Mystery, Life, Syllables

My dear friend Father James, the Trappist monk who lives at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, has been much on my mind lately. I wrote him this morning and hope to hear back from him soon. He has been having some health problems lately, and at his age, his remaining time is speeding up, is precious, is like the dust on a butterfly’s wing: fine and invaluable.

I watched a video about the abbey on Youtube and noticed near the end a series of photos taken in the woods surrounding the monastery. Some of the pictures were taken near Thomas Merton’s (Father Louis’s) hermitage on the grounds there. One photo showed a sign attached to a tree. The sign bore the words, “Hunting And Recreational Vehicles Strictly Prohibited.” There were two bullet holes in the sign.

The thought running through my mind was What sort of person would shoot a sign on the border of a monastery, a series of beautiful buildings in which live a group of men dedicated to praying for the world seven times a day, every day, while earning their keep with manual labor? What sort of person would do this?

Then I noticed that the words on the sign added up to seventeen syllables, exactly the number needed for a haiku. Five, seven, five.

Hunting and recre-
ational vehicles strict-
ly prohibited.

No, that won’t do. The syllables are right but the spirit is wrong.

After he responds to my letter, I will write Father James again and ask him if he has ever seen the sign with the bullet holes in it. I will tell him about my observation regarding the haiku-like syllable count. And I will ask him if he can see anything poetic in the sign.

If anyone can do this, Father James can. I am a somewhat cynical man, unimpressed with most men I meet, especially clergymen. This aging monk is the exception to the gimlet eye I cast on most men of the cloth. He is one of those people to whom the adjective remarkable can be applied with no fear of hyperbole. He is indeed a remarkable man, a remarkable priest, with a heart that glows up out of his face and through his eyes. I hope to hear back from him soon.

***

Mrs. Orr and I watched a beautiful movie the other night, a little indie flick we happened upon. It was called “This Is Where We Live,” and is the story of a handyman in the Texas Hill Country who develops a special friendship with a young man saddled with cerebral palsy. The film examines the dynamics of a family ground down by tragedy, heartache, loss, medical crises, and a terrible inability to simply catch a break in life. It was difficult to watch simply because we identified so strongly with some of the characters and situations portrayed. There was nothing mawkish nor syrupy about the story nor the acting, some of which was superb. If you can find it, give it a chance. It speaks to human beings who are almost driven into the earth with hardship and silence from heaven.

***

I finally got around to repairing the gate and fence through which I so merrily crashed last week. If I am permitted to say so, it was one of the best carpentry jobs I’ve ever done. I worked slowly and as methodically as I am capable of working, made no errors in measuring, cut off no fingers, lifted no expletives into the air which would have to be deleted here, and was genuinely pleased with how it turned out. To top things off, I had sufficient energy and daylight left to mow the grass, and I managed to do so without crashing into the fence again. And believe me, that very scenario kept going through my mind as I sloooooooowly backed my still-unrepaired-brakes-truck back into position after I put away the mower. I had already made up my mind that if God had been feeling whimsical today and had allowed me to destroy the work I had done, I would simply announce to my wife that we don’t really need a fence and gate there, and that the new open design would enhance our feng shui beyond all hope of the neighbors besting us. But this was a moot point.

While I was mowing, I was thinking about God and life and all of my questions. My mind turned to the mystic thinker and artist William Arkle, to whose work I was introduced by Bruce Charlton. Arkle’s idea of two heavenly parents watching over Their children, not angry with their children but deeply interested and concerned and pleased and thrilled by their steps and missteps….this concept is profoundly attractive and interesting to me. As I mowed, I whispered fragments of prayers. Can this be true? Are there two of you, mother and father, just like in nature? Are you watching me now? Do I displease you? Will you ever communicate with me directly? The thoughts were not ponderous as some of my divinely-aimed musings are. They were light and natural and quite pleasant. I kept thinking these thoughts and whispering these miniature prayers as I worked.

Not everything about the mowing was pleasant, though. While maneuvering the mower around some shrubs on one side of the house, I saw what I thought were two leaves flutter up out of the variegated foliage. Then I realized that the leaves were actually two luna moths. I was shocked to see not one but two of the beautiful, mysterious creatures, but also at that time of day when the sun is still powerful. I shut off the mower and moved to see if I had hurt them.

One moth bore no marks on its body. It lay in the grass, face down, wings open and displaying the eerie eyes on them. I instinctively decided this was the female. The other moth’s right wing was chewed by the mower blades and the moth was in the exact same position as the first one, except it was slowly beating its (his) wings. It seemed to be trying to crawl across the grass.

I went to the female and scooped her up and placed her atop the shrub they’d been beneath when I hit them with the mower. She waved her wings and stayed where I placed her. Then I turned to her mate.

He continued to beat his wings slowly and I imagine painfully, moving slightly forward. His delicate antennae, like tiny brown Christmas trees, quivered a bit as he moved. I tried to scoop him up as I had done his mate, but my efforts seemed to either alarm or hurt him, and he fought with some ferocity to keep me from trapping him in my hands. After numerous attempts, I gave up. I went and fetched my phone and took the photo of him at the top of this entry, then looked to see what his mate was doing. She was gone from the shrub, and I never saw her again.

I tried to move the moth nearer the base of the shrub from which I had knocked him, but again he resisted me so violently I became frightened that I would hurt him worse than I already had. Finally, all I could do was stand over him and tell him how sorry I was that I had inadvertently hurt him, and I asked my heavenly Father to be merciful to the moth and to either help him recover very quickly, or to end his suffering. I could not bring myself to perform the latter act on behalf of my Father, even though it would perhaps have been the merciful thing to do.

I came inside and did a bit of research while cooling down from my yard work. The appearance of the luna moth is said to bring rebirth, renewal of body and spirit. I turned this over in my mind as I thought back to the God-thoughts I had been having at the very instant I crashed into the two moths’ lives.

Of particular interest to me was the discovery that luna moths do not eat — they live for one purpose: to reproduce. And once they emerge from their cocoon, they live only about a week before dying. The more I thought, the more I tortured myself with the knowledge that the two luna moths had likely been mating when I disturbed them, and that the one, single thing they are born to do will now be denied to at least one of them. How sad, and how tragic, and how I wish I known they were under that shrub. Reminding myself that it was unintentional and that I had no way of knowing did not diminish my soft sorrow.

I thought back to my kendo sensei in Japan, who used to encourage his students to spend as much time as possible barefoot in the grass. “Very good to receive the earth’s energy up through the feet,” he would say. But then he would add, in a voice simultaneously bright and melancholy,  “But remember. Remember. Even walking across grass will take many lives. You will kill many ants and spiders and other small lives every time you walk across grass. This is life here.”

This is life here.

After I showered and dressed, I returned to where I had left the moth. He was gone. I searched under, around, and atop the shrubs, as well as the tall grassy areas next to the fence. I looked along the base of the house as well. No sign of the male luna moth. I said another prayer, this one for the moth’s protection and healing. I whispered this even as my mind answered back that a bird had likely carried the beautiful pale green and damaged thing away.

Was the appearance of the two moths at the very minute I was conversing with my Father (and perhaps my Mother?) significant? A portent, an omen, a symbol? Does the female, wherever she is, mourn the loss of her mate? Will she find another so that she can fulfill her purpose? I so wish I had the answers to these questions. But I do not.

This is life here.

~ S.K. Orr