Garden of Bright Images
When I was a freshman at college---how long ago that seems now!---there was a picture on the wall. This picture:
The canvas was simply huge. It must have been about 8 feet by 6 feet, and it hung on the wall on the dias in the dining hall. In other words, it dominated the little elevated platform in a corner of the busiest room on campus, where I spent most of my time.
As a freshman, of course, I didn't study there. I wouldn't have dared. But they set up registration under that picture my very first day on campus, and it presided over my swearing-in as a student. For the next six months, as a self-outcast freshman who did nothing but study, I would sometimes go and stand in front of that picture and try to make it swallow me.
Later, surrounded by happier camaraderie in the heyday of my sophomore year, I and six friends would hold meetings of the Green Apple Club there at dinner. I suppose it was during those hilarious meals that the idea of stepping into the picture was first suggested. The seven of us took turns writing an adventure in which we all found ourselves inside the picture, a la The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was silly and magnificent.
Under that picture, in my junior year, I became editor of a school literary journal. Under that picture I sat in endless planning sessions for various theatricals that I was involved in, from lowly hairdresser's assistant to director in the course of four years. Under that picture I cared for many a dear friend, and there my friends came to minister to me. Under that picture were moments of triumph, emails of good grades and news of two brothers' engagements and happy times at home. Under that picture too was pain, ended friendships and conversations that left me filled with quiet agony, and piled-up moments of suspense, hope, disappointment... all receding at last into memories, as if they were waves falling back on themselves in ripples on the shore. And once, I sat there with a sprained ankle.
Through it all (and oh, how the memories press in on me!) there was that picture. I suppose you could say that it became my separate Eden, my world apart, the place where my imagination liked best to wander: my garden of bright images. It's strange how a picture or a tune or a movie or a book does that sometimes; how it becomes a part of your life. Since I was fourteen I've been playing on the piano a simple melody that I elaborated from something my brother taught me, and it has become the melody of my life for good or ill. Since I was eighteen I've held this picture, like a door or magic portal, in a special place in my mind. When I need to run away and hide, this is where I go.
And it doesn't matter, you see, whether or not I tell you these things. I don't have to be afraid, or worry about whether or not to trust you with this piece of myself. You can't touch it; you can't follow me there; you can't take it from me. It's safe.
It's beautiful too, isn't it? I've scaled the mountain in the center in every conceivable season and at every time of day, from each different side and angle. Personally, I find it easiest from the left, but more exhilarating from the right. I've swum in those waters, especially of a summer evening when the stars are singing and turning in their spheres for love of God. I've sat under the tree in the foreground, half in shade and half in sunlight---Oh, I don't know how many times!
When I was twenty, I went backpacking in the Rocky Mountains---the same range depicted in this picture---and what do you think I found? A real lake and a towering mountain behind it, not as grand as the one in the picture, but in other respects strikingly like. I sat on the banks of that lake for a whole day, as you can read about elsewhere in the archives of this blog, and learned things about God that struck deep into my soul and have worked themselves into the foundations of my being.
I will tell you what I learned from the picture, and from the day I spent really in the picture. I learned that God not only is, but is trustworthy.
And that's what I go back to remember, in my waking dreams and memories, when I step over the picture frame.
The canvas was simply huge. It must have been about 8 feet by 6 feet, and it hung on the wall on the dias in the dining hall. In other words, it dominated the little elevated platform in a corner of the busiest room on campus, where I spent most of my time.
As a freshman, of course, I didn't study there. I wouldn't have dared. But they set up registration under that picture my very first day on campus, and it presided over my swearing-in as a student. For the next six months, as a self-outcast freshman who did nothing but study, I would sometimes go and stand in front of that picture and try to make it swallow me.
Later, surrounded by happier camaraderie in the heyday of my sophomore year, I and six friends would hold meetings of the Green Apple Club there at dinner. I suppose it was during those hilarious meals that the idea of stepping into the picture was first suggested. The seven of us took turns writing an adventure in which we all found ourselves inside the picture, a la The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was silly and magnificent.
Under that picture, in my junior year, I became editor of a school literary journal. Under that picture I sat in endless planning sessions for various theatricals that I was involved in, from lowly hairdresser's assistant to director in the course of four years. Under that picture I cared for many a dear friend, and there my friends came to minister to me. Under that picture were moments of triumph, emails of good grades and news of two brothers' engagements and happy times at home. Under that picture too was pain, ended friendships and conversations that left me filled with quiet agony, and piled-up moments of suspense, hope, disappointment... all receding at last into memories, as if they were waves falling back on themselves in ripples on the shore. And once, I sat there with a sprained ankle.
Through it all (and oh, how the memories press in on me!) there was that picture. I suppose you could say that it became my separate Eden, my world apart, the place where my imagination liked best to wander: my garden of bright images. It's strange how a picture or a tune or a movie or a book does that sometimes; how it becomes a part of your life. Since I was fourteen I've been playing on the piano a simple melody that I elaborated from something my brother taught me, and it has become the melody of my life for good or ill. Since I was eighteen I've held this picture, like a door or magic portal, in a special place in my mind. When I need to run away and hide, this is where I go.
And it doesn't matter, you see, whether or not I tell you these things. I don't have to be afraid, or worry about whether or not to trust you with this piece of myself. You can't touch it; you can't follow me there; you can't take it from me. It's safe.
It's beautiful too, isn't it? I've scaled the mountain in the center in every conceivable season and at every time of day, from each different side and angle. Personally, I find it easiest from the left, but more exhilarating from the right. I've swum in those waters, especially of a summer evening when the stars are singing and turning in their spheres for love of God. I've sat under the tree in the foreground, half in shade and half in sunlight---Oh, I don't know how many times!
When I was twenty, I went backpacking in the Rocky Mountains---the same range depicted in this picture---and what do you think I found? A real lake and a towering mountain behind it, not as grand as the one in the picture, but in other respects strikingly like. I sat on the banks of that lake for a whole day, as you can read about elsewhere in the archives of this blog, and learned things about God that struck deep into my soul and have worked themselves into the foundations of my being.
I will tell you what I learned from the picture, and from the day I spent really in the picture. I learned that God not only is, but is trustworthy.
And that's what I go back to remember, in my waking dreams and memories, when I step over the picture frame.
posted by Praelucor at 10:39 PM
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