Living – sethlewis.ie

It Isn’t Night for the Moon

Winter in Ireland. The time of year when the sun keeps shortening his hours, and the darkness encroaches steadily. It wasn’t late, but as I passed through our town that evening the sun’s face had already been missing for hours. And yet, I could still see his light. I saw it reflected off the full moon, beaming in the sky in all of its silver glowing glory.

Learning by Experience

The moment I met our first child, everything changed. It happened as quickly as a heart can beat, with a force that took my breath away—my eyes and my heart were suddenly opened to understand love in an entirely new way. I had heard about the love of parents for their children. I had experienced it from the other end, as the child of truly wonderful parents. But none of this prepared me for how it feels when your hearts bursts with absolute, unconditional, unfathomable love for a human you don’t even know, who can’t respond, and whose needs never seem to end—and none of that matters at all.

The Other Side Of Human Rights

Some of the most common language in cultural and political debate these days (besides comparing people to Nazis) is the language of rights. In the Enlightenment era, philosophers began to lay a particular emphasis on the idea that humans have natural rights, and this concept has driven social change ever since. The idea was not invented by the philosophers, it was only rediscovered. It was already built in to the Christian foundations of their civilisation. As the U.S. Declaration Of Independence put it, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”.

Our ancestors’ emphasis on rights was a new and necessary correction to a social order that was terribly out of balance. Their culture needed to remember that every human is valuable beyond calculating because every human is made in the image of God himself, and because of this, every human has a right to be treated with respect and fairness by their fellow humans. We, the children of our enlightened forebearers, no longer find concepts like equality and fairness difficult to accept. These values are no longer revolutionary. They are the basic assumptions we grow up with. But I’m afraid our emphasis on rights has led us to a different kind of imbalance.

The Little Weeds

It used to be a vacant lot, in the middle of town. Over months and seasons the grass and weeds have slowly given way to rows of potatoes, apples, carrots, pumpkins, onions, and more. This is our local community garden. We even have a poly-tunnel that fills up with tomatoes, lettuce, and courgettes that grow bigger than my forearm. Some of our volunteers are keen gardeners with plenty of knowledge and experience, and then there are people like me and my wife, ready to do as we’re told. This year, I’ve spent a lot of my time in the garden on one job in particular: killing things.

Threads (a poem)

It was the middle of September when Jessica and I went on our first date, while we were in university. That was twenty-three years ago, and ever since our lives have been woven together in too many ways to count. That’s what this poem is about:

Enjoying Your Own Decline

Nobody likes to talk about it, but the decline is coming. I’m not talking about economics, western culture, or common courtesy. I’m talking about us. You and me. Life is a mountain with two sides, and no matter how high you climb, you’ll still end up at the very bottom someday. Even the god-like pharaohs landed there, and the treasure in their tombs was eventually plundered. That’s how it goes. If you’re lucky, you’ll live long enough to experience the decline as a gradual downward slope. For others, it’s more like a cliff. One thing is certain: decline is coming.

It may be your strength. It may be your beauty. It may be your mind. It may be your influence, the relevance of your work, your notoriety, or your social prominence. Eventually, it will be all of the above. I guess it makes sense that we don’t like to talk about this. It sounds dire, doesn’t it? And yet I’ve witnessed people living out the years of their decline with a strange, luminous joy that refused to track with their diminishing abilities and strength—on the contrary, it actually grew stronger and brighter as they weakened and let go. How is this possible? I want to know, because I want that joy.

In The Internet, But Not Of It

We went on a foreign holiday this summer and amidst all the uniqueness and differences, I noticed one thing that was all too familiar: we still had to dodge people who were too busy looking at their phones to notice where they were walking. I rolled my eyes at them, but then I remembered that one of the first things I looked for in our airbnb was the wifi password. Like it or not, the internet is ubiquitous, and even when we’re not using it our minds can easily turn to the things we’ve seen there, or the things we might post later. This is the way our world works now. But that doesn’t mean we should simply accept the internet’s new role in our lives without thought, or blindly take it on its own terms. There are still decisions to be made, and they are not insignificant. One of the biggest choices is where we will build our lives.

John’s Magnificent Pineapples

There once was a man named John the Magnificent. At least, that’s that he called himself. He lived near our home in Ireland a long time ago. I only know about him because of the effort he put in to proving his chosen name—because his manor house really is magnificent, and is still surrounded by gorgeous gardens that are now open to the public (I’m not sure John would approve of this, but he hasn’t said anything). In John’s day, a garden was a great way to display your wealth. His arboretum includes exotic specimens from around the world, and his greenhouses were so well designed and equipped that he was able to serve his guests home-grown pineapples—in Ireland!

Small (a poem)

A sunbeam
A bird
A smile
A word
A song
So revealing
So filled up
With feeling
A wrinkle
A fear
A sweat bead
A tear
A dance in the kitchen
A laugh in the hall—
A lifetime so big
Made of moments
So small

Of Birds, Baguettes, And Being A Creature

On a lakeshore in the French Alps, the old city of Annecy rises to meet the castle that crowns the hill. At the water’s edge, shops and restaurants trade in the same buildings that were used by medieval merchants. Our children were small when our family visited, but the memories are still clear in my mind. I remember the woman beside the water with a baguette, feeding the birds. I remember how fascinated the children were at how she could get the birds to come and eat bread right out of her hands. Then, when she noticed them noticing her, she generously gave the rest of her baguette to our family so that we could try it, too. Sure enough, a few bits of baguette was all it took to attract flocks of sparrows who flew around our heads, landed on our fingers and ate right out of our outstretched hands. Then again, who wouldn’t accept an invitation to share in a proper French baguette? As they came, we wondered at their tiny bodies, and we laughed at the feeling of their feet on our fingers. I suppose all animals will be this friendly and unafraid in the new creation. That will be glorious.