What makes us try to pause the sands
Of time, and seize a moment?
Freeze one frame, arrest the day
Turn it slow inside the mind
Yet, gazed upon too steadily
The colours drift and disappear
And fragments fade away to dark
Beyond the boundary of time
Like gold reflecting from the sun
Or softening mist a prism makes
A glance reveals a meaning meant
The gathered storm before it breaks
So rush the sands of time beside
A moment lodged between the glass
Too heavy in the letting go
Too fragile now, to last
We arrange the stage again
The players all returned
But it’s like toys set by a child
Silent and bereft of sound.
What makes a moment last so long,
And mark indelible, the soul –
What holds a heart under the fire
While others fade away, unknown?
Perhaps an angel listening in
Wrote it down for heaven
We’re not to know – and yet
Somehow – a call was given
Until the final, great encore
We catch only a glimpse
Enough to know beyond these hills
The waves grow sweet still.
I wrote this poem after returning from the last course and graduation from CREST with my Christian Leadership Diploma. The final unit was held at a lovely, wonderful retreat center called Kings Fold. There are many stories I could tell of those few days. The amazing people met, the deep sharing and intense learning. Graduating together and hearing personal, heart-felt encouragements from each other. Sharing communion in the chapel, rich with symbolic imagery, prayer, and Presence.
I waited awhile after most had left on the last morning. I had packed my little suitcase and loaded the car, said my goodbyes but couldn’t quite bear to leave just yet. I walked for a few minutes through the tall trees, listening and thinking and wondering. It was like a weight on my chest, and knowing how precious and how fleeting such times can be I didn’t want to forget. I stood longer in the moment. It wasn’t just the mountains, or the gentle Spring leaves, or the coffee in whimsical mugs, or the camaraderie around the tables. Not only the lessons sifted through and learned, journal entries, tears of meaning and reflection, shared life stories. It was all of these together, cascading in a wave – or a compass pointed perfect North. If I held my breath, could it last?
I walked a couple of stations of the Road to Emmaus and prayed. It was time to go. Sure enough, once the highway was well underneath the wheels my mind began to forget and fill with thoughts of home, family, teaching, the troubles of the wide world. Back home again I began the tedious tasks of tidying the kitchen and preparing for work. But wait – somehow, there were still golden, misty traces of the moment wafting around me. I paused and carefully sat, disturbing nothing.
And wrote.
“And suddenly there came a breeze from the east, tossing the top of the wave into foamy shapes and ruffling the smooth water all round them. It lasted only a second or so but what it brought them in that second none of those three children will ever forget. It brought both a smell and a sound, a musical sound. Edmund and Eustace would never talk about it afterwards. Lucy could only say, ‘It would break your heart.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘was it so sad?’ ‘Sad!! No,’ said Lucy.
“No one in that boat doubted that they were seeing beyond the End of the World into Aslan’s country.
“At the moment, with a crunch, the boat ran aground. The water was too shallow now for it. ‘This,’ said Reepicheep, ‘is where I go on alone.’
“They did not even try to stop him, for everything now felt as if it had been fated or had happened before. They helped him to lower his little coracle. Then he took off his sword (‘I shall need it no more,’ he said) and flung it far away across the lilied sea. Where it fell it stood upright with the hilt above the surface. Then he bade them goodbye, trying to be sad for their sakes; but he was quivering with happiness.”
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
Stories for Humans 