Flying

The dark spirits were closing in this afternoon, what Winston Churchill called his 'black dog'.  Couldn't work, so I went for a midtown ramble.  Stuffed the iPod in:  Coldplay - primo rambling music.  Up to SLU, 'round the clock tower north to St. Xavier and past the Fox.  Suddenly in the brilliant blue October sky I saw them:  two hawks soaring in the cool breeze.  I think they nest in the Continental Life building - a gleaming white terra cotta pile that justs 20 stories over the other more plebeian midtown structures.

The raptors wheeled high into the air.  Suddenly one would narrow its wings into a 'W' and dive followed closely by the other, wheeling and weaving in and out.  I was so intent on following their movements that I almost became a traffic statistic - midtown is busy in the late afternoon.  I followed them around the corner, past the Coronado and beyond all of the Masonic "Zool" Temples.  All of the masons:  the Scottish ones, the ones with the funny hats, the plain ones and the Odd Fellows whose wives wouldn't let them go alone were all ranged on the North side of Lindell shoulder to shoulder across from Saint Louis University.  Jesuit Saint Louis University.  At one time the symbolism of the Masons on one side of the street and the Catholics on the other must have meant something.  But the old grudges and battles are long gone as are the men who fought them.  Now they were just obstacles for two soaring birds of prey.

That day I called an old friend.  When he answered the phone I knew something was wrong:  that tight pinched voice, the pain and uncertainty that it held.  His black dog was back and a walk wasn't going to run it off.  "Let me come over", "I'll call you from the car tomorrow", "no, let me come over".  He relented and I came, "my darn contacts are bugging me" he said with eyes fighting back tears.  "Yeah, mine too".  "I feel like I've let my clients down, my family down".  It turns out that he identified a long hidden issue with one of his clients, one that he couldn't reasonably have predicted back when the decision was made.  He probably could have safely ignored it but being conscientious, he told his client the truth.  The client was shocked and angered and it tipped my friend back into the depression that is never far from the surface.  We are alike, he and I, the fear of failure, of not measuring up, of wanting to please.  Only he shows the pain much more than me.  "It's not your fault", "I know, but I let him down", "No he let you down by not treating you fairly", "I know but it doesn't help".

And that's the way it works, doesn't it?  In a broken, fallen world, the shock waves from sin that we had nothing to do with and from long ago shake our foundations and cause our walls to tumble down.  We are all connected in a web of damage leading back to that first failing.  We can't escape it because it is part of us, part of our DNA.  But with the failing came the remedy and the remedy heals all cracks and rebuilds our spires and towers as if they were new.  And then we pull them down all over again and He rebuilds them, like some backwards film loop, falling, reassembling, falling.

We get depressed because we tire of the constant cycle of sin and redemption, because we never ever seem to learn to just rest.  We strive and struggle and fight only to see our castle collapse once more.  We cannot accept the gift we have been given:  it is so amazing, so unbelievable.

I followed the hawks as far as I could - they accept what God has given them - why can't I?   Eventually they circled back towards their nest and I trudged back to the office, perhaps brightened a bit.  And in my ears a voice sang: "and in the end we lie awake and dream of making our escape."

I want to fly.

Horrified by all of my libertarian polemics?  Here's a compilation of my non political, non economic pieces for those nights when you have insomnia.