know it, joy is tempered by the oncoming changes—changes that will touch the boy with the kite more than the middle aged man happy in his day. How dare I be happy? This bright day could signal the hard times to come—just as the beautiful sunsets we have witnessed in the last years bring to vision the pollutants we have scattered to the sky. At the end of the world as we know it, how do we face the joy of today when it is tainted with the potential of future catastrophe? But is this not the reality of life, however we know it? Isn't every day's joy tainted already with the ultimate catastrophe of death and perhaps the even more catastrophic reality of suffering? Mostly, we embrace our joy and value it by averting our eyes and forgetting about what is to come. Most of us live each moment piling stimulation upon stimulation to simulate joy and effect forgetfulness. But not all of us open to joy in this way. There are those among us who can see the joy of joy because they can see past suffering and death into a greater life. The joy of a day can be honestly embraced because it signals what existence connotes beyond the contingency of this particular joy.
I sit on the dead grass, I let the sun seep into my psyche, I soak up my son’s joy and all is well in the world whatever the next moment brings because what it all boils down to, what it all ends up being, however all things in time end, there is this joy that promises that all time begins and ends in this joy. Sitting here, the day that embraces me bursts with that certainty. There is this moment’s joy and every moment will find its perfection in it. Every other pain, every other sorrow, every other horror in time is but a passing moment in the unmoved and unmoving day that we will all awaken to.
And so this day at the edge of the end of life as we know it signals both the difficulties to come and the joy to come. The difficulties will have to be faced and endured and surpassed to a better day. The joy to come will be embraced and it will fill all the dark difficulties we will endure with the light of this day, with its peals of joy, with its shade and comfort—and it will be the final moment. It will be the last moment and it will not be an ending but an enduring. The fullness that is this joy will gather every moment to its fullness.
Thus, although I know that this time will end—that I will have to rise from the shade, I will reluctantly call the boy in, that we will gather our things, the sun will set, and perhaps the drought will worsen—I revel in it knowing that it is a hint of the final moment when the troubles will finally be lifted.
This moment in the joy of the day feels like eternity. Joy is precisely like that—a still day swelling with sunshine. One does not feel the day in the shade as moving—especially as something moving toward something else or to sometime better. It does not serve a better time nor is it intending a future or past. The joy of this moment is that there is nothing else than this moment—nothing further. There is nothing past this moment, there is only this event of the dancing kite, the flying child, and the man in the shade given to himself as the blessed one to whom the day is given. I do so love the pleasure of this day despite the fact that I am nested on the remains of dead things.
Sitting on the grass, watching a boy find joy in the wind his running generates, I being grateful in the shade—how can one not beam back at the sun? And still I am very aware that the ground beneath me which a few months ago was so saturated with water is today beginning to turn into dust, and soon it will be cracking. It is cool where I am. When the wind blows it is refreshing. Still the grass has stopped growing and further north in this country, crops and livestock--more truly plants and animals--are drying up unto death. Here in the shade I cannot see this but I know and cannot help but know. Despite this I am happy and content and my heart cannot help but murmur joy, joy, joy!
At the end of the world as we know it, joy is tempered by the oncoming changes—changes that will touch the boy with the kite more than the middle aged man happy in his day. How dare I be happy? This bright day could signal the hard times to come—just as the beautiful sunsets we have witnessed in the last years bring to vision the pollutants we have scattered to the sky. At the end of the world as we know it, how do we face the joy of today when it is tainted with the potential of future catastrophe? But is this not the reality of life, however we know it? Isn't every day's joy tainted already with the ultimate catastrophe of death and perhaps the even more catastrophic reality of suffering? Mostly, we embrace our joy and value it by averting our eyes and forgetting about what is to come. Most of us live each moment piling stimulation upon stimulation to simulate joy and effect forgetfulness. But not all of us open to joy in this way. There are those among us who can see the joy of joy because they can see past suffering and death into a greater life. The joy of a day can be honestly embraced because it signals what existence connotes beyond the contingency of this particular joy.
I sit on the dead grass, I let the sun seep into my psyche, I soak up my son’s joy and all is well in the world whatever the next moment brings because what it all boils down to, what it all ends up being, however all things in time end, there is this joy that promises that all time begins and ends in this joy. Sitting here, the day that embraces me bursts with that certainty. There is this moment’s joy and every moment will find its perfection in it. Every other pain, every other sorrow, every other horror in time is but a passing moment in the unmoved and unmoving day that we will all awaken to.
And so this day at the edge of the end of life as we know it signals both the difficulties to come and the joy to come. The difficulties will have to be faced and endured and surpassed to a better day. The joy to come will be embraced and it will fill all the dark difficulties we will endure with the light of this day, with its peals of joy, with its shade and comfort—and it will be the final moment. It will be the last moment and it will not be an ending but an enduring. The fullness that is this joy will gather every moment to its fullness.
Thus, although I know that this time will end—that I will have to rise from the shade, I will reluctantly call the boy in, that we will gather our things, the sun will set, and perhaps the drought will worsen—I revel in it knowing that it is a hint of the final moment when the troubles will finally be lifted.
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