I've Moved...

I'm keeping this for my occasional travel post, but most of the thinking and writing is going on over at my much-revived old blog, Take Joy: http://takejoy.blogspot.com. So come on over!

Daily Rhythm

I actually wrote the following post on the homeward stretch of my trip. But I've thought a lot about it as I have re-entered the round of daily life. This is just the first of some of my thought regarding the rhythm and cadence God has built into the heart of the world.

A howling rush of wind woke us early on Monday morning and soon we heard the steady drum beat of rain on the rooftop and windows. I crept down early, got the fire burning and my candle lit and curled myself into the corner of the couch to savor the somber morning. I’ve been beginning my devotions by reading old Anglican hymns out of a small, brown leather hymn book from a hundred years ago that my Dad gave me for Christmas. It startles me, how quickly my heart responds to the old, formal language.
In this time of personal expression and utter lack of formality, you would think I would find the old, metered words limiting. Instead, I find them almost thrilling in their chorus of expression of who God is. The words have meat to them, the thoughts are hearty, filling food for my soul and I can wrap my thought round them and let them lead me on my way in praise.
I’ve thought quite a bit about order and rhythm these days. Strangely, I’ve found a sense of rhythm on this trip that I’ve been missing for quite awhile. I would have thought that setting off on a wild-eyed adventure would leave order rather in the dust, but I have found instead that she marches quite steadfastly at my side, like a sturdy chum, and her influence is having quite an effect on me.
I suppose I am more aware of order in the world when I travel; I reenter the steady cadence of sunrise and sunset, rising to catch the early light, forced to stop driving when darkness falls. I brought a little book of morning and evening devotions with me that I have managed to use in the sunrises and sunsets of my driving days and they give a marvelous sense of rhythm to my hours.But I sense it most powerfully here in PEI, where I rise with the sun and praise God to the old cadence of those Anglican hymns and then drive out to adventure in this small island of well-ordered beauty. PEI is a small heaven of order; the farms and fields in quilt pattern exactness, the trees marching in even rows of loveliness along the red roads. In the midst of it all, I find my thoughts striding forth a little more steadily, my heart beating more surely with the companionship of all this rhythm. I find that despite the general craziness of life, there’s a heartbeat at the core of it after all.

I think this could change the way I think about my days. More to come.

October

There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood,
Touch of manner, hint of mood,
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry,
Of bugles going by,
And my lonely spirit thrills,
To see the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir,
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

-Bliss Carman

Dark and Bright

I had an odd moment the other day; one of those instances when the inner reality of my thought and the outer reality of the world clashed so violently, that for a moment I was left bewildered. I was typing out my last post about the rediscovery of wonder when I heard for the first time about some of the black things in the news of late; having been on the road, I hadn’t heard about the school shootings and other such things and for an instant, it was a shock that stopped me mid-typewritten-sentence.
It felt incongruous somehow, to turn from the hearing of that travesty to the completion of my thoughts on wonder and beauty. For a moment, I felt almost as if I shouldn’t finish that post; the seeking of childlike wonder seemed suddenly so flimsy next to such bitter flesh and blood realities. But as I sat in that silence of thought, I felt a sudden surge of steeling in my heart, a strengthening conviction of how vitally important it is to pursue beauty, precisely because of such heart-shattering wrong.
It is easy, cloistered away as I am, to think of beauty as something vague and lovely that will flit down upon my head in quieter moments. Somehow, it is easy to equate beauty with passivity. But what I am discovering is that to live in beauty, God’s redemptive, hope-filled beauty, I must live with heart set and teeth gritted in struggle, because the battle to beat out beauty is so devastatingly fierce.Beauty is a fragile presence, yes, but it is a presence that must be fought for and once gained defended. In the face of darkness, it is a flame of hopeful light. Even against the tragedies of the past week, it is even more valuable because it is the sign of a redemption that is coming. It is easy to think of beauty, of grace and loveliness as somehow useless, but that is what this cold old world would like me to think. Beauty is a lifeline, one to which I must cling with every last strength in my soul. So take that you dark old world, I’ll believe in beauty yet!

Island Glory

Anne's Land

On our second to last day in PEI, Anna and I had our official "Anne Day", where we made our delightful pilgrimage to all the Anne spots on the island. I have found though, in my visits before, that these days are as much a journey into the soul of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the island life she loved as much as anything. The books literally come to life before your eyes; the same farms in their rolling fields, the gabled white houses, the old homesteads set midst pines just yards away from the coast, it is all here. So is the beauty she wrote about so eloquently; the lake of shining waters and the haunted wood, the enchanted little corners of wood and field, they were all there in a rich autumn glory that made me feel as if I really could meet Anne nearby.

I have been quite impressed in my literary travels of the past week by the central role that nature played in the thought and creation of my most beloved writers. I mentioned Alcott and Thoreau previously, but Montgomery is in a league of her own. Her love of nature in its beauty and variety is part of the grace that so pervadesher writing. In the home of her beloved cousin, I found a quote by her that (paraphrasing) said: I have always felt that I lived quite near a world of ideal beauty. There was a curtain between me and that world, but sometimes the merest wind would lift aside the curtain and I could see just for a moment, and it was those moments that made life worth living. This thought went with me every place we visited that day, because it helped me to understand some of the captivation so many people find in the Anne books. Lucy Maud was writing about the beautiful , real world, just beyond her reach, and in touring her old haunts, I felt like I too was brought close to that world.

Silver Bush (Or the Anne of Green Gables Museum): Lucy Maud's haven, the home of her cousins and the house from which she was married. It sits right next to the Lake of Shining Waters and is barely a mile from the windy northern coast. Still run by relations of the family, this is my favorite museum because of all the personal stories and memorabiloia. There is also a lovely giftshop and little cafe, as well as carriage rides round the Lake of Shining Waters if you so desire.

Green Gables: Though not the actual home of Lucy Maud, this home belonged to a cousin and she was often a visitor in the home as wellas the land. This is the location of the haunted woods and the old and beloved Lover's Lane.

Blue Winds Tea Room: If you are ever in PEI, this is a lovely place to stop for a healthy and delicious bit of lunch, served on local pottery in a tiny blue cottage. The Clam Chowder and Raspberry Chocolate Cake are especially good.

New London: A tiny bit of a town between Cavendish (the location of Green Gables) and Park Corner. There is a little museum made up in the house where L.M.M. was born, and it also houses her wedding dress.

So, there's our official list of stops. What you can't catch with that arethe long, lovely miles of red roads through crimson maple groves, and old church steeples up against the moody sea sky. And you can't hear Anna dramatically reading Kilmeny of the Orchard, an old romance of L.M.M.'s as we drove. All I've got to see is that PEI is an island for best friends and dreamers. There's just no place like it, especially when your following in the footsteps of Anne and her gracious creator. A day to remember!

A Word of Advice

If you ever happen to find yourself on a rutted, under-construction dirt road, in the middle of a rainstorm, with puddles the size of small lakes all around you, drive very, very slowly, or else, just turn around completely. The road will stare at you with challenge in its deceptively smooth looking curves. Ignore it. Otherwise, you might end up at the car doctor’s to fix the broken nose your car got in the fight with the road. Gypsy and I tried to take on just such a road on a rainy day, and she ended up with a bad bruise on her left headlight. We went for a quick trip to the doctor’s. But she’s all better now!

An Ocean Sabbath

We went for a Sunday walk along a beach that was entirely new and therefore quite exciting to me. It curved round the northernmost shore of the island was guarded by (wonder of wonders) a weathered wall of red sandstone cliffs that jutted out into the water and cast their shadow over the sand. I have always wanted to walk the shore with the depths of the oceanon one side and the heights of cliffs on the other, it satisfies something in my soul that longs for mystery. I was giddy as a little girl as we clambered barefoot over the mossy rocks and splashed in the rising tide. A storm had risen as we walked, stirring up the dark waters and tossing them madly over the rocks. But when the water slipped away with each wave, there was a marvellous glimmer of saphire and pearls from the many shells caught between the red stones.

To my delight, we found a damp, echoing little cave with satin smooth walls and strange nooks that looked as if they once held treasure. We scrambled in and perched ourselves as far back as we could so that we gazed out on the tossing of sea and sky through the dark circle frame of the cave. Anna whipped out her sketchbook and bit of pencil and I sat back to consider what name we ought to give our little hideaway. For as any girl raised on the Anne books knows, every discovered nook is a treasure to be named and kept and set down on the map of imagination.

But as I considered this, as I sat in the roaring quiet of the ocean, I found my thoughts drawn deeper down; found myself pondering the childlike delight that was so present to me in the discovery of my cave and in every hour of these autumn days of adventure and leisure. A sense of wonder, of wild-eyed, childlike awe has been strongly present with me on this trip, and it calls me back to my highly imaginative little girlhood. The world seems so full of beauty, and the beauty has meaning. It is, ofcourse, delightful to me, but it is also deeply stirring, for I have a sense of the world somehow deepening around me, taking on a mystery and meaning that, in the bustle of adult life I thought I had lost.

When I was a little girl, I knew the world to be a fair and perilous place. The world of fairy tales and the world of Anne was real to me. I knew that every forest and field hid beauty awaiting my discover. Every book confronted me with the chance to live my life as part of an epic story. God had scattered loveliness round the earth just for me to find and each day was a treasure hunt that brought me closer to His heart. The rising up of the sun was more than another mere day, it was another miracle of light, another day in which I could live and laugh and draw closer to the heart of God that beat so presently in my colorful world. My actions and my thoughts mattered, because e3verything I did was part of the grand tale in which I lived. Life was an adventure, a song, a perilous quest, and every minute was full of worth.

But somewhere along the way, I lost my child eyes and was drawn further and further in to the bustling reality of modern, adult life. There is little mystery to be had in email and cell phones and constant musts, little beauty in the ugly news reports and harried rush of my culture. I began to lose the sense of worth in the world, found less time to think and more time to hurry. Less time to revel in beauty, less value for quiet because there was so much to be done. As I went, I had a sense of resignation that, oh well, this is what it means to enter into the real world of adulthood. It seemed that this is what life required of responsible people in my time.

But the thoughts and beauties, the innocent wonder of these past days rise up around me in a mighty challenge to that sort of thinking. I feel my heart begin to struggle toward life, find myself deeply hungry to feel the wonder of my childhood agai. But the hunger is born of a growing conviction that the kingdom of God is the kingdom of childlike wonder. When I lost a sense of the preciousness of my days it wasn't just a child's freedom I lost; it was the recognition of God, present and potent in every instant of my life. And that regretful resignation I felt wasn't a natural consequence of moving on, it was the numbing of my soul. Satan would desperately like my heart to grow cold. But it is not what God desires.

In my little cave on the beach, I had a sudden dawning understanding of what my heart was missing. These days have wakened me and now, I have come to a new conclusion. Now, I am convinced that I walk amidst mysteries and ever-present wonders. The gold and fire glory of autumn, an evening of candelight, the laugh of my beloved friend, the disvoery of a cave on the edges of a roaring ocean, these are treasures, priceless whispers of God's reality and of a world just beyond my imagination. They are to be sought, beloved and I am to fight with every bit of grit I posess to keep my child eyes open to their wonder.

I thought I had come to this island of my heart to take a short respite form the bustle of modern life. But I begin to think that I have come instead to get a new soul, to grow young again. Not stronger so that I can be busier, but quieter, so that I may love more deeply, see more clearly, and live in the wonder of God that brings His kingdom to bear in my heart. It feels awfully good.

Old Fashioned Outing

Our Saturday was spent in what we dubbed "a ladylike day abroad". Like the heroines in old stories such as Portrait of a Lady or Little Women, we packed a basket with bread and cheese and glass bottles of sparkling juice, armed ourselves with pens and paper and brushes and set forth to find a quiet, scenic spot in which to work our wondrous art. We had dicovered a hidden jewel of a place the day before; the New Glasgow Gardens. They were rather a hidden treasure to my mind as I had often before stopped nearby and never seen them. But we followed a small path next to a favoreite restaurant and found ourselves in a maze of shaded garden paths that wound through a vast hillside of flowers and orchard trees and cultivated loveliness. There were late roses and just turned-trees of autumn gold, orchards where apples lay strewn and long beds of late summer flowers. There was a little hut of a butterfly house where we found a dozen sorts of exotic beauties fluttering around. After strolling over an old foot bridge that spanned a sweet fountain, we settled on a particular spot that overlooked the glimmering blue of the lake and was ringed round by the deep green of the hills and gold of the harvest fields.

With quilt tucked snugly against the sunlit, though quite chill wind, we sketched and wrote and thought as though we were the lovely ladies of leisure who had a lifetime of such work to occupty their hands. We were scolded quite fervently by an entire family of chipmunks, but we retaliated by sketching them. We ended our outing with a dainty tea at the PEI Cannery and Preserves Co. They serve a raspberry pie that is worth the effort of an outing. But they also serve tea in little one-woman sets of old-fashioinned patterns. Seated by a window that overlooked the countryside, we felt as happy as any ladies at the White Sands Hotel must have felt in the days of Anne of Green Gables. Ah, the olden days!

Starlight

Anna and I took a starlit walk last night, under skies so deeply black and generously jeweled that it nearly took my breath away. We are so far from big cities here that the darkness is unfettered, quiet, full of a sense of stillness. It is so good to be in a place that is somewhat separate from the rush and bustle of the modern world.

PEI has a peace and quiet about it that I have rarely found in the travelling I have done. Because it is such a little island, set so far east, it has managed to retain a bit of it's old-fashionedness. There is less hurry here; less advertisement and fast food and bustle on the roads. We've given Gypsy quite a run for her money as we are out exploring almost every day, but to miss these quiet hillsides and forests in the glory of autumn would be a downright crime. It is incredibly beautiful; leaves burned crimson and gold, long harvest fields hedged about with summer green meadows, the sky always changing since the sea is so near. We are, as Anne would say, "drinking up the beauty" and making our hearts strong with it. Pictures will come soon. For now, we are thinking and dreaming on this little island and wish you the same quiet we have found.