Praytell

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

What happens when your “yes” is my “no?”

More often than not life stops in its tracks for a bit, or it begins again with resilience.

Not long ago an exchange of opinion led to my “yes” being the other person’s “no” in no uncertain terms.  What we were talking about makes no difference.  Suffice it to say that all of her experience, thinking, and care had led her to a viewpoint.  My experience, thinking, and care in the very same field had led me to an entirely different viewpoint.  There was nothing intellectual about the conversation.  We just disagreed.  But then something happened.  We both realized the argument, had inadvertently touched some unresolved emotions.  The power of our disagreement was far greater than the actual point either of us was trying to make. We were defending territory that had been defined by all kinds of often difficult experiences.

Our daughter, Emily, went home yesterday.  When she was about six years old, it would happen, sometimes . . . rarely, you understand, but it would happen . . . that I’d had a “hard day” at work and I’d come home and take it out on the kids.  And sometimes, very rarely, you understand;  my wife would do the exact same thing.  Once or twice in our 39 year marriage that has happened.

“That’s displaced aggression,” Emily would say.

“What?”

“Displaced aggression.”  I don’t know if she could have defined those two words or not.  But she knew what they meant.  The angst that spilled out on the family came from some other place.  I should have taken it somewhere else.  Indeed, the aggression was displaced.  Not misplaced.  No.  It was displaced.

The more my friend and I realized the depth of unresolved issues, the more human we became.  The thaw was palpable. Neither of us said, “I’m wrong,” because both of us were right.  But being “right” became secondary.   I suspect we both wish we could take back a line or two.  In the end the depth of our commitment to the issue at hand became mutually clear, and mutually healing.  There was no choice but to begin laughing a bit, to console each other a bit, to understand and appreciate the fierce beauty of a safe dispute.

Like buzzards circling their prey, cliches came to mind on as I rode my bike home.  You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked in their shoes.  If you point at somebody else three fingers always point back at you.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

When I was growing up, my parents often said, “Don’t be so dogmatic.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“But think about it,” I’d say.

Of course, I outgrew my dogmatic, passionate, energetic side years, ago.  Decades ago.  That self-righteous part of my character is completely gone.

Until your “yes” is my “no.”

Hmmm.

Thank God I’ve got another year to convince, sway, and, if I’m really lucky, perhaps even learn a bit more about grace.

New Year’s blessings to you, and thank you for having carried this “blog” thus far.

Larry

In Praise of Winter's Ice

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Minneap0lis, Minnesota

I am back in Montevideo, Minnesota, Grand Marais, Minnesota, and Big Timber, Montana.

I can’t help but be there.

It is the Sunday after Christmas.

Nobody expects the full church we had on Christmas Eve.  This Sunday is absolutely devoid of the fleeting thought pastors have when churches fill on Christmas Eve, and we wonder if maybe, just maybe, there will be more people next Sunday too.  No.  This is the Sunday after Christmas and so I’m back in a world of beloved memory.

I’m back in the crucible of spirituality.

I’m back in Montevideo when a storm came in from the Dakotas and made driving ill-advised.  The drifts were thick.  But it was Sunday morning, and so the stout-hearted began to arrive.  Glenn arrived in galoshes.  Vicki arrived.  Claude arrived.  Celeste and Mark arrived.  Dwayne and Barbara arrived.  That was about it.  And that was sufficient.  We were there.  The light in the windows was still amber.  The altar table, the candles, the hymnals, they were still there.  And so we worshiped.  I have no idea what the sermon was.  But it had something to do with “essence.”  It had something to do with “integrity.”  It had something to do with a beautiful gathering of just two or three.  It had something to do with Christmas.

Same in Grand Marais.  Once again the drifts were deep.  Only ten or so made it.  It would have been silly to meet in the sanctuary.  And so we met in the lounge and lit a fire in the stone fireplace.  Everybody that was there wanted to be there.  There was no, “We gotta go to church, so, okay, let’s go.”  No.  This trip through the storm took effort, intention and a bit of daring that made it an extraordinary gathering.  Once again, the theme of the service was nothing more, and nothing less, than “essence.”

Same in Big Timber, Montana.  We even decided to not meet in the sanctuary.  It seemed anti-climactic to see the beautiful tree, the banners, the trappings and trimmings of Christmas that spoke of hope last week but somehow looked old this week.  Pretty soon we’d have to take them down.  And so we met downstairs.  We arranged the tables in a circle, served orange juice, coffee and Stollen, and enjoyed the presence of each others’ company as we brought home the Word.

Same this morning.  At 10:30, just a few people were there.  I found myself almost wanting to keep it small.  Not private, but small, intimate, and caring.  Six soon became ten, ten became twenty, perhaps twenty stretched to thirty.  I found it an almost overwhelming service as I remembered Christmas’ past, and gazed at the African Madonna that so often graced our churches.  After a week of wondering if a way could to found to healing, I realized with a depth of emotion that yes, a way had been found.  Yes, a way had been shown, a way had opened up.  Yes, there was hope.

In the middle of a storm, we find we are not alone.  In the midst of storms, we are grateful beyond measure for the fellowship of others.

These are the days of new beginning.

Blessings to you.

In Night the Light

Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas Day

Minneapolis, Minnesota

How do we heal?

With each other.

Some of our healers we know by name.  Some we know as events.  At church, last Sunday, the Christmas pageant we knew by heart unfolded once again.  Parents and drama directors held giant cue cards as shy and not so shy kids stepped to the microphones with pieces of paper in their hands to deliver their lines.  One kid held a star.  There actually had angel wings.  A few props transformed a long-ago stable into the Minneapolis Greyhound Station.  And so on.

My heart smiled.

Four blocks away, the Baptists did the same thing their way; three blocks away, the Presbyterians did it their way; around the corner the Catholics gave it a run; over there the non-denominationalists—they were all telling the same story.  Their kids too sprouted angel wings.  Somebody in their sanctuary also held a star.  This was true not just in Minneapolis but in Denver; in Portland (either one, and both) in Asuncion and Maputo.  All over its the same story.

It is the story of connection.

Wise men connected with a star which connected them with an expedition which connected them with a baby who connected with a dream that said “be careful on your way back home.”

Over and over again . . . connections.  A couple connected with an innkeeper who connected them with a stable, shepherds with manger, Israel with Egypt, God with humankind.  All these connections.

I spent the better part of this week seeking connections for my beloved.

I  tried to connect with a doctor.  Then another.  Is there some way to find a way?  Where should we turn?  It led to a trip to the ER.  And then, three days later, we walked into her room and saw a new person.  The storm had passed.  Her spirit soared, her eyes danced, her smile said, “I’m here.  I’m here.”  “We are too,” we said.  “With you, for you, beside you.”

And so:  to the first doctor . . . thanks for listening and knowing something needed to happen;

To the second . . . thanks for responding with compassion.

To the third . . . thank you bringing it together and blessing it.

To the children . . . for holding your mom in the light.

To the Paul in Wyoming who helped us find a way in the middle of the night.

To the church  in Montana and Minneapolis that learned about the near-tragedy, and held us in prayer knowing the power of healing somehow spans both distance and time itself . . . thank you.

Christmas day.

Its snowy and slushy outside.  Outside the storm has yet to subside.

But inside we lift our wings and fly.

Our son Andy sent a telephone to keep connected.

Our son Ben sent a poem written by Sheenagh Pughand and added note at the end of his Christmas missive.

Here’s the poem:

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

And here’s the note:

Much love, to you and the rest of my family–

How do we heal?

Family that turns out to be an extended family that has been rehearsing, and celebrating the connections of Christmas for a very long time.

A Swiss Study from Photo by Michael Koch

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Two days ago I wrote about the windows of hope at the hospital.

Today, not once but three times, I passed them again.  And so it is I am compelled to apologize.  I wrote that there were a few pencils, pieces of paper, and one or two cans of HD-40 on the windowsills that are at sidewalk level.  I was wrong.  There is a lot more than that.  AThere are more cans, bins, tins, cups, and things than I could count.   But I am pleased to report that everything else was correct.  The repairmen do talk with each other, each with a coffee mugs, and their workbenches are filled with projects.   It was, again, a window of hope–safe, collegial, useful, and practical.

I passed the window on my way to the eighth floor of that hospital.

Somebody I know, and just happened to marry almost exactly39 years ago is a patient.

Hospitals, it turns out, are places with problems to fix.  Sometimes a shelf needs gluing, a spring needs replacing.  Sometimes a bone needs a splint, or a heart needs to be replaced.  Either way, problems are the life of hospitals both on the eighth floor and in the maintenance shop.

There are, however,  some differences.  Whereas in the workshop the maintenance men congregate naturally, the various folks working with us now seem to be individualists.  One arrives; then leaves.  Then another arrives.  Then leaves.  Then yet another arrives.  And then leaves.  That does not mean they don’t talk with each other.  But each has an individually appointed mission.  Somehow, it all works together marvelously well.  It is, however, different than the workshop.  Who knows.  Maybe its because of billing.  I don’t know.  And it doesn’t matter.  The observation is not an evaluation.

I am impressed by the training.  That nurse, she went to school for nursing, she is accredited.  She prepared for this.  She is good at this.  That doc.  He went to college, medical school, internship, residency, and now he has the white coat.  The man who pushes the food cart.  He has been trained to do that, to greet patients, to realize the importance of his job.  He wonders why there is a McDonalds in the hospital.  It isn’t healthy.  If one counted the number of years spent in training at a hospital that employs thousands of people, the number would be staggering.

I see a chart in the hallway.  One goal is that patients will give their hospital stay a favorable rating.  90 percent or so do at the present time.  But it could be better.  Hospital income will go up 4.5 percent.  New patients will increase.  Each goal has numbers.  Some goals are printed in green, meaning they have made progress.  Some are in yellow, meaning more needs to be done.  Some in red, meaning a lot more needs to be done.

I wonder, for just a second:

What if we had goals like that as a church?  Would that have worked?  What is a good sermon?  Is it one that pleases or one that disturbs?  I don’t know.  Part of me says, “You can’t quantify church.”  Another part says, “Why not?  Aren’t you evading responsibility?”

How about our lives?  Do numbers tell the story, or only part of it?  I have never done a numerical study of Jesus.  How many people did he heal?  How many did he inspire?  What does it mean when the number of followers at the end is zero?  Is loss always bad?  Is profit always good?

I don’t know.

But this I do know:

The windows of hope I see from the sidewalk I also see in the faces of the nurses, the doctors, the cart pushers, the guards, the secretaries, each one well-trained to buttress whatever healing is on the eighth floor of a hospital in the City of Lakes.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I passed it again this morning.

A huge neurology clinic had called me to say  I owed $11.89.  So I walked over and paid them $12.00.  On the way home I passed the window of hope.

It’s the half ground level, half street level, maintenance shop I look into.  On the windowsill there are cans of HD-40, a few pencils, assorted pieces of paper and stuff that was  once on the shelf of a hardware store.   Truth be told, it’s kind of a mess in there.

The counters are full of things being fixed and things waiting to be fixed.  None of the chairs match.  There is no attempt to have everything the same.  The walls aren’t full of beautiful pictures designed to take our minds off whatever it is that ails us.  They’re places to put things.  They’ll full of hooks, clips, pegboards, and taped notes.

The men in there (come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman in there) seem to enjoy working together.  Frequently there are two or three of them talking, often with a coffee mug in hand.  It isn’t a hospital coffee cup.  It’s more the kind of cup that gets scratched in the car, that hasn’t been really cleaned for many years.  I can see them talking with each other, trying to figure out one thing or another.  Or maybe why the Vikings aren’t winning on Sunday nights.  Doesn’t matter.  They’re figuring something out.

They probably never quite know what will need to be fixed from day to day.  That’s the best part of the job.  It always changes.  Ministry is that way too.  Because it’s Christmas, I realized the workshop is a bit like Santa’s where the elves know what they need to do.  They need to make things, help things move along, work together, solve problems, and know that whatever tool they need is somewhere in the workshop.  (Why is it that in school you fail a test if you ask for help but in the real world asking for help is the main idea?)

I’ve never been in the workshop, and have no reason to be invited, but when I look through the window I know I’d like it in there.   Their tasks are manageable, require the input of others, and are devoted to fixing things, mending things, solving problems, and figuring out how to solve problems.  How good it is to see that.

We don’t see this “working together” stuff much anymore.  Hospitals seem to  thrive in secrecy these days thanks to HIPPA.  Politics are swamped with ideologies, and we somehow know that if we were in the Senate the same thing would happen to us.

But this place is human.  It restores a bit of hope in my soul.  I’ve never passed that window without that happening.

I hope the billion dollar hospital doesn’t expand and find a new workshop.  I hope no interior designed says, “You need some blinds or at least some curtains.”

I am grateful for this sane world.

Which is, for me, a window of hope.

Saturday, November 19, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Saxine Creek

I wondered if I could find a watercolor class that had but one topic:  Shadows.  But then I realized painting is nothing but shadows, the play of pure light, reflected light, filtered light, colorful light, less light, no light in the shadow of absolute night.  Sometimes the sand shows right though the water, whose ripples send their own kind of shadows.  Somtimes the trees shadow the creek.  It’s all shadows.  Charlie Saxine died long ago.  But when he walked the Lake, he saw the same thing.  Shadows.

Home

I tend to resist calendar pictures.  And I don’t know if this came from a calendar or not.  My wife reads magazines with a pair of scissors.  Some of the scenes she passes on to me.  Others she sends to our daughter in Kalispell, Montana, where they soon find their way to a collage.  Sometimes, though, I’ll see one of her clippings and it reminds me of home.  We love, Minneapolis, there’s no doubt about it.  But there lurks in my soul a desire to breathe thin air again, to follow fencelines again, to watch shadows move all day long again.  And so, when that makes itself know, it’s time to paint again.

The Draw, the Slope and the Trees

I once thought of South Dakota as mostly empty.  But then, one day, while driving across its empty spaces, I noticed the way trees cluster together.  Seeking each other’s company, they huddle together wherever there is just a bit of water.  They are far away from their companions who decided to stay behind in safer places.  For the most part, the plains are indeed empty.  And then, there they are:  A small circle of trees that decided to take a stand, to resist the wind, to find whatever water they need, and to stay together for the duration.

When they line up, they do so following a crick.  Even the pine on the slope have an affinity for each other, they’re just not as social as the cottonwood, the sumac, the oak.

Trees can’t help but compliment each other.  And so I painted this using complimentary colors:  Scarlet orange and blue green/turquoise.

No.  The colors in the photograph weren’t exactly like that.  But I like these trees.  And I hope you do too.

The Heart's Sky

Saturday, November 19, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

There are lessons we must learn not once, or twice, but thousands of times.

They are so simple one would think learning them twice or thrice is unnecessary.

Here’s one:

Painting is not photography.

When I look at the sky, and want to get everything exactly right, cloud,  every shadow, every tree, every forest, it is time to reach for a camera, not a brush.

A picture inspires a painting.  I can feel within the first moments of touching a wet brush to dry paper and pools of color whether or not I have succumbed to the temptation of perfection, or embraced the patters of light and shadow that made me say, “That’s a painting.”

Words can do the same thing.  Sometimes, walking down the sidewalk, poems appear.  Just two or three words is enough for the poem to say, “I’m here.”  Poems do not need the explanation of an essay.

Paintings must reach for essence.  The “things” must be de-noised.  They must turn into shapes.  And “must” must find its own way that has nothing to do with “must.”

I keep forgetting this.

As one author wrote, there is an attention defecit disorder of the soul.  First thing you know we become cluttered.

It’s amazing how freeing it is to get rid of clutter.

My parents have just moved into a nursing home.  The paintings, the pictures, were left behind.  My mother, the artist, said, “Look at these beautiful white walls.”  She did not want to bring all the paintings she knew.  She did not want clutter, meaningful and beautiful as it can be.  Instead, the walls were as open as a sheet of watercolor paper.

The paper always begins uncluttered.

Sometimes, even after applying brush, water, and color, it still is.

Water, Stone and Shadow A Study

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I often wish I could “do something” about the words “Bible Study.”  For believers, they represent sacred conversation.  A group of people reading a text, asking “What’s true?”  “What is this saying?”  “Do I believe it?”  “I remember when, once in my life, I saw something like that, felt something like that, perceived something like that.”

But for those not acquainted with the ways of church,  “Bible Study” is offputting.  It sounds almost cultish.  Cults don’t do stories, laugher, teasings, tears, insight, intellectual probing, testings, and conflicts that almost rend us asunder.  But that’s what happens each Wednesday morning in the light-filled room of Our Saviour’s Lutheran church.  It was especially true this week because although Christmas seems like a fairly simple idea, the texts were difficut.

Just what are we to make of Micah 5:2-5?  An unlikely ruler will emerge from the least likely clan in the unlikely small town of Bethlehem.  We get that.  It is the great reversal once again.  There will be a great homecoming.  Good.  We get that too.  And then there will be strength, majesty, power, and security and, in the end, peace.  Hmmm . . . we wonder.  Isn’t that what’s being tested in Afghanistan?  Can there be peace without security?  Can there be security that is not lodged in peace?  Is God establishing order?  Or is order a problem because it can’t help but turn imperial?  What’s going on here?

And what are we to make of Hebrews 10:1-10?  Now that Jesus has been sacrificed there is no need to sacrifice bulls, goats, sheep and birds.  But wouldn’t that turn Jesus a better bull, a goat, a lamb?  Once, in the middle ages, a heritic was asked, “Do you believe Jesus is the Lamb of God?”  “Yes,” she answered.  “But that doesn’t make him a sheep.”  Her answer did not help her case.  She was sacrificed.  This notion of sacrifice, blood sacrifice, didn’t the angel stay Abraham’s hand when he tried to sacrifice Issaac as ordered?  We are both persuaded and troubled.

And then the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55.  “God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”  But tonight, in Minneapolis, we will march on behalf of the homeless who died in our city last year.  Sometimes they froze to death.  Sometimes they couldn’t get the medicine they needed to live.  Sometimes they drank themselves to death and died in the alley. Tonight we remember them and wonder why we never knew them.

In the film, “Romero,” the archbiship of El Salvador was invited by a wealthy family to baptize their new baby.  The family wanted it to be a private affair with just a few best friends, perhaps a luncheon, at their estate.  They would be so honored to have the archbishop with them.  “No,” he said.  “We do baptisms at the cathdral, every second Sunday.”  “No,” said the family.  “You don’t understand.  We don’t go there with those people.  “No,” said the archbishop.  The magnificat rings, rings, rings, and rings again until, not far down the road, Romero is assissanted at the cathedral while performing mass.

“I am so thankful for these difficult texts,” I offered.  “Look at how we simplify Christmas.  Lots of cards with three camels crossing a non-0existant sand dune.  A manger scene.  We kind of want it that way.  All we want to do is to sing Silent Night.  But the text’s won’t let us do that.  They keep raising questions, they keep a struggle alive, they keep us off balance.”

Our session draws to an end.

“Let’s sing Silent Night,” said Mary, the minister of music, not as an escape but as an embrace.  And so we did, with perhaps a newfound appreciation.  As we sing in the Little Town of Bethlemen, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

I am so thankful for these Wednesday morning sojourns.

I mean Bible studies.

I mean Life.

Many blessings,

Larry

The Wise Tree

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Well, here’s the fact of the matter.

August, 1983:  We were on the verge of a move from the Great State of Maine to New York City.  The children were seven, four, four and two.  They wondered, just a bit, what this great move was all about.  Saying the word “seminary” didn’t do the trick.  Did mom have a job there?  No.  Did dad?  No.  Would there be schools there?  Yes.  What was its name?  PS 36.  What’s that?  They’d been going to Fischer and Mitchell school in Bath, Maine.

And so I realized we needed a story.

We didn’t need an explanation.  We needed a story.

“Have you heard about Frank and Betty Wise?” I asked them.

“Who’s that?”

“What?  You don’t know Frank and Betty Wise?”

“Dad . . . ”

“Well, okay, I’ll fill you in, but I am surprised you don’t know about them.”

“Come on, dad.”

“Well, they’re two owls.  And they’ve been living for the longest time down near Phippsburg.  You know, on the way to Popham beach, they live along there.  and have, for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Years.  But there have been some changes in their lives.  That’s what happens.  Things begin to change.”

“What things?”

“Well, the mice got harder to find.  Frank would go out and try to bring some back, and Betty would see he hadn’t gotten any, and so she’d say something like, ‘I could do better than you.’  ‘Then try it,’ he’d. say.  That went on for the longest time.  Back and forth, every day no mice.  And when she went out to find some she couldn’t find any either.  ‘See,’ he’d say.

Finally the decided they’d better find a new place.

“What about Boston?” Betty said.  She’d heard there are really nice people there, and a lot of nice owls too.  In fact, it might be a chance to meet up with her long lost cousins once, twice, thrice removed.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Family,” I’d say, drawing the word out as long as I could.  But there were problems.  They didn’t know how to get to Boston.  But then, one day, they saw a yellow truck stilled with stuff, a dad and a few kids, heading towards Boston from the Great State of Maine.  Frank followed it as far as he could, and sure enough, the road headed for Boston.  He flew back and told Betty.  “Get ready,” he said.  “We’re going to Boston.”

She wasn’t at all happy about that, because she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t get lost.

“But dad, you said she wanted to go to meet with f  a  m  i  l  y  .”

“I know, but that’s the thing.  Things change.”

Well, once they got to Boston Common the noticed the truck going to New York City.  They followed it an settled in Central Park.  They liked it quite a bit.  Of course, they had arguments.  Disagreements.  Different P E R C E P T I O N S.  Their lives seemed to be filled with tensions, with misunderstandings.  Betty didn’t really want to leave Central Park for Minnesota, if the truth be known.  But Frank insisted and so they went.

In short, they adjusted.

They put up with each other.

They loved each other.

And that’s what love is.  “Where you go, I go.  Where you live, I will live.  Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.”

That’s what life is.

Just last week Betty sent me a picture of a tree in New Mexico, and so I had to paint it.  And did.  In fact, it’s the very tree you can see in this post.

Keep your eyes open.  And I’m pretty sure you’ll see Frank and Betty too.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Minneapolis Minnesota

The Rising Fall

Pearl died.

I read about in the elevator.  Somone had carefully, and lovingly posted her obituary in the small glass display case in the elevator of our building.

We knew, some weeks ago, that she had fallen.  She was 94 years old, and had a history of falling.  But she was our neighbor.  When mail came to the wrong box, she would pass our mail on to us, as good neighbors do.  When she fell some time ago, he hip broke, from what we understand.  She moved over to the nursing home right next door, and waiting for the mending.

There are times one waits for the mending, the healing, the new beginning.  And there are times one says, “It’s enough.”

At that point, sometimes, we urge them to eat.  But they do not want to eat.

At that point we urge them to “get well.”  But they do not want to begin again.

At that point the “but” is not a “but” at all.  It is an, “and.”

And, here I am.

After all these years, here I am.

So it is, perhaps, that Pearl died.  But I do not know.  I did not make it over to see her, though the thought was on my mind.  Those who went said she was tired.  When the read the notice of her death a week ago, it was not a shock.

But for me it was.

I had not been tracking.  And we’ve moved to a new floor, with new neighbors we scarcely know the way we knew Pearl.  So for me to see her obituatary , so exact, so precise, so articulate about the loves of her life, her husband, her children, her friends, her companions, to read this was a bit of an opening.  That’s what it is.  Vulnerability is always looking to make its mark.  We may resist, we may deny, we may not think that is the case, but the truth is that vulnerability is always looking for an opening.

Falls.

Years ago, I heard a piece of wisdom from the days before such a thing as hip replacements.  It said, “A broken hip is a person’s best friend.”  It was a sure ticket “out.”  A hundred years ago nobody survived a broken hip if they were in their 70s or 80s.  It was a sure thing the wouldn’t make it.  But instead of seeing it as a burden, common knowledge of the ticket “out” provided a bit of consolation.  This is what happens, it says.  It’s part of life.

Two nights ago, my dad fell.

Beneath the eagle’s nest last summer, my mother fell in the brush beneath the white pine in which the eagle nests.

These falls.

Why do they occur from high places?  Why is the statue of Jesus in Rio de Janerio atop its highest hill?  Why do steeples rise above the skyline?  Are they more dramatic that way?  Are they not the same as a hip-level fall that brings the elderly to the earth in just a moment or two?  These falls.  As children we crumble, knowing we cannot be hurt.  As adults we stumble.  As the elderly, perhaps we go, “Oh my, how’d that happen?”

In life, we fall.

And then, perhaps, learn that the final fall isn’t a fall at all.

The earth is but a prelude to the sky.

Who knows.

Pearl knows.

So will I.

And so will you.