Last January, during the high holy days that come at the year’s turning, before the 12th Day of Christmas, I had a dream about bridges, and I decided that Bridges would be my image for the year.  Little did I know back then how I would be creating a bridge between two times of my life, between Farmer and Teacher, and traveling every day across the bridges from Wrightsville to Columbia to the place of the Iron Bridge, where it crosses the Millstream.  Little did I know then how desperate I would be right now for language, for images, for ideas which could bridge the gaps between people who cannot seem to see their way across the chasms toward each other.

In my twenties and thirties, I spent a decade away from the Mennonite church, searching for a way to find my own place among my people on my own terms, with language that could hold me in the basket, too.  I have been back again now for another decade, and engaged with people who ask many of the same questions I do, who sometimes walk through the boggy places at the edges of the Village with me, and now we stop and look around at each other through the mists, and wonder how this new gulf could have formed between some of us, and how we’ll find our way to each other again, and whether we have the skills or energy to build a bridge across.

Perhaps we can build a bridge of song, strong four-part harmonies to give it structure, old hymn tunes mingling with a strummed guitar and songs from our family in other lands.  I hear you there, through the mist, across the waters.  Sing louder, please.  Remind me why we need this bridge.  Some days I get so weary of trying to maintain the vision of it in that space between my brows.  Here are my tears, here is my rage, here is my voice like a strand of silver cobweb, thrown out into the darkness, to weave and twine with yours.  How shall we begin?

Gratitude List:
1. Ellis combing my hair, like I used to comb my mother’s hair.
2. Bridges everywhere.  I think that the young ones are a bridge.  But will their time ripen soon enough?
3. Thoughtful conversations with friends.  I do not have to brood alone.
4. The thousand thousand crows in the trees along Route 30.  I know that they are a trial for those who live and work there, but the magic and the mystery and the incredible wonder of them filling the treetops and flying through the dusk and the rain answers some sort of question in my spirit that I don’t yet know how to ask.
5. The Number One Ladies Detective Agency.  I have been listening to Alexander McCall Smith books on my commute lately, and enjoying the accents of Botswana.

May we walk in Beauty!