Out and back

Slabs of smartphone lycra’d to each outer thigh, a lithe woman in a Harvard hat smiled at me as she approached.  I didn’t have time to react before I saw that the object of her smile was not me, but a butterfly, a gold and black Platonic ideal of a monarch, which floated between us.  After we passed each other, the butterfly sailed alongside me for a moment, hovered, then executed a skittery descent into the warm grass.

Later I turned onto Huron Avenue and confronted a wild turkey on the sidewalk.  As I approached, I scanned my scarce turkey knowledge, trying to recall if they were territorial or not, and if by continuing I would risk a serious pecking from a creature around half my height.  I held my breath and kept to the right, and as I passed, the turkey averted her eyes, as if searching for something, and we continued our respective ways.  Not unlike what two humans do in similar situations.

The air became hotter and denser, and I lost a few moments.  Time and distance passed, it seemed, without me.  These long runs are good for one’s physical health, but, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s also spiritual fruit which Saturday morning mortification bears.  The early mystics talk about annihilation, but John Main (a Benedictine monk and real-life mystic himself) saw it differently: “This is why we pray to the degree that we turn away from ourselves, from the possessive self-consciousness and trivial distractedness… If this sounds like annihilation it is only because it is a description of the unified consciousness of transcendence…far from being annihilated, we are fully, wonderfully restored to ourselves…we know the wonder of our being, the beauty of life, the centrality of love.”