Postcard: Beacon
No. 010 - on running astray and reorientation.
Postcard is a weekly curation of things I think are beautiful or interesting. Each postcard will be named after a word and contain something to listen to, something to look at, and something to think about. I welcome you to share any thoughts in the comments. Thank you!
beacon:
(n.) A signal fire to notify of the approach of an enemy, or to give any notice, commonly of warning.
(n.) (nautical) A signal, buoy, post, or other conspicuous mark erected on an eminence near the shore, or moored in shoal water, as a guide to mariners, particularly to warn vessels of danger.
(n.) (figurative) That which gives notice of danger, hope, etc., or keeps people on the correct path; a source of inspiration.
(v.) To give light to, as a beacon; to light up; to illumine.
†Meanings from Wiktionary
Something to listen to:
This is one of my all-time favorite songs. It’s a long-building slow burner, woven with intricate layers of instrumentation and emotionality. To me, it evokes that sense of true adventure, the mix of peril and awe as you’re sailing into a storm, about to be swallowed whole by something so powerful it feels otherworldly, almost supernatural.
Something to look at:
Something to think about:
In life, you are always either moving towards something or away from something. Those rare moments when time seems to stand still are so precious precisely because we know what they are: an illusion. To believe in the mirage is to believe in something more beautiful than reality itself. These elevated states whisper to us, so soft spoken as to be indecipherable yet hinting at vast secrets beyond both perception and comprehension.
More than once in my life, I have wandered deeply astray, falling off of the good path in my never-ending quest for more of those sacred moments of stillness. The fragile parts of my ego can lead me to become withdrawn and mercurial. It is easier to cloak shame, hurt, sadness, fear with just about anything else. A joke here, an unkind word there, or pushing someone away because you sense they want you to reveal something vulnerable about yourself and that’s scary, threatening even. Arguing about something small and insignificant as a way of hiding what’s really on your mind. Binge eating comfort food as a way to revert back to an emotional state from when you had fewer responsibilities in life. I could continue but you get the picture.
We all develop coping mechanisms as a product of our upbringings, and then become products of our coping mechanisms in adulthood. Fate is elegant and ironic.
This winter season has been unexpectedly difficult for me. Sustained sobriety has unlocked many beautiful things for me as well as revealed opportunities for growth, and one thing from my past that persistently challenges me is my fear of loneliness. Ever since I quit drinking, I’ve continued to spend quite a lot of time hanging around with old drinking friends and going to parties, bars, etc. This has led me into the sorts of situations which I frankly should not be running into anymore at this stage of my life. Physical injuries from clumsy drunk friends, emotional injuries, spiritual injuries, all circumstantial… yet don’t I bear responsibility for my circumstances?
After all, each of us has the innate right to exit any situation we do not want to be in. Circumstance is a multi-player game.
This is a difficult thing to confront, and to compassionately yet intentionally walk away from relationships that are now being strained by fundamental lifestyle and spiritual incompatibilities requires a level of courage that one must dig deep for. In my case, it also touches directly on my greatest fear, of being alone, which is the sort of core-wound-fear that one builds a sophisticated web of self-defense and coping mechanisms around protecting. A web that was developed and refined over decades of both conscious and subconscious patterns of behavior and thought. The more I try to unravel it, to navigate to the heart of the maze and release this tension forever, the tighter the walls seem to close and the blacker the shadows become.
To untie a knot, of course, brute force is wholly insufficient and indeed actively counterproductive. One must find exactly where the tensions in the knot are working against each other and then provide realignment. It’s surgical. Artistic, even. Finding that directionality in the tensions and the point of contact between them means everything here, and I am still searching. To discover it, I know I will need patience, trusting that there are no shortcuts but the solution does indeed exist, that I will find it, or it me, and that we will recognize each other like long-lost lovers. It is an exercise in surrender, not control.
As I wrestle with these weighty matters of the heart and spirit, what comforts me and provides guidance is the concept of beacons. A beacon can be a warning, a signal, a guide, a celebration. Everything we look towards is a reflection of who we are, our desires and our souls. Our inner selves are a mirror of how we spend our time and how we use our attention. I don’t like what I’m seeing reflected, or perhaps revealed, in how I’ve been using my time and attention lately. And that is as sure a sign as can be that the moment has come to make a meaningful change in my navigation.
The beacon I feel called to reorient towards is God. And everything downstream of God helps me stay connected to that path. The inherent truth and beauty in creation, in the world, in the way people express themselves… all of these good things can serve as a reminder of what really matters, of what is worth celebrating and focusing on.
The hyper-secular, hyper-rational world of the default culture feels increasingly hollow the more I age. Every milestone I’ve achieved within that cultural framework has ultimately felt meaningless. College, career, home ownership. I cringe when I think of how much energy and effort I spent in misguided directions, jumping through hoops held up by people and institutions that don’t care about me or know anything at all about what actually matters in life. And I shudder at the thought that I might still be doing so. That I might never figure things out, that I’ll get caught in the gravity of my own past, trapped in the context of the culture I was raised in, and fall all the way in, like a black hole collapsing in on itself.
But this fear, I think, is a good thing. It’s in line with how God uses fear. As a loving reminder to reorient towards the right things. And as the world around us continues to optimize towards endless convenience, I find it strangely reassuring that all the most important things in life—romance, meaningful connections, acts of creation and self-expression—remain as difficult as ever.
It’s important to remember that doing difficult things solely for the sake of their difficulty can lead you astray, too. A whole lot of suffering is self-imposed and self-inflicted through the way we are drawn towards doing difficult things in America. But avoiding important things because they are difficult is an even deeper mistake. I’ve been floundering in avoidance these past few months and the lesson that life is trying to teach me is, “You must adapt. You cannot stick to a plan when it becomes outdated. It will kill you, in fact, if you hold it too tightly. You must adapt. Let go. Surrender.”
As the seasons change and spring arrives, full of flowerful growth and singing birds, I can feel something shifting and blooming within myself too. It’s not an epiphany so much as a subtle relaxation, a clue that may be part of the mystery of the knot deep in my spirit. It’s far too early to talk about that, though, so I close with an observation:
Have you ever thought about how Beethoven’s music and the flap of a hummingbird’s wings both work through the same medium of air. Isn’t that beautiful? Breathtaking, even? And doesn’t that speak to the way the world was created with a level of intentionality and artistry beyond our understanding? Perceiving even small strands of the universe’s grand mystery like this help to settle my heart and soothe my spirit.
These tiny and beautiful thoughts are like stars, part of a vaster constellation that is blossoming into a beacon for me. May we all find good beacons in life, and be faithful enough to follow them, even when the uncertainty or darkness feels overwhelming.
That is when they are most essential.
Unfathomable mind: now beacon, now sea.
- Samuel Beckett
Marry. Have children. Resolve to be their beacon.