Excerpts from "Magnificent Mansions"

Excerpts from Magnificent Mansions - a book about hope for seemingly wasted and unfulfilled lives:

 “We plead in the night for comfort, understanding, and a little direction. While all along, we are haunted by the thoughts of the dead carcasses of our failed dreams and lives. But, often, we receive neither relief nor any sense of anything. Then, sometimes in the darkness, a mere glimmer, a small diffraction of light, comes through just enough to see not all that are dead have decayed in vain. We get a glimpse that their true elements are for the eons, an eternal body, and a nobler place after all. The darkness always yields to the light when there is any light at all — easily. So we long for and wait for illumination. To be able to start our ascent out of the lowlands with a good view of our purpose. And upward toward that higher ground and a grander place out there somewhere . . . sometime. But for me, that wait has been at least half of my life so far. And the years seemingly wasted and miles tread have been tiresome — especially in Houston, Texas. In that long haul, I hope only paradigms were lost, but not paradise. There must be that better place I seek, though I suspect it will be a little different from what I have imagined.”

“As of this writing, I am climbing a mountain, Denali. From here, one can get a glimpse of His greatness. Yet this massive prominence, as impressive as it is, is infinitely small in comparison to God and His power to raise it to the heavens. Still, there is something about the mountains. They are like magnificent mansions. I long to live within them. I think we all hope for and want to live within or experience the grandest of places of one kind or another. For some, such may be mountains and oceans. For musicians, they may be cathedrals resonating the sounds of their songs and symphonies. For others, perhaps they are warehouse-size studios with which to paint large canvases of art, astounding buildings or architecture, or auditoriums filled with eager learners. And there are even those that would see grandness in a pasture with cows. We seek such places and can never seem to get our fill of them or experience them quite the way we would like. The measure of their magnificence is how small we are within them.”

“I love snowboarding and surfing. And I suppose I love them both for mainly the same reason — that sense of glorious flight as I glide along a slope. On one, I fly along a rolling moonscape beneath my feet. Or as on some days, it is more like a drift through the clouds. Down I go with pulses of acceleration and deceleration as I sway in a dreamlike dance with the mountain. I can only catch a small glance and portions of her majesty as I freely explore the folds of her white dress. On the other, I ride down a local slope that develops continually and varies dynamically. I may glide across a turquoise and ever-evolving elegant curve of a face. I reach out to touch her and want to sense the force that propels me. The power of a big wave is immense.  We can’t fully experience it. Nor can we completely capture the grandness and majesty of mountains. Yet with these, we can get a sense of God’s greatness, but it is only a glimpse.”

“There is indeed an allure of the deep and the unknown that draws me. Once while diving, I followed the sunlit corridor down until I sensed the tunnel beginning to darken and close in on me. Suddenly, I felt very uneasy and a bit lightheaded with almost a vertigo-type sensation. I imagined if I went any further, I would be spun like in a whirlpool and dragged down into the abyss. I was 154 feet down and within a steep-walled canyon just offshore the tip of the Baja California Peninsula. Far below me was my dive guide motioning me to come deeper. Earlier in the boat, he mentioned that he had been a champion freediver. He was more use to these depths than I was. I chose to live instead and made my way up slowly toward the light. The blue, with all its apparent freedom in three dimensions, was very enticing. But there are boundaries to what one should do with such liberty. Freedom is beautiful. I learned it could also drag you down, crush you, and just as soon kill you. Other than God’s grace, I’m not sure how I have made it this far. My freedom to make choices as an adult has allowed me to make awful ones that have dragged me down, crushed my soul, and could easily justify my death, even by my measure. At times I feel I have dived too far and am still there in the abyss. How does one escape such a place where one surrounds oneself with complete absence? There is no light and not the slightest sense of God.  

"But there in the darkness and the silence, I realized the dark silence was the message — the answer itself and not the absence of one. My thinking was wrong the whole time. Faith is not about knowing beforehand. Why would receiving a sense of direction be any different? Even if faith is blind and deaf in a way, I’m not lost. I do not know the direction I’m going until I take one. Faith is what it takes for me to move. From the depths, you must move perchance to reach the shallows. Though, to get there, I may tend to sink down and then try to crawl upslope along the bottom. From the shallows, you can then reach the shore.  And on the land, you can walk. I do not know what the next step is until I take that step, any step.”

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