Heights and Depths

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us" 


Thanks, Dickens.  


Ever feel that?  I'm not necessarily talking Jack Kerouac, but sort of.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn..."

Really, it would be exhausting to be that sort of person, and not quite sustainable, to feel everything so acutely.  And yet, sometimes I just can't help it.  Hiking down a trail in the San Juans and you come upon a waterfall and you just want to stare at it for the rest of your life.  Playing cards with your Grandma who is slowly sinking into a place like an attic where only old cobwebby memories live and you just want to cry and scream and run away.  Your best friend gets engaged and all you can do is squeal and gush about carats and veils.  Your first kiss and it's like jazz music and having a heart attack and Christmas all at once.  Your first breakup and it's all you can do to get out of bed and force down those Honey Nut Cheerios that used to be your favorite.  

How something could be so heartbreakingly lovely and hurtful and confusing all at once is beyond me, but if I had to guess, it'd have something to do with being stuck in the middle of things.  I wish I could tell it like C.S. Lewis does, but what I can tell you is, the world is a little shadowy.  Plato explained it in Form theory.  Things on earth are sort of physical allusions or shadows of things in eternity.  Allusions, not illusions, mind you.  That feeling you get in the San Juans?  When God makes all things new, that awe will come from a landscape unadulterated, where Death has never walked.  That penetrating ache of loneliness?  It will move from being temporary to permanent in a Hell where community ceases to exist. 


For those in Hell, the goodness of earth is the best thing they'll ever live through.  For those, not by good they've done, but by claiming the Cross as their only rescue, in Paradise, the sadness of earth will be as close to Hell as they ever get.  I can only conclude that the height of love and the depth of pain are only so poignant because they are glimpses into something so grave as eternity.  


Considering the allusions and the consequence of their sources,


Little Miss Sunshine