When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
*Walt Whitman (1819-92), "When I heard the learn'd astronomer."
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When we extract something from its original, innate setting, it loses something of its vibrancy and power to inspire and influence. Explanation is a form of this.
Recently, officiating a dear friend's memorial, I shaped the message around one word, "inspiration." I contrasted this with "explanation."
"Inspiration" speaks of life, not your life, my life, or anyone's life, but one life. To inspire is to breathe into, within. In the Gospel of John, we read, "And he breathed on [his students] and spoke, 'Receive holy spirit (breath; also, wind).'" In the same Gospel, Jesus says, "The wind (breath, spirit) blows where it chooses. You hear its sound. However, you don't know from where it comes or where it's going. So is everywhere born of spirit (breath, wind)." "Inspiration" speaks of life in motion - living -creative. It invites us to feel, live, and share aliveness.
"Explanation" points us in another direction: "to lay out flat," from the noun "plain." This flatness is contrary to the windy-life sages and mystics speak of. It requires removing something from where it was: so, ex.
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Even as you cannot lay out flat the wind or breath, one cannot flatten out spirit to conform to an expectation of how life should be for me, for us, or our group. The Bird of Grace flies outside all cages. The Wind will not be leveled, not tamed to make us feel more secure or our lives more predictable. Life moves.
Thus, we can welcome life as puzzlement, paradox, action, and wonder. We are not here to survive. Life summons us to adventure.
* * *
When a little boy, I enjoyed what we called flying a kite. The movement of the kite in the invisible winds astonished me. I would gaze in wonder, while standing, looking up, in our back pasture. I was taught how to let the wind fly the kite. I was simply to position the kite based on the motions of the wind. Such is life as it blows upon and through your life, my life, and our life.
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Whitman walked out from the light of intellectualization into the darkness and stood underneath the starry skies. Explanation had sickened, despirited, him. Measuring was a shadow to the sparkling night sky. He looked up. Breathing afresh. Ah! inspiration. Feeling life. The stars were alive, they live with the same life that lives you and me. We are kites in the wind.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
