I sometimes return to the aggressive rush and run others off the road
Thankful Notes (#274)
I appreciated our church’s weekly conversation video that was released yesterday—it featured three individuals who have an immediate family member living in their homes who is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Their sharing was honest and gracious and shed light on why we are being so careful.
I read this poem called The Visit by Patricia Lunetta Gould yesterday. There is no set-up, no explanation of who Margaret is or what her relationship is to the author. It just begins…
The last time I saw Margaret, she had reached the skeletal stage.
I rubbed her feet that day, touching death. Feet bumped out with bunions, tipped with twisted toes and curling yellowed nails.
On her bedside stand, a scrap of paper—the name of one of those TV evangelists who beseech you to feel the healing power of Jesus through the screen—and don’t forget to send your generous love gifts.
As I drive home on a narrow curving road, someone tailgates, itching to go faster, not knowing he’s flesh and fragile.
Slowed by sadness and sick of pressure, I pull onto the gravel shoulder, let him shoot by… and on my right catch sight of a great blue heron standing tall and still in the aisle made by two rows of towering trees.
Like a priest in feathered robes, he bows his head three times before an altar of mountain bluffs. It’s dusk, and the moon, just rising, illuminates his wings as they open in benediction for evening flight. His parting call:
Stay awake. Holiness
may spread its wings for you
at any moment.
* * *
Her description of driving home on a narrow curving road—and someone tailgates, itching to go faster, not knowing he’s flesh and fragile… um, I mean, I just want to sit with that for a while.
I’ve been the tailgater in a hurry.
And I’ve been the one slowed by… Read More
