Stars and Pig's Wings

Who are the people in your life that have poured water on your dreams? Do you know the simultaneous sting and energetic impetus that brews when your passion and vision meet up with challengers of small mind who have a wary view of your ability to puruse the dream to its completion? John Steinbeck clung to the following Latin saying when a professor told him that he would be an author when pigs flew. I've read that every book he wrote is printed with this insignia somewhere on the opening pages:

 

Ad astra per alia porci

[To the stars on the wings of a pig]

Starry Night Over the Rhone - van Gogh

In beautiful contrast are the people who believe in your dreams and cheer you on in your pursuit of them in many ways.

Parents are often like that. I still remember little things my Mom or Dad said along the way, even into and through my adult years, that fueled my flight as a musician. 



Of the painting here, Vincent van Gogh said, "It does me good to do what’s difficult. That doesn’t stop me having a tremendous need for, shall I say the word — for religion — so I go outside at night to paint the stars."

Lewis Carroll uses a variation of this saying in Alice in Wonderland:

"Thinking again?" the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.
"I've a right to think," said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.
"Just about as much right," said the Duchess, "as pigs have to fly...."  

                                      Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 9.

While doing some housekeeping in my office today, I came across a note from a friend who said she couldn't wait to see all the things I'll do in the next phase of my career, concluding, "I know you'll be so successful!"  What a contrast to Steinbeck's professor!

To me, "the stars" are the place where I am living a full life doing what the good Lord gifted me to do. For each of us, that will mean different things. I think of how my mom "lived in the stars" in her last months with limited mobility, energy, and stamina. To the end she was making out lists of the things she wanted to do, however simple, each day. I think when she didn't really have the energy to do much of anything she dozed off with a prayer on her lips.


A man I have admired since childhood when my Dad introduced me to him is Nehemiah from Babylon. Around 450 B.C. this remarkable man led the exiled Jewish people back to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall of the city--no small feat on so many levels! For starters, this guy was only the cupbearer to the King. Not a man with freedom or monetary means. Not to mention how far they would have to travel. And could he convince enough others to go with him? But he had a burning passion. His example of pursuing an impossible dream and his leadership skills are something to check out if you are unfamiliar with this story.

Nehemiah's story is given in the Old Testament book of NEHEMIAH. This section below is particularly fascinating, both for its sarcastic humor and the tenacity and grit Nehemiah showed in the face of such cruel, laughing opposition . . .

From Nehemiah 3:   

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, ² and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble —burned as they are?”
³ Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!”

⁴ Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. ⁵ Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.

⁶ So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.


Any Sanballats or Tobiahs in your world critical of you, your plan, your workmanship? Nehemiah rocked on (literally, they were building with stones) through prayer and determination with the help of his friends. Those are good things to remember when one is discouraged in that flight to the stars. And heaven forbid that we become a Sanballat or Tobiah ourselves---easy to do, yes? That's a good reminder for me today--no foxish or feebly snaps at my family, friends, or neighbors.

And I love that last line, "for the people worked with all their heart."

Gotta go now and find me a pig with wings . . .  

 ~ ~ ~

Choose Something Like a Star - setting by Randall Thompson

Poem by Robert Frost (1916)

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.