You were the one for skylights. I opposed
Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove
Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed,
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof
Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling,
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling.
Under there, it was all hutch and hatch.
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.
But when the slates came off, extravagant
Sky entered and held surprise wide open.
For days I felt like an inhabitant
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven,
Was healed, took up his bed and walked away.
by Seamus Heaney
At our recent Kalein@Round Cove Contemplative Retreat, Gareth Higgins read this extraordinary poem by his fellow Irishman Seamus Heaney. He then read a list of some of his skylights. It inspired me to do the same.
My Skylights
Raspberries and chocolate. The sound of water dripping in a cave. Peanut M&M's. Rollercoasters. Andrew Wyeth Paintings. Lavender. Out of breath solo on any summit of a fourteen thousand foot mountain peak. Painting with watercolors. Hiking. Crossing the finish line of a marathon. Running. Passionate love. Getting caught in the rain. Science Fiction. California Wine & Cuban Cigars. Scary but not gory horror movies. Magic. Royal Tokaji. The feel of soft leather. A massage. Long walks in the woods. The smell of a log cabin. The sound of my wife's uninhibited laughter. A very, very, long massage. The beauty of the female form. Old books. New books. Books on a Kindle. Any book. Almost. Especially when written by David McCullough, Ayn Rand, Ursula Le Guin, Madeline L'Engle, Fredrich Beuchner and Ian Morgan Cron. Montana. Sitting on a screened-in porch during a thunderstorm. Winter snow. The real thing and the song by Audrey Assad. My iPhone. Spending time with my daughters. NFL Football DirecTV Ticket. Pan's Labyrinth. Did I say magic?
Cumberland Island provides a window to the past. One of the last first
great places on earth.
Our friends Tony & Amy Gillette swept us away for three days to this place that can only be described as a combination of the island in the television series "Lost" and the Garden of Eden. Mere mortals can only walk or bike this island, but the Gillettes had the good fortune to grow up in this veritable Eden.
Most of the island was given to the National Park Service in the 1960's by the Rockefeller family who along with the Carnegies have called Cumberland home for several generations. It lies pristine just as if it were uninhabited.
This is the place where JFK, Jr chose to make his vows to Carolyn
Bessette. The place where Lucy Carnegie Ferguson (who could live
anywhere on earth) chose to make her home for almost seventy years. A place where water oaks and Georgia pines seem
to have been growing before creation. A place where feral horses
and alligators share twenty-one miles of sun and solitude on a beach
bereft of human footprints. A place where the sunsets are fiery orange
and the surf silver at morning light. A place of dreams and unexpected
gifts.
The Main Road composed of sand is over 200 years old and the island holds a
vacant 22,000 square foot single-family historic mansion called Plum
Orchard built by one of America's most influential families, the
Carnegies, in 1898. I am one of few people in the world fortunate enough to walk these
Neo-Classical hallways and touch the Tiffany designed wallpaper. It is
an extraordinary residence that is just now being restored. Because of the island's unfortunate "wilderness" designation, and the
grueling sixteen mile round trip walk or bike ride through sugar sand, the home is virtually inaccessible to the public.
Only a handful of the original residents remain on the island and various agreements stipulate that at the end of the next generation Cumberland will become a uninhabited National Park with the exception of one private parcel that belongs to the Rockefeller family in perpetuity. The few storied families that remain love and care for the island with a fervor I have rarely witnessed.
We celebrated the beginning of our 30th anniversary by frolicking on the miles of isolated beach (designated as a nudist beach - which is unique - except there are absolutely no people, nude or otherwise), hunting for sea shells and watching the horses and alligators play in the surf. We traveled the sandy roads in the morning and evening light and witnessed lovely Whitney Lake, High Point, the African Church where the Kennedy's were married and stepped on the northernmost tip of the island. All places that most visitors will never witness.
Inhabitants as varied as the early American Indians to the crusty 87 year old "Doc" Jenkins have made this island home from time immemorial. It is an island rich in human character and legacy. Cumberland Island’s human history spans nearly 4000 years and features
time periods including early native peoples, the Colonial expansion,
the Plantation Era, the Gilded Age through the few residents that remain today.
The
only Carnegie-owned home that has been
in continuous use is Greyfield, which
Carnegie descendants opened as an inn
in 1962. Part-owner Janet “Gogo”
Ferguson, who coordinated the Kennedy
wedding, says she is disappointed that
NPS has not followed a balanced
management plan for the island’s
resources.
“My
family donated this land, but not at
the demise, expense and eradication of
the human history on the island,”
Ms. Ferguson says. “We are
encouraged because of the private
sector—the love and dedication of
family members with the incredible
support of The Georgia Trust, the
National Trust and preservationists
like Rep. Jack Kingston, who
understand the importance of human
underlay on Cumberland Island.”
Cumberland is a beautiful,
unspoiled island free of concentrated
development – because its owners
took measures to preserve their island
from development. Without their
foresight, chances are that Cumberland
would be indistinguishable from its
developed neighbors, St. Simons and
Jekyll Island.
“Cumberland
is often depicted as a ‘pristine
wilderness’ that we have to save,”
Ms. Ferguson says. “But it has
always been inhabited by people. It is
the people who have preserved
Cumberland Island. We have to find a
way to balance both the cultural
resources and natural resources on the
island.”
The white dogwood tree that springs to life in our front yard each April serves as a beautiful reminder of what Christ did that morning we call Easter.
"Christ came to earth as man to redeem us in ALL that we are. If He had only needed to redeem our soul and spirit, he could have conceivably done so from heaven. However, because he desired to redeem both our body and soul, it required the union of God and man, the Incarnation, in the person of Jesus Christ. The Son of God had to walk on earth in human flesh to redeem our bodies and experience our every desire. The eternal God desires and understands how to be our consummate lover."
The snow falling quiet, soft and slow outside (looks like we may have over a foot here before its over) reminds me of my favorite song of the year.
Winter Snow is the sort of song that mesmerizes and then enchants. I met the writer, Audrey Assad (pictured) a couple of months ago at the EMI-CMG offices. As she sang this song, I felt a new realization dawning of the Advent season.
A song and voice not soon forgotten. You must listen to the stream at her MySpace page HERE for now.
Gotta love it when your 23 year old daughter asks to go to Disney World for her birthday! What a magical time.
Thanks to Danny, Betsy, Derek, Jennifer & Ragan and the cast at Walt Disney World for making it the perfect birthday weekend!!!
This watercolor is dedicated to the men in my life. Real men. And the friends in my life. Real friends. You know who you are. Men who are not afraid to be men and friends who are not afraid to be friends. There aren't many of you. That's just the way life is. But there are enough. Much more than enough to be fair. And I'm thankful.
Men that have not let the magic get worked and spanked and combed and churched out of their lives.
And friends that love unconditionally no matter what.
I'm thankful that we have not let life's eccentricities get in the way of our brotherhood.
Our brotherhood of pokerin', smokin', drinkin', worshipin', talkin', wonderin', marvelin' and philosophizin' and havin'...church. Oh yeah, and cussin'- just a little...and only in appropriate places.
Over the years I have experienced discomfort as evangelicals insist that the cross be the center of Christmas. It seems to take away the magic of new life and hope to dwell on death and the cross. Mega-Churches certainly spare no expense at Easter dramatizing the death, blood and cruelty of the cross.
It seemed I was always forced to find a place for the cross and death in the planning for Christmas Eve services instead of providing a magical evening of celebration and new life. It did not seem right to dwell on death instead of life, mourning instead of magic and gore instead of gifts. Hey, this is the birth of the Christ child we're talking about. Christmas. Magic. Glory. Wonder.
It was a personal confirmation to hear Dr. Lou Markos
speak (and write) about the Incarnation, not the Resurrection, as the greatest miracle.
For Dr. Markos, one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our time, it is much more. He writes this in the evangelical periodical Christianity Today:
"As Christians, we worship a God who at a specific time in history
became a man, a spiritual Creator who became a physical creature. The
greatest miracle of our faith, I would argue, is not the Resurrection
but the Incarnation. And the amazing thing about the Incarnation is (to
put it in linguistic terms) that it means that the ultimate Signified
(God) can enter into the life of (indeed, become) a lowly signifier (a
carpenter from Nazareth) without ceasing to be the ultimate Signified.
Pretty slippery—in fact, a paradox which has taxed the minds of great
theologians. Poetry, with its desire to incarnate transcendent truths
in material images while maintaining (via metaphors, symbols,
allusions, etc.) a vital sense of play and interchange between the two,
comes much closer than science, logic, or systematic theology to
capturing the mystery inherent in the Incarnation.
Jesus Christ (the Word made flesh) is the nexus, the way station, the
middle ground where God and man, spiritual and physical, Signified and
signifier, meet and join hands across a divide that was built by sin
and that too often is maintained by a rationalistic view of reality.
Christ has broken down the dividing wall, and every great poem seconds
him in his mighty work of spiritual, metaphysical, and linguistic
reconciliation."
It is ironic to see the disclaimer at the end of the article: Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Christianity Today.
My family enjoys attending the joyful celebration of Christmas at our neighborhood parish. As the acoustic bells peal a litany of magic throughout our neighborhood, St. Paul's revels in the joy and celebration by providing an evocative Eucharistic service filled with layers of meaning and symbolism that somehow manage to touch the mysteries of the Incarnation, if only for a brief few moments.
Please take the respite of the next few days and reflect on this poetic paradox called Christmas.
Ponder the following words if you dare from T.S. Eliot's poem Gerontion If you feel especially adventurous, read the entire poem and do a little research. You may be surprised at what you find.
Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!” The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas, To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero With caressing hands, at Limoges Who walked all night in the next room;
The new DVD is awesome! Buy
it now! Brock Gill Alive On Stage, the full length DVD is available and will be signed and shipped to you today. Click here to buy it.
Watch the Intro below. It is less than 90 seconds long and was produced and filmed by my son-in-law, Ben, and my daughter Paige. My daughter Lauren was the costume designer, so naturally I am proud of this very creative intro.
speak (and write) about the Incarnation, not the Resurrection, as the greatest miracle. 
