The Promise of Something New

The world is yearning. America is yearning. We are yearning. I am yearning. What is this longing in us? What necessary thing is it that we yearn to know or have or experience?

Writer, essayist, and editor, Rebecca Solnit, has written:

“For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.”

These are beautifully haunting words. Haven’t we seen the distant horizon and felt its pull, its mystery? That distance, as Solnit describes it, “the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.”

Such powerful thoughts. That “blue at the far edge of what can be seen,” lures us and, perhaps, taunts us. It is the distance from what we know and what we want to know. The space of our ambitions, or deeper, our cravings for a better world, a better society, a better self.

The political mess in this country heightens these feelings. We look out over the landscape of our government and we see chaos, sleazy conduct, petty disputes, contemptible manipulation, horrendous incompetence, and it all looks hopeless for decades to come.

We seem as a nation to be marching backwards at the commands of leaders embroiled in ego fights, in money making, in hype and hypocrisy. And the blue at the far edge beckons us beyond this nonsense to “the color of there seen from here.”

Hurricane Harvey arrived to give us a poignant perspective. Harvey showed us that Nature wields a force greater than our high-rise buildings, our glass enclaves, our luxury cars and super freeways, and the seemingly invincible structures of home and safety.

We look at the videos and photos of the devastation and despair, the ruin and coming blight, the faces of dread and disorientation, and many in the flood no doubt see “the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.”

This, too, calls us to some far place away from the dangers of life, away from the scary realities of hurricanes and disasters that threaten our delicate sense of security, the thin layer of impregnability that we cover ourselves with daily.

Those distant horizons, those far away mountains, hail our courage, they charm and persuade us to strength, to determination, to facing the worst undaunted, whether floods or political collapse or spiritual doubt.

They remind us there is always more beyond what is at our feet, more than we can at the moment fully see, out in the mystery and space of our longings and desire, out into the promise of something new, if only we can stay aware of it, if only we can keep stepping toward it.

© 2017 Timothy Moody