There Is Still So Much Beauty. Still So Much Splendor.

Over the years, I have accumulated imaginings and inferences, trials and treasures—both sonorous and silent, sorrowful and sublime. These fragments leave me frustratingly lacking in words to describe the whole, even to myself. My emotions, rather than dulling with time, have grown broader and deeper. This makes my connections with the people I love even more vital—oxygen-like, water-like, blood-like—bonds so essential that living is impossible without them.

Many of the things that once mattered so much—things I aspired to as a younger man and clung to out of fear of letting go—now seem frivolous. Like being well-known, for example. Or seeking the praise of people who would never love me, could never give me what I thought I needed: a sense of my own worth. Only now have I begun to see how much time I squandered, how many moments I spent waiting for something that would never come. It is as if I’d approached a cliff, one I’d visited many times, knowing that someday I would have to leap into the waters below. There came a moment, a dear friend said a few compelling words, and I ran to the cliff’s edge. Had I known how easy, how beautiful the leap was, I would never have feared it at all. I would have longed to fly, begged to leave the so-called safety of my perch.

So how do I explain this revelation? Yes, "revelation" is a strong word, but it’s the right word. What is revelatory, I’ve realized, is rarely new. It is timeless, older than any of us.

These things that surround me—they aren’t really "things," That word is what I use only when I lack a better term. I mean my love, my awe for what I’ve seen, for the people I dream of, pray for, and wish to hold—even those for whom holding is no longer possible. I ache with wonder at where they have gone, whether they still see and hear. I believe they do. I believe that the way we sense the world—seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, intuiting—is only a glimpse, a pale hint of how a spirit can.

I am a veiled creature, stumbling through life as if trying to touch it while wearing gloves. I often ask myself: Am I getting the whole picture? Have I grown used to the veil? For years I longed to lift it away. How do I know it's there? Because, in brief moments, I’ve sensed without it. And those moments—those revelations—come in an instant. They don’t take long.

I know this isn't a popular idea. We're told to work hard, take our time, strive for mastery. But true discovery, those Rubicon-leaping moments, happen instantaneously. A baby is born, and we’re instantly connected. We meet someone and fall in love immediately. We hear a piece of music and are forever changed. We stand beneath a wedding canopy, or God forbid, bury a loved one, and our world shifts, sparking into flame like a matchhead.

Yes, there is so much pain: the politics, the cruelty, the senselessness, the lies, the horror, the uncertainty, the loss. The grief, the disbelief: “I could never believe this would happen in my lifetime!” It all groans beneath our feet. The very floorboards of the earth are creaking, revealing its instability.

And yet. And yet.

There is still so much beauty. Still so much splendor. So much that is true, good, right, merciful, wise, and kind. Still so much worth caring for and about. Still so much time left to become what I have been afraid to be. A man who no longer fears the vulnerability of love. A human being who no longer hides from what lies beyond the veil. I have wondered what’s there. I’ve lifted one, only to find another behind it. The veils go on and on, but with each one I remove, the barrier becomes thinner, more transparent. And what’s beyond them all? All I know is what it isn’t. It’s not a "what," or an "it," or a "thing." Those are words we use when we have no better way to describe the indescribable.

The veil is but a manifestation of the ultimate Creator, the One who brings forth existence from nothingness, without need for amalgamation of pre-existing things. It exists to keep us questioning, shielding us from certainty that is either too abundant or too scarce Even as the veil thins, it leaves me in a state of wonder, always reaching for more. And when I am in that state of wonder, my creativity never fails me. My love never fails me. My trust that things are not only good at some future point, but are good even now, never fails me.

My latest book Suspended By No String: A Songwriter's Reflections On Faith, Aliveness, and Wonder is available now. Simon & Schuster Post Hill Press Amazon link: https://tinyurl.com/2ktddb86

Follow me at: peterhimmelman.substack.com