Column | A sunny morning and more than enough disturbing

One spring morning, I’m cycling down a country road. The farms with their broad roofs lie calm in the radiant light, something glistens in the world, on the grass, on the oystercatchers along the road, the trees that stand against the sky with their fresh green veils. I hum a little to myself as I cycle towards nowhere-particularly. I think everything is fine this morning.

Do I find it necessary to add something else or to desire something? Not at this moment. God? Ah. Such an impossible word and actually, I look around, no need for anything. „The infinity of the universe is bearable/ on a beautiful spring morning in the Beemster” I wrote years ago after a walk in the Beemster on another beautiful day, and that’s how I feel now, here on the Groningen countryside. Sometimes there is no need for anything.

But still, well, not right away, but still, something won’t settle. Because why would I rejoice and think everything is fine. Somewhere inside or outside of me a voice sounds, if you want to call it that, a call resonates, insisting on anxiety instead of reassurance. No peace, no lazily turning in on oneself and ignoring the rest of the world. That voice has been stirred up quite a bit by the book by theologian Johan Goud, A letter that can no longer be closed.

The title is loosely taken from the poem ‘Brief’ by T. van Deel, in which he seems to refer to the painting Woman reading a letter van Vermeer, when he writes:Who doesn’t see himself standing like this, once / with a letter in hand that can never / close again and remains to be read, remains read.” He calls that letter a “message in the morning”. One morning a message just falls into your life that can never be left undelivered.

Gold is moved time and again by the philosopher Levinas, who ceaselessly reminds us of the appeals made to us by the unfortunate and the neglected, and he quotes with approval: “Man is not defined by what comforts him, but by what disturbs him .”

There is always plenty of disturbing things in the world, even on a sunny morning. Mostly small things, sure, just my own little concerns, it’s not the whole world that’s going to die, although it’s going to die too. But here on the bike in the sun in the outside silence, that doesn’t seem to matter for a while.

You can’t always feel everything. And you don’t have to, in fact Gold says so himself. It’s about ‘when it really comes down to it’. For what you would like to believe, so that you would then act well. So it’s about what kind of person you want to be.

Poetry: the answer to many questions, without ever being an answer

It is not for nothing that Goud asks himself more than once: “Why can’t I think about what inspires me and what I believe, without involving literary prose and poetry?” He knows why. Because it captures something of that which is impossible to say and which is nevertheless experienced so strongly. Only in a poem can someone say something about angels, say, and still be taken seriously.

Poems weave a fine web around the world and perhaps they ultimately refer to that misunderstood from which we feel we live. Perhaps, then, poetry is the answer to many questions, without ever being an answer. Or as Van Deel wrote in another poem: “No answer, but no better that exists.”