Obviously, I have been "lost in the wild woods" much more than "in the light" on this blog in the past few years, but there's a chance I can spend more time here in the near future.

Hope so.

I got to sit in on an Introduction to Literature "tryout lesson" by a prospective faculty candidate today, and I was really blessed and encouraged and energized-- inspired-- by the experience. I felt a dynamic synergy between Whitman's "Spider" poem and a few quotations which have, for a long time, meant a great deal to me.

I'm collecting them together here because this blog is, for me, about "glimpses of grace," light in the darkness, path signs in the tangled underbrush-- light in the wildwood that is this life.

Today's light on the trail:

"I look back in wonder at the path which I alone could never have found,
a wondrous path through despair to this point from which I, too,
could transmit to mankind a reflection of Your rays.
And as much as I must still reflect You will give me.
But as much as I cannot take up You will have already assigned to others."
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"'Man,' he said, then left a long pause, letting scorn build up in the cave like the venom in his breath. 'I can see you understand them. Counters, measurers, theory-makers. [...] Games, games, games!' He snorted fire. 'They only think they think. No total vision, total system, merely schemes with a vague family resemblance, no more identity than bridges and, say, spiderwebs. But they rush across the chasms on spiderwebs, and sometimes they make it, and that, they think, settles that!'" --John Gardner, _Grendel_, pp54-55

"A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres, to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul."
--Walt Whitman, "A Noiseless Patient Spider"

"The inventory of philosophical vocabulary used in classical China to define this kind of 'knowing' tends to be one of tracing out, unraveling, penetrating, and getting through . . . to trace out the connections among its joints and sinews, to discern the patterns in things, and, on becoming fully aware of the changing shapes and conditions of things, to anticipate what will ensue from them." --Sun Tzu: The Art Of Warfare, pp56, 57, trans. by Roger T. Ames

"Do I dare disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions / which a minute will reverse."
--T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

"He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd vertue, unexercis'd & unbreath'd, that never sallies out and sees her adversary ... [T]rue temperance [is that which can] see and know, and yet abstain." --Milton, *Areopagitica*

Never try to help God fulfill His word. [...] There is never any need to pretend
that your life is filled with joy and confidence; just wait upon God and be grounded in Him (Isaiah 50:10-11). [...] Do I trust at all in the flesh? Or have I learned to go beyond all confidence in myself and other people of God? Do I trust in books and prayers or other joys in my life? Or have I placed my confidence in God Himself, not in His blessings?"
--Oswald Chambers, _My Utmost for His Highest_, 1/19 reading

The trail? Today, it runs from Solzhenitsyn's despair to Chambers' quiet confidence in God by way of Eliot's attempt to overcome self-conscious timidity and interact with the universe in keeping with Milton's recommendation to "sally out" of my comfort zone-- to give my "cloister'd vertue" a good workout and make more and more meaningful connections between myself, my life, and the truth that is "out there" to be "traced out" in the real world-- in spite of the risks involved due to human frailties, especially the hubris all too prevalent in me which assumes too much wisdom, too much discernment, too much awareness of "absolute" truth.

What an amazing line, a perfect metaphor for a great way to live: "Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres, to connect them ..."

Seeking to connect the little bubbles of thought-- of truth "as best I can remember it"-- which, strung together well, form a bridge-- a path across dark canyons-- to take me a little "further on down the road."

It's wonder-ful to be on that path, that solid ground found in and on the Solid Rock ...