Holiness Where We Least Expect It - Even Here

 I have a different view of such things, I know, living close to the earth where insects and excrement, carcasses and scavengers all have a part to play in the life-beckoning movements of creation.  But when a popular though seriously corrupt and misanthropic political figure recently reintroduced the topic of “vermin” into our popular discourse I was once again drawn back to Wendell Berry’s astute (and quite theologically sophisticated) observation that, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”  The politician is sadly and destructively ignorant of the wonders of creation, and its holiness – including the parts he finds uncomfortable, disposable, or opposable.  The Advent season does its best to encourage us to wipe off some of that desecration to reveal again the glory to which we have blinded ourselves. 

 

Starting with people.  People – our fellow human travelers – tend to be the commonest targets of our desecration; which, for people of faith, is bizarre.  I’m not sure how we have overlooked it.  Scripture is replete with stories of God playing in the sandbox of misfits - having fun in their company and, through them, changing the direction of the world.   

 

A small tribe of Hebrews.  

Old forgotten women.   

Drunks.  

Prostitutes.   

Immigrants.   

Refugees.  

Shepherds.  

Criminals. 

 Physically “imperfect.”   

Social outcasts.   

Poor.   

Thick-headed.   

Morally compromised.   

The list goes on.  

 

 Routinely they are the heroes of the stories.  And if the stories, themselves, weren’t enough, songs are routinely sung to drive the point home.  Consider Mary’s song in Luke’s gospel – which parallels Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2 - about scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly.  Consider the poetry of Jesus’ Beatitudes blessing the poor, the meek, the hungry, the persecuted; or his observation that the “last shall be first,” and “as often as you did it to the least of these [the imprisoned, the lonely, the hungry and thirsty] you did it to me.”  Scripture routinely recognizes the sacredness of the very ones we most commonly desecrate.

 

But as important as all that is, it fails to finally voice the Advent blessing. The paradox of our behavior is that while we “verminize” those who are different from ourselves who we naturally assume to occupy the moral center of the universe, we simultaneously assume that wherever we are is not where we are supposed to be.  We have thoroughly “heavenized” our expectations.  “Here” is bad; “there” is good.  So we sing about “flying away”, and how “this world is not my home”; we are only “passing through,” "when we all get to heaven" – hanging out on earth for as long as we have to, but getting to heaven as soon as we can.  All of which is to say that we consecrate wherever we aren’t, while desecrating wherever we are.

But again, I’m not sure how we have overlooked the contrary word of scripture.  To be sure, our geography changes.  The people of God move around.  We, to put a finer point on it, move around.  But always, the promise of presence.  When King David wanted to build God a palace, God responded, “I live in a tent so that wherever you go, I will be there, too; with you.”  When Jesus was preparing his disciples for his absence he told them, “I will not leave you orphaned.  The Holy Spirit will be with you.”  As the Book of Revelation is coming to a close with its vision of God’s realized intention, the seer reported, “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…and I heard a loud voice saying, ‘See the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them…’”

And when, at Advent, we sing with the prophet Isaiah and the angel to Joseph about Emmanuel, we are clinging to the promise that “God is with us”.   

The sheer repetition of it prompts a repentant laugh.  All this time we spend desecrating the very people through whom God is speaking to us.  All this time we waste chasing after the God who has already determined to be present with us, where we are.  If it weren’t so sad it would be funny.

 

But in the light of these Advent candles, perhaps we can begin to see things – and each other – differently. 

Sacredness, holy presence, breaking out everywhere. 

Even here.  Even this politically corrupted, war torn, climate damaged, chicken littered, excrement fed, here.  

Even here.

In the Glow of Presence

The light on the communion table was always on in the sanctuary of my home church, illuminating the bas relief of the last supper set into the front. It became a kind of spiritual practice of mine, home from college for one kind of break or another, to borrow my Dad's keys, let myself into the darkened sanctuary, and settle into a back pew. Perhaps I prayed; perhaps I was simply quiet, absorbing the stillness into an otherwise frenetic life. I no longer remember. Perhaps I simply sat in the empty room, the silence interrupted by the creaks and groans of the big room settling into its own comfortable repose, the darkness pierced only by the muted glow of that table centered in the chancel. I never climbed the steps into the balcony. I did not want to look down from above it all. I preferred to look up to it, and its iconic scene. From my position in the back of the room, the subtleties of the details were blurred. But I knew the story, and could flesh out the characters in my mind - their animated conversation, some leaning in and some turning away. And Jesus at the center of the table with the bread and the cup. I don't recall how long I would stay - minutes perhaps; not likely an hour. But in those however-many-minutes I sat there I was transfixed by the capacious room, the edgy silence, the encompassing darkness, the gentle light at the forefront of it all that the darkness could not overcome; the presence. Eventually, I would whisper a grateful "amen", take my leave, turning the key behind me.

Over the weekend we dressed the house for the holidays. Nutcrackers stand guard here and there, a pair of iron reindeer made by a friend look down at us from atop the hutch. Advent candles anchor the table, while the tree, adorned with lights and the bric a brac accumulated over the years, anchors the room. Morning and evening I press the switch to illuminate the tree - the tiny twinkles imitating the stars yet visible through the glass behind.

But this year we also added something new. In truth, it's something fairly old - a nativity scene made by Lori's parents years and years ago, with its ceramic figures and wooden stable. We assembled the scene on the table in the sunroom, on the opposite side of the great room from the sofa and the fireplace where I routinely begin and end my days. And there, its soft light gently illuminating the scene, answers the twinkles of the tree like an antiphon of faith. I used to be a stickler for "accuracy", in such matters, withholding the wise men from the weeks of Advent, finally introducing them on January 6th - the day of the Epiphany. But I no longer carry that burden. Our scene is as crowded as Jerusalem was in that account narrated in the gospel of Luke that left no room in the inn. We have sheep and cows, shepherds and magi, camels, Mary and Joseph, all silently reverencing the mangered baby; all having come to "see this thing that God has done." And an angel.

And mystically, in the quiet of the early morning darkness and again in the settled dark of the evening, the sofa across the way becomes a pew in the back, a beckoning glow across the way centers my gaze. A nativity, or perhaps a Passover table. The sermon is the same:
    • Presence;
        • Emmanuel;
            • The Reign of God is among you;
                • "Don't be afraid;
                    • "This is my body..."
                        • "Take, eat and drink."
                           • "Good news of great joy for all people."
                                • "The Word became flesh and lived among us."

And in the gentle light, viewed from the far side of the room, we have seen his glory.
Amen.

For this most amazing what?

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees 

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(e.e. cummings)

It’s been a year of deep loss and broad discomfort.  There is no need to inventory the specifics just now; the simple acknowledgement of them suffices - the comfortless losses, the discouraging disappointments, the occasional physical blips that are the down payments on aging.  As Daylight Savings Time was running out of ticks and we prepared to “fall back”, I agreed with the meme’s sentiment that, “an extra hour of 2023 was like getting a bonus track on a Yoko Ono album.”  Just a little extra screaming.

But suddenly - and “suddenly” is exactly the way it feels - the year is nudging up against its close, and we stand at the door of Thanksgiving, knocking.  Inside, the familiar motions and smells both occupy us and intoxicate us - the roasting, the baking, the carving, the spooning.  But what else?  The poet Cummings’ prompt is a familiar ritual around the Thanksgiving table - counting blessings; naming gratitudes.  Anticipating, this year, more of a struggle when it comes my turn, I’ve determined to get an early start:

“I thank you God for most...”

How shall I complete my own edition of the poem?

Certainly I am thankful for the beautifully obvious - the daily presence of surrounding love, the sheltering warmth of a comfortable home situated amongst trees and prairie and sky and birds that routinely and reliably evoke and inspire and humble; the nudging nuzzlings of two idiosyncratic corgis who reliably comfort, forgive, amuse and forbid me from growing overly preoccupied with myself; for a flock of chickens who daily remind me that life is never a “big picture” but consists of food and water and a free range sufficient for that single day; and of course my own life and health, never mind the increasingly familiar stiffnesses and technological augmentations.

But now that I am thinking about it, the list spontaneously grows.  I’m thankful for the experience of garden grace, manifest in the form of nourishing abundance despite our inattentions.  I’m grateful for the fruit trees’ reminder that while I get fixated on and blindered by chronos - clock time - there is that other kind of time, kairos - the “right” time, God’s time - that progresses at a different pace; and that in their own “right time” we gathered in cherries and apricots for the very first time.  I am thankful that, even in the present absence of grief, I am kept company by dear and intimate memories of treasured moments shared, the echo of stories told and affections spoken.  I am thankful for friendships nurtured and renewed around the table and fire and the altar of creation, along with new ones gestating in the mingling of fresh exchanges.  

I am thankful, then, for the muchness of memory, but in equal measure, I’m finally realizing, for the expansiveness of possibility - the “moreness” that is yet in front of me that goes beyond leftover turkey and dressing and homemade pie.  It is the blue sky blessing of which the poet spoke:  the...

 

    “everything

    which is natural 

    which is infinite 

    which is yes”

Happy Thanksgiving, then - 

These hours and activities of palpitating gratitude for this new day, 

this fresh feast, 

for this infinite, 

awakening

 “yes.”

The Placement of Friendship

I’ve been thinking a great deal about friendship in recent days - recent months if the truth be told. I’m not alone. A surfeit of books is suddenly on the market parsing the intricacies of platonic intimacies - the how and the why and even something of the where. They are written by studied and erudite experts on the subject. I have very little to add...

...except the hunger. For friends.  

As noted in the prior blog, at the time of my Dad’s memorial service I enjoyed the banquet of reunion with a few precious friends from my youth. Independently, and then relationally we came to realize how formative had been these relationships, and how impoverished we would be without them - indeed, have become without them. Thus, the determination to reunite last week in Texas.

Appropriately, the first of those was a meal, around a borrowed table. And we ate - the food we had prepared, yes, but even moreso the feast of memory. Our wives indulged us the recapitulation. We had shared a lot of life together through those high school years.   We had much to relive.

I no longer recall the circumstances of our meeting, other than to say it must have been a shared classroom at school.  Both David and Eugene were smarter than me, but I managed to be just a good enough student to make it into the honors classes where they routinely lived.  It was - what?  Good luck?  C.S. Lewis once observed that, “We think we have chosen our peers.  In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting - any of these chances might have kept us apart.  But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances.”

We met, then, providentially.  I would have said that David and Eugene and I were inseparable throughout the season that was Cooper High School, but it turns out that while I was frequently distracted in the summers by selling ice cream on the streets of Abilene and going to church camp, the two of them were busy creating memories of their own.  But those are their stories to tell. As for the times when we were three, we took classes together, studied together, built outlandish projects together to satisfy the assignments of creative teachers determined to push and feed our own creativities. We recreated on film the lunar landing, utilizing Eugene’s garage and the pull-down steps to the attic. We built a paper mache raven roughly the size of a 5th grader who, if I recall correctly, spouted out phrases from Edgar Allen Poe via the tape recorder hidden inside. There was the snout we liberated from the fetal pig we were dissecting in honors biology that wound up suspended from the rear view mirror in Eugene’s car. Its continuing growth of hair was a constant amazement and amusement. Their were the school lunch hours spent at the home of one or another of us, nourished by homemade sandwiches made from the cheapest products we could find so as to save our lunch monies for more interesting expenditures.

And there was the music. David and I, both aspiring guitar players, listened endlessly to songs we wanted to play, scribbling down the words and picking out the chords.  Let’s just say that our resulting renditions were...close.  As we have recently listened afresh to crude recordings of those efforts, we’ve had to agree that we were pretty good - but not as good as we thought we were. The father of a classmate owned a Mexican food restaurant in town, and we found work playing their on weekends - $10 apiece per night, dinner, and tips (of which there were none) - despite the fact that we knew only one Mexican song. We had a blast, and even found our way into holiday marketing.

But college and the life beyond have a way of pushing the pieces in different directions on the game board.  We graduated from colleges in three different towns; grad school gave us little time for anything other than grad school, and getting married.  The waves of life rolled over us, and when we took the time to stand back up and look around, we were far apart, in more ways than one.

It’s a challenge, I have discovered, to reconnect from a distance.  Even when we manage to be in the same place at the same time, once the life news updates have been shared and the old stories retold, it’s time again to part.  We have a past together, but what about the present, to say nothing of some ineffable future.  Perhaps Lewis is on to something when he observes, “Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest.”  Like a paper mache raven, a moon landing in a garage, picking out chords to a song, or tossing a football in the yard after a cheap lunch.  Are living friendships only realistic, then, in close proximity?

Perhaps, but I am determined to disprove the premise.  God knows we have ample technologies available to bridge the distances.  At this stage of life, we have more flexibility with our time, a little extra money with which to travel, and perhaps most importantly, an annually escalating sense of urgency.

As for the absorption in some “common interest,” well, surely there is something out there.  We are honors class kids, after all, with experience at bringing to life the fruits of creative imagination.  Sure, some of them blew up - literally - but most were worth the effort.  

Like friendship, itself.

The Strangely Warming Attraction of Opposites

We met as teenagers at church camp - Mike, reared among the east Texas piney woods, and me, among the mesquites and wide open spaces of the west.  Those geographic differences became metaphorical for the others that even casual observers came to discern.  Throughout those high school years, Mike played football and lifted weights, while I was on the speech team and sang in the choir.  Later, in college where we roomed together for all but our freshman years, Mike ruled over social life while I toiled in the library.  Mike was outgoing and attracted attention, filling up a room with his winsome presence.  I usually filled up a chair just on the edge of the light, observing the rowdier goings on.  I made A’s while Mike made friends.  I awkwardly dated while Mike fought off the sorority girls.  Correction:  he never even considered fighting them off.  Even our fraternity brothers thought of us as the “odd couple”.  Two more dissimilar characters had rarely occupied a common room.  

But we did; and it worked.  I helped him study, and in my own indirect way, encouraged his academic progress.  He fought more than one combatant on my behalf  - conflicts always born of misunderstanding and mistaken identity.  

Beyond college, I officiated at his weddings  - twice.  He participated in my own.  I spoke at his father’s funeral.  He appeared at my bedside when I was diagnosed with cancer, with a plan to fly me to a research hospital across the country.  I declined.  When my first marriage disintegrated, he flew to Iowa - a state he couldn’t even pronounce without a profane modifier - to hold my hand and buy me a steak dinner.  Some years later, when Lori and I became engaged, he was among the first to hear the news. 

Despite our more visible and, to some, comic divergences, our lives have almost eerily paralleled - our families, our eventual vocations, and on and on.  

But of course time and distance and quotidian demands refocus our attentions.  We have drifted apart over the recent decades since that church camp meeting 50 years ago.  Sure, we check in from time to time - a Christmas card, a text message, a phone call from time to time - but we hadn’t shared a room in a very long time, or inner thoughts, or the warp and weft of the heart.  Fondly and sentimentally attached, to be sure, but from a distance.

Until this summer, at the memorial service for my Dad, at which time we acknowledged the deficit wrought by our distance, and resolved to do better. 

The context of death has a way of refocusing attention on life.  The entertwined fingers that mutually shaped our lives, we concluded, are too precious to let atrophy.  It was the same conclusion of yet another reunion of friends in the context of that grief, and those, too, have received fresh batteries in a shared determination to honor and reanimate the force of those formative relationships.   We’ve made a down-payment on those latter ones, but between Mike and me and our beloveds, we have actually made time.  Over the course of days and nights, we shared a rented house and well-composted memories, and became current with each others’ lives.  Hearts touched, once again, and were touched.  Pain and laughter, songs and images, bread and wine all muddled together in the common moments that stretched into days, until the key was turned in the lock and we once more drove away in different directions.  

But not before we remembered and recreated a treasured moment from those younger days.  A cowboy hat, a guitar, and two brothers from the opposite ends of the universe.  It happens that way, sometimes.  Where one least
expects it, life - a flower emerging from the pavement; tree roots encircling a bolder; rain in the desert; sweetness growing on a cactus...

...and disparate personalities, friends.

Here’s to the next 50 years.

The Radicality of Unplugging

No one has ever accused me of being a maverick. Well, except for that business of quitting my job post-middle age, buying a farmstead and commencing to learn how to grow food.  But that exception granted, my life has otherwise been notable for its predictability - reliability, I hope, and integrity; a willingness to help, I pray, and a quiet pursuit of excellence.  I’ve been a team player, serving on more boards and committees and task-forces than was good for me, but was, I hope, helpful to those organizations.  I’ve been agreeable, congenial, a bridge-builder if I’ve contributed anything at all, and a thought provoker.  I have at least sought to encourage purposefulness and principled intentionality.  I value cruise control in my car, but decry it in every other aspect of life.  I’ve rarely been a contrarian; never been a radical flame-thrower, and as my co-workers often lamented, only reluctantly become confrontational.  In recent years, studying the enneagram, I’ve learned that I’m a nine - one of those “peacemakers” who just wants everyone to be happy and play nice.

I play nice.  Even if I don’t much care for you or the moment.  If that makes me dishonest, at least I’m a congenial fake.

Recently, however, I made the decision to close my Facebook account, and I’m both surprised at and a little embarrassed by how radical that feels.

Let me quickly add that, in the grand scheme of things, it is not very significant at all.  The reciprocal killings in the Middle East?  That is significant.  The corruption and disintegration of American democracy?  That’s a tectonic shift with global implications.  Climate change?  I haven’t the words to characterize the future repercussions.  Tim Diebel leaving Facebook?  No, that doesn’t even ripple the water collected in my clogged sink.

For some reason, however, it feels big; consequential even.  Bold. Why is that?  

It might have something to do with how routinized and reflexive our collective use of Facebook has become.  Posting on Facebook has become almost autonomic - like breathing and blinking.  That’s true, at least, for some.  Ever since I went public with my intention to unplug from Facebook, I’ve been surprised to discover how many of my friends did so long ago - or never jumped into Facebook to begin with.  I’ve been equally moved by the number of respondents confessing that they “wished they could” or “wished they would” take the same action.

Which is simply, albeit anecdotally, to muse that Facebook may not be as ubiquitous as I supposed.

Much has been written about the societal impact of the social media phenomenon.  Social scientists will no doubt be analyzing such questions for years to come.  Has it changed us?  Has it harmed us?  Has it helped, informed, broadened and connected us?  Maybe - to all those questions.

I cannot speak for anyone else, and I have no moral authority from which to advise others about what they should or should not be doing with their time and their social media feeds.

Reflecting on my own experience and decision, however, I can make a few observations  by way of accounting for my own choice.  There is much positive to say about reconnecting with friends and acquaintances, and sharing one another’s ebbs and flows.  In truth, I’ll miss that.  It will be incumbent on me to exercise new  strategies for keeping in touch.  Perhaps we “over share” the miscellaneous flora and fauna of our lives, but there are worse mistakes we could make in our life.

I will not miss, however, the misinformation, the disinformation, and the constant, almost irresistible airing of our worst selves.  This happens most often within the “groups” of which I am a member, where oxygen seems to come from complaining about the bananas at the local grocery store or the temperature of the pizza at the new eatery in town, and the voluble retorts from those who disagree.  I have nothing to add to the sports commentary that regularly fills the feeds.  I don’t really have time for the political harangues that vent and offend but never inform, enrich or persuade.  For some reason on Facebook we feel a kind of permission to be offensive, abusive, insulting and dismissive toward each other in ways not typically true face to face.

The simple fact is that too much of the time, I just don’t care about what pops up in my feed.  Threaded along, to be sure, is inspiration and humor and wisdom and joy, but finding such threads takes persistence and work in the face of Facebook’s algorithmic tyranny and our own vulgar depravity.  And I’ve become convinced that my time can be better spent.  I don’t leave angry or hurt or alienated or frustrated.  I simply leave in search of something more.

Which might suggest that cutting ties to Facebook is a radical act, after all.  Etymologically, the word “radical” is all about going to the root, and Facebook seems to me to be all about the leaves.  There is nothing wrong with leaves or course - especially this time of year.  But in this season of my life, roots seem more compelling - more anchoring and nourishing, and ultimately more connected with the world surrounding them.   

And so I pull the plug on this great social experiment of social media.  To borrow a phrase, "It's been fun, but it hasn't been that much fun."  I wish you well on Facebook if you remain there.  I hope we can stay in touch through other channels. Maybe even face to face.  

Now that would be radical, indeed.

Different is not Deficient

 

I understand the appeal of John Lennon’s anthemic paean to the ultimate campfire:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

What’s not to love about the idea of the world living as one - especially in these days of horrific killing in the Middle East, a seemingly intractable war in Ukraine, and the noxious childcare center that is the U.S. House of Representatives.  No wonder the idea of everyone dissolving their differences and holding beatific hands has such powerful appeal.

But include me in the circle convened by the poet and activist Audre Lorde, in the pictured quotation above, who relocates the root of our troubles away from our differences, themselves, and positions it squarely on the egocentric and bigoted view we have of them.

It’s mystifying to me how, in this day and age, anyone can view their particular country or their political party or their religious practice or their economic system to be “the best.”  It takes me back to Bill Murray's memorable claim in the movie, Meatballs, that the humble Camp North Star offered the best summer camping experience "in this price range".  But this isn't a summer camp, and this isn’t a football league, and we are more than fans sporting our favorite jerseys.  Surely by this point in history every heretofore envisioned option for organizing life and meaning has amply exposed its ugly underbelly.  

We can claim, for example, that the United States of America is the best, but according to what measure do we assert or defend that claim?  Happiness?  No, the U.S. doesn’t even break into the top 10 in that category where Finland tops the list.  Education?  According to some assessments, the U.S. has the best educational system, but Americans are not the most educated.  Those would be the Germans.  Interesting.  Access to health care?  No, we are 23rd, behind #1 Sweden.  Safety?  No, there we rank 129th, a long way behind #1 Iceland.  Standard of living?  No, that’s Sweden, again.

According to U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of the “Best Countries in the World,” again, the U.S. fails to make it into the top 10.  Apparently our #1 position in the list of gun possession - over twice as many guns per capita as #2 Yemen - didn’t count for as much as we might like to think.  

None of which should be construed as suggesting that this isn’t a good place to live, or that “American” is a bad thing to be.  It’s just a hint that we have a lot of work yet to do.  Along with every other country in the world.  

I have spent my life within the orbit of Christianity - it has and continues to shape me and give my life and my living both direction and definition of right and wrong, truth and falsehood.  I’m not one of those who lumps all religions into the same basket with the dismissive aggregation, “They are pretty much all the same.”  No, that’s not the way I see it.  There are big differences.  But does the language of “best” really apply here?  I can articulate how I find meaning within Christianity - how it compels me and claims me - but I suspect that a good Buddhist or Hindu or Jew or Muslim could do the same.  But whatever value our religious traditions certainly have in the world, our religious expression - across the board - is a mixed bag.  We have done much good.  We have caused much pain.  I’m not looking forward to answering for my own flawed expression of the Christian faith, let alone for the church through history.  

Communists and Socialists, I’m willing to say, had some good ideas, but they quickly got off track and doubled down on their flaws.  As, of course, has Capitalism.  These are hardly perfect systems.  Surely we can continue to refine and improve and evolve them into something better.

But would the absence of all religion, the absence of all countries, the absence of political parties, the absence of capital make us better?

I doubt it, which is where I think Lennon’s winsome anthem gets it wrong.   But even if, by chance, he turns out to be right, what I do know is that it would make us blander, duller, and intrinsically, pathologically boring.  I once heard a preacher proclaim that “different is not deficient”.  Indeed.  Would that we could grasp that.  It is our differences that make us interesting, colorful in literal and metaphorical ways, and stimulating.  

Now, if only it were our curiosity and wonder that were stimulated instead of our aggression.  

Imagine that, for a change.

The Warmth Between

It was quiet with their departure.  Four generations had gathered - from 93 years to 10 months - to visit, to feed, to be fed; to reminisce, to imagine; to experience new things, to walk in wonderment through the woods; to simply be in one another’s company.  And then the car was loaded and backed down the driveway, and it was quiet again.  

We straightened a few things, paused for a moment, and then settled in the cool of the waning afternoon by the fire outside; its flames making visible the affective mood.

An intermezzo of sorts - a harmonic sequence between the joyful  “firsts” of today with an infant’s fresh awakenings, and yet another “first” in our own progression of grief with my dad’s birthday tomorrow.  There are more such firsts to come in a quick progression - this birthday, and Thanksgiving and Christmas - but it’s the birthday that is upon us just now in its poignant immensity.  It’s a poignant juxtaposition, what with the echoing memory of a life well-lived, and the experiential joy of a life just beginning.

In the sunset, then, between these glows - the gratitude and the grief, the anticipation and the memory, the joy and the melancholy, the embers center us.  They are the warmth between.  And in their light, Louise Erdrich’s sensible wisdom offers a satisfying fullness.  

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”  (From The Painted Drum)

There are, to be sure, things I have overlooked.  Important things I have missed.  Tasks I have neglected.  There are blossoms I have ignored and sunrises I have taken for granted.  There have been rain-filled puddles I walked around instead of splashed through; rain showers I sought shelter from instead of tilting my face upward, into the falling drops, with mouth open wide. There are stories the details of which I have forgotten or found, in the moment of their telling, uninteresting.  There have been silences I spoke into too quickly.  There have been tender evenings in the midst of which I simply went to bed.  

Apples, in other words, have fallen all around me and I have missed out on their sweetness.  

But in days like today, and in years like these treasured ones, I am grateful for the ones I have tasted.  

Every sweet bite.

Every juicy dribble down the chin of my days.

Despite the cool of the day, it’s warm tonight in the glow of these logs - the glow of these loves,

And I’m full.

Not the Way To Extend A Vacation

After rushing from our E arrival gate to our C departure gate at the Charlotte airport for our connecting flight home, only to discover that our breathtakingly short layover time would be extended by a short delay, we took a deep breath and smiled at the likelihood that our luggage would now actually join us back in Des Moines.  The reason for the delay was that there was as yet no aircraft at our gate.  As the delay deepened into the night, we were assured - repeatedly over the next hour and more, that the plane was on its way from the hanger.  It wasn’t a complete fiction because we eventually did board the tardy aircraft, only to wait for more fuel.  After backing away from the gate we waited yet longer, finally learning that there was still a mechanical problem - one that would eventually topple our flight home into the next morning.  “No problem,” they assured us.  We were presented with 3 fine airport motel options for a brief overnight, along with meal vouchers - never mind that at that hour nothing was open.  

Once delivered by the shuttle, whose dashboard control panel signaled in large letters that "Vehicle Service Overdue", to our selected lodging, piloted by our flatulent but jovial driver, we checked into our assigned room sometime after midnight, deprived of luggage toothbrush, or, well, much of anything but the clothes on our back.  But it was an educational stay.  I don’t think I had ever been in a “smoking preferred” motel, well-stocked with 3 single-serve packages of decaffeinated coffee, and a powerful search light focused on our window throughout the night.  

After a luxuriant and restful moment of sleep, we caught the 4:30 am shuttle back to the airport - an “express” van, as it turned out, driving 75 mph through the posted 15 mph speed limits of the airport driveways.  Dizzy, but nonetheless and gratefully unharmed, we made our way inside, through security, and somehow, after some trial and effort, found our gate which was mis-posted on the airport departure computers.  At least by this time, Starbucks was open with options that included caffeine.  They accepted our vouchers, and with coffee and breakfast sandwiches in hand, settled into the seating area to pass the time through yet another delay. This one, however, did resolve into boarding and actual takeoff.  

And at this point, from the vantage point of 30,000 feet and the dubious assurances of the flight attendant who hasn’t learned that the “S’s” in “Des Moines” are silent, it appears that we are likely to actually make it home.

Which will look mighty good.

Especially the shower.

Even more especially the toothbrush and toothpaste.

Meanwhile, Maine was a restorative joy.  Every, sight, every hike, every bite.  Unfortunately, I won’t be including in those fond memories the leftover crab and lobster meat that spent an extra night unrefrigerated in my suitcase.  Or the olfactory greeting that will almost surely shout a pungent “good morning” when I unzip it.

Ah, American Airlines. I gotta love you…

…especially when there are no other options.  

At least you eventually got us home, safely.  And for that, I’m grateful. 

Where would you like me to send the lobster and crab?  

P.S.  The hero in all this, of course, is our rock star Housesitter who, having already buttoned up our abode and headed home to her family in anticipation of our return, returned to Taproot Garden after midnight to spend a bonus night with two cranky corgis and three coops full of chickens.  Just think:  you make all this possible.  

You are the best!