Charged
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God…”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Yes, “charged.” This is the word that wanted to lead off what I hope is more frequent writing on this site, as I continue to share the prompts, questions and guidance that certain words arrive bearing these days.
After first writing about “Coda,” almost a year ago, life took me on a very full, poignant, and ongoing path as my brave mother entered her last months, and my dad was seriously ill, and for a time they both danced on various edges.
The “charge,” in the vocational and spiritual sense, was to attend to that unfolding, in all the ways it required. There were many charged moments, not just in terms of things medical, but also the many miracles, the graces of people helping, the timing of so many things that, looking back, become a litany of wonder.
Sometime in May, not long after Mom died, I was at home outside and looked up and saw this tree just ablaze with shimmering light. It reminded me instantly of a favorite passage from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”:
“…..Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.
The lights of the fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had my whole life been a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam…..”
Yes. That. And somehow, power mysteriously bestowed that we are charged with “still spending,” in whatever way we can.
As a vocational counselor for many years, I was always drawn to the “call” aspects of the work: How to listen with people for what most stirs them or lights them up; where the congruence is. And of course many times in our life we are “charged” with work that no one else can do in that moment; this too is call. I was deep in that kind of charge these past months, and still am.
But one thing I love about this word is that mixed with the notes of duty and vital tasks and the sudden call of it all is… shimmer. Energy. Light that still bounces from moment to moment, guiding and consoling.
And when we are between chapters in life, or work has ebbed, “charged” moments become even more vital: those faint or strange signals, bidden or unbidden, that cross our path, come out of a conversation, announce the next step. Or, simply, stop us in our tracks with sheer beauty. And that is enough. More than enough.
We don’t need these moments every day (though they may be there nonetheless). As Annie Dillard learned, that one moment with the tree lit her life for years, left her forever changed and still “spending the power” of that unexpected moment of grace. And sometimes the charged moments in our lives appear retrospectively; my husband and I are doing a lot of looking back and seeing them. Whether noticed at the time or not, something takes hold and we are never the same.
This golden October, as we edge towards All Saints and All Souls days, may you notice your “charges” along the way: the gifts, confirmations, head-turnings, maybe even the re-directions. Or simply the moment the light moves, and you with it.