Maybe weary parts of me wanted to disappear?

And that’s one of the reasons why we flew to the those islands at the top of the world that tend to disappear?

They have 37 words for fog in the Faroe Islands, for fog that makes all things disappear, fog that enshrouds all that is in mystery, fog that blankets the steep grass roofs and sheep winding up sheer mountain sides hanging over the silver sea.

For a handful of days, the Farmer and I watch out our wee cabin’s kitchen window overlooking the bay, watch the waves roll in from the ocean, watch fog roll in too, settle in and obscure everything.

There is what the Faroese call mjorkakov, a very thick fog, and then mjørkatám, the hazy fog, and pollamjørki , the low-lying sea mist that seems to be pulled in by the relentless gunmetal North Atlantic waves, and wreaths along shoreline and the edges of hope, stirring all over again this wild belief, that mountains can move, that mountains can rise, and what is in the way can lift, and float in mid-air.

“Well…. I think instead of adventuring out, I think we just wait it out — just wait till this fog lifts.” I turn the kettle on, wait for the water to roil with a mist of its own.

Plan in pencil. Only God writes in stone.

We are witnessing it on the Faroes at the top of the world: Unbelievable sights surrender daily to unscripted skies. Fickle northern waves swirl surround these islands, endlessly changing, and so fickle, untamed weather swirls around everyone, endlessly changing.

This is what they call the Land of Maybe.

Maybe there will be visibility, maybe there will pea-soup grey, maybe there will be sunlight, maybe there will only be the thickest mist.

Maybe there is actually only one land that any of us live in: The Land of Maybe.

The language always spoken in the Land of Maybe is simply Let Go.

Maybe we will get to live out our days laughing loud and lingering long and happy around tables in the deepening golden light, or maybe…. maybe we will ache and howl at the moon as our hearts break. Maybe we’ll get to live, to go, to comeback, to rise, or maybe…. maybe we do not.

Plan in pencil. Only God writes in stone.

Open hands is what opens doors.

The Faroese descendants of the ancient seamen who’ve weathered through fog and storm and unknown here at the top of the world for centuries, they testify:

The only way to survive is to surrender. Open hands is what opens doors.

The Faroe Islands — all of life— is not a place you can make go your own way.

You cannot bend all the bends in your road to your own will and way.

The Farmer stands at the window watching the mountains slip invisible under the sea-mist. Just waiting till the fog lifts, all the waiting, with bated breath, I’ve lived this:

Just wait till the news (from them, or on the channel) changes.

Just wait till the forecast (from the doctor’s, or on the radar) changes.

Wait for the fog to lift, and you can be left waiting for the weight of the world to lift.

Just wait till the trajectory (of our people, of our own lives) changes — just… wait till the fog lifts. And yet: Waiting for the fog to lift, can get you down.

Wait for the fog to lift, and you find time keeps moving on, waiting for no one.

Wait for the fog to lift, and you can be left waiting for the weight of the world to lift.

Wait in life’s waiting room, and you can miss your only life. I have lived this too.

I hold my steaming cup of coffee there at the window, lean against the Farmer.

The fog of life is won by those who make every moment a little win.

Maybe that’s what I have felt, since before the pandemic, since all kinds of loss and trauma and grief came crashing in ways I never would have imagined, maybe what I’ve felt is what the Faroese call, hjallamjørki, a belt of fog, come in on the ocean — or maybe more like floki, a bank of fog — that makes me somedays want to disappear and withdraw, and other days make me anxious to find my way out of the strangling tight belt of disorienting grey.

Loss and living into the unknown can be exhausting. Will our people make it, will our hearts survive, will things go from hard — to our worst nightmare?

The fog of life is won by those who make every moment a little win.

“Let’s just go,” The Farmer zippers up his jacket. He’s the kind of man born ready and willing, boots on and double knotted.

Stillness is a posture of the soul, not a paralysis of one’s life.

We are always called to the paradox: Sojourners on the Way, we are called to be these strange pilgrims who live the paradox of an interior soul stillness, waiting on the Lord, while we keep putting one step in front of the other, following the Lord, wherever He leads.

On one hand, we wait — and with the other, we work. And the Lord tells us what belongs in the waiting hand and what belongs in the working hand.

Stillness is a posture of the soul, not a paralysis of one’s life.

The Farmer and I set off in the curling fog, wind our way slow around the islands of the archipelago and these 18 northern islands connected by more than 22 tunnels, slipping under mountain and sea.

The Farmer turns us around a corner and into the shrouded side of the mountain, through the tunnel, we go, like Levite priests slipping behind the veil, believing there’s a way through every fogged mystery.

Your fog can feel like forever — but move forward, and your fog can be gone.

Through the dark, through the dark, through the endless claustrophobic tunnelling dark — and then the surprise of abruptly coming out into glorious warm light. Thick fog one second, brilliant sunlight the next.

Your fog can feel like forever — but move forward, and your fog can be gone.

It’s always tempting to think that the way it is where you are, is the way it is everywhere.

But in a moment, turn around, turn a corner, turn down a tunnel, turn and just move forward, and the fogs in the Faroes can shift and a shaft of beaming light can dapple and dance on North Atlantic waves, bathing a shore-clinging village in a ring of light, and maybe it will all stay, or maybe the fog will move in and envelope all over again.

Move a bit, and everything shifts. The way you want, can be just one step away.

But, always: Move a bit, and everything shifts. The way you want, can be just one step away. Fog lifts when we risk and move our feet.

We hurt our own world when our thinking is global: when we think: “It will always be like this, no matter how much time passes, no matter what happens, no matter what I do, the way things are now, is the way things will always be.”

But every moment of our lives change, when we begin to think more momentary.

Just at this time — there may be fog here, but move forward, and there won’t be fog there.

The way things are in this moment, are not the way things will be if you keep moving forward.

Just at this time — this relationship, this work, this dream, is a fog of confusion, but take the steps you need to, move forward, and eventually, you’ll be surprised how there won’t be fog like this.

Just at this time, this is what I need, just at this time, things need to be this way, just at this time — there may be fog here, but move forward, and the weather changes up there.

The way things are here, is not how they are everywhere.

The way things are in this moment, are not the way things will be if you keep moving forward.

Finding a way through, is like crossing a river, from stone to stone: You have to let go and leap if you’re ever going to make it to the other side.

The Farmer turns toward me, grinning, his face bathed in sunlight.

“Guess the fog isn’t quite as thick as you think, the tunnel isn’t as long as you once thought, and light is, in many ways, a whole lot closer than you imagined, eh?”

I nod, reach for his hand. Move forward — the end of your fog is closer than you think. And you’ve got to keep moving forward, before the conditions even seem to make sense to move forward.

Finding a way through, is like crossing a river, from stone to stone: You have to let go and leap if you’re ever going to make it to the other side.

Unless you are willing to move ahead in unfavourable conditions, you can’t truly know the favour of God. Favorable conditions aren’t guaranteed — only the favour of His unconditional love.

When he and I turn to look at the way the light shimmers like hope across the water, we can see the light appearing and moving too along the shore, bathing all these places that had once disappeared in this golden grace.

The light always just keeps bravely moving too.

---