Sun and Moon

Train rides and how we know what we know

The ocher and sage arroyos of Arizona unscrolled along side our sleeper car window, the fall afternoon sun providing the perfect light. We were settling into the second day of our ride from the Ozarks to the West Coast’s Ocean; slowing down, finally adopting the steady rhythm of the train track. We talked about things that normally don’t have time to rise to the top of to-do lists and get-it-done conversations. Riding a cross country sleeper train lets you unpack things, literally and conversationally.

“What’s at the heart of all this?” she asked, “Why are all the conversations so hard to have, the gaps so wide?” I wish I’d been able to respond with “A round-earth believer and a flat-earth believer cannot go into the maritime shipping business together.” As Charlie Peacock so succinctly does in his essay found here. But I hadn’t yet read his piece so I responded with a big fancy seminary word.

“Epistemology” I said.

The cactus and chaparral outside were unimpressed and Jane was skeptical, but asked me to continue. “It’s how we know what we know”, it’s how we decide if what we know is worth trusting or not.” Jane did a quick google search to fact check me and seemed mildly surprised to find the internet in general agreement with my definition. “We’ve lost the trust that comes from a shared framework of knowing, an unconscious mutual agreement on what is real and what isn’t, what counts and what doesn’t”.

It was getting towards dusk now and even though our route took us East, a bend in the track let the sunset fall down to our left and a full moon rise up on our right. These two lights, one to rule the day and the other the night, seemed very real and unarguable.

“If you can’t agree the sun is the sun, well, there’s not much to talk about.”

In Peacock’s essay mentioned above, he offers this as part of a way to move through the morass “When all the noise and illusions fall away —like status, fame, ideology, wealth, empire-building, and the shiny distractions of life (all that you can’t take with you) —what we want most is to belong and to matter. To be seen, known, and loved for who we truly are—to know mercy and justice, and for many, to walk quietly and humbly with God. This is the “all that you can’t leave behind.” Only organic, analog, fleshy human relationships can set the stage for this good to happen.”

I would add that showing up to our pain, and the pain of others, is where this kind of belonging and being seen can be most acute.

We continued to watch the moon rise and the sun set.

Later on our trip Jane and I would read about the sudden, unexpected death of the son of some old friends. Our hearts broke and tears filled out eyes as we shared the news with each other. Here was a pain so undeniably real, so undeniably true. We prayed for those closest to them to show up and hold them in belonging and bear sacrificial witness to their pain. To love them enough to let them fall utterly apart and love them longer than any proscriptive platitudes told them they should take to grieve and then move on.

As the train continued to move on through the now moonlit darkness, our thoughts were a million different places, yet the ocean was ahead and waiting, not concerned if we believed in it or not.

It’s human to want to not hurt, but the fear of that hurt, that pain, that loss, can be twisted into something that’s worse than the inevitable pain we will all encounter. It can separate us from ourselves and others, sabotage our closest relationships and turn our worship into a frenzied idolatry. It can cause us to preemptively hurt others and blind us to their pain. It can blind us to so many, many things.

Even the sun and the moon.

The Other Deepest Thing is an ongoing reflection on grief and how we respond to it. For musings on desire and how it shapes us, check out