Overcome by Awe

Some years ago I was cradling my new-born daughter in the middle of the night when I wanted to sleep and she didn’t. I passed the time by reading aloud from Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. It’s a tough story about the darkness of colonialism and of the human heart in general, not exactly bedtime reading for infants, but I needed to finish the novel for an assignment. She had no choice but to listen.

A better river story for children would be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – equally insightful into the human condition, but not quite as dark.

Today I'm pondering a river scene in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

Two animals, Mole and Rat have passed a sleepless night rowing down the river, drawn by a strange achingly beautiful piping music. Shortly before dawn the unexpected occurs.

"Suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend, and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

"Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in utter peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” murmered the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet – and yet – O Mole, I am afraid!”

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads

 and did worship.

I don’t know of a more poignant scene of Wonder and Reverence anywhere - the convergence of Awe and Fear, Beauty and Love. It ranks with the most powerful moments in Isaiah and Revelation and some of the more exquisite psalms ... and with the joy beyond words of cradling a daughter or grand-daughter in your own arms.

Image Source:
River - Journalof1