Above the Sea

Caspar David Friedrich - Blick auf die Ostsee

They climbed the stair, and sat them down on the green grass awhile watching the ocean coming in over the sand and the rocks, and Ralph said: "I will tell thee, sweetling, that I am grown eager for the road; though true it is that whiles I was down yonder amidst the ripple of the sea I longed for naught but thee, though thou wert beside me, and thy joyous words were as fire to the heart of my love. But now that I am on the green grass of the earth I called to mind a dream that came to me when we slept after the precious draught of the Well: for methought that I was standing before the porch of the Feast-hall of Upmeads and holding thine hand, and the ancient House spake to me with the voice of a man, greeting both thee and me, and praising thy goodliness and valiancy. Surely then it is calling me to deeds, and if it were but morning, as it is now drawing towards sunset, we would mount and be gone straightway."

                                                                                             —William Morris, The Well at the World’s End

The World is a Revelation . . .

Alles, was wir erfahren, ist eine Mitteilung. So ist die Welt in der Tat eine Mitteilung, Offenbarung des Geistes. Die Zeit ist nicht mehr, wo der Geist Gottes verständlich war. Der Sinn der Welt ist verloren gegangen. Wir sind beim Buchstaben stehngeblieben. Wir haben das Erscheinende über der Erscheinung verloren.

Ehemals war alles Geistererscheinung, jetzt sehn wir nichts als tote Wiederholung, die wir nicht verstehn. Die Bedeutung der Hieroglyphe fehlt. Wir leben noch von der Frucht beßrer Zeiten.

                                                                                                           —Novalis, Neue Fragmente

Everything we experience is a message. So the world is indeed a communication, a revelation of the Spirit. We no longer live in a time when the Spirit of God is comprehensible. The meaning of the world has been lost. We stopped at the letter. We have mistaken the image for the manifestation.

In the past, everything was a spiritual phenomenon; now we see nothing but dead repetition, which we don’t understand. The meaning of the hieroglyph is missing. We are still living on the fruits of better times.

All of this is true, and yet, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness . . .” (Romans 8:26)  We were made to read the revelation of the Spirit in the world.  But which of us is willing to go into that inner desert—to listen quietly in that arduous but necessary silence?