I’d been staring at a screen all morning—work, emails, Zoom call, all that. Contrary to it enlarging your world, I feel if you spend too much time in front of a screen then your view adjusts to those dimensions, in my case about 13 inches. And when it comes to view, size matters. So I got up and got out, stepped out on the back deck with a roast beef-havarti cheese-tomato-gobs of Duke’s mayo sandwich on Ezekiel in one hand and an unsweet tay (southern for “tea”) in the other. Dew point has been low the last few days with temps lower too, so being outside has not only been bearable but enjoyable. And yesterday at noon, man it was goldilocks—just right.
I felt close to God when we lived in Colorado. You may not know Merle’s song “Colorado.” If you don’t, you oughta.
Have you ever been down to Colorado?
I spend a lot of time there in my mind.
And if God doesn’t live in Colorado
I bet that’s where he spends most of his time.
For me, it was the sky. Sure, we had our share of low cloud ceilings and blowin’ biting snow, but mainly we had sunshine and clear blue skies. At first I tagged that sky cornflower blue, that’s the closest shade I could find in the Crayola box. But over time I realized that’s close but no cigar. The color of the sky along Colorado’s Front Range is blue-to-break-your-heart, as in so beautiful it almost breaks your heart and sometimes just goes ahead and breaks it. And because of altitude (in our case 7000 feet), you’re closer to that sky, that sky where God lives, or where he spends most of his time.
I haven’t felt close to God since moving back to Arkansas, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a feeler. There are reasons for that perceived lack of closeness, reasons I’m aware of, reasons that are legit when it comes to not feeling God’s presence. If I had to point to a word to encapsulate those reasons, I’d point to Joan Didion’s book Blue Nights (highly recommended), and her deft use of the word “frailty.” A certain frailness comes into play as time passes and losses accumulate. Life feels more frail now, as do I. Don’t think for one minute I’m not raging against the dying of the light. I do my burpees. But it is a frailer raging, and I’d say if you know, you know.
As I ate the last bites of that noontime sandwich yesterday, I looked up, up through the green canopy of leaves that at times borders on overwhelming for a card-carrying claustrophobe like me. And there, there through the green was that blue, that blue-to-break-your-heart. Trust me, I’ve looked at the sky a lot since moving here, and that’s the first time that shade has shown itself. Same sky. Same as the sky where God lives. That blue didn’t last long. In fact, it sorta faded even in the few moments I looked. But I saw it, felt it break my heart.
At one time in my life I kept up with all things theological. I do not any longer. But during that time I read where somebody thought the apostle John penned that gem of a verse (3:16) not as a younger man but rather as an old man, looking back on things, reflecting, reminiscing, remembering. I read that years ago and by now maybe somebody’s proven that silly. I don’t care, that’s the view I’m holding, and if you send me evidence to the contrary I’ll just smile and delete it. That as life, John’s life, grew more and more frail, his encapsulation of it all, every damn stitch, was “For God so loved the world,” the world where he spends most of his time.
“Aw, John, God gave you a wink in that sky.” No, don’t say that. I would never say that. Such Hallmarkish-talk diminishes the struggle, makes light of the fight, dilutes the taste of blood in my mouth. I am now in the autumn of my life, searching for that blue. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.
Oh, yeah. I have at least 15 years on you, and all of this gets truer by the minute. All the layers seem to slough off and what remains is both exquisitely painful and enormously freeing. What’s left is love. And tiny, true glimpses of break-your-heart blue.
<sigh> I feel this.
No platitudes, just solidarity. Frailty is the word that lingers…
Thanks, John.