Extended Audio
Spring is well underway here in the rolling hills of Northumberland, although a recent period of frigid temperatures has given our fragile psyches one last kick. Nevertheless, this is the time of year when Canadians return to our curious rituals like spying new greenery, boiling tree sap, and wearing shorts too early.
While I enjoy living in wintry places, I have to admit there is nothing quite so invigorating as the seasonal warmth and renewal. Tepid temperatures have unveiled grass and straw-coloured fields while patches of snow still hide desperately in shady areas. The winter freeze melts into rivulets of clear water that pools, then flows again toward thirsty low places.
Each year the spring melt brings back a particular memory from my childhood that happened in the wide ditch along highway 41 near our home. For most of the year the ditch didn’t do much ditching but when spring arrived it would turn into a watercourse of ad hoc currents gurgling through crags of melting ice.
In that moment I am a nine or ten year old boy walking in the ditch like any nine or ten year old would do. The sun is bright and warm and I’m looking down at sparkling water as it swamps and swirls musically around my rubber boots. Suddenly – whoosh! – I step into a deeper, hidden pocket. One boot overflows with icy wetness and as I stumble the other boot joins it, leaving me with the dreaded ‘double soaker’!
But the busy water takes no notice of soakers and young boys take no notice of soggy socks because nature is warming us, pulling us, toward more springtime.
And a moment is born.
It was unthinkable at the time, but that silly childhood excursion would become more than a memory. On that day, in that ditch, one icy misstep would become a familiar moment that would return to me each year during the spring runoff.
We often talk about the importance of memories but memories are nothing more than snapshots, lessons, historical data. On the other hand, a ‘moment’ is mystical – a melding of emotions and senses into something that will be close and familiar for our entire life. Moments will never happen again but come back to us as brief, real, meaningful recollections. A moment can be born out of either happiness or pathos but always brings peace and wellness when it comes back to us.
Maybe it has to do with getting older but I find myself returning to all sorts of past moments. For example, familiar music from “back in the day” often resurfaces in my thoughts: 60s protest songs, hymns, television commercials, theme songs. Just today I smiled at a favourite scene from “The Bugs Bunny Show” for no apparent reason, and later in the day twelve words from an ancient Sunday School chorus got stuck in my brain. I have even downloaded the song “Four Strong Winds” by Ian and Sylvia Tyson, a briefly married, marginally talented, Canadian folk/country duo you’ve never heard of. Why? Because it was some kind of moment from my childhood.
Moments are often sad, frequently happy, mostly complicated, always indescribable.
fireflies on a summer evening;
the smell of a book, the curvature of the font;
considering the lyrics of a sad song;
the soft nose of the horse across the road;
the Chateaugay river at night;
three girls (JH, PZ, MZ) singing Beatle tunes during recess;
grade 2 and laughing uproariously at The Cat In the Hat Comes Back;
best ever homemade tomato sauce (Joan) or roast beef (Bon);
a foggy morning on a glassy Kempenfelt Bay;
the way Dr. Hall held his Bible;
an afternoon nap under sumacs;
that new discovery that made my mind pop;
a worn, rounded hymnal;
final goodbyes.
In my mind, each has its own scene, texture, sensibility, warmth. Even sad feelings somehow bring reassurance and calm when they have become a moment. They are my moments, my miracles, precious and real.
Do you have moments? Familiar, reassuring experiences that flash into your mind?
Some of you might remember the Precious Moments fad from the ’80s. Precious Moments are adorable collectable figurines with soft, innocent faces, pastel colours, and thoughtful themes. They are shy, winsome, irresistible – it’s what makes them precious.
Would Precious Moment figurines be as effective if they were jagged creatures with fascist themes and angry faces? Well, it might create a memory but it would never create a moment. That’s because fear, guilt, anger – while memorable – tend to occupy the space in our souls, leaving no room for precious moments.
The world feels very unsteady and dangerous right now. That’s because it is. Good people have allowed the insanity of evil to be normalized and even to flourish. Here in Canada we are in a federal election and I am shocked daily at how good people have allowed themselves to be caught in the web of desperation. They insult those who disagree with them and circulate ridiculous propaganda without thought or conviction.
And there are always soulless politicians, religious leaders, and their generals who love this. They steal our precious moments with a strategy of warning, scaring, guilting, flooding us with negativity. Is this the freedom of thought, worship, expression our democracies were built on? It this the biblical writer’s vision of Creation being released from “the bondage of decay” or “the glorious freedom of the children of God”?
This weekend Christians celebrate Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday recalls the ludicrous moment when Jesus rode a donkey ahead of a procession of smelly, weak, impoverished, common people into the city of Jerusalem. It was in open defiance to the lunacy of the most powerful political and religious leaders in their world.
To the Powers at the time it was a pitiful sideshow to be watched; to future believers and history itself, it became a precious moment. God’s kingdom of ‘the least’ literally marched into the lair of oppressive worldly systems.
The world was very dangerous that day when Jesus entered Jerusalem. It has always that way – even back when you and I created our precious moments. But don’t kid yourself – there can be no more moments if we are preoccupied by the rancour that surrounds us.
Moments keeps us rational and healthy and we still need them because they are built from the very best things in life. That’s why we need to slow down and experience new moments of clarity, meaning, thoughtfulness.
So please, please, please … be careful with yourself. Don’t let dark forces steal your mind, your voice, your joy. Don’t live in their smallness, hate, arguments, vindictiveness. Don’t let the evil wound your heart, and don’t let the insanity callous your soul.
Just don’t.
We are alive. There is beauty. It is spring, and God is warming us, pulling us, toward new, life-giving moments.
~ ~ ~
Music: Fork In the Road, Grumpynora, Unknown Album
