Bugs & the Venture of Eternity

Bugs & the Venture of Eternity
In "To a Moth Seen in Winter"

                                     

   Bugs are fun! Is it any wonder that one of my favorite poets has several poems or reflections on moths?  (I say this with a bit of hesitation, as yes, I have so often been inspired by Frost poetry, even have written a few songs on the piano dedicated to his verse, however, it would seem that he may not have been a person whom I would have admired, also, in this phase of my life I find that I cannot give voice to some of the more hopeless tones with which some poems are overlay-ed.)  What I enjoy when I read Frost's To a Moth Seen in Winter, is encountering the moth in the snow.... it's a breathless moment, it's so exciting! Insects- are they not a source of joy & endless fascination? It's so momentous to see this magical silvery creature that I wonder if I can follow Frost into his melancholic reverie, but I do, because he is such a master of words, after all, it's difficult not to follow Frost where he will take you, whether into a yellow wood, a snowy evening, or into pensive reflection "twixt wood and wood."   If I see a moth or any insect for that matter, I too am bound to stop what I am doing and watch with fascination, delight, and at least a hint of melancholic reverie...So to prepare us

for Frost..                  .

Here's a little of us enjoying nature from our home in Wisconsin.  It's a bit buggy out here by the lake.  Our friends are ....

Katydids come into our house and make high shrilled clicking noises. Can you spy her on the leaf?

katydids, 

                                          
grasshoppers, 

walking sticks,



Mating sticks. Do Walking Sticks kiss? Note how the tail of one looks like a long needled pine. Wait, females do not need males to reproduce, they can reproduce by parthenogenesis...hmmm.

  bumblebees, and  

This one flew at my nose as I was videotaping it!

praying mantises  

This one was just sitting on our car.

and well, wasps, especially recently~ everyday as winter approaches we have about 8 cold and dying wasps come into our house, looking for warmth: guess we need to go nest hunting & destroying, they are very slow, drunken-like, docile and lost~moral of the story, when you see a wasp nest on you house-never leave it-or you'll have trouble in the fall and in the spring when they wake up! Back to Frost's moth....

"bright- black-eyed silvery creature, brushed with brown..."

To a Moth Seen in Winter

Robert Frost

There's first a gloveless hand warm from my pocket,
A perch and resting place 'twixt wood and wood,
Bright-black-eyed silvery creature, brushed with brown,
The wings not folded in repose, but spread.
(Who would you be, I wonder, by those marks
If I had moths to friend as I have flowers?)
And now pray tell what lured you with false hope
To make the venture of eternity
And seek the love of kind in winter time?
But stay and hear me out. I surely think
You make a labor of flight for one so airy,
Spending yourself too much in self-support.
Nor will you find love either nor love you.
And what I pity in you is something human,
The old incurable untimeliness,
Only begetter of all ills that are.
But go. You are right. My pity cannot help.
Go till you wet your pinions and are quenched.
You must be made more simply wise than I
To know the hand I stretch impulsively
Across the gulf of well nigh everything
May reach to you, but cannot touch your fate.
I cannot touch your life, much less can save,
Who am tasked to save my own a little while.

     Beautiful and melancholy. Indeed, Frost is too melancholy for me, at least that's how I seem to feel with all of my favorite Frost poems, terrifyingly melancholy and so...heavy with the tragic side of human existence. One commentator labeled Frost "the bearer of bad news for civilization."  And in this, perhaps he provides an intellectual honesty different from his transcendentalist contemporaries. Despite his intellectually honest melancholy, he draws us in with nature's beauty, this snow-shaking beauty like the the irresistible heavy dust-fall of snow from a giant, long-needled pine, or a "black-eyed silvery creature, brushed with brown," that we must marvel at nature with him.  Like a stereogram, now you see it, now you don't, there is childlike marvel at nature {wondering which kind of friend this moth might be} coupled with a heavy adult reverie {you will never truly be loved, nor will you love}: but this moth, irresistible form of natural wonder just happened upon, gives delight despite the wistfulness of the observer, like a newborn infant, who knows not the effect of pure delight and joy she gives. The moth is a remnant of the pre-wistful garden of Eden.
   But Frost cannot live in the Garden of Eden anymore than you or I can.  Oh, Frost, here you spend less than half of your poem in your childlike delight over a moth on your hand!  Yet, I could give you the benefit of the doubt and see perhaps a bit of childlike innocence in your reverie, thinking it possible that you were enjoying your reverie and your anthropomorphic musings with childish delight. Ah, but there can be an earth-spell delight in melancholy, so I can assume that the delight even in choosing the right word goes all the way down to the bottom of the poem.  It was all part of the earth-spell the moth had put you under and the word-smith came out to play, in the garden of the knowledge of good and evil.  In this garden we became barred from lifting ourselves out of this burdensome wistful knowledge that we cannot change our fate.  In this garden we had no choice but to hide from the One that loved us into being and to accept our fate; no choice but to lament something good that is missed, something that could have been better, if only.  But, if Frost had been able to accept through a childlike faith, even way back in the first appearance of this heavy knowledge in the Genesis story came a promise that through Christ the head of evil would be crushed. The whole story is the story that includes ills & tragedies, but that ultimately has a hero who wins the battle & destroys evil~and gives us God's vision for what love was meant to be, even giving us His perfect love in Christ, that our sufferings in the face of imperfect human love might not have the final voice. Thus, a vision for eternity with God restored.
    The poem is but a vein of the moth wing, not the whole, I can't see it all here in this poem. To stop here would be like stopping by the Snow Witch's castle in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and seeing all those creatures frozen stone cold: indeed, Frost seems frozen in this poem, able to enjoy a beautiful moment in nature, but unable to find true love despite his best desires and efforts.  If we stop here, trying to find true & unconditional love in nature, or even in ourselves or another, we will find ourselves coming up short.  Indeed, Frost speaks truth. This truth is confirmed in God's word.  Man on His own cannot experience unconditional love on his "venture of eternity." That is why we can find ourselves spending so much effort on "self-support."  Frost, much like scripture, gives us this bad news; here Frost betrays the transcendentalists- there are things in nature and in humanity that are not inherently good. We cannot find the support that we need, and we end up spending so much time in "self-support" trying to "save ourselves."  It is only through God's inspired story that we see that Frost's incurable "winter" is melting just like Aslan's breath set free the frozen statues; to see the fate of God's people reborn and to find unconditional love to us and for us in the expression of Jesus.  
     Because of God's gift of undconditional love, bugs can take us out of our adult heaviness and into a world full of childlike possibility and fascination, into suspended moments detached from responsibility, full of the delight of being and the intrigue & strangeness of design.  Through Christ, God's favor can be upon us just as on a little insect, who goes about a pretty simple business of living, despite our "incurable untimeliness,\only begetter of all ills that are," and being a little-no- a lot repetitive.  For the Lord has reached out His hand "across the gulf of well, nigh, everything,"  and touched our fate, yes, even redeemed it, in a "timely" manner, for He is not the begetter of evils, but the begetter of salvation! Such that we need not try to save ourselves. Lord, thank you that after you spoke the word that brought forth bug creatures, you then spoke the written words of life to lost souls that lead us ultimately to your final Word of Jesus.  Your final word of Jesus won for us on the cross what nature could not, and what we could not win for ourselves, that we might be taken out of self-conscious reverie and given light moments of being because of the Word of Life who became hope in the midst of tragedy. And finally, bugs remind me of One who said that His burden ultimately is light and not heavy, because as it was said: "our earthly troubles" are light and momentary, because they are passing away, for all the children of God. 
   

A Prince, A Princess & A Pea

A Prince, A Princess & A Pea

   Are you discontent?  If not, you should be!  At least that's the moral of Hans Christian Anderson's The Princess & the Pea. If Anderson isn't making fun of nobility in this story, which is an option, the innocent little green pea represents something much bigger-discontentment; the complaining of the princess is lauded as heroism, it brings her riches and a noble title.  The meaning of the story is like a mysterious shadow that follows along in the corners of the soul. . .like the search for one's true identity.  We want to be recognized; we want the nobility in us to be seen; we want to recognize ourselves & experience contentment.  How many moments  have you felt like the heroine of this story, unsheltered caught by way of a storm, rain-soaked, unadorned,  like royalty disguised: the shining royal self you cannot seem to find, yet, you are hiding a royal identity? If only for the wisdom of one who can present the true test of noble character!  The queen in this story deserves an applause all her own, one who is wise and perceptive enough to know the TRUE test of nobility deep within. Perhaps our discontentment was meant to lead us to truth, and ultimately to finding our true self. It certainly doesn't make anyone feel like a hero -discontentment, complaining, a feeling of meaninglessness; however, maybe it is the gauntlet through which we must pass to find our identity and true wealth.
      A very famous king's discontentment led him to a search for wisdom in a surprisingly complementary biblical story to the Princess & the Pea - Solomon of Ecclesiastes.  Solomon  was standing atop twenty of the worlds' most luxurious mattresses: the worlds' best of food and palaces, entertainment & gardens, the worlds' most intelligent orators of religion and philosophies, the best that nations had to offer.  And he had nobility; he was presumably the most noble king who had ever lived.  He stood on top of all these mattresses and felt the pea.  That tiny pea of human mortality and inconsistency, the cause of his anguish and suffering.  The world's religions and philosophies seemed impressive, yet-  whether a man or woman did good or evil, the same fate awaited them all-death.
     Solomon's ultimate question was "How can I find contentment in what I do?" Death and inconsistent results cast a shadow of discontentment and meaningless to our days & years.  For the Princess, for Solomon, and for us, the pea is an anguishing presence (remember, the Princess wasn't just irritated, she was black and blue all over from having to sleep on a pea!) that can be felt even in the midst of stacked physical and spiritual luxury. No matter how much comfort one stacks up for themselves, (and no matter how many positive thoughts one comforts themselves with) somewhere deep inside the knowledge that nothing lasts or that nothing is perfect makes one uncomfortable; the knowledge that even if I am not presently suffering, somewhere, someone is.  Many of us would agree that even if our bellies are always well-fed and our shoes new and our homes warm through the night, our moments of contentment are few and fleeting. There is always a pea.  If it is not an immediate medical concern, the looming death of a loved one, a divorce, financial struggles, an unwanted move, the death of a dream, an inconsistent friend, the list goes on... then the pea will still be the suffering of others & our own hidden sufferings & yearnings.  For Solomon the sun would rise & fall for millenia, but people, the crown of creation, had their breath for a mere 70 years; even if life were perfect (his would have been close by worldly definitions) there is still the quick approach of the grave and this inconsistency everywhere in the world ("There is a time to love and a time to hate", "there is a time for war, and a time for peace").
      What sets Solomon's story apart from many searches for wisdom comes to us in the famous account in II Chronicles 1 - Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom.    The Lord was pleased with this and gave it to him: it was not because Solomon was so philosophically clever that he came to his famous last chapter in Ecclasiastes, but because the Lord gave him this understanding.  Ecclesiastes is written as an exploration of human wisdom, it echos the story of Adam in the Garden when the Lord had brought before Adam all the creatures of creation and none were found suitable as a companion for Adam, the Lord had demonstrated to Adam his need.  In Ecclesiastes, Solomon parades lines of observable human wisdom for us which remain unsatisfying as an end in themselves and presents us with our need for God.  In Ecclesiastes Solomon draws the mattresses for us and then inserts before our very eyes the pea.  If among the mattresses of the human experience we feel this pea of meaninglessness, Solomon then offers us the wealth that the queen in the fairytale offered the girl-hope for meaning and a new identity. The Lord allowed Solomon to see the folly in the human experience apart from God and the restorative hope: "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come....before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring..." that is the end of our life  "...and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecc. 12:1-7). Solomon ends with these words: "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."   
     Wisdom and wealth lie in finding a new identity in the Lord through faith, in the face of inconsistency and death.  Sometimes a wicked man will prosper and a righteous man will suffer. Life can't make sense because the best of us humans have been inconsistent, yet, as Solomon discovered, God himself offers us His consistence through His story to us, words that lead us ultimately to Christ who made the provision for us to know His salvation, and give us that abundant life for which we were seeking; that we need no longer fear the "silver cord severed" because the severing only brings us to where God dwells through Christ.  Solomon realized that it would take an act of humility before one's awesome maker, an act of reorienting one's whole self toward God, who alone is worthy of this response, for it is to Him that we shall return. Solomon who was the "prince atop the mattresses" then becomes the storyteller,  "casting his bread upon the waters" that others may find life, in this stormy world! (Ecc. 11:1) Indeed, without Christ, life is futile; Ecclesiastes prepares us to meet Christ, the one who "calms the storm," that the apparent meaninglessness with which we are confronted with ultimately creates.  Christ came then to keep God's commandments perfectly and in humility performed the whole duty of man for which God then gave Him the authority to give us His life that we might have it "abundantly."

     The Princess' discontentment is heroic.  She was not lulled to sleep by the present comfort of 20 mattresses: she was able to grasp that her present moment of comfort did not contain the whole of all the meaning of life, in fact, it was even hiding it.   We all have our own 20 mattresses appearing in many forms, it could be our love for nature, our esoteric elation with life, our fascinating hobbies, our optimism, our pessimism, various philosophies that do not give an adequate account for the human condition, it can be our marriage, or our families, our important careers, and any of the fabulous things that we own and do: anything that brings us temporary comfort from the storms of life can also become that which hides life's meaning from us.  There is not even one of them that can ultimately satisfy us. Without the discovery of life's inherent meaninglessness, without the discovery of the pea, we remain poor & common.  Full of common human wisdom, perhaps, but, without the thing that satisfies.
    Solomon's search for meaning caused him to seek wisdom from God.  From the vantage point of having everything that the world could offer,  instead of being content with his "on top of the world" position, he reflected on the whole of life and asked God for wisdom: it is no small thing to ask God for wisdom, the Lord is moved when we do; the Lord allowed him to see way down deep beyond the present moment of comfort and meaninglessness to our need for God.  The whole of wisdom couldn't be found in a collection of Proverbs, "Lazy hands bring poverty, but hard-working hands bring riches" which  amount to observations about life, or in various quotes from the Book of Human Wisdom, like "There is nothing better for people to do, than to eat, drink, and find satisfaction in their work,"  or even in the simple delight in the good things in life: Solomon's experience as an art patron, sponsor of musicians, master garden designer, astute philosopher, host extraordinaire to kings & queens, connoisseur of countless wealthy hobbies, perfecter of palace decor, great love-maker, etc. and God's wisdom, allowed him to write that there are many good things but that nothing is good in and of itself.  Goodness could only ultimately be reached through an act of faith, casting ourselves upon the Everlasting One who ultimately restores the meaning that we were searching for through Christ, who was a provision for us and our inability to keep the whole law of God, and as the Way to eternal life.

    May God lead us, through the pea of discontent, where He led Solomon, seeking the Lord for wisdom, every day and every hour.  The Bible tells us that life is primarily a spiritual battle, our eyes are quick to be darkened.  It is never too often to ask God to give us His wisdom.  May the pea lead us to God's message written from Heaven,  the love of His Words, and the belief in the mysterious salvation through Christ offered to those who once walked in darkness but of whom the Bible now calls the children of light. May discontentment with this life lead you to find everyday your contentment in Christ.