Shadows Come

I listen to the voice of the train making it’s way east, a cacophony of whistle and thunder and clattering, muted by distance, but sharp edged as it resonates across the river. Now the whistle blows – but growing quickly fainter… the thundering…the clattering… gone. And now the sounds of the birds gathered at the feeder chatter back into my hearing, the swish of a passing car on the road below, all cocooned by this village’s velvet silence.

These homes.., these slightly tilting, nary-a-plumb-line-to-be-found homes stand as sentinels along the banks of the Ohio. I often wonder who their owners were, that such a small town could boast this avenue of once grand ladies, their grandeur rather forlorn, more so for never having been abandoned. And all these lady’s feet have been washed by the Ohio River, indeed, that river threatened many a time to climb right up their skirts…….but they stood. Their foundations shift, cracks write long lines of narrative across walls that have seen more human lives than can ever be written, all part of a village with roots over two hundred years old, built when the land supported people who were, well, true Americans……

The wind skitters through the branches now, trailing a shawl through early fallen leaves across lawns grown weary of trumpeting summer’s fecundity. Autumn has sent harbingers of her arrival and summer seems eager to bid adieu.

Normally I would snuggle cozily in the anticipation of winter’s cold, but now upon this land march harbingers trumpeting ill winds and evil weather unlike any we have ever known in all of our nation’s history. There may be no warmth to snuggle in and our hands may be stayed from putting food in the larder, and the grandchildren we normally would be buying early Christmas gifts for become the sum and substance of the only reason we live because now…now we can’t see their lives unfolding as ours did, or as our parents and grandparents did. We are realizing that we have to imagine a future where they must learn to fight for their very lives and Christmas, if even allowed to continue, will never be the same ….. Is this what people in the past felt like when the shadow of war and tribulation approached?

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Posted by zee on Sep 5, 2011 in Ruminations, Survival | 2 comments

2 Comments

  1. David Yotham
    Sep 10, 2011

    We are here called upon to behold blemishes in character which we are to shun, excellencies we are to imitate, and advantages we are to acquire. Martha, who had mistaken our Lord’s character and desires, and thinking nothing too good for our Lord and his disciples, had provided an entertainment which was not only unnecessary, but which engrossed all her time and attention, and thereby deprived herself of an opportunity to listen to our Saviour’s discourse. In her anxiety to do all that she considered the occasion required, she was “troubled about many things, being cumbered with much serving.” While her sister Mary — all reverence, all attention, and all composure — was feeding on the doctrines of eternal life, sat at the Saviour’s feet, thus wisely improving the opportunity given for the good of her soul, Martha rudely disturbed the devotions of the company, and interrupted our Lord’s discourse, in her haste and heat loses her self-command; she condemns her sister as idle and indifferent, and asked the Lord to interfere, saying, ” Bid my sister that she help me.” Jesus, instead of doing this, reproves her, while he applauded the conduct of Mary.

    However anxious we may be about many things, one thing alone is really indispensable, and demands our attention. It is hearing the Saviour’s words; it is an attention to the soul; it is religion. Other things are comparatively insignificant, and less than nothing and vanity; this is all-important. Other things are accidentally needful; this is essentially so. Other things are occasionally needful; this is invariably so. Other things are partially needful; this is universally so. Needful for prosperity and adversity; needful for the body and the soul; needful for time and for eternity. Some things are needful for some individuals but not for others, but this is needful for all. Needful for kings and subjects; needful for rich and poor; needful for old and young. While the many seem to be prizing and pursuing every thing in preference to this, we find David and Paul reducing every concern into one. ” One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” “This is one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before.”

    Observe, piety is a matter of personal conviction and choice. Thus, it is said, “Mary hath chosen that good part.” Thus, David says, “I have chosen the way of truth.” No man ever entered into heaven accidentally; no man was ever forced into it against his will. God makes us sensible of our need of salvation above every thing else, so that we desire it, we seek it, we pray for it, and then, when we obtain it, it makes us blest. It relieves our wants, fulfils our desires, and accomplishes our hopes. Observe, lastly, real godliness is not only a necessary but a durable acquisition. “Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her.” Permanency adds bliss to bliss: some things are not worth preservation: but an invaluable treasure, a thing absolutely needful, will awaken all our concern, and we shall be anxious not only to possess it, but to retain it. The blessings we derive from godliness are ours forever, laid up where “moth and rust cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.”

  2. zee
    Sep 19, 2011

    Well, I tell you what. It is taking me about as long to get through the Screwtape Letters as it has for me to respond to your comment David. And for the same reason. Avoidance. But, this particular bit of wisdom that you suggest I ponder seems to be one God, perhaps, also wants me to focus on. This evening when I forced myself to continue with Screwtape, I opened to the following….

    “Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind. Our choice between them raises important questions.

    The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

    Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men’s affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over. The pleasure is just the part of the process which we regret and would exclude if we could do so without losing the sin; it is the part contributed by the Enemy, and therefore experienced in a Present. The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward. ”

    http://bit.ly/p0WERp (PDF)

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