awake & linking : Orion Magazine | posted by Shaun O
The latest Orion Magazine has a splendid article sitting at the Coda - A Window, by Hank Lentfer.
He writes,
"If I were imprisoned in a windowless cell and allowed out for just one week a year I'd choose seven days centered in September. I'd come home to my Alaska-cabin-in-the-woods and clean a few pounds of spruce needles out of my neglected kayak, oil up a fishing reel, pack a three-day lunch, and paddle upriver. I'd float to the top of the tide, tie the boat to an alder, and follow the bear-shit-splattered trail up stream. I'd sit on the wet grass, listen to the rain tap away on my sou'wester, and watch for the deep flash of coho in a dark pool. I'd then pray for luck, unwrap a sandwich and wait.
The luck I'd pray for and the answer I await is the voice of cranes. ..."
And he goes on to tell the beauty that the cranes impart to his life - opening windows in dark cells.
Tonight I've simply thought, what place and time would I want to be released to for a week? Where does freedom from a cell take me?
I'm disappointed that my own experience doesn't lend me to foretell of careening up streams in my kayak, following wild bear tracks ... And, honestly, I'm hoping that my answer might be different in the next five years.
Tonight my answer wades back to high school days at church, and specifically to one night. (I'd be interested to read other's answers in comments!)
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It is a Sunday evening in October in Irving, TX. I am part of a worship service called the "Union" at IBC, and somewhere in the closing set of worship songs (there would be a ton!) ... I slip out and down the dark hallways of the rest of the empty church and out the doors to the kids' playground. It is dark, streetlights in the distance, and after walking the grounds of the playground a couple times I finally sit on the small picnic bench at the edge of the environment. I pick up the tiny pebbles at my feet, dismantling pieces of the playground floor, and I talk to God.
I really talk - cause God is really there; I am not praying. I aim a fiery monologue at the starry sky, and though the expanse is huge - planets and firmament, clouds, airplanes, rooftops and trees - I still know (beyond knowing) that I am heard.
I have a moment.
At some point later (because time simply has no meaning at all now) I say goodbye. I drop, toss, and fling the gravel and pace slowly back inside and back to the rest of life. The group heads to Braums, or Nate's, or everyone simply goes home.
And I spend the week trying to live up to what I dreamed and promised (and was promised) on that night.
That would be my week free from windowless prison. Free for that open night of back and forth and meaning and change on the dark playground.
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