White Wings
The White-winged Doves are cooing again.
Certain sounds have astounding physical effects upon me. There is a porch swing in my parents' back yard that squeaks at the same frequency as my alarm clock. More than once my body has had a visceral jolt by that sound, even though I am wide awake at the time. My cells just know what that sound means.
And the white-wings are cooing again.
I first heard them around this time of year last spring; I had never before lived in an area where they also lived. But in Stephenville they are everywhere, to the point that I can almost understand why so many people skip class in order to shoot them.
Last year at this time, my favorite professor died. March 10th I got a phone call about his lung cancer diagnosis; March 16th he was gone. It was spring break, so I was at home, unable to carry out my paper-writing goal because of the grief which poured over me with an intensity which is unlikely to happen again in my life (God forbid it should!). I stared at the wall and wiped away the tears that accompanied groans of frustration and anger.
And the white-wings cooed incessantly outside my window.
This year, the cooing evokes a visceral response--a response which hearkens to a calmer sense of loss, the sense that something is horribly wrong with the world. Something is.
But there will be a Great Restoration. And that doesn't mean the world will be wiped out and we'll hang out in the clouds and sing, though cloud-singing will be part of what I want to try. Images of heaven always seem to put feathery white wings on asinine goody-goodies and boring them to tears.
In response to this image, John Eldredge has a point:
White-winged Doves will coo again, and it will be beautiful to my ears.
Certain sounds have astounding physical effects upon me. There is a porch swing in my parents' back yard that squeaks at the same frequency as my alarm clock. More than once my body has had a visceral jolt by that sound, even though I am wide awake at the time. My cells just know what that sound means.
And the white-wings are cooing again.
I first heard them around this time of year last spring; I had never before lived in an area where they also lived. But in Stephenville they are everywhere, to the point that I can almost understand why so many people skip class in order to shoot them.
Last year at this time, my favorite professor died. March 10th I got a phone call about his lung cancer diagnosis; March 16th he was gone. It was spring break, so I was at home, unable to carry out my paper-writing goal because of the grief which poured over me with an intensity which is unlikely to happen again in my life (God forbid it should!). I stared at the wall and wiped away the tears that accompanied groans of frustration and anger.
And the white-wings cooed incessantly outside my window.
This year, the cooing evokes a visceral response--a response which hearkens to a calmer sense of loss, the sense that something is horribly wrong with the world. Something is.
But there will be a Great Restoration. And that doesn't mean the world will be wiped out and we'll hang out in the clouds and sing, though cloud-singing will be part of what I want to try. Images of heaven always seem to put feathery white wings on asinine goody-goodies and boring them to tears.
In response to this image, John Eldredge has a point:
Doesn't a beautiful spring morning do more for you than the halo and harp? Doesn't perfect love with other people sound better than some kind of eternal hymn concert in the sky? Don't you love cats, dogs, birds, and butterflies?Jesus. What happens to him after he dies? He is resurrected, of course. As someone or something else? No, as himself, only healed and very much alive. Then what--float around? No, he has breakfast....Do you see that eternal life does not become something totally "other," but rather that life goes on--only as it should be?
White-winged Doves will coo again, and it will be beautiful to my ears.
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