Perspective

March 27, 2017

Greetings from this view,

There is a special perspective that mountains bring out in me.  I have memories of time spent in Rockies, the Tetons, the Sierra Nevadas, the White Mountains and many more.   Some moments of clarity, perhaps driven by thin air or the demand of being in the moment, have shaved away the frivolous and left me with a more hopeful, open mind. 

Mountains provide this by reminding me of my place.  Perhaps it is their sheer size, or knowing their age, the thousands of years that passed in their creation.  The majesty, the beauty, of some mountains is what gets our attention.  The challenge of climbing them, fighting for breath, the drama of the vista we earn when we look back over the places we have left below. 

 But I am thousands of miles from those places.  I am surrounded by trees and farmland, but the terrain is unassuming.  The mountains closest to me are so subtle, rounded by age and water, many times you could pass over them and not know it. 

Yesterday I was listening to a story told by a young man who had walked across the United States and in one place he talked about how the desert had given him this perspective; the size and emptiness and the danger, he said, showed him how tiny we are in this world.  I have had that same realization. 

Which opened me up to what touchstones there are in every day that I can count on for balance.

I am surrounded by a rich mosaic of reminders about what is important, and how to keep the rest in its proper place. 

You might wonder why anyone would spend any time considering this.  I have a friend who will occasionally chide me for too much ‘navel gazing’, when my time might be better spent solving and doing and going.  He is often right, but here this morning I am building a chest of tools for dealing with the chaos.  For contending with the storms that send debris in to my life that might threaten to knock me off the trajectory I am made for. 

What makes that possible for me is having a sound perspective.  It is built from what I believe, what I care about , and what I am willing to learn.  In my life it is good to have reminders, because it’s too easy to get distracted by reactions to what should not matter.  Where to find these reminders when mountains cannot provide them?

People give us perspective.  Not only what they say and do as we interact but just being.  Hold a baby and you see your purpose in the world.  Watch the tentative walk of the ninety year old man and you are reminded of the value of each day you spend your youth.  Listen to the mistakes and victories of others, the difficulties they face and the courage they live. 

I have found it in the creations of man.  Art, music, drama, literature.  I have found it in the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, in ancient bridges, in limestone steps worn by millions of feet.  I have found peace under a woven lattice, felt my place in the arching domes of Italian cathedrals, gained my footing in adobe chapels.  The inspiration of these creations gives me hope and keeps me grounded.  They are amazing, I can be amazing.  They are temporary, I am temporary. 

Nature provides us what we need, wherever we are, if we only slow down long enough to observe.  The fragile grass that becomes dried and then dirt and then grass. The lifespan of the moth.  The determination of the ant.  The dedication of the mother robin.  Our outlook changes when we remember our real place in all of this. 

Many years ago my friend Tom opened up a map of the universe, one of his favorite things in a chest of favorite things.  He showed me how small our galaxy is, and how minuscule our planet is among this solar system.  And, of course, on Earth how microscopic our presence is among all of the ecology here.  It was a startling perspective, and a lesson that I never forgot.  Hard to become too twisted up about a traffic jam when you see your place this way.

But the larger lesson was given to me years later by an astrophysicist who painted a similar picture, but with a new perspective.  She illustrated our place in the universe and our tiny part in that vastness, and also how our stint in existence is so infinitesimal in the spectrum of time.  Her point is that we are so insignificant, and at the same time so important.  Because we are rare, absolutely unique, created for this flash of a moment on a mote of dust among billions of others. 

Today the world will conspire to make you forget what is important and what you have to be grateful for.  Today there will be pettiness and ugliness and disappointment and anger and injustice.  Those things will exist with or without you being destroyed by them.  The best defense against the bad news, and the best way to be prepared to make things better, is to be grounded in a perspective that is larger than what comes at you.  You may find it in prayer, in song, in the company of friends, or in a hike among the Redwoods or a moment gazing at the peaks of the Uintas.   Seek it.

Hope this finds you ready,

David