As we gather for Thanksgiving, we enter the paradise of family and friends, the sacred and unique place we hold–physically and spiritually–for all those with whom we are most grateful. We remember those who are no longer with us, feeling blessed for their presence. And in spite of a landscape of leafless trees and frozen ground, we remember greener days and the world as it was intended. 

Paradise

At dawn, frost sheaths the milkweed

and shells of wild parsnip that edge the road.

It shrouds the hay fields,

graying the glory and bright treble notes

of summer.

A lovelier garden winters beyond me.

Its iron gate has closed upon

the Columbine and poppies,

the bluebells and lilies.

In the silence, I listen for familiar songs,

but they are cloistered among the growing,

garden things.

They weave themselves into staffs of grace,

their major and minor souls lilting

sempre dolce.

This is the way it was intended:

Mayapple and melody;

the persistent descant of willow and yarrow;

clear notes of freesia, fuchsia, and phlox;

a profusion of green with rich, red fruit

at the center.

But here, the trees quiver in the wind,

their bones dark and exposed.

In the sky, the sun kneels

in pale submission, and my breath erupts

frozen and freed into the morning air.

Still, I place my hands on the iron rungs

and push.

There, my heart steps—trembling—

into paradise.

Epiphany

The sun burns through the barren branches of the ash.

It has pierced the heavens

and emerged through a single pin-hole

into a cloudless, cobalt sky.

For a moment, I cannot see to move.

In this instant, I am held fast in light

which spreads concentrically in golden spheres

on the gravel beneath me.

I am the axis of something I feel

but cannot yet name.

Call it epiphany,

for I am soul-bolted, blinded,

transfixed beyond reason.

I close my eyes, but the center holds.

Call it epiphany,

this bird of light whose wings split

the silence of unknowing

sending an illumined shaft,

a manifestation of something greater.

Finally I walk,

my feet moving east,

my trembling hands teasing the air

with sure incandescence.

And here I move upon this blessed, bright plane

where all dry bones are girded

and gilded.

Hygge (pronounced hue-guh) is a Danish word used when acknowledging a feeling or moment, whether alone or with friends, at home or out, ordinary or extraordinary as cozy, charming or special.

The first snow of the season is falling. Settled in my cabin with a cup of tea, I look out on the branches that had just recently held such spectacular fall colors but are now barren except for a faint dusting of white. Inside these ordinary pine walls and surrounded by ash, hickory, and cottonwood, I feel the extraordinary assurance of home wash over me. This is hygge.

In The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well, author Louisa Thomsen Brits writes:

We all hygger: gathered around a table for a shared meal or beside a fire on a dark night, when we sit in the corner of our local café or wrap ourselves in a blanket at the end of a day on the beach. . . baking in a warm kitchen, bathing by candlelight, being alone in bed with a hot water bottle and a good book–these are all ways to hygge.

Hygge draws meaning from the fabric of ordinary living. It’s a way of acknowledging the sacred in the secular, of giving something ordinary a special context, spirit and warmth and taking time to make it extraordinary.

Decades before I had ever heard the word hygge, I lived it. Both my mother and father framed my world, so that I learned to see the sacred in the secular, to give the ordinary a special context, to make it extraordinary. As a child, I spent hours transforming the ordinary stuff of my life into new worlds with marvelous possibilities. I combed the alley behind our house for treasure: unusual rocks, pieces of colored glass, violets that grew among the weeds around the garbage cans. And on Friday evenings with TV trays of hamburgers and chips, I felt our home was particularly cozy and special.

When I was in third grade and my father was finishing his PhD work, my family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska for a year. I attended the laboratory school on the University of Nebraska campus, a school with a small fenced gravel playground behind it. Each recess, a group of girls and I worked in the corner of the playground as others played kickball and jumped rope. With the edges of our shoes, we scraped the gravel bare in places, making piles of crushed rock to outline the houses we were creating. We made rooms with aquariums that we populated with rock fish. We made lamps from sticks. We piled and formed gravel into sofas and beds and chairs. Day after day, we didn’t know that we were making do; we only counted the minutes until recess, until our ordinary corner of the playground would become magical once again.

Louis Thomsen Brits claims that an essential ingredient to hygge is the boundary that marks a place or delineates a moment—a fence, a circle of cushions or a stolen half hour. My friends and I created boundaries of gravel that, even today, mark those 8-year-old moments as hygge.

Sir Thomas Moore, saint, philosopher, and statesman writes: Things sing when they reach a certain degree of presence. Hygge demands presence, insists upon being rather than doing. For regardless of their beauty or worth, things are simply things when we are not wholly present. They whisper but do not sing. They line the periphery of our hours, silhouettes of what might be. But when we are truly present, when we carve out moments of conscious being, things sing the glorious hymns of hygge.

Perhaps there is something especially suitable for hygge in this season of blankets, hot chocolate, firelight, and the winter world shining outside a frosted window. But hygge is not dependent upon warm houses. In her letters to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a minister, essayist and eminent Bostonian, Emily Dickinson writes: I felt it shelter to speak to you. Hygge may live in the intimate words you share with another, words that feel, indeed, like shelter in a world of noise. It may reside in lines of verse that live in the pockets of your soul. And it may take shape in a single word: your name spoken knowingly by another.

Rainer Maria Rilke understood that hygge finds its greatest truth in the presence of God. So, I’ll let him have the final words.

I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough

to make each hour holy.

I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough

to be simply in your presence, like a thing–

just as it is.

I want to know my own will

and to move with it.

And I want, in the hushed moments

when the nameless draws near,

to be among the wise ones–

or alone.

I want to mirror your intensity.

I want never to be too weak or too old

to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.

Let no place in me hold itself closed,

for where I am closed, I am false.

I want to stay clear in your sight.

                                            Rainer Maria Rilke, Books of Hours 

Photo by Florin Catalin

The Passion of November

Here is a green that is gold,

a sacrifice of leaf to limb.

I kneel at the foot of ash and elm

and my tears seed the earth

with longing.

I look up

into arms outstretched, their palms open

in the midday sun.

Below me,

the fecund matter of the saints

lies in burnished piles.

In the ditches,

I rub shoulders with grasses

and milkweed grown tall.

And into the chill,

vaporous at first, but surer then

as limbs speak:

Woman, behold your son.

       Son, behold your mother.

Here in the absence of green

I take bronze to my breast,

a melancholy but necessary embrace.

This is the passion of November.

Round Bales

The round bales sit in frosted fields,

relics of summer, now dried and cylindrical

under a slate sky.

From the road, some think straw.

They miss the mystery at the center,

still green, still germinating,

a glorious nucleus,

a promise of pastures with hair thrown

heedlessly to the breeze.

So it is with all ordinary mysteries,

their burlap coats buttoned over tender miracles

which take refuge in the dark.

Until one with nimble fingers

unravels each layer,

picks a way through the chaff and chill.

Then the center exhales

its warm breath escaping across the earth,

its timbre taking shape in song:

What was buried is raised.

Love is lifted, death is robed.

The round bales sit as tombs.

Yet even now, their stones are being rolled away,

their life source redeemed.

Late October Blessing

Jet trails mark the heavens

with straight, white lines that intersect

in the late October sky.

Such cruel geometry that cuts

the blue, stamping out a triangle here

and a rhombus there.

For a sky resists such partitioning,

holds fast to expanse,

and lays claim to a presence

both shapeless and endless.

It is true that within minutes

these shapes will disappear,

absorbed into the organic nature of sky

and all things without borders

that refuse to be contained.

But for a moment, there will be pieces–

acute and obtuse–

and they will strain against their walls.

Bless them,

and bear witness to the sacred transformation

from finite to infinite.

At 63

The sunflowers are spent,

and the milkweed pods have burst.

There is a leeching and loosening

where all that held its hue and form

is settling into the twilight of autumn.

And I, too, fold my wings

into the hollows of this season.

My marrow slows.

My bones, now barren branches, cry

If I had but one green leaf,

one verdant banner to fly,

I might weather this undoing.

But we are slackening to brown,

these trees and I.

An inevitable sepia washes across our pages.

This is the way of it,

the browning of our lives.

We submit to it as we must,

and its reflective richness wraps itself

around our scarcity in surprising ways.

So we stand erect, leafless,

but warm in the assurance

of sable and umber and walnut.

When my daughter sent me this recent picture of Gracyn and Griffin, I spoke these words into the solitude of my home: This is heaven. These perfect ovals which hold the perfect faces of my love. These cornflower blue eyes fixed on the promise of autumnal splendor. This coupling of brother and sister in such a pure embrace. And these gold, green, and russet leaves that hang onto October for all their worth. This is a little bit of heaven in a a troubled world.

Suffice it to say that we all need a little bit of heaven. Right here, right now, a day or a moment, a glimpse or a good, hard look. We all need a respite from whatever ails us and sends us bedraggled into the shadows of life. In his novel, Let the Great World Spin, Irish writer Colum McCann writes: Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same. Even if the light is damaged and bruised, it is a little light all the same. And a little light ushers in a little heaven, a small gift into which a multitude of mysteries and glories are packed.

After five days of rain, this morning I looked out my kitchen window to see my white rabbit grazing on the hillside. She has found her little bit of heaven here, forsaking the freedom of the timber for the familiarity of our yard. And when I call her, kneeling with carrot in hand, and she runs to me with unabashed trust, I can’t help but think that heaven has found earth in this daily ritual. A little white, a little heaven to sustain me in gray world.

In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis writes:

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it — tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest — if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself — you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was made for”. We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

How well C. S. Lewis understands the power of a little bit of heaven, how it offers tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear–all heralding the thing I was made for. This, indeed, is the thing we desired before and after the mind no longer knows wife [or husband] or friend or work. This is heaven, and each small hint of it, each little bit of it is the secret signature of each soul.

At the ripe age of 63, like Lewis, I am more convicted that if we lose our yearning for heaven–on earth and beyond–we lose all. The stuff of our daily lives is literally rubbish in the presence and promise of heaven. We may kid ourselves into believing that a kitchen remodel or a new SUV will fill the deepest longing of our souls, but even as we leave the home improvement store or car lot, we realize that the joke is on us. The sheen of a maple cabinet or the luster of a metallic paint job pales in the brilliance of a little bit of heaven. Still, too often, we cling to our stuff, choosing to believe that it will save us from ourselves and our lives. And tragically when it ages and rusts, we just get new stuff to take its place. In our predilection to purchase, we lose all.

Or we simply work harder and longer. We thrust ourselves into the thick of all things scheduled, planned, and yet-to-be-planned. We believe that we will find heaven amidst files or in the minutes of countless meetings. At some point, we may even believe that work will define us in a way that nothing and no one else can. In rapturous moments, we justify ourselves and our work as important and necessary. And in collegial corners, we congratulate ourselves on accomplishments that pass as quickly and insignificantly as the countless daily memos that we shred or recycle.

A little bit of heaven reminds us of our transience. Although a photograph of my grandchildren can capture much, it simply cannot capture the mystery of all that is Gracyn and Griffin. When I see these faces, I also hear their voices at age 2 and 4 and 9, voices that cry out, “Grandma!” I feel the weight that this single word carries when it rises from the mouths of those I love more than life itself. These earthly moments are transient, but they remind me that there are more glorious moments to come.

And in the meantime? Fred Rogers proposes that the connections we make in the course of a life–maybe that’s what heaven is. Certainly, most of us could testify to the truth in these words, for our own connections lay claim to the presence of heaven throughout our lives. Our connections have ears to listen, mouths and arms to console. They are the living, breathing material of heaven in the here and now.

Theologian and author, N. T. Wright endorses the prospect of heaven on earth when he writes: Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about. [Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church] Colonizing earth with the life of heaven? I’m all for this. We sing about this, pray about this, write and speak about this, but to get down to the business of actual colonization, we will need to get serious about the little bits of heaven we can all acknowledge and create each day.

Lately, I’ve begun to hear my own proverbial clock ticking. If I’m going to get serious about bringing a little bit of heaven to earth, if I’m going to proclaim, Here at last is the thing I was made for, I need to begin. And what better place to begin than visiting the pumpkin patch with my grandchildren? A clear October sky, mounds of hay bales, pumpkins of all colors, sizes, and shapes, and two eager smiles. This is little bit of heaven that I can wrap my arms around.

Photo: Zarah Sagheer by Collyn Ware

Life is a transition from one form to another. The life of this world is the material for a new form.  Leo Tolstoy

Southern Iowa is beginning its transition from late summer to autumn. Eighty-some-degree days give way to 50-some-degree days and to nights cool enough to warrant firing up the furnace. Ditches of tangerine day lilies and periwinkle chicory give way to stands of crimson sumac and burnished heads of goldenrod. Life as we know it is transitioning from one form to another.

Lovely though the autumn sumac may be, its crimson beauty pales in the presence of a young woman who wears it even more elegantly, a young woman who will soon transition from the smaller world of home and high school to the larger world of university and new possibilities. These moments of transition, writes novelist Jhumpi Lahiri, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments that we tend to remember.

We do remember these backbone moments, indeed. The moments when sons and daughters reach out to take diplomas in hand and walk confidently forward with eyes fixed on the future. The moments when fathers place their daughters’ hands into their soon-to-be husbands’ and when mothers see beyond lace veils into the shining faces of little girls-turned-brides. The moments when children leave for new homes, the remaining remnants of their childhoods packed neatly into boxes and stored in basements. The moments when minds are renewed, souls are revived, and lives are refined.

Director, screenwriter, and producer Steven Sonderbergh claims that the key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between the scenes. Truthfully, I think it’s safe to say that we tend to focus on what comes before and after such transitions. We fixate on the scenes. This is the good stuff, we think. But the transitions between scenes? Not so much. Yet, such possibility and such tension lives in these transitions. And though we take them for granted or tend to ignore them altogether, they are the key to making good movies and, more importantly, the key to making good lives.

Transition may lead to transformation, which is often more about unlearning than learning, writes Father Richard Rohr, spiritual adviser and writer. I admit that any transformation I’ve experienced has involved a fair amount of unlearning. For any significant and lasting change to occur, I’ve often had to unlearn some safer but potentially stifling processes: sticking with what has worked, seeing with old eyes, embracing the same perspectives, and listening solely to voices of agreement. Paradoxically, unlearning can open the door to genuine learning, and this learning is the crown jewel of transformation.

And the best thing about transition and transformation? These are not singular experiences. Instead, they offer plural promises that span lifetimes. French-American writer Anais Nin writes: I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me. As I think of my niece, Zarah, I can’t help but smile at the many women she will undoubtedly have in her throughout her lifetime. This is the magnificent power of transition: it is the means to new women and men who live as unsprouted seeds, waiting in the fertile soil of former selves.

And let it be said that transitions are often not sudden, but rather, as writer C. S. Lewis explains, like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight. When you first notice them they have already been going on for some time. Zarah’s transition into womanhood and the larger world of the university experience has been going on for some time. Ask those who know who best, and they will tell you how resourceful, how financially responsible, how goal-oriented, and how generally wonderful she is. They will tell you that she will transition gracefully into the next phase of her life. And, most certainly, they will be right.

My daughter, Zarah’s photographer, is a master at capturing the light in any scene and using it to bring the essence of her subjects into every photograph. Journalist and writer Teresa Tsalaky writes that light precedes every transition. Whether at the end of a tunnel, through a crack in the door or the flash of an idea, it is always there, heralding a new beginning. In this photo, Zarah stands at the threshold of this light that precedes every transition. And if we have eyes to see, this light is always there, heralding a new beginning.

For Zarah and for all of us who stand at this precipice and who will stand at many more: we can take heart in the promise of so many fellow transitioners who will encourage and sustain us through all of our changes.

Sunrise, late September

The rosy underbelly of the clouds

descends in a watercolor wash upon the hills

sending pink light into the fields.

Here is the sweet spot.

Here time, in all its translucence,

turns the present into memory and vision,

each palpable and almost visible.

Here, the imperceptible floats in the breeze

just beyond your reach.

In late September when colors run at dawn,

you hold what has been and what will be

upon your outstretched palm.

And there, with wings spun silver,

they quiver and take flight.