PART l
Poem for Panel Ponder
Reeking walls of rotted stone
like webs across the ground
Paint pictures of a human crime
and I'll plot out the sounds.
A man is inside sitting,
He's all but half his mind.
His bodies scarred from hunger.
He's slowly going blind.
Who could stand to see him suffer,
a single minute more.
If you've any heart at all,
you'll help me "close his door"
Moody Blues------------overture----------something like that
PART ll
FAITH OF A MUSTARD SEED
My Grandmother taught me that God had fashioned life to succeed with the simple faith found in a mustard seed. A mustard seed is very very small, in fact you need hundreds of them cupped in your hand before you can feel them.
Grandma told me when she was young, to gather all the faith she might need for a lifetime, she ran though her fathers fields of mustard seed to collect, in the folds of her skirts and apron, enough faith to forever sustain her.
I have maintained this simple faith, first lent to me, then inherited, from her collection. Despite great intellectual turmoil I endure endless contradictions of my own simple perceptions of God and this great creation with continuing faith even to this very moment supplied to me by Grandma.
My Grandmother was tending her garden and canning fruits and vegetables and making apple pies and freezing for winter one day and then in a long moment she died.
My sister and I were with her the very short 36 hours before her end on earth.
My Grandmother taught me that God had fashioned life to succeed with the simple faith found in a mustard seed. A mustard seed is very very small, in fact you need hundreds of them cupped in your hand before you can feel them.
Grandma told me when she was young, to gather all the faith she might need for a lifetime, she ran though her fathers fields of mustard seed to collect, in the folds of her skirts and apron, enough faith to forever sustain her.
I have maintained this simple faith, first lent to me, then inherited, from her collection. Despite great intellectual turmoil I endure endless contradictions of my own simple perceptions of God and this great creation with continuing faith even to this very moment supplied to me by Grandma.
My Grandmother was tending her garden and canning fruits and vegetables and making apple pies and freezing for winter one day and then in a long moment she died.
My sister and I were with her the very short 36 hours before her end on earth.
At first we prayed for her recovery. We looked in the "good book" there by her hospital bed for some pointers to get her better and to give us some comfort.
It seemed to work too, she stayed alive and then stayed alive some more despite a couple of strokes while there in her bed. When the doctor came to call she rallied the best she could though at all other times she was seemingly falling into a deeper and deeper coma.
Earlier she responded to our loving but frightened voices with calm. Now, her eyes flitted back and forth beneath her tightly closed lids as if she was viewing great adventures from her past. We thought because she had survived great calamities in the past she would get past this one too. Despite her advanced age of 94 we still knew she was strong and God willing we would see her through till she was again well.
The nurses came and went through many shift changes doing all the professional things they had developed skills to do. Till one, named Angel, came in who had a gift to give beyond her ability to deliver care. The one called Angel asked if the doctor had briefed us lately as to the ultimate condition of our Grandmother. At that moment we both knew. I said "she isn't going to make it is she" Angel shook her head and went on to comfort us and explain that Grandma was holding on so as not to let us down.
She suggested we take a break and go somewhere for awhile outside the hospital.
The nurses came and went through many shift changes doing all the professional things they had developed skills to do. Till one, named Angel, came in who had a gift to give beyond her ability to deliver care. The one called Angel asked if the doctor had briefed us lately as to the ultimate condition of our Grandmother. At that moment we both knew. I said "she isn't going to make it is she" Angel shook her head and went on to comfort us and explain that Grandma was holding on so as not to let us down.
She suggested we take a break and go somewhere for awhile outside the hospital.
We picked the destination of Bald Peak, a place that we had picnicked with Grandma and Grandpa in the past. It was not far away, maybe 12 miles in all, from the hospital parking lot to the top of the hill.
It was a terrible foggy Oregon day with rain falling and then misting lighter then again another downpour and so on. About twenty minutes went by and the clouds parted in one little section allowing the sun to beam from its location in the great beyond down the hill toward the hospital in Hillsboro where Grandma lay all alone. We quickly had a horrible realization. I jumped back in the car, turned the ignition key on and the radio started playing. The arteries supplying blood for oxygen to my brain strained as I tried to interpret the words of this song and the message that faithfully resides in me now.
Once upon a time
Once when you were nine.
I remember skies.
The universal eye.
I wonder where you are?
I wonder where you are?
I wonder if you'll still remember
once upon a time in your wildest
faithful dreams.
Once the world was new
and all I loved in you
Love was all you knew
and all I knew was you
I wonder if you know
I wonder if you think about it
Once upon a time in your
Once upon a time in your
wildest faithful dreams---------------------------------
When we returned to the hospital room Nurse Angel was gone and so was my Grandmother!
Moody Blues-------------------The End--------Or something like that
GENERAL CHOW brings us this weeks article without comment beyond that "Life is never at end"
Why not celebrate it privately with a bowl of our very fine food product?
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