Simply Peace

For a long time now, sleeping through the night has been a memory. I guess these perpetually disrupted nights began some time in my 50s. Falling asleep is effortless for me. Usually a half hour of reading under the bedside lamp calms my restless mind. Sometimes I just nestle under the covers, and before I can even think about falling asleep, I am asleep. Oh, but those middle of the night disturbances. Once answered, I can almost guarantee that this restless mind will go into action, gnawing on an array of troubles—an unfortunate exchange with another human being (go back as far as you can imagine and pick your category), unfulfilled expectations (falling short in a relationship, falling short in a business deal), concern for a family member, things I need to do but keep putting off.

I remember a time in the 80s when my prayer at bedtime was simple—grant me peace of mind, dear Lord. I even pronounced this prayer to a friend one evening who was detailing her disastrous relationship with a guy her friends thought she only lived with. It turned out they were married. “P-E-A-C-E, Patty, (hands in the air, punctuating each letter). That’s my last thought before going to sleep.”

Over the years, the prayer that seemed to reassure me at night, almost guaranteeing a decent sleep, became only a memory. Reading in the middle of the night could be a solution, if I was involved in something that held my attention. Sometimes even a book that captivated me last session can’t hold my mind.

Recently I saw a church marquee that read “Peace is not the absence of troubles, it is the presence of God.” Ordinarily I cringe at catchy slogans on church marquees. This one seemed to work that day because I was in fact troubled by an unfortunate exchange with another human being. The only resolution to that particular struggle was to cut myself loose. I’m still massaging the slogan on that church marquee. I shared it today with an old friend who responded, ‘that makes sense, if it’s what you believe.’ Okay, that’s true too. A familiar 1950s song goes “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” If you avoid the remainder of the lyrics, you don’t have to deal with the religious implications of the song, although it’s reminder that we are all brothers and sisters sure doesn’t hurt.

Times when we can’t sleep are potentially good times for rediscovering things that have satisfied or reassured us in the past—helping to soothe the savage soul by speaking to some essential need, perhaps spiritual, perhaps intellectual or creative, although I think it’s difficult to separate the three. Such happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Awakened, knowing on this particular night that I was truly awake and struggling with an old demon friend, my mind came to rest on Emily Dickinson, my muse, and for some strange reason, on a book about her that I bought and started reading at least three years ago—“Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief.” Because I have at least three books in progress at any given time, this one had gotten lost in the shuffle. But on this night, at 2:25 a.m., I knew exactly where to find this study of Emily Dickinson’s struggle with her mortal self, her soul, God and Christ, the church. She in fact wrestled with all of these until her death.

While Emily Dickinson had effectively rejected her Calvinist background, had stopped attending church mid-way through her life, she never stopped asking the questions. And even in rejection of established religious tenets which were intrinsic in her upbringing, she remained concerned with this force, showing concern for the soul and salvation of the friends she lost beginning at an early age. This concern is reflected both in her poems and in her letters. During her life, she didn’t seek to publish her poems, although she did at times offer them for response to certain people she trusted. A few were published without her permission. Apparently she saw her sometimes tormented, sometimes angry, sometimes joyful reflections as something for the time after she had finished her earthly journey.

On this night, and over many days since, Emily Dickinson’s documented struggle has brought me peace of mind by giving voice to my own struggle. Her mid-nineteenth century dilemma, although a journey begun in an America that hadn’t yet entered the war of internal civil strife—an America that was largely still an agrarian world—posed the same questions that for centuries before and well over a century since stare us in the face, grab us by the shoulders and shake us, cause our hearts and minds to ache seemingly without relief, and miraculously lead us to some kind of growth. Life clearly became more complicated with the Industrial Revolution, world wars, the cold war, undeclared wars, conflicts, and now terrorism that has numbed us with disbelief.

Emily Dickinson writes,

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play—
In accidental power—
The blonde Assassin passes on—
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.

I could ask, “Who is this God that approves of pain and loss,” although it probably isn’t the right question. The natural world is full of pain and loss, much of it simply part of life and accepted because it is about that which is not burdened with a soul. We humans wrestle day in and day out, and amazingly we grow from loss. Through it all we are forced to take lessons that confuse us, wound us, rob us of our foolish pride, frighten us, take away that which we love and understand because we are human.

On those sleepless nights I can only hope that there will always be for me an Emily Dickinson to remind me that I am not alone. Though I believe there is a God who is with me—even if I often fail to submit to him—there is comfort in the artful and universal reminders reflecting the struggles of other human beings. I can only hope that knowing this at the very core of my being can lead to some kind of peace.

Simply Peace
Harold Hollis (Normangee Texas – December 19, 2005)

The Next Golden Egg

I have many times described my antique hunting experiences as having a spiritual quality. Doubtless, a passion for the objects one collects is an important characteristic of the person in search of the next golden egg. And indeed it is always the next golden egg. Many years ago, I read an excerpt from a speech given by the actor Edward G. Robinson, who was at the time the president of a major association of art collectors in the United States. In his speech Robinson described the continual search for a wonderful painting, adding that as surely as one found that painting, took it home, and hung it on the wall, he would be in search again for another wonderful painting. Clearly, a passion for art and all it connotes motivates the collector.

The things I collect evoke for me a sense of history, of family and good lives lived in humble but solid surroundings—complex and unquantifiable feelings. Those stoneware milk pans that I know my great grandmother would have used in rural Harris County, Texas; the colorful and interesting but less-than-sophisticated quilts my family would have had. And I can smell the lava soap at the wash basin on the back porch of my Great Uncle Henry and Aunt Stella's house. I can also call up images of the iron beds and wardrobes arranged sparely on linoleum-clad floors and the windows raised high, allowing the curtains to flutter in the breeze on cool spring nights.

There's nothing more exhilarating than driving down a farm-to-market in beautiful East Texas anticipating what lies ahead in that little town where you found something memorable on your last trip. Depending on the kind of weather you like—Spring is nice, but a rainy day in January works as well—the tone of the adventure is underscored. Every old country churchyard, farmhouse and barn you pass enhance the experience. Sometimes it's hard to separate what you find at your destination from the collection of feelings that builds as you make your way. How many times have you started a road trip with just a feeling that something heavenly waits out there for you? Visions of a tramp art box made in one of the German communities of Texas, or that great Mexican vase that surely is just around the corner, flash through your mind. Maybe what you find is a touching old photo of a group of people gathered American-Gothic style in the general mercantile of some rural store in 1910.

Sadly for me, I don't have among my treasures much of anything to speak of from my farming family that settled around Houston, Texas in 1866—only my Great Aunt Minnie's lovely milk pitcher given to me by my mother and a picture album containing photos of people even my mother has trouble placing. What I do have is a sense of plenty of family gatherings, some at Aunt Minnie's—the big oak dining table that she and her daughter Annie spread with cheddar cheese cut from a large hoop, fresh-cured ham, homemade bread and garlic dill pickles—in her country Victorian house in Hockley, Texas. These many years later I can remember creeping up the stairs off the dining room to the unfinished attic where her bachelor son Willie had a twin iron bedstead, and not much more that I recall. And I remember another room used for storage, among its store old oil lamps and a table or so. I can almost smell the remnants of oil and the fragrance of the exposed Cypress beams of that attic. Most of these dear people are gone, but not the love and memories that rush over me when I recall them, and when I look each night at that milk pitcher standing on my bedside table.

Yes, the antique treasures I am proud to hold for just awhile have a spiritual quality for me, as do old houses—like the one I live in that once belonged to my great grandparents. I can't imagine not associating these treasures with the good folk who made them. Some treasures that are simply beautiful, and others that are simply wonderful. All of them are filled with the spirit of good lives lived.