Standing Under When Understanding Fails

Understanding at last fades away into the unknown, the mysterious and wonderful. What remains, what reveals itself—even as it conceals itself—as more important than understanding is the act and passion of standing under. I look skyward and take in the vastness of blue riddled with tufts and clumps of clouds, bare tree branches starkly silhouetted against this canvas, and I understand truly so little. So I stand under instead. And it is enough: to take your stand under the heavens above, grasping only the rudiments of the physics involved, but reveling in the aesthetics beyond it. This is enough: it is the right response—not to turn away into my four-walls-and-a-roof in order to escape my non-understanding, my ignorance and feeble facts. To stand under the sky and to stand under the branches of the forest, to stand under the mountain’s shadow and the weaving ribbon of geese in flight: Now this is life and health, hope and wonder. In this my mind rests and finds peace.