The ladder as the symbol for our journey through life.
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10 years ago
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Ladder
Copyright 2009 by Stefan Bolz
The ladder extends below me into infinity. From where I stand, I cannot see the ground. I feel somewhat suspended while holding on to the wooden rungs. The air is cold and heavy and limned in twilight. Not only do I not see the ground because of the sheer height of my location but the ladder literally disappears into the darkness below me. This is where I came from. This is where my journey started. I have no recollection of when I took the first step up the ladder but it seems too long to remember. It might have been yesterday but I doubt it.
One rung looks like the other as I make my way up. There is no sudden change of scenery, no realization of where I am on the ladder. There is just the climb. Sometimes I think I am so close to the bottom that I could just let go and land only a couple of feet below. At other times I get the sense that were I to let go now, I would fall forever only to have to start all over.
From a distance, the ladder looks like a single thin line of thread spun between the ground and the top of a vertical cliff easily several thousand feet high. But from a distance, my thread is also not the only one. Because of the thick fog I can’t see that 4 feet away from me is another ladder and behind that yet another, the row extending in perpetuity. If I were to look at it from even higher up I would see that the cliff is not a straight vertically line from point A to point B but a massive circle, stretching out for miles, with no beginning and no end.
For years I was convinced that mine was the only ladder and I was the only one climbing. Now, especially in times when I close my eyes while climbing up I can hear voices beside me. The whispers are sometimes so quiet I can easily block them out. At other times I cannot but hear and listen to them. The fog seemed to isolate me from the other ladders for the longest time. Now it is as if the fog’s density is lessening just a tiny bit. The voices I hear sometimes are voices of agony, of pain, of hopelessness and despair. But there are others as well. Other voices. These are filled with hope and a sense of the utter beauty of the sheer size of this undertaking. There are millions of ladders each reaching into the havens, all occupied by one person, all with one single purpose – to reach the end of the ladder. To come out of the darkness and to breathe the fresh air again. To touch the green, green grass of home once again and to be free.
Sometimes I just stand at one rung for a long time, my mind in a haze, for I have lost the purpose of the climb. But then I hear a voice through the fog. Very quietly it calls to me from one of the others. “Where are you?” it whispers. And then I remember and I start climbing again. And as I climb I can feel the sense of urgency in me not to hold on to any of the rungs for too long. “Just keep climbing,” I think to myself. “Just keep climbing,” I hear a voice next to me. It occurs to me that were we to realize that we are all together, each on our own ladder but still joined in our single purpose, we would make sure nobody would stay behind. Sometimes all it takes is for the one next to you to wait a few minutes so you can catch up. We can’t pull each other up but we can wait for one another. And what function can be holier than to wait for a brother to have him next to us again and not lose sight of him in the darkness of the fog.
Here lies our destiny and our function alike. It seems to be a contradiction that waiting for one another would get us up the ladder more quickly. But such are the laws of our journey home, implemented for our protection and in place to assure our swift progress up the ladder. And one day the fog will lift and we all, each and every one of use, will take the last rung and step off the ladder and into a home that we have never left.
The ladder extends below me into infinity. From where I stand, I cannot see the ground. I feel somewhat suspended while holding on to the wooden rungs. The air is cold and heavy and limned in twilight. Not only do I not see the ground because of the sheer height of my location but the ladder literally disappears into the darkness below me. This is where I came from. This is where my journey started. I have no recollection of when I took the first step up the ladder but it seems too long to remember. It might have been yesterday but I doubt it.
One rung looks like the other as I make my way up. There is no sudden change of scenery, no realization of where I am on the ladder. There is just the climb. Sometimes I think I am so close to the bottom that I could just let go and land only a couple of feet below. At other times I get the sense that were I to let go now, I would fall forever only to have to start all over.
From a distance, the ladder looks like a single thin line of thread spun between the ground and the top of a vertical cliff easily several thousand feet high. But from a distance, my thread is also not the only one. Because of the thick fog I can’t see that 4 feet away from me is another ladder and behind that yet another, the row extending in perpetuity. If I were to look at it from even higher up I would see that the cliff is not a straight vertically line from point A to point B but a massive circle, stretching out for miles, with no beginning and no end.
For years I was convinced that mine was the only ladder and I was the only one climbing. Now, especially in times when I close my eyes while climbing up I can hear voices beside me. The whispers are sometimes so quiet I can easily block them out. At other times I cannot but hear and listen to them. The fog seemed to isolate me from the other ladders for the longest time. Now it is as if the fog’s density is lessening just a tiny bit. The voices I hear sometimes are voices of agony, of pain, of hopelessness and despair. But there are others as well. Other voices. These are filled with hope and a sense of the utter beauty of the sheer size of this undertaking. There are millions of ladders each reaching into the havens, all occupied by one person, all with one single purpose – to reach the end of the ladder. To come out of the darkness and to breathe the fresh air again. To touch the green, green grass of home once again and to be free.
Sometimes I just stand at one rung for a long time, my mind in a haze, for I have lost the purpose of the climb. But then I hear a voice through the fog. Very quietly it calls to me from one of the others. “Where are you?” it whispers. And then I remember and I start climbing again. And as I climb I can feel the sense of urgency in me not to hold on to any of the rungs for too long. “Just keep climbing,” I think to myself. “Just keep climbing,” I hear a voice next to me. It occurs to me that were we to realize that we are all together, each on our own ladder but still joined in our single purpose, we would make sure nobody would stay behind. Sometimes all it takes is for the one next to you to wait a few minutes so you can catch up. We can’t pull each other up but we can wait for one another. And what function can be holier than to wait for a brother to have him next to us again and not lose sight of him in the darkness of the fog.
Here lies our destiny and our function alike. It seems to be a contradiction that waiting for one another would get us up the ladder more quickly. But such are the laws of our journey home, implemented for our protection and in place to assure our swift progress up the ladder. And one day the fog will lift and we all, each and every one of use, will take the last rung and step off the ladder and into a home that we have never left.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Eines Tages... (One Day...)
Copyright 2009 by Stefan Bolz
Der lange Winter ist fast vorueber
Harsche, kalte Nächte
Gefüllt mit eisiger Luft aus dem Norden
Werden bald nichts mehr als Erinnerungen sein
Die sanft verblassen in der aufgehenden Sonne
Die Samen wurden in fruchtbaren Boden
Vor langer, langer Zeit gelegt. Vor so langer Zeit,
Du kannst dich nicht einmal mehr daran erinnern
Und doch
Bald wirst du dich erheben. Deine atemberaubende
Schönheit,
Deine Macht und deine Herrlichkeit
Dir gegeben bevor die Zeit begann
Zurückgehalten fuer Äonen
Sie wird durch den eisbedeckten Boden brechen
Die waermenden Strahlen der Sonne begruessen
Begruessen den Wind, die Sterne der Nacht und den Regen
Und dann, eines Tages, die Blüten
So lange verschlossen, werden sich oeffnen
Und all deine Schönheit wird sich entfalten
vor deinen Augen
Und du wirst wissen.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
One Day...
Copyright 2007 by Stefan Bolz
The long winter has almost ended
Harsh, cold nights
Filled with icy air from the north
Will soon be nothing more than a memory
Fading fast in the rising sun
The seeds were laid in fertile ground
A long, long time ago. So long ago
You do not even remember
And yet
Soon you will arise. Your magnificent beauty
Your power and your glory
Given you before time began
Held back for eons
Will push through the ice-covered ground
Welcoming the warming rays of sunlight
Welcoming the wind, the rain and the stars at night
And then, one day, the blossoms
So long held tightly together, will open
And all your beauty will unfold
before your very eyes
And you will know
The long winter has almost ended
Harsh, cold nights
Filled with icy air from the north
Will soon be nothing more than a memory
Fading fast in the rising sun
The seeds were laid in fertile ground
A long, long time ago. So long ago
You do not even remember
And yet
Soon you will arise. Your magnificent beauty
Your power and your glory
Given you before time began
Held back for eons
Will push through the ice-covered ground
Welcoming the warming rays of sunlight
Welcoming the wind, the rain and the stars at night
And then, one day, the blossoms
So long held tightly together, will open
And all your beauty will unfold
before your very eyes
And you will know
Thursday, February 5, 2009
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