Who Hasn't Sorrow?

This past year has been a sad year for the families living on our block. A few days before Christmas, our neighbor two doors down, John, died. Earlier in December our neighbor, Ben, a high school senior, was in a roll-over car accident. Ben was a passenger in a van headed to a high school basketball game. Ben is recovering from some pretty serious injuries. The mother of my next door neighbor on the other side, Pat, recently had a stroke and now lives with Pat and her husband. Earlier in the year my neighbor Lisa lost her mother, and the lady who lives across the street from me also died, and most of you know that my wife, Susan, also died in March.

You'd think that our street would be overcome with sorrow and self-pity, but I didn't perceive it to be so. Everyone put up the usual Christmas decorations, lights were lit in every house each night of the holiday season, and all-in-all it was a reasonably merry Christmas. Are we a callous and un-caring bunch? I don't think so.

Brent Auernheimer recently sent me a link to a blog by Barry Vaughn in which Vaughn retells a Buddhist parable of a mustard seed. In the parable, a woman named Kisa loses her only son. She is overcome with grief and begs the Buddha to raise her son from the dead. The Buddha tells her that he will raise her son from the dead if she will bring him a single mustard seed. Initially Kisa was elated, because this would not be hard for her to do, but then Buddha added that the mustard seed had to come from the house of a family who had never suffered any sorrow. Kisa went from house to house throughout her village inquiring if they had ever known sorrow, and at every house she heard them recount their stories of suffering and sorrow. At the end of that day Kisa sat down on a hill overlooking her village, and as the sun went down and the moon and stars rose in the sky, she noticed that lights were lit in every house in the village. Kisa realized then that everyone experiences sorrow, and that what we learn from our own sorrow is how to open our hearts to the sorrow of others.

Vaughn's telling of the Buddhist parable is in the context of a Christian sermon to the effect that nothing, not even sorrowful events in our lives, can separate us from the love of God. I am also thinking that sorrowful events in our lives should not separate us from the love of each other, particularly the important people in our lives.

Free To Fly

Every March I venture on my annual March birthday fishing trip to the Merced River with Mike Mast. Mike and I are both March babies. We fish for trout and large-mouth bass on a section of the lower Merced River between Merced Falls and Snelling. The trout are mostly rainbows, but every once in a while you reel up a brookie. That section of the river is closed to fishing from October 31 to March 15. Mike's birthday is just past mid March, and mine is just before the end of March, so we try to catch a day right after the opening and in between our birthdays, and we celebrate both birthdays on the river.

Mid-to-late March is a beautiful time to fish the lower Merced River. All the grasses and the trees are green and fresh, and wildflowers are starting to bloom. The water is cold and the fish are frisky, but the snow melt hasn't got into full flow, so the current isn't too swift. And the spring fishing is awesome, especially for the fat rainbow trout which have swum unmolested for six months.

Then, every October, just before the season closes on that stretch of the river, we venture again to the Merced River. Fall is another awesome season to fish the Merced, with deciduous trees in full color, summer grasses faded and brown and flowing over the edges of the limestone cliffs like brown frosting, and a few ripe blackberries still hanging on the vines that thrive on the riverbanks.

It's hard to get a boat on the section of the Merced River that we fish, and a lot of people don't even know you can fish there, so we usually have the river to ourselves. It's like being in another world when you're down on the river. I'd tell you exactly where it is and how to get there, and how to get a boat on the river there, but I am sworn to secrecy on pain of death. The river runs deep and slow in stretches there, and high cliffs overhang the river. In other stretches the river is shallow, and the current is swifter, and heavy river brush and oaks line the river. Wildlife is plentiful, and we have seen deer, coyotes, beavers, river otters, and a crazy lot of birds of every kind.

One time Mike and I were slowly drifting down the Merced, lazily fishing for trout, and we saw a pretty good sized owl perched in a small cave about three quarters of the way up a limestone cliff overhanging the water. That section of cliffs has about a thousand mud-swallow nests hanging on it. When the mud-swallows are nesting, you really don't want to be in the area, because a thousand mud-swallows flitting around overhead can become a messy situation.

The owls' nesting cave was about 30 feet above the water, and the river there is about 50 yards accross. The cliffs make a great nesting spot for mud-swallows and owls and other birds, because the whole face of the cliff is safe from intrusion by coyotes or snakes or other earth-bound predators.

Shortly after we saw the first owl another adult owl appeared from inside the nesting cave and perched, momentarily, with the first owl. Then both adult owls disappeared into the cave and there was a commotion, and we could see both adult owls, wings slightly outstretched, herding two young owls to the edge of the cave.

It was a fascinating and rare view into the world of nature, and it soon became apparent that the adult owls were going to herd the young owls out of the cave and off the edge of the cliff. It was clearly something the young owls did not want to do, and they resisted mightily. But the adult owls persisted. Once out and off the edge of the cliff, the only good options for the young owls would be to fly to the other side of the river, or fly along the river for a ways and land in the trees at the end of the cliffs, or to turn around and fly back to the nest. The other side of the river seemed the most obvious choice, and would be a relatively safe place for the young owls to fly to, as it was lined with oaks and brush.

Within a minute the adult owls had the young owls perched on the edge of the nesting cave and flapping their untested wings nervously, and then, nearly simultaneously both young owls were pushed out and began to fly for the first time in their lives. Both owls were jittery and both flew clumsily straight ahead. One of the youngsters made it almost all the way across the river, and on landing in the water swam quickly to the shore and got out. One of the adults flew immediately there and stood with the young owl as it shook the water off. The other young owl only made it halfway across the river, and then struggled against the slow current but could not make headway to reach the other side. As it struggled, the young owl's energy sagged, and as the current pushed the bird further and further down river, it struggled less and less and we could sense it was not going to make it. The adult who had stayed in the nesting cave was watching intently, but was powerless to assist the young owl while it was in the water.

After watching in silence for a while, Mike asked me what I thought we should do. We discussed the situation, and both agreed we would not interfere. This was the natural world as God ordained it to be. We were privileged to observe it in its glory. We were privileged to observe the first successful flight of an owl in nature. And we were privileged to observe this moment of failure and struggle for survival. We did not interfere, and soon the young owl stopped struggling and lay its head down in the water and drowned.

I have thought often of that day, and what lessons may come from it. What instincts told the adult owls that was the right time? Was it the right time? Is that the way God intends it to be for all species? Free to fly, and yet also free to fail; free, even, to die. Would more time have made a difference for the owl that drowned? What emotions did the adult owls experience, if any?

As I drift down the river of life, the answers to these questions are not yet known to me. Perhaps they never will be.

Carried On The Wind

A pine cone banged on the metal roof of my cabin and clattered down to the edge, catapulting off and leaving a brief silence before hitting the ground with a thud. After another silence the cabin creaked slightly in the morning breeze blowing in from the northeast side of the lake. I reluctantly slipped out of my down sleeping bag, tapped around on the floor with my feet until they found my slippers, stood up and pulled back the curtains to look.

Still dark outside with lots of stars in the sky, but the palest white light was coming up on the eastern horizon. White enough to define the tree line on the ridges east of the lake. I turned on the propane wall heater and listened to it tick and pop as it burned a little chill off the inside air, then shuffled into the kitchen to start some coffee. I went back to bed and listened to the coffee pot tick and pop, and the resident owl just up the hill was awake and calling out the question of the day. I wondered how many whos are carried on the wind unanswered?

Steaming hot Verona coffee, extra strong and black as night, is the precursor to answering any difficult morning questions. That and a steaming hot shower. As a contra-point to the hot coffee and hot shower, I cracked the bathroom window open to let the shower steam out, and the cold morning wind hit my wet body and briefly sent me shivering.

I pulled on my boxers, my Kirkland work jeans, a Pendleton wool shirt over a cotton undershirt, hiking socks, Wolverine steel-toed work boots, and a gray nylon "wool" beanie cap. Then I stepped out into the waning darkness to greet the day, and headed for Inspiration Point to watch the sunrise.

Hard rains during the week before had left the ground outside rutted and wet, and left the air smelling piney and fresh and damp. I'd heard there had been a lot of lightning strikes in the area the previous week, and one Southern California Edison worker had been struck by lightning but was o.k. Two trees just up the hill from my cabin had been struck by lightning, leaving barkless scars winding down their trunks all the way to the ground, like pine-tree candy canes. Long strips of bark were thrown from the trees and the bare-wood scars, about four-inches wide on one tree and running the length of the tree, and about ten inches wide on the other tree and only running from mid-tree to the ground, were still wet and fresh. The trees would be o.k. too, I figured.

.

Snow tipped the top of Kaiser Peak overlooking the far side of the lake, and fog was rising off the lake into the crisp, cold air. Droplets of moisture clung to the bushes and grasses. As I got higher up on the mountain I could hear the morning wind roaring softly in the treetops overhead. The sounds of the forest birds were carried on the wind, and long strings of spider webs kept blowing by, as well, all headed west to the open sky on the drop side of Inspiration Point.

As I approached Inspiration Point, beams of sunlight poked upward through the trees on the eastern ridge, signalling the sunrise was imminent. A large pool of fog had gathered in a bowl on a ledge of the ridge to the east and was spilling down the mountain over the top of a rain-swollen stream. The fog covered the stream about halfway down the ridge and then dissipated, exposing the stream and creating the illusion that the fog became the stream.

The morning light cast a rosy glow on Inspiration Point, and on the ridges and valley to the west. As the sun crested the eastern ridge, beams of light shone over the mountains into the Huntington Lake basin, and the two crosses on Inspiration Point lit up.


I sat for a moment near the place where Sue's ashes lay and contemplated the majesty of a new day. Was her spirit present every morning to witness these new days dawning? Did she prefer the equally stunning sunsets? Or was she some other place altogether, watching over her girls, or carrying out some heavenly assignment?



I let a few tears roll down my cheeks unmolested and noticed the spider webs, drifting by in the wind, had lodged in the trees and were stretched out and flapping in the wind and, back-lit by the morning sun, looked a bit like tinsel on a Christmas tree. My questions were momentarily suspended there like those spider webs, and then, like the owl's who, were also carried away on the wind unanswered.


Then, as if they had suddenly appeared, I noticed the power lines snaking their way across the mountain, and the hum of the turbine-powered generators down in Big Creek Powerhouse Number One. I saw the penstock pipes carrying water to power the turbines, and the relay antenna that sends signals to control the gate valves on the dams. And walking down the hill, I saw the cell phone towers gleaming silver against the blue sky in the morning sun and heard the muffled sound of their gas motors.

A dead tree stood next to a silver cell phone tower. Dead trees stood in the forest all around. Some of the dead trees had fallen on the ground and were decaying, but new trees and bushes were growing all around. Then, somewhere in the distance I heard the report of a deer hunter's rifle. And the sounds of the rifle and of the cell tower motors and the hum of the powerhouse were also carried on the wind, together with the sounds of the forest birds and the rain-fresh piney smells, and the smell of smoke from the morning fires of the few remaining people at the lake, and the smell of coffee, and all the unanswered questions.

And somewhere in the mix of waking and sunrise and birth and creation and dawning and death and decay and the world being powered and lit both by the sun and by falling water and the works of man, somewhere between the sounds of birds and the smells of rain and coffee and fire, and somewhere between the unanswered questions of an owl and a man, I heard the sound of God's Spirit being carried on the wind, and sensed his presence around me, and yet again my heart was filled with song.

...

As I meandered down the mountain, I thought of this poem, and of it's author, and of the identity and mystery of the Breeze.


Paige Meadows Wildflowers

Paige Meadows wildflowers waiting for the Breeze
to carry you into cheerful song,
each taking your part as he orders your colorful chorus of voices.

Bold, hearty voices bursting forth in vivid melody.
Light, airy voices swaying your sweet harmony.
Delicate, dainty voices fluttering your fair notes.
What a fragrant sound your choir makes!

Now the Breeze fades away, the concert is ended
and your joyful tune resonates upon the meadow.
You bid him return again today to spread your symphony
to fields not yet blessed with cheerful song.

And their concert will linger in their meadow,
waiting for the Breeze to carry them again.

- by Cheri Sarmento