evening

A gentle wind, a cool wind, light mist blowing with it, peace abounding this evening. All is quiet, calm. I feel like bathing in this breeze, letting it flow in and through me, washing me clean after a busy day, letting its voice soothe my soul, ease my heart, lift the stress and frustrations. It seeks to do so, if only I sit a while, and learn not to be bothered by various lights and noise which distract. To focus even with the various annoyances on the nuances of nature is a high art. One which I am learning, though not quite yet.

I consider this evening the idea of the Way. That name which the earliest churches called the movement which claims the progression of the ancient faith of Israel. The earliest Christians were followers of the Way according to Acts. I consider this because I finished watching the Last Samurai just now, an evening diversion. I note the distinctions between it and Troy, it and other movies with a fair bit of violence at the heart. Troy was a movie of violence, without meaning, without purpose, without soul. The movie I watched tonight, like the great samurai movies of old, was a movie with art, for it told of a people seeking something higher, seeking something more.

This path is the way. For them it was the way of the samurai, bushido, or for others it is called something different. Star Wars futurized it with the Force. I consider what this is, what this way is directed towards, what it is calling that which is highest within us to some purpose beyond our mere existence. It is a transcendent path, one which seeks perfection of being. In this way it is not transcendent at all, for it drives one to seek that which humanity is at its essence. We are corrupted by sin and evil, but we were created in the very image of God. That image remains, and reminds us, driving us to either distraction or to restoration.

Distractions are the vices, those things which degrade and distance, even if they are not in themselves evil. This is why merchants are never the heroes of the great tales. Those who seek what is beyond the present are the heroes, seeking out and reaching for a higher path, the path humans were meant to tread. Most seek to master what is presently available, appeasing the higher yearnings through amusements and baubles, comparing always with each other to see who has the most, who is worth the most, who has the most checks in the little boxes.

The Way is not a checklist, or a comparison, or an accepting of the present state. It rejects what the present says about one’s nature, and strives always to find that which is right and good, lifting up out of the muck and mire.

Different eras and different cultures have different expressions of this way. Its incomprehensibility has made for unique expressions, all found in pure and impure forms, corrupted and heroic images. The Christian claims the Way is found in Christ, the perfect human, the image restored to perfection. He was God, and with him humanity was again perfectly expressed as the image of God. His path, his example and power, are the way, the way which we embrace through the wisdom and authority of Christ’s own spirit, that which animated him animates us.

So, this is the Way. It is an art, a symphony, a dance rising to perfection, destined towards a goal, promising that we are not what we should be and there is always more. The Way is our hope and our promise.

Now if I can only really embrace this as true, take this hope as my own, let my faith overcome the doubt I will begin to understand a part of what I’m presently seeking.

A lovely goal, a noble path for life, come what may.