Tonight I long for sleep and dark chocolate, citrus fruits-grapefruit and tangelo, and warm furry winter blankets and socks. I long for comfort, kind words and soft hugs.
My world is a bit harsher than this-- isn't everyone's? Everyone is busy, harried, harsh- surrounded by sharp edges. If only we took to heart: Be kinder than necessary. If we could learn to sing in soft hues, like a high school chorus- singing Turn, Turn, Turn tonight at the new Seeger Auditorium, where my daughter sang with her elementary school to Pete and Toshi- their celebrity, their great contribution, our children's promise.
I suppose I could see the work of a lifetime there- a work that after 94 years of age, 70 years of marriage, does not end. A work through civil rights and river renewal that continues still. Will the world ever be saved? Or are we in the doing simply bidding time? Meanwhile the nuclear acceleration, the global warming goes on. Or is the doing itself--the loving, the singing, the returning again to the morning walk, the crossing boundaries to create beloved community--the work that saves us where we are? The axis leans, and good always wins- I heard a woman say. Faith maybe then is believing in the light-- though I know only this thought that eternity is now, ever shall be, and not some future time.
I can't save the world, but I can savor it. And to savor is not, as one might think, a matter of indulgence but rather one of discipline. I have missed the disciplined practices of contemplation, walking, and writing which border and fill my days. I have craved and needed discipline, and surrender myself to the season of Lent most fully. It is a paradox, perhaps, to seek the romance of living fully by committing myself to discipline.
But tonight I savor the warmth of this bed, after a day of hard work. And after a day's fast of simple eating-- a tiny piece of chocolate on my tongue is bliss.
My world is a bit harsher than this-- isn't everyone's? Everyone is busy, harried, harsh- surrounded by sharp edges. If only we took to heart: Be kinder than necessary. If we could learn to sing in soft hues, like a high school chorus- singing Turn, Turn, Turn tonight at the new Seeger Auditorium, where my daughter sang with her elementary school to Pete and Toshi- their celebrity, their great contribution, our children's promise.
I suppose I could see the work of a lifetime there- a work that after 94 years of age, 70 years of marriage, does not end. A work through civil rights and river renewal that continues still. Will the world ever be saved? Or are we in the doing simply bidding time? Meanwhile the nuclear acceleration, the global warming goes on. Or is the doing itself--the loving, the singing, the returning again to the morning walk, the crossing boundaries to create beloved community--the work that saves us where we are? The axis leans, and good always wins- I heard a woman say. Faith maybe then is believing in the light-- though I know only this thought that eternity is now, ever shall be, and not some future time.
I can't save the world, but I can savor it. And to savor is not, as one might think, a matter of indulgence but rather one of discipline. I have missed the disciplined practices of contemplation, walking, and writing which border and fill my days. I have craved and needed discipline, and surrender myself to the season of Lent most fully. It is a paradox, perhaps, to seek the romance of living fully by committing myself to discipline.
But tonight I savor the warmth of this bed, after a day of hard work. And after a day's fast of simple eating-- a tiny piece of chocolate on my tongue is bliss.
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