May 1st Everlasting

Dear friends of Sue (& Mr. A)

Today is 15 years since since my mom began May 1st, and 5 years since her last May 1st post. Heaven was an inevitability she thought of and wrote about often – faithfully, fearlessly, merrily: the joyful and purposeful vocations of Valhalla, the unearthly colors we’ve not seen but have always known, mansions (or for Sue, urban cottages) with open floor plans and roomy kitchens, proximity to each other and our good God. Light. Breeze. Rock. Water. Pine. Spring. May. Mom and dad’s heaven was North, and it seems hereditary. Heaven is everlasting northern air I think. Thank you for being her reader and our family friend, and thank you for remembering Sue today and always. Your comments and memories are very welcome and will be read by all the Awes.

With Love, Em & Siblings

And here is your Sue:

Dear Friends,
Today is the tenth anniversary of May 1st Everlasting.  Every year I re-post the first post from 2010 – with slight revision.  For a decade your friendship has honored, encouraged and delighted me.  If you comment today your name will be entered in a fun drawing.  Thank you, thank you!
Sue Awes

I once had a dream in which I found myself suddenly in heaven. I asked someone, “what day is it?” He said, “May 1st everlasting.” Ever since I have coupled May Day and heaven; everything is awakening and new, fragrant and pregnant with hope.

Like most contemporary Christians I am an aficionado of C.S. Lewis – who had a lot to say about heaven!

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
(Transposition and Other Addresses)

“My grandfather, I’m told, used to say that he ‘looked forward to having some very interesting conversations with St. Paul when he got to heaven’. Two clerical gentlemen talking at ease in a club! It never seemed to cross his mind that an encounter with St. Paul might be rather an overwhelming experience even for an Evangelical clergyman of good family.”
(Letters to Malcolm)

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. ’Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands – dead. The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; this is the morning.’
(Chronicles of Narnia)

I guess we all have a different idea of what heaven may be like. In the painting above Art’s heaven seems to include fishing. I’ve always been happy that the Lord enjoyed a breakfast on the shore even after the resurrection! Bacon seems to me a heavenly idea.

In our lifetime we have read the stories of those who have visited the life beyond life, only to come back unafraid. And others have written fanciful tales that have stretched our imaginings. While we don’t forsake our intellects nor stake our eternities on these reports, they have had the good effect of shaking loose our stodgy and stale presumptions. Leif Enger described [a character’s] going to heaven in his novel Peace Like a River, and it has stayed with me for a decade. Here it begins . . .

“SOON, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. VERY SOON! he added, clasping my hands; then, unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy going for the first cold swim of spring; and the current got him. The stream was singing aloud, and I heard him singing with it until he dropped away over the edge.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

Not that long ago our friend George told us that while he loves life and certainly doesn’t want to die, he so relishes the adventure ahead of him some day in heaven. You could see a delightful curiosity in his eyes and a certainty in his faith.

Maybe on another day we’ll talk about securing eternity, about seeing God face to face, about our transformation, about this great mystery. Maybe on another day we’ll talk about all the things heaven is not, and how popular misconceptions wither compared to the weight of the Biblical view.

“Like Adam, we have all lost Paradise; and yet we carry Paradise around inside of us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

In the past few years Paradise has drawn nearer.  We’ve lost all three of Mel’s brothers and all of their dear wives, our 3 SIL’s.  Our son Ben was able to get to brother Bob’s burial in a small country town and passed on notes from the young pastor’s sermon. She reminded those gathered of an ancient tradition still practiced in many cemeteries; people are buried facing east so that on Resurrection Day as they rise their first sight will be of the coming Christ. She also mentioned a lesser, yet sweet corollary that pastors were often buried facing west so that their first sight at the Resurrection will be Christ reflected in the faces of those to whom they had brought the Gospel.

Three of our friends have died since November.  Believers all, we grieve as those who are anchored in hope.  On this May 1st as always I will be thinking of heaven’s delights; seeing Dad and Mother, Brian, Vern, Peg, Cass and everyone again. I’m thinking of finding all that I thought was lost. I’m thinking of color and music and lasting spring and becoming all I was created to be.  I’m thinking of Jesus, his glory, his presence.

“I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice . .saying ‘behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.   He will dwell with them and they will will be his people’ – He will wipe away every tear from their eyes . .and he said . .”I am making all things new.” Rev. 21: 1-5

“…there shines, more than ever lucent in the moral firmament, the star-promise of God. It is bright with the assurance that the exile march of human life, with all its weariness of body and heaviness of heart, shall not long be halted, or ever concluded in the desert of despair and futility, but must move with irresistible purpose to the consummation of all that is partial, to the completion of all that is fragmentary, to the revelation of all that is hid, in Him from whom all life is come forth, and to whom all life is set to return.”
Sydney Lovett.

I think there is no sound more beautiful this side of heaven than little boys singing. Here is Libera, singing “Going Home”, from Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

 

Happy May 1st Everlasting!

A re-post for Mom, and her dear May 1st readers.

Dear Friends,
Today is the tenth anniversary of May 1st Everlasting.  Every year I re-post the first post from 2010 – with slight revision.  For a decade your friendship has honored, encouraged and delighted me.  If you comment today your name will be entered in a fun drawing.  Thank you, thank you!
Sue Awes

I once had a dream in which I found myself suddenly in heaven. I asked someone, “what day is it?” He said, “May 1st everlasting.” Ever since I have coupled May Day and heaven; everything is awakening and new, fragrant and pregnant with hope.

Like most contemporary Christians I am an aficionado of C.S. Lewis – who had a lot to say about heaven!

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
(Transposition and Other Addresses)

“My grandfather, I’m told, used to say that he ‘looked forward to having some very interesting conversations with St. Paul when he got to heaven’. Two clerical gentlemen talking at ease in a club! It never seemed to cross his mind that an encounter with St. Paul might be rather an overwhelming experience even for an Evangelical clergyman of good family.”
(Letters to Malcolm)

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. ’Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands – dead. The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; this is the morning.’
(Chronicles of Narnia)

I guess we all have a different idea of what heaven may be like. In the painting above Art’s heaven seems to include fishing. I’ve always been happy that the Lord enjoyed a breakfast on the shore even after the resurrection! Bacon seems to me a heavenly idea.

In our lifetime we have read the stories of those who have visited the life beyond life, only to come back unafraid. And others have written fanciful tales that have stretched our imaginings. While we don’t forsake our intellects nor stake our eternities on these reports, they have had the good effect of shaking loose our stodgy and stale presumptions. Leif Enger described [a character’s] going to heaven in his novel Peace Like a River, and it has stayed with me for a decade. Here it begins . . .

“SOON, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. VERY SOON! he added, clasping my hands; then, unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy going for the first cold swim of spring; and the current got him. The stream was singing aloud, and I heard him singing with it until he dropped away over the edge.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

Not that long ago our friend George told us that while he loves life and certainly doesn’t want to die, he so relishes the adventure ahead of him some day in heaven. You could see a delightful curiosity in his eyes and a certainty in his faith.

Maybe on another day we’ll talk about securing eternity, about seeing God face to face, about our transformation, about this great mystery. Maybe on another day we’ll talk about all the things heaven is not, and how popular misconceptions wither compared to the weight of the Biblical view.

“Like Adam, we have all lost Paradise; and yet we carry Paradise around inside of us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

In the past few years Paradise has drawn nearer.  We’ve lost all three of Mel’s brothers and all of their dear wives, our 3 SIL’s.  Our son Ben was able to get to brother Bob’s burial in a small country town and passed on notes from the young pastor’s sermon. She reminded those gathered of an ancient tradition still practiced in many cemeteries; people are buried facing east so that on Resurrection Day as they rise their first sight will be of the coming Christ. She also mentioned a lesser, yet sweet corollary that pastors were often buried facing west so that their first sight at the Resurrection will be Christ reflected in the faces of those to whom they had brought the Gospel.

Three of our friends have died since November.  Believers all, we grieve as those who are anchored in hope.  On this May 1st as always I will be thinking of heaven’s delights; seeing Dad and Mother, Brian, Vern, Peg, Cass and everyone again. I’m thinking of finding all that I thought was lost. I’m thinking of color and music and lasting spring and becoming all I was created to be.  I’m thinking of Jesus, his glory, his presence.

“I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice . .saying ‘behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.   He will dwell with them and they will will be his people’ – He will wipe away every tear from their eyes . .and he said . .”I am making all things new.” Rev. 21: 1-5

“…there shines, more than ever lucent in the moral firmament, the star-promise of God. It is bright with the assurance that the exile march of human life, with all its weariness of body and heaviness of heart, shall not long be halted, or ever concluded in the desert of despair and futility, but must move with irresistible purpose to the consummation of all that is partial, to the completion of all that is fragmentary, to the revelation of all that is hid, in Him from whom all life is come forth, and to whom all life is set to return.”
Sydney Lovett.

I think there is no sound more beautiful this side of heaven than little boys singing. Here is Libera, singing “Going Home”, from Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

 

Happy May 1st Everlasting!

Despite the impossibility that spring could appear without our fine folks to see it, it has indeed arrived. And with it, their love and their gladness bloom in our hearts, slowly and steadily overgrowing the grief. Today, we repost Mom’s anniversary blog, and all of its promise. May 1st was inspired by this date and a dream. A dream now fulfilled, everlasting, everlasting.

Dear Friends,
Today is the tenth anniversary of May 1st Everlasting.  Every year I re-post the first post from 2010 – with slight revision.  For a decade your friendship has honored, encouraged and delighted me.  Thank you, thank you!
Sue Awes

I once had a dream in which I found myself suddenly in heaven. I asked someone, “what day is it?” He said, “May 1st everlasting.” Ever since I have coupled May Day and heaven; everything is awakening and new, fragrant and pregnant with hope.

Like most contemporary Christians I am an aficionado of C.S. Lewis – who had a lot to say about heaven!

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
(Transposition and Other Addresses)

“My grandfather, I’m told, used to say that he ‘looked forward to having some very interesting conversations with St. Paul when he got to heaven’. Two clerical gentlemen talking at ease in a club! It never seemed to cross his mind that an encounter with St. Paul might be rather an overwhelming experience even for an Evangelical clergyman of good family.”
(Letters to Malcolm)

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. ’Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands – dead. The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; this is the morning.’
(Chronicles of Narnia)

I guess we all have a different idea of what heaven may be like. In the painting above Art’s heaven seems to include fishing. I’ve always been happy that the Lord enjoyed a breakfast on the shore even after the resurrection! Bacon seems to me a heavenly idea.

In our lifetime we have read the stories of those who have visited the life beyond life, only to come back unafraid. And others have written fanciful tales that have stretched our imaginings. While we don’t forsake our intellects nor stake our eternities on these reports, they have had the good effect of shaking loose our stodgy and stale presumptions. Leif Enger described [a character’s] going to heaven in his novel Peace Like a River, and it has stayed with me for a decade. Here it begins . . .

“SOON, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. VERY SOON! he added, clasping my hands; then, unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy going for the first cold swim of spring; and the current got him. The stream was singing aloud, and I heard him singing with it until he dropped away over the edge.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

Not that long ago our friend George told us that while he loves life and certainly doesn’t want to die, he so relishes the adventure ahead of him some day in heaven. You could see a delightful curiosity in his eyes and a certainty in his faith.

Maybe on another day we’ll talk about securing eternity, about seeing God face to face, about our transformation, about this great mystery. Maybe on another day we’ll talk about all the things heaven is not, and how popular misconceptions wither compared to the weight of the Biblical view.

“Like Adam, we have all lost Paradise; and yet we carry Paradise around inside of us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

In the past few years Paradise has drawn nearer.  We’ve lost all three of Mel’s brothers and all of their dear wives, our 3 SIL’s.  Our son Ben was able to get to brother Bob’s burial in a small country town and passed on notes from the young pastor’s sermon. She reminded those gathered of an ancient tradition still practiced in many cemeteries; people are buried facing east so that on Resurrection Day as they rise their first sight will be of the coming Christ. She also mentioned a lesser, yet sweet corollary that pastors were often buried facing west so that their first sight at the Resurrection will be Christ reflected in the faces of those to whom they had brought the Gospel.

Three of our friends have died since November.  Believers all, we grieve as those who are anchored in hope.  On this May 1st as always I will be thinking of heaven’s delights; seeing Dad and Mother, Brian, Vern, Peg, Cass and everyone again. I’m thinking of finding all that I thought was lost. I’m thinking of color and music and lasting spring and becoming all I was created to be.  I’m thinking of Jesus, his glory, his presence.

“I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice . .saying ‘behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.   He will dwell with them and they will will be his people’ – He will wipe away every tear from their eyes . .and he said . .”I am making all things new.” Rev. 21: 1-5

“…there shines, more than ever lucent in the moral firmament, the star-promise of God. It is bright with the assurance that the exile march of human life, with all its weariness of body and heaviness of heart, shall not long be halted, or ever concluded in the desert of despair and futility, but must move with irresistible purpose to the consummation of all that is partial, to the completion of all that is fragmentary, to the revelation of all that is hid, in Him from whom all life is come forth, and to whom all life is set to return.”
Sydney Lovett.

I think there is no sound more beautiful this side of heaven than little boys singing. Here is Libera, singing “Going Home”, from Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

Happy May 1st Everlasting!

I am a visitor here in the sacred, springtime space of May 1st Everlasting.  I am broken to deliver the news to many of you that May 1st is now without its gifted and light-filled author.  I am Sue’s daughter Emily and I write to you on her behalf, and my family’s, with gratitude and love. 

Sue and Mr. A. went to heaven, hand in hand, side by side, on December 10th due to complications of COVID-19.  In her last post, she wrote that Dad (Mel) had just been hospitalized.  Mom followed a few days later.  Even with the available medicines and treatment expertly provided, their earthly bodies, specifically their lungs, couldn’t gain the necessary ground to overcome the damage the virus had done.  

The hospital staff broke protocol, putting them in the same room for the last several days, and pushing their beds together in the last hours.  Six of us were able to enter the room in 2s to lay hands on them, whisper love, and say goodbye.  An iPad from the hospital allowed immediate family unable to be there physically to still be present.

We spend a lot of time in disbelief, asking “How can this be?”.  We cling to one another, digitally.  We live in bubbles and step through the world as observers, not yet pieced together enough to wholly participate.  Our minds and hearts are continuously distracted with grief, and tasks, both of our typical lives and those of this tragedy.

We prayed!  We pleaded! We leaned in to the Lord and HOPED.  It mystifies us WHY He allowed this to pass through His great and mighty hand.  But I am comforted that it did pass through His hand.  That He was and is with them, and with us.  For He is their Keeper, and ours.

We are not concerned nor pacing over their breathing and beating hearts.  We spend no hours and rare minutes focused on what they’re missing on this marvelous planet.  No time adds up in wondering on their regrets and never-dids.  It’s our short breath and off-beat hearts, our unfocus and million missings, our everyday and aching never-do-agains.

No, we do not worry for them.  They are with God and He has kept them for their going out and coming in, and nothing shall smite them!  It’s we who feel smited, we who are left waiting for promise fulfilled.

Faith received keeps us anchored.  Broken parts sewn with sterling stitches find themselves working in new, if sometimes painful, ways.  We feel loved and have hope.  And so we lift our eyes to the hills, and ask you to join us, praising God for the incomparable Sue and her beloved Mr. A.  Her writing is an inheritance for us all.  

Writing to you, with you, and for you was an all time joy in her magical life.  She took pride in her deadlines and her standards of length.  She delighted in humor, color, and knee buckling imagery.  She sought to seek the Lord and tell her stories in the light of His love.  In this, among other irreplaceable roles, she was a wild success. Her blog will stay open and we will share if it transitions to a different form in the future.

We had a private burial on January 16th.  In the summer, when it’s safe for everyone to travel and gather, there will be a celebration of life for both of them.  Their obituary was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune here.  The same paper also wrote a front page article on our family as uniquely experiencing the loss of both parents to COVID-19.  Sadly, two other families joined us in this article.

I wish I could wrap this post up well and offer it to you completed. But I don’t know how. Mom would have had the clarity and insight, revealing the very jewel to enrich your day, or year.  I think that’s a lost cause from my keyboard and its valley trek. I guess more than anything I want to say THANK YOU.  From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being members of the May 1st readership. You are a prized and important part of Sue’s life, and ours.  We love you.

Emily, Siblings, Spouses & Grands

¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From whence does my help come?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot be moved,
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade
    on your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not smite you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and for evermore.

Psalm 121

After being super careful for 8 months, Mr. A. and I let down our guards for a moment – a meeting with masks and social distancing for a few people – and now we both have covid. It’s been going on for 10 days and while we both have been very sick, on Tuesday Mr. A. was hospitalized with double pneumonia. Hence no may1steverlasting perhaps for awhile.

Please pray for his oxygen levels and that his lungs can get healthy again. Pray that my oxygen remains strong and that I can be on the mend. This is a very horrible disease. Our son Chris and his wife caught it from us.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From whence does my help come?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot be moved,
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade
    on your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not smite you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and for evermore.

I can’t remember when it started exactly. I think it’s been growing little by little over the past month and finally became evident late last week. I’m talking about grouchiness. Do you ever feel like you just want to kick something or someone? I wanted to stay in denial so I preferred to think it must be Mr. A.’s fault. And he telling me frequently that I was grouchy solidified my annoyance. I don’t like being crabby so I did finally begin to take a look at what might be affecting my mood.

The reasons are legion. I’ve discussed them here, even recently, in rosier tones. I am experiencing the pandemic with much more comfort than most people – so even to grouch about it is somewhat ridiculous. We are retired, so being “out of work” or “working from home” is not an issue. I have no little kids to guide through virtual school. Neither of us is sick. Nevertheless, people, I am weary of being unable to eat at restaurants – (without a lot of caution) -shop at ease, have larger family gatherings, have dinner parties, and unplanned conversations with friends. Mr. A. and I go for walks almost every day – yet we have to decide where to walk depending upon where we will encounter the fewest folks. I’m tired of masks, of zooming important meetings, of missing normal.

Then there is the political situation: the election, the politicians, the senate hearing, the ads, the newspaper, the arguing, the insults, etc. This is a big part of it, but I need not elaborate.

Recently we’ve had dear friends die. Even as I write a precious cousin has just died. Add to all this the fires and raging winds and it has landed on me as the perfect storm, enabling a disquieted, cloudy state of mind.

Saturday I finally admitted to myself that I had let the world sink in too deep.

Then comes Sunday. Our church four weeks ago began having in-person worship. They added services and regulations and controlled the number of folks attending. So we’ve registered and gone. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until the fountain poured over me. This past Sunday we had a guest preacher, Pastor Dan, a friendly-looking fellow of imposing stature. Mr. A. commented that he looked and spoke as with authority.

He was continuing our study of Jeremiah, in this case, chapter 23. He began talking about bad shepherds and returning to Jeremiah’s theme of all the ways in which the people of God turn away, worshiping idols, practicing dead religion, and of the judgment which was to come. But quickly the chapter switches to God’s promises and mercy and as it did, this man’s very voice and manner began to change, to become clearer, more articulate.

³ Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴ I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

The pastor was building up his argument for the coming of Christ that was yet to come for Israel . . .and then again in the days still before us –

⁵ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

. . . and reminding us to absorb that God is unchanging and has always rescued his people – and that his promises have been secured in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that there is more yet to come –

⁷ “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

Now we have before us a preacher who puts away his notes, moves towards us and begins to proclaim. No one missed a word. He can see in his mind not only that Christ came, but that He is coming again – and that over us who are his own will be the good Shepherd, the righteous Branch, the true King. “Amens!” were heard. As one we saw the very picture Pastor Dan was seeing and painting.

“Who are we to be afraid?”, he was asking. Our God is a God of hope – and the hope he was preaching is not the same as wishful thinking. Based on the mighty acts of God – and His very character – it is a hope, akin to expectation – like when we say that a woman is “expecting” a baby, we are not hoping against hope that it will turn out to be a baby and not a watermelon. We have assurance in this expectation that in 9 months a baby will arrive.

So sure are we that the King is coming. Politics and pandemic and storms and death itself will all flee away.

And in the sunlight of the Good News my funk dissolved just like that.

Holy Words by Michael W. Smith

Holy words long preserved
For our walk in this world,
They resound with god's own heart
Oh, let the ancient words impart.

Words of life, words of hope
Give us strength, help us cope
In this world, where e'er we roam
Ancient words will guide us home.

Chorus:
Ancient words ever true
Changing me, and changing you.
We have come with open hearts
Oh let the ancient words impart.

Holy words of our faith
Handed down to this age.
Came to us through sacrifice
Oh heed the faithful words of christ.

Holy words long preserved
For our walk in this world.
They resound with god's own heart
Oh let the ancient words impart.
***************************

_{Images courtesy of:  Hills of Trees by Manolo Gamboa Naon;  katevassgalerie.com,  Mountain Trail by Benjamin Hardman;  benjaminhardman.com,  Photo by Oer Wout;  designcove.blogspot.com,  Woman in Washington Square Park by Andrew I Shea;  andrewishea.com,  Brass Spigot by Karen Hollingsworth;  karenhollingsworth.com,  Sun After Storm;  deviantart.com,  Golden Wheat Fields After Storm;  thestarlitforest.com,  North River by Irma Cerese;  edgewatergallery.com,  Cityscape by Jason Anderson;  jasonandersonartist.com,  Landscape by Mandy Budan;  mandybudan.com.}

You have to blow up the Virginia map a hundred-fold to even find Meadows of Dan. It’s barely a dot. No one is going to pass thru and stop by to say hi. It’s off the beaten path to say the least. I95 is the route you’re going to take traveling anywhere up and down the East coast – unless, of course, you want to take a little detour to Asheville or Atlanta – and you’ll miss Meadows of Dan by a long shot.

Tucked there in the southwest corner, near the hiking trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Meadows of Dan seemed perfect to Angie and Mike. Angie had dreams of a sweet Mayberry life and Mike’s career was soaring in a significant American company. Without notice the company experienced a tumultuous re-organization and Mike opted out and with him the future that had already upturned their lives, albeit with expectancy and unmistakable hope.

These two are buoyant, positive people and even at square one they are defining exactly what their new life will look like.  They are not regretting all that has happened in the past 6 months, but filled with anticipation of what will be.

Yet.  Meadows of Dan is lost and the life that would have been theirs.  They will never know what might have been.

I’ve been thinking about our, about my, lost “meadows of dan”.  These are the decisions we almost made.  These are the left turns we made along the way. These are the determinations made for us by others in which we had no say.  These are the near misses in life.

It need not even be said that many of those near misses turned out to be ‘thank goodness’s’!  Unforeseen, fortuitous turnings often bless us.  For instance – in 1978 Mr. A., moving us from Elmhurst, IL to Skaneateles, NY, made an offer on a house that we really wanted to buy.  (I was ensconced back home about to give birth.)  At the last minute the seller reneged and we were forced to buy a different house – which turned out to be the perfect home – in space and ease and livability and location.  At other times we almost lived in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Toronto.

One of my dear friends backed out of her wedding in the last week, sending back all of the gifts and saying goodbye forever to her fiancée.  She married another some years later – and (probably) never looked back.  Most of us say “whew” when we think about former loves – and yet for many there remains a poignant memory to be pulled out once in awhile.

“There are people we meet in life who miss being important to us by inches, days or heartbeats. Another place or time or a different emotional frame of mind and we would willingly fall into their arms; gladly take up their challenge or invitation. But as it is, we encounter them when we are discontent or content and they are not. Whatever they are, we are not and vice versa. Two trains going in different directions that pass for a few powerful moments at full speed, blasting noise and wind but then they are gone.” Jonathan Carroll

I think Mike is like Mr. A., and does not look back with any regret or longing for what might have been.  Angie is more like me and I believe that from time to time she will remember Meadows of Dan and have a strange longing for the place where even though she was never planted, her heart was beginning to take root.

It becomes for us another understanding of loss; not for what we had or for who we were, but for what we might have had and for who we might have become.

At eighty it has become an exercise in futility to think about those possibilities and losses.  I write of it however because most of you, dear children, are in the midst of it. 

I don’t want you to miss out on all the adventures that might be yours.  I don’t want you to miss out on all the new people and ideas and vistas that might stretch your hearts and enrich your lives.  And – – – I don’t want you to miss out on all the splendid color and depth that is there where you are right now. 

We all have in our lives a Meadows of Dan, something or someone -that came close, that catches our imaginations and gets our hearts beating – and then is gone – and we rarely know if it is to our good or not.  Sometimes in the middle of the night we remember and even long for it; a longing born of loss, not of knowing. Without realizing it we might be longing for the person we might have become.  Pay attention to the longing.

Here is where old age is fertile ground.  Looking back our view is not only of what we have lost, but of every decision, every fork in the road, the ideas, the places, the people – and how they all formed the real person we have become. 

Human depth results from loss as much as from joy.  Thank God for my lost Meadows of Dan.

Mozart today, a beautiful serenade of longing – but then I love the oboe –

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_{Images courtesy of: Blue Ridge Mountains and Mabry Mill; bing.com, Minimalist Meadow by Marilyn Fenn; marilynfenn.com, Dandelion Meadows by Frank Wilson; fineartamerica.com, Alpine Meadow Flowers by Deborah Czernecky; fineartamerica.com, fineartamerica.com, Calm Meadow by Geri Eubanks; 1stdibs.com, Walk in the Meadows by C. Monet; bing.com, Large Meadow by Karen Margulis Kern; kernstudios.blogspot.com, Meadow by Dorothy Fagan; dorothyfagan.com, Wildflower Meadow by Liz Sullivan; lizsullivanart.com, Wildflower Meadow by Lynn Rodgie; redraggallery.co.uk.}