Down Deep

A disclaimer: to those of you who have become accustomed to Lavied’unefille providing breezy, chipper tales of far off yonders… Beware the blog below. It is not that. Promise: a return to the humorous after this one, as there are more traveling tales to tell, and some quite entertaining. But not tonight.


Last year, when I was studying for the exam that would supposedly prove my mettle as a potential English teacher, I pillaged online Sparks Notes for summaries of classic novels that I had yet to read. The title of one such novel was, “Things Fall Apart.” I don’t remember anything else about the novel except that it had something to do with Africa. The title, however, has remained in my memory.

Things fall apart. The phrase came to mind aplenty while traveling: We’re lost; we don’t know where we’re staying; we don’t know how to get there; we can’t find gelato. Things fall apart.

The phrase has come to mind, in greater fist-clenching resonance, since being home.

I think of Einstein’s theory of thermodynamics—isn’t that the one? Where he claims that everything progresses toward chaos? Not toward greater order and harmony—but rather toward discord. Toward pieces. I think of the Garden wilting into Desert, our once pristine ozone becoming cluttered and choked. I think of glittering empty space filling with debris, I think of a Pangea being ripped and torn into seven lonely parts. I think of Native American chiefs becoming casino owners, I think of faith disappointed and questioned, I think of glaciers breaking, of stars dying, of leaves separating from their maternal branches and falling to frosted ground.

Things fall apart.

I think of this. I think of the crushing situation that Heidi and I’ve returned to which I’ve yet to specify on this public blog. Is that irksome? It must be; I apologize for the cryptic scenery. But: I don’t want to specify it yet on this public blog. It looks like a severed smoking tree, split down the middle, lightening still buzzing on the ground. That’s about what we’re dealing with. Except with people.

Is this growing up? The dealing with the falling apart of things, important things, is this maturity? Today I pictured myself as a well, being carved with great cuts deeper into the earth--- more room for depth of sorrows, and simultaneous heights of joy. As a child, maybe I just had room for trinkets. Now, I’m afraid there’s room for dying stars to find a grave in, and it seems so devastatingly adult to consider what souls must expand for. It makes me feel alone.

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There’s a Psalm that’s been going through my head as I’ve been wading through this; it’s one that Annie happened to offer up independently to me too, for comfort. The first time I ever read Psalm 46, I pictured some apocalyptic movie with a young preacher dude as a hero. I pictured him rising up above the rubble, gripping the hands of those less steady even as the winds roared around him and fiery wreckage fell from the sky. This is the battle cry he yells in the midst of it all:

God is our refuge—an ever-present help in times of trouble! Therefore we will NOT fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea—though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging…! Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall—He lifts His voice—the earth MELTS…! Be still—be still— and KNOW that He is God!

I love that the “Be still” command comes within chaos. As these things are crumbling, as my soul’s well must deepen to accommodate further grief and surprise, I am told to rest, to be still, to trust, and to wait. My foremost prayer through all of this has been, simply “Oomph.” The image in my head is just the lifting up of a BIG big weight, and asking that it be taken from me. Be still. As things fall apart, be still, and be rescued.

Deep calls to deep 

In the roar of your waterfalls; 

all your waves and breakers 

have swept over me.
By day the LORD directs his love, 

at night his song is with me— 

a prayer to the God of my life.
Why are you downcast, O my soul? 

Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, 

for I will yet praise him, 

Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him.
My Savior and my God.

Things fall apart.

I hope to be rescued.