eight plagues not counting the election

A few days ago, walking home with a fresh loaf of bread under my arm, I came to a halt. Ahead of me on the sidewalk was an eight-foot, black-hooded figure stood with a scythe. It was leaning over the sidewalk, blade spanning the walkway like a banner. Okay, it's October. Halloween is quickly approaching. But I stopped. I let a woman walking her dog pass me. I helpfully pointed out the danger ahead, but she merely grunted, her nose buried in her phone. She didn't so much as look up from her screen as she walked past under Death's scythe. I reluctantly followed her. What I wanted to do was cross the street and avoid the ominous figure entirely. But that was silly, I reasoned, so I walked up and took a long look: I noticed the roughly cut black burlap gown, the wires holding the scythe in place, the string that lashed the figure to the fence. It's not that I suspected it might truly be the grim reaper, it's just that it doesn't seem like a good time in my life to take death lightly.

A few months before my father's death, life put on a Serious Face. I'm naturally prone to seriousness, so it doesn't take much. However, 2016 has given us: job restructuring, my son's testing for a learning disability, my dad's death, the sale of the businesses, my brother's state of mind after the sale of the business, Charles' new (and stressful) job, unexpected & chronic health problems, and of course the horrible horrible election. And, not to be forgotten, my mother-in-law moved near us in the spring. Charles vigorously dubs it "The Year of Challenges."

I feel less vigorous. I've started reading Rilke and Mary Oliver religiously, and am rereading the Diaries of Etty Hillesum. I started journaling again and begun listening to interviews with poets and philosophers via the On Being podcast. And I walk and walk and walk. I follow a daily loop along Crystal Springs, spying herons and kingfishers, flickers and barn swallows, red winged blackbirds and bushtits. I lean longingly over the creek hoping to spot the silver splash of salmon heading upstream to spawn. I talk to my friends while walking. Jenny called as I walked in a torrential downpour earlier this week, and listened (again) my litany of woe. "What number plague is this?" she asked laughingly, "There are usually seven." Well, I think we are at eight—and that's not counting the election. I think by the eighth plague you can start to expect that things to change for the better. Already I feel a resilience in my bones that wasn't there six months ago.

As I'm walking, this line from Rilke comes to me: Now you must go out into your heart / as onto a vast plain. Rilke is a heady draught from which you can only take a few sips at a time. Because, to use his own words, "Everything must be lived" (and living more than a few lines of Rilke at a time can be overwhelming!).

But out onto the plain I go: quiet and full, empty and expectant.

Next week Jenny flies in from Kona, and while she's here there is my Father's memorial service, followed immediately by Halloween. A joyful macabre mess awaiting me. Downstairs, in their beds, my children are singing one of my Father's favorite hymns, "Come Thou Fount." I am teaching it to them so they can sing it at my Dad's memorial. First my daughter's voice drops off in sleep, then my son's. The house is locked, and I have a cup of tea next to me. Whatever may come next, I still inhabit this snug little world of clean laundry and messy desks, steaming coffee and wet elm leaves, piles of library books and muddy boots, half-sewn dresses and half-knit mittens, bikes, tears, bird books, old computers, laughter, silence, kisses.

a lake of cowardly souls

So much to say that can't be said.

Not here, at least. Not in words. I suppose this is why I take photographs; writing is so definite, so tidy. And the process takes a lot of courage, and often it just doesn't work. I stewed all morning about a dream, for example. A dream that made no sense, yet felt so important. If I wrote it here it would gather shape and particular meaning, and at the same time lose much of its mythic significance. It would be a petty human dream.

Enough.

Let's write about courage instead. So much of life takes courage. And courage is not one of my strong suits. I used to have a strip of tape stuck to the inside of my front door with the word "courage" written on it. In fact, I posted a photo of it here on this blog. Maybe I was more courageous back then, but I doubt it.

Long, long ago--in my second year of undergraduate studies--I transferred to a Bible school. Now that was courageous. I was utterly miserable at the Bible school, though, and sensibly returned the following year to the sedate and dignified Catholic university I had previously attended. But misery aside, I gained a lot in that one year. For example, one sermon preached at chapel lodged itself in my brain. It was about courage. The somewhat timid graduate student who was preaching that day took his text from the book of Revelation:

The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. (Revelations 21:8)

This is a very bothersome verse, not even considering the fact of a fiery lake of burning sulfur. If we concede such a lake, I assume that it would be teeming with the vile and murderous, witches and warlocks, baby-killers and baby-sellers, and the like. But the cowardly? That worries me. And so it worried the student who preached the sermon--why would the merely cowardly be listed with these other seriously reprobate types?

You begin to consider adding "courage" to your New Year's resolutions. Or just to your door for that matter.

I am not courageous. I have been hiding out from an elderly lady who I told I would help. She is a rather insistent old lady for whom "no" is not an acceptable answer, and to her great benefit she is also increasingly deaf. However, I thought because she lives a great distance from me I was more or less safe. But she and her family have shown up at my parish the last few Sundays. I spent both Sundays hiding in the back of the church, visiting the restrooms, and inventing various reasons to be invisible. This is not the first time I've had to do this sort of thing. I've found myself hiding in restrooms many times in my cowardly life.

Charles and I are reading the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. No need to say, cowardice is not one of them. Not only that, but it seems you need courage to be effective. Every other habit seems to require courage. Avoiding conflict, wishing people could read my mind, leaving unpleasant truths unsaid, and hiding in bathrooms are not only going to eventually land me in a lake of burning sulfur, but they make my life right now more or less ineffectual. Sigh.

So I write to gain courage. Putting words to print, and then pressing the publish button, commits me. If I write with more bravery, honesty, I may in fact gain some of that bravery in the day-to-day actions of my life. I cannot say it all, it's true. My dreams may be best unwritten. But in many ways I become the person I write about. Here I face my cowardice, revealing its silliness and vanity, and here also find a surer heart and a broader smile.

note over door