This past week was spring break. I drove down to Orlando with my girlfriend to spend a few days together with my brother and sister. It was a much needed break from school. I brought all kinds of homework with me (and managed to do none of it) as well as one book for pleasure. I decided on Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. Dillard might be one of my favorite living American prose writers.
Pilgrim is a series of reflective thoughts that Ms. Dillard has while living by Tinker Creek in Virginia. It is brilliantly written and filled with profundity. It is unpretentious, easily accessible, but deep as anything I’ve read. Although not spiritual in nature, its theology is profound. Dillard packs nuggets of truth in a stealthy way that takes your breath away.
In chapter two, entitled “Seeing” I read this paragraph that made me literally stop and pause. I read it while waiting for Deanna at the airport, and I had her read it while we drove in the car together.
I’ve been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But–and this is the point–who gets excited by a mere penny? IF you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight as a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
What a great way to start of Spring break. For the past week, I’ve been surrounded by pennies, by little things that have been planted in my life that bring life. My sister had a baby two months ago, and my little niece Shannon is an awe inspiring little creature. Every child is a wonder!
Tuesday Deanna got up at 5:00am (are you kidding me? On Spring break?!), drove an hour and a half, and planted ourselves on the Atlantic shore just to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but man we had a great time watching the world brighten up, and that on a cloudy day!
Later that same day we went on a hike and watched birds, a family of raccoons, beautiful butterflies, and trees that looked like they could come alive and teach us great mysteries.
Yes, the world is full of wonder, but we so seldom look at it. I’m presently struck by a memory I have of walking down a sidewalk in Aliquippa. I was on my way to visit Cecelia. The sidewalk was crooked and bent, broken and in disrepair. But out of this cement ruin there was a great big maple tree, growing practically out of the sidewalk itself. I imagine a small maple seed falling into a crack, and then years and years later, it burst forth into this magnificent tree. Human infrastructure can not hold back the power and wonder of nature. And there is so much we do not know about the tiniest maple seed!
And I’m reminded of Cecelia, who I was going to visit that day I saw the maple tree. Cecelia is a 56 year old women I met in Summer 2006. She had a stroke some years back so she stays inside most of the day. I met her one day when I was angry to be passing out fliers, hot from being in the sun, and fighting a cold. The last thing I wanted to do was to knock on another door and talk about day camp, but I begrudgingly knocked on her door, hoping no one would answer. But I met Cecelia that day, and fell in love with her. She has become a grandmother to me (all my grandparents died when I was very young). How many Cecelias are there out there that we pass by every day?
I’m trying to learn how to see.
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