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!

Now that I have finished The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit on books on tape, along with a partial set of Sherlock Holmes stories I bought at the library book sale, I thought I might use some of the time during my car ride to work on a story for the Central PA magazine short story contest.  It’s not due until February, so maybe I’ll actually finish it this year.  I have started this same story several times, and this year I realized that one of the essentials that it has been missing is an actual plot of any sort.  Maybe this year I’ll give it a bit of a plot and by next year I’ll be able to submit it.  Who knows?  Maybe even this year I’ll get it whipped into shape.  Meanwhile, it’s a lovely thing to occupy my head on my daily journey.  It’s based on my dreams of my grandmother’s house.

Gratitude List:
1.  Broken light, which is to say, rainbows and sun dogs.  I haven’t seen a rainbow for a little while, but sometimes I see sun dogs as I drive west on 30.
2.  Glory cloud on the way home from work today.  Sun streaming in beams through the clouds, like the sun was a great eye and the rays were lashes all around it.  And then a tangerine sunset beneath.
3.  That fever has gone down and seems to be staying down.  May the Little Kid stay well now.
4.  Tea.  We are entering the season of tea.  Tea and gloves.
5.  Word play, poems, shapes of words on the page, the taste of words in the mouth.  A story that might get born.

May we walk in Beauty.

Last week, I wrote a short essay on the subject of the sacredness of the material world, how in my world view, mind and body are one.  I’ve always had trouble with the dualistic view that sometimes pervades Christian and Buddhist thought, that the spiritual self needs to transcend or abnegate the body in order to reach true spiritual depth.  I think we’re here in these bodies for a particular reason, to experience this material world through the senses, to learn how being human is to be in these bodies.  In my recent life, however, Body and Mind have been a-warring with each other a little, especially in the realm of sleep.

At night, as I am falling asleep, Mind gives Body reminders and instructions: “We’ve checked the alarm clock.  It’s loud enough and it’s set for the correct time.  You can sleep until it goes off.”

Body has already fallen asleep and missed half the instructions.  She’s good at falling asleep the first time.

3 a.m.  Body: “Umm.  Did we really check the. . .”
Mind: “Yes!  Go back to sleep!”

3:20 a.m.  Body: “. . .because if we ever forget, then we might not wake up on time. . .”
Mind:  “Shh!  Just go back to sleep.”

This goes on, every fifteen or twenty minutes, until finally Mind can’t take it anymore, and none of us can get back to sleep, and we get out of bed around 4:30 or 5.  We get some work done, and get ready for school, and then, just at 6:30, when we’re about to head out to the car for school, Body says: “I’m really tired.  Couldn’t we just take a 15-minute nap?”

This has been the pattern almost every night since school began.  Last night, however, we woke up at 4:15, settled back to sleep, and didn’t wake up until the alarm went off.  I only hope it’s the beginning of a shift in the pattern.

Gratitude List:
1.  Cheesy enchiladas for supper
2.  Making art with kiddos
3.  The table is wide.  So wide.  There’s room for everyone.
4.  Lying in the grass on the hillside to meditate
5.  The maple trees are bursting into flame

May we walk in Beauty!