The Distant Shore

As the plane taxis to the runway, an innocent voice asks, “Are we going to the clouds?”

“Yes, we’re going to the clouds,” answers her father. I never knew.

In my childhood, my parents preferred to drive wherever our holidays resided, seeing all the tourist traps and historical landmarks along the way. I’ve only flown a few times in my life, and in my first real business trip, it was a necessity. After a long and busy weekend, I was heading home.

As St. Louis rapidly shrinks behind us, its sliver of an arch looking more and more like a wicket by the riverside, what appears as mist gently wraps around the plane. The ride suddenly buckles and bounces, not a lot but enough to grip the armrests just a little bit harder. The little girl in front of me giggles. I look out the window again. The mists are still swirling, but open air surrounds the wing. Past that probably by miles, the billowing surface of a cloud is slipping by, with sunlight softly breaking through. So, this is what it feels like to be a bird.

Suddenly, we’re free.

I look back to see a towering wall of a single cloud, Moher standing guard on an airy ocean. At its foot, more clouds peel away, streaming out to blanket the earth far below. The cirrus is stripped, pulled cotton forming ghostly fjords. The setting sun is hidden but tints the sky with dusk. And all I can think of is a song.

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore

In Hollywood, from the early silents to today’s blockbusters, heaven often is depicted simply as lost loved ones hanging out above the clouds. They can watch us, the living, continue on; all they have to do is part the mist to see. When Annie Lennox wrote her song for Peter Jackson’s film, she didn’t write about the glory of battle or the triumph of humanity over ultimate evil. She wrote about the quiet end to the struggle, not of any war, but of life’s weary walk. As I gaze out the airplane porthole, no angels or spirits wander along this shore, but I understand why movie producers of yesteryear would want to believe so.

I think of Virginia Tech, of the road rage incident that claimed a couple’s life just down the road from where I live. I think of a local family found dead in their homes and the mother still missing, her urgent police poster still adorning the doors of coffee shops and stores. I think of a little girl with cancer, for whom another coffee shop is gathering anxious donations to pay for the medical treatment her parents can’t afford. I think of a lonely man, barricading himself in a liquor store at midday, and then burning everything down around him rather than surrendering. I think of the employees and shop owners watching everything they’ve worked to build become ash in moments. I think of a hundred horses wasting away in a field, because their owner loves them but doesn’t know how. I think of all that and more that has happened in the past two months, and I wonder where the madness ends.

When we’re born, we depend on our parents and friends. When we leave home, we muddle our way through, using the lessons we’ve learned and learning even more. Some people never close their eyes, but some people simply live to exist, never wanting to think of the meaning, much less the end. The prospect is too frightening.

The movies show us a fantasy, one where life has a clear rhyme, where injustices are repaid, crimes solved, evil vanquished in kind. Small wonder that their heaven is even cleaner. But our lives don’t have a screenwriter arranging for the fated romance, a director calling for the sunrise. We write our own script, character-driven and epic all at once. Maybe there is fate, but the choices still are ours.

Sometimes, the easy way is to shut the door, lock the deadbolt, and go to bed. The world carries on, though, with all its pain, hurt, and enmity. People make it so, as do those too frightened for nothing more than well-intentioned words.

Nobody is looking down from the clouds. I’ve seen their emptiness. Everyone we need to see is right here, souls both lonely and alive.

Night is beginning to fall. Far below on the patchwork earth, houses and towns switch on their street lamps. The lights are orange, like a hundred small fires together against the night.