Behold, Be Held

I’ve had the curious experience recently of going outside with a question, and getting an answer.

Yesterday, I was sitting by a river, feeling creatively stuck and wondering what would help get me unblocked. Bam! Three separate flocks of honking geese flew over me, one after the other. Oh, I needed community, people to create with.

I also noticed that the river, which was so still that the surface shone like glass, had a gentle current visible on the other side. It may have looked stagnant, but there was still flow. Oh.

It felt too good to have made up (and if I had made it up, I would definitely edit it out later because it was too cliché).

Last week, I went to a forest, needing to get some writing done to prepare for my PhD comprehensive exam defense. I felt anxious about sitting down to the work, flooded with imposter syndrome. As I approached a picnic table, I kid you not, a literal ray of sunlight came out and sparkled on the surface of the table, shadows of leaves making the light dance right where I was about to put my laptop. Suddenly this felt like a safe, consecrated place to work on something scary.

Richard Rohr talks about deep looking, where we behold in order to be held: “We are completely enchanted by something outside and beyond ourselves. Maybe we should speak of ‘behelding’ because, in that moment, we are being held more than really holding, explaining, or understanding anything by ourselves.” When we look closely at the water in a river, at a painting, at our kid’s face, at a ray of light dancing on a picnic table, we are met there.

Behold, be held.

Fragment of a gold wreath, Greek, ca. 320-300 B.C.E., Metropolitan Museum of art