“Do I dare?” The American Dream Redux
A metaphor for Eden. In all three novels, The Mendicant, The Militant, and The Missionary, our narrator, Augustine, paints it, draws it, talks about it, searches for it, philosophizes about it, and as the paintings in the last blog may suggest, goes back to its origins when the first Europeans set foot on the Western Hemisphere:
And where does our narrator end up? Not in any earthly paradise. But quite the contrary. The desert.
And that’s where we ended up in the second novel, The Militant. So in the words of T. S. Eliot, “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky.”
The Missionary – “Do I dare? Do I dare? Do I dare disturb the universe?”
The brilliant desert sky – the baking sun, the Arizona sun, the desert sun, and that’s why I’m here, because it’s not just any desert. It’s the deserts of Arabia where Paul went to commune with God, it’s the desert in the Sinai where Moses talked to God, it’s the deserts of Palestine where Jesus went, and where Jesus is… right now.. because I can look off and see those places in the valley, where the river is, where it’s greener, and look up at the mountains where it’s even more lush and there are times I look at the mountains and I can see Mount Zion higher than all the other mountains and I look off again and I see this time the fruited plain, inviting, comforting, no longer harsh and hostile and I wonder if I have one more mountain to climb and valley to cross where I can see those “amber waves of grain.. those purple mountain majesties… above the fruited plains…” or is it really never meant to be painted…
The desert?
God’s testing grounds?… where Moses went… and Jesus… and Paul. Where one can find little to distract from their pilgrimage?.. save the heat, the sun, and the sand.
… blinding sunlight on white rocks and white sand? Where even the “swamp” coolers in the trailers give little comfort in the soaring desert heat where we work out on a daily basis… until, like Mad Dogs and Englishmen, you don’t know if it’s you now or the heat? Because you actually start to like it, when logically it has nothing to recommend it.
…not the desert.
the mountains surrounding you, yes, the green valleys where rivers and streams run through it, yes, but the desert?… it can be the most oppressive place on the face of the earth!.. particularly at noonday… and yet once you get past a certain point, even there, there’s a certain transcendence… if your mind’s right. But if it’s not, you live for the evenings or indoors… evenings, because once the sun goes down the change is immediate where it can dip to sixty before morning and then up to a hundred and ten by midday.. indoors, because the only continuity is indoors where there’s some measure of protection both from the heat and the blinding sunlight, forcing even mad dogs like myself indoors by high noon until the sun sets once again.. when you’re outside, you’re looking forward to going inside… and yet when you’re inside you’re always looking outside, where whatever beauty the desert has to offer in the heat of the day can finally be appreciated. On a postcard or Arizona Highways where all it is is a picture on the page, it’s easy to see – but to be standing in a hundred degree heat with the sun so blinding it’s almost like an atomic blast?..
No, it’s only when your mind changes does your perspective, and that’s almost a daily battle best started out before it’s hot … like the lobster that starts out in a pot of water… so is your day. We get up before sunrise and start when it’s still cool so the shock doesn’t hit us all at once and by eleven when I hit my stride whether it’s swinging a pick or digging a hole, it’s like the end of a workout and I’m on an endorphin rush, with the rest of the day just a means of coming down. So between the most physical, outdoors, to the relatively sedate, indoors, my world consists of extremes: hot and cold, light and dark, solitude and madness…. – depending on whether it’s day or night…. outside or in…. off duty or on…
…because getting back to the desert, indoors becomes as much a way of life as outdoors – indoors consisting of small seedy trailers to run down doublewides at best and one cement block building called the dining room – your only protection from the oppressiveness of an environment that sometimes can only be taken in small doses. And yet ironically maybe less than a mile away are areas with towering cottonwood trees and fertile green pastures that benefit from the shade of the cottonwoods and the river’s irrigation or mountains only a few more miles away rising sometimes over 8,000 feet where on the hottest summer day it’s still cool and green and lush. So somehow in all this it never seems unattainable…
it’s just not here..
“Do I dare? Do I dare? Do I dare disturb the universe?”
* * * * * *
So what’s next on the journey?..
after I finish painting the temple…. Jesus’ temple…. the one Jews have been looking forward to for thousands of years….. I’m going to paint all the rest… Mount Zion…… the City of God…. and everything else down below it….. – much like I do with my pastel I guess… where sometimes I have to work from the top to the bottom.. so the loose “stuff” doesn’t fall all over what I finish.. this way the top sets the standard for everything below… or like life itself I suppose… where the goal sets the standard for everything you do… and all the “stuff” that’s going to fall down anyway doesn’t get in the way..
Because “whether you turn to the right or to the left, you’ll hear a voice behind you saying, ‘this is the way, walk in it'”…. because it all comes down to listening… to that “still small voice”… the same one Elijah heard… and Enoch heard… but whether I turn to the right or to the left… it all comes down to listening… like Elijah… and Enoch… and all the other children of God.. who’ll all be there together… someday… with Jesus… and all those places I’m trying to paint….. the Temple…. Mount Zion…… the City of God…. Jerusalem… and all the rest of the world down below it!.. and eventually Heaven!!…. the New Heaven!!!… and the New Earth!!!… or maybe Jesus will come before then… or maybe before I even get to finish this painting… and that’s how I’ll do it, yeah…
so all the rest of the “stuff” that’s going to fall down anyway… doesn’t get in the way..
Do I dare? Do I dare? Do I dare disturb the universe?