At the Shore of the Red Sea

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by Luke Krueger


Dramatis Personae:

Elihu, male: dubious of Moses’ plan.

Miriam, female: Moses’ sister who trusts in his seeming to lack a plan.

Place: At the shore of the Red Sea


This play was commissioned by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in DeKalb, Illinois in 2015 and performed as part of the Holy Week Service.

Miriam was played by Madeline Lyons.

Elihu was played by Ryan Massie.

Production note: For the performance large swaths of shiny blue cloth were placed in the main aisle. When the sea begins to rumble, the children of the congregation made the material undulate like waves. Upon the sea opening they made walls of blue alongside the aisle. Miriam and Elihu exited down this path, and they encouraged others of the congregation to follow them through the sea, so to speak.


Miriam and another Israelite, Elihu, are at the front of the congregation, in front of the alter. Miriam is writing calmly. Elihu paces, fretting. Miriam seems un-phased, calm, a contrast to her companion.

                                    MIRIAM

What’d he say to you?

                                    ELIHU

“You only have to keep still.”

                                    MIRIAM

So…? Listen. Stay still. You’re getting me worked up.

                                    ELIHU

Can you believe that though? Keep still? Keep still? Don’t really have much of a choice. There’s a big swath of water in front of me, and Pharaoh’s army behind me. Keep still…that’s great advice. What a great leader. Know what I think? I think he doesn’t have clue what to do, and all he can say is, “Keep still.”  What a yutz. Bunch of desperate twaddle if you ask me.

                                    MIRIAM

Was that all he said, “Keep still?”

                                    ELIHU

He said something else about “Do not be afraid and stand firm” and then some nonsense that the Lord will deliver us. That we’ll be astonished by what the Lord will accomplish for us today. And I was like, “Moses, do you see that huge cloud of dust beyond the horizon? That’s Pharaoh and his army with spears, and chariots, and swords. And what have we got? Zilch! Bupkis!”

                                    MIRIAM

Did you really say that to him?

                                    ELIHU

(Beat) No. But I wanted to. I should’ve. You know what one guy said though, and I was like, “This guy gets it.” He says to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to the wilderness to die?” That was some serious chutzpah.

                                    MIRIAM

That was kind of snarky.

                                    ELIHU

Snarky? No, I was like, “Preach, brother!”

                                    MIRIAM

It was uncalled for.

                                    ELIHU

Uncalled for? It was the truth. You wanna know what was uncalled for, dragging us out here with no plan. I mean it all sounds great: “Turn the Nile into blood, frogs dropping from the sky, flies swarming, animals dying, and so on, and then that grand, ‘Let my people go’ pronouncement.” Sure, that all sounds great, but I mean, at any point did Moses forget the fact that if all that worked; and we are released from our bondage; and set free from Egypt: We’re still in the middle of a desert!

                                    MIRIAM

Aren’t you just a pleasant ray of sunshine. (Beat) If you’re not happy here, you don’t trust in Moses, well, you know where to find Pharaoh’s army. Go see if he’ll take you back. I’m sure he’ll be in a forgiving mood after that whole, death of the first-born male in every household thing.

                                    ELIHU

I’m sorry. I know Aaron and Moses are your brothers. I’m just, I’m a little dubious. Moses just doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. After we voiced our concerns, do you know what he did? Walked off and prayed. Said he needed to talk to God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any burning bushes anywhere, so I don’t know where he’s gonna find God around here. (Beat) What are you doing?

                                    MIRIAM

Writing a song.

                                    ELIHU

That’s nice…and completely inappropriate.

                                    MIRIAM

Oh, come on!

                                    ELIHU

We have the biggest army in the world bearing down on us, and you’re writing a song?

                                    MIRIAM

Wanna hear it?

                                    ELIHU

(Mocking) Wanna hear it? No, I don’t wanna hear it. You know what I want? I want to not die. (Short pause) How can you be so calm?

                                    MIRIAM

Because I trust in the Lord and my brother.

                                    ELIHU

You trust in the Lord and your brother. Well, shut the front door!

                                    MIRIAM

Shut the front door is right. Because we did, and we painted lamb’s blood on that door. And the Angel of Death passed over us. All this time, all these things, the river of blood, the frogs, the insects, none of that resonated with you?

                                    ELIHU

(Beat) I confess, I was somewhat impressed. (Looking off) Look at your brother. What is he doing now?

                                    MIRIAM

And you haven’t noticed that since we’ve been talking, a giant cloud has rolled in and been placed between us and Pharaoh’s army?

                                    ELIHU

(Still looking off, not hearing her) He’s standing there with his staff in hand, arms raised, just looking at the sea. What’s he thinking? He’s just gonna open up the sea? Now look at him. (Yelling off) Oh, yeah, Moses, I’m sure just waving your hand over the sea is going to make it just split open.

The sea opens up. Elihu is flabbergasted.

                                   MIRIAM

Did my brother say anything else to you?

                                   ELIHU

(Astonished) “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

                                   MIRIAM

So are you going to stand there gawking, or are you going to wade into the path God has cleared for us.

                                    ELIHU

You first.

                                    MIRIAM

You still don’t believe.

                                    ELIHU

Miriam, I’m a pragmatist. I believe by some miracle the sea has parted, but what’s to say Pharaoh won’t be able to pursue us through this path?

                                    MIRIAM

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

                                    ELIHU

What’s that?

                                    MIRIAM

The song I was writing. He hasn’t taken us this far to let us perish. (Beat. Elihu looks down the aisle, the open path of the sea.) Age before beauty. (Elihu is hesitant.) We are no longer to keep still. Go!

They both exit down the aisle.

Curtain


Luke is an active member of the Episcopal Church in Vermont where he serves in a number of roles at the parish (vestry), diocesan (chair of the Missional Vitality task force), and national (alternate delegate for the House of Deputies at the General Convention) levels. Additionally, in service to the church, Luke serves on the board of the Brookhaven Treatment and Learning Center. He is currently in the process of heeding the call to serve as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Luke lives in Manchester, Vermont with his wife and two daughters. He teaches English at Arlington Memorial High School, where Norman Rockwell’s children attended school. Though a playwright, Luke’s poem “A God Joke” was published by the Purpled Nail.

Gospel Fish

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by Garry Breland


He worked so hard to select his rod
Then the line of proper weight and taper
Knotted to backing and wound onto the reel
To be finished with leader and tippet
For the finest presentation.
With greatest care to entomology
He matched the hatch with hand-tied
Caddis, coachman, stonefly, or midge.
And his cast was elegant of loop and lay
The fly resting light as a feather
Upon the surface film, and then
The retrieve—masterful to entice—
While we watched without a rise.
Rank on rank and row on row,
Pew by pew our upturned faces
Fooled the fisherman, for we were there
Not to feed but to see the show.
An hour a week we masquerade as trout,
But really we are just suckers.


Garry Breland lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he recently retired (mostly) from a 38-year career in higher education. Now he has more time for writing and freelance editing. His wife is an English professor and also his best friend and muse for much of his poetry.

One of the Last Strolls North

by Iván Brave


Teresa burst out of the tattoo parlor, half her chest in bandages.

Middle of a day, middle of the week. And Teresa dropped by an ice cream parlor, to get her favorite. Pecan. They only had vanilla bean, though, her second favorite. The young man behind the glass, with too many pimples and an overbite, avoided her gaze, as he plopped the scoops for Teresa.

“You’ve never seen a cancer patient before?”

The boy grimaced. “That’ll be 6 dollars.”

“I ordered three scoops, not two.”

“9 dollars, please.”

He acts as if he were dying, thought Teresa. She threw herself out.

Her heart was slamming against the cotton bandage. Her fresh tattoo. Not even finishing the vanilla bean, passing a public hospital on 2nd, Teresa hurled her cone at the tall building, flung that ice cream high. But her arm was weak, so it did not hit the window she had aimed for. Instead, splattering in the parking lot, somewhere past the wall. But without a sound, causing a sense of disappointment and vague anguish to course through Teresa.

“Get home, take my meds, pass out. Get home, take my meds, pass out.” Teresa was talking to herself now. “Home, meds, pass out.” And after 11 years in New York, including 4 of college, she finally felt a part of the city now, just the part that is always dying. Making way for the new. All these strangers.

When Teresa awoke, the stickiness of not knowing what day it was crawled out of her throat and into her eyes, which she rubbed, before removing the bandage to see the art over her mastectomy.

The bandage burbled to tear from the skin, snatching bits of scab and a husk of dry blood as it lifted. There. Fleshy, inky, but arresting. Her first tattoo, her I-miss-you, over the scarred and empty left side of her chest. A quote from her late fiancé, penned on a scroll, under an eagle.

Wash it with soap, she remembered. Tears flowing. A smile in bloom.


Iván Brave lives and works in his hometown of Houston, Texas, where he begins his PhD in Spanish Creative Writing this fall. The themes dear to him are youth, pop music, and the artist struggle. Notably, he does not have any tattoos. Learn more at www.ivanbrave.com.

Gift

by Diane Elayne Dees


Thunder all night,
trees heavy with relentless rain
crashing into transformers—
no sun, no light,
no joy, no sleep,
but then: a green
dragonfly on an
orange lily.


Diane Elayne Dees lives in Covington, Louisiana, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. In addition to writing poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, Diane publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

“Jupiter’s Song,” “Sometimes God Speaks to Me,” and “Pachydermia” by Emily Vieweg

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Jupiter’s Song

Dear Ones,

I have become what I wished.
I have become the rain
the ocean the sky and
the wind.

I brush past your cheek
and muss your hair
just after you have fixed it.

I am the hurricane
flooding environments with
knowledge and equipment
central to all-knowing.

I am the rain.
I made it.

Cry for the pain, but please,
not for the loss, for I have become
one with The Creator and
we argue over the
smallest ordeals.

Be at peace, friends,
for you will see me –

in every raindrop
and every mid-winter snowflake

my blizzard will coat your heart
in love and life and remember,
compacted snow
brings shelter
and warmth.

I am the rain.
I made it.

So smile as you remember my spirit,
my soul is resting in unity
with nature.

I made it.

Do not follow me, dear ones –
You have more to do there.
I can handle this end of things.

Oh, guess what?

Children love to splash in my puddles
and jump into my snowbanks
and surf on my waves where they
smile and rejoice because

I am the rain.
I made it.

I am surrounded by the wind
and the sky and nature’s secrets
I wish I could share

Feel the breeze,
taste the air,

I am with you.

I am the rain.


Sometimes God Speaks to Me

Not Joan of Arc,
but the flames.

 
Pachydermia

I wonder if elephants really have
an amazing memory, or if their
matriarch has just been doing the job
for so long, she knows exactly where
the necessities are hiding.

Graceful giants roam the deserts
and jungles,
majesties of their beings –

we should pay more attention to
these professors of life
following an established path
left by ancestresses

still, among us are rogues
who dare to follow Frost instead,
because sometimes the only reason a path
was less traveled
is because no one
dared to peek.


Emily Vieweg is a poet originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Her debut full length poetry collection “but the flames” is available through Finishing Line Press. Emily’s work has been published in Soundings Review, Art Young’s Good Morning, Proximity Magazine, Indolent Books “What Rough Beast,” and more. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota where she is a mother of two, pet parent, and university program assistant.

Real Presence

by Barry Casey


“In the beginning,” said the Word.
And it was good. Later, we understood.

The world is constant creation,
one luminous drop after another.

The beginnings coalesce, adhere,
elongate, divide, mound roundly.

They meld into one another,
slide aside, strewn in wondrous confusion.

A child stretches to catch a drop
of Beginning, fresh in the moment.

This will be her memory. It will
glisten, evolve, luminesce in time.

She will remember it most clearly
at her end, like a benediction.


Barry Casey believes that faith and doubt combine with mystery for a working life-map. He is a Christian influenced by Taoism. He taught philosophy, ethics, and communications for thirty-seven years. He is retired from teaching and writes and edits full time.

Bandit

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by Sarah Holly Bryant


I have always known
the worth of Bandit
I have always known
his loss would be profound
I have always known
we were one
he calmed my restless spirit
he chased away what I could not
he heard what I could not
he guarded me when I needed guarding
he was a true Lhasa
the ancient guardian
whose spirit has reunited with
his ancestors some 4,000 years ago


Sarah Holly Bryant lives in Vermont with her husband and two dogs. She’s an MFA student at Bennington College and loves to hike, fly fish and talk about the merits of New Jersey.

Christmas Day

by Jack Eisenman

They say he’s king
Born of royal blood.
Heir to a throne
Unclaimed.
From heaven he comes
With winged hosts
And shouts of joy.
This monarch, they say,
Rescues captives,
Sets free the chained
To live unfettered.
Creator and sustainer.
God, they say.
Alpha and Omega.

But today, he’s a babe
Wrapped in a blanket,
Cradled in his mother’s arms.


Jack Eisenman is Professor Emeritus of Education and Religion at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has written poetry since the early 1960’s. Jack enjoys creating poems of a religious/spiritual theme.

1952

by Scott G. Harvey

Creating pre-recorded lectures had become second nature to me, as the global pandemic raged into its ninth month. It felt all too normal to be dressed in sweatpants and a soup-stained hoodie sitting all alone in the basement speaking into a USB microphone. A cognitive leap had to be made to grasp that hundreds of students would ultimately hear the hopefully eloquent and informed utterances streaming from my mouth and into the empty room. Most would undoubtedly fast forward, tune out, or skip the lecture all together, but I still felt a sense of deep responsibility to instill some element of scientific literacy into the minds of college students who would one day govern me, teach my children, and/or sell me tacos.
The day’s lesson was focused on psychological research methods, and in particular, differentiating between anecdotal and empirical evidence. I sincerely hoped to challenge, and maybe even offend, my psychic believing, ghost fearing, god loving students with well-reasoned arguments regarding the unrivaled supremacy of the scientific enterprise and the nature of systematically-gathered, unbiased, replicable evidence. It was for these reasons that I was deeply unsettled, yet perversely comforted, when I did a simple mathematical calculation later that afternoon.
In a feeble attempt to add meaning to my life, and someday outlive my corporeal form, a few years back I’d commenced writing a novel. The recently completed and released book had been met with tepid reception at best, yet I was nonetheless proud of my creation. In an effort to spread word of my book baby, I had been running a 5-day free download promo of the eBook. Being new to the publishing world, I had no idea how many people, if any, would download my humble work. That afternoon, after teaching the dust bunnies in my basement about scientific reasoning, I added up the daily totals and was pleasantly surprised to see that the book had been downloaded one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two times. I was satisfied and hopeful that this newfound exposure would plant seeds that would permit my literary creation to spread far and wide.
The book had been dedicated to my father who had passed away exactly one month earlier after a 29 ½ year battle with multiple myeloma. My dad was a loving, intelligent, and wonderful man who fought long and hard for his family. A former physician, he was also an incredibly intelligent person and the most rational and logical guy you could ever hope to meet. He was the first person to read my completed manuscript in its entirety and was proud, and likely amazed, that this child of his, who used to begrudgingly do his homework, had now written a novel just for fun. Although long anticipated, my father’s death took an emotional toll on myself and our family. My wife was pleasantly surprised, and slightly unsettled, to find her typically anti-social and emotionally numb spouse teary eyed most days.
It was while walking my dog through the brisk December air later that afternoon that it struck me. One thousand nine hundred and fifty-two. 1952. The year of my father’s birth. Of all of the numbers that the downloads of my book could’ve accumulated to, it had to be this one. Having inherited my father’s skeptical disposition, I wanted to chalk it up to random chance, a selective abstraction, or some other biased cognitive grasp for meaning. On the other hand, a small part of me liked imagining, if only for a few moments with the cool breeze caressing my face, that my dad had found a way to signal to me from the other side. That there indeed was another side to speak of. And that he was okay. I was left with a profound sense of comfort at the beautiful absurdity of existence. Everything was as it was meant to be.
It wasn’t long before I chastised myself for entertaining thoughts based upon such anecdotal premises and was soon amazed at the clever neural firing of my left prefrontal cortex with its insatiable need to make sense of the cosmos.

SCOTT G. HARVEY teaches psychology at SUNY Buffalo State and resides in the Niagara Region of Ontario with an ever-changing mixture of humans, cats, dogs, and chickens. He is the author of the philosophically-infused bildungsroman Savagely Noble. His short-fiction has appeared in Short Story Avenue.

Shower Window

by Savannah Voth


See the world
encapsulated in a foggy rectangle: a green leaf
spotted with sky blue
or a blue leaf spotted
with the various green shades
of trees, bushes, shrubs,
shifting slightly in the breeze.
Roses bursting out, here and there,
pea flowers peeking from
behind the bean leaves,
winks of pink in a green sea.
As the mist on the glass
increases and drops begin
to roll down, it is finally clear to me
the pointillism of it all. A trembling
in blue and yellow, red and green,
like something Seurat might see
from his own shower window.
Vibrant vibrations, vast harmonies,
the overwhelming sense that
everything has a point,
polka dots dancing, part and particle
and petiole
of an immense organism.


Savannah Voth is a high school senior from California who loves to write and create art in many different forms.

Summer

August 15, 2021                              Volume 6: Issue 2


We are deep into the Summer doldrums here in Arizona. Everything slows down and we move slower as well. And yet, if we look around the world and to Washington, everything seems to be speeding up as we race toward the events of Revelation.

Stay tuned.

Meditation on Mark 1:13

by Paulette Callen


“…and He was with the wild beasts…”

He went into the wilderness to fast and pray. After forty days and nights they came as He knew they would and hoped they would not: fears, doubts, desires, despair. His humanness raged within Him. He cried for humanity and for Himself. He fought a human battle with only human weapons.

Ragged and weary, in unproud triumph, He lies in sand, awash in wind and sun, asleep. They come, one by one, and gather, silent as Quakers and just as full: the beasts.

No angel, Jew, or Gentile, but the lion stands in ageing majesty, against the sun — a cool shadow for His rest. Pariah dogs, lupine, devoted, he on one side, she on the other,         lick His face clean of tears and sweat, awakening Him to wolfy grins. The lizard, kaleidoscoping green and brown and rose, scuttles into the shelter of His sleeve, while the locust, God’s soldier, flutters to His knee to rest, all pink and glowing      in the sunset.  The vulture with feathers tucked modestly beneath her like a taffeta skirt, sits, a gleaming black matron, beside the school-girl dove who has followed Him and watched over Him since His cousin’s watery blessing.  The snake, pretty and sleek, coils humbly, contentedly, at His feet, shining like a jewel in the light of the rising moon. The ram, escaped from the safety and bloody end of the flock — gone wild, gone free — stands serene, blinking in the twilight. A desert rat, soft and brown, climbs into His lap, puts tiny feet up on His chest to examine Him, close, with earnest dark eyes and snuffling nostrils. Satisfied all is well with Him now, she scurries away on a private mission. The jackal, shying among the shadows, He calls into the circle.

Who knows the mind of a beast or the mind of God?  Who can tell what flows between?

The lion weeps as He strokes his shagged and scary face. Gripping the grizzled mane, He rises, and they lead Him to water. The rat erupts from a tiny dune with figs for His nourishment from a personal trove. Refreshed, He plays with them.  The dogs, wiggling, eager for games, play tag with Him.  The ram joins in.  The vulture and the dove, silhouetted against the moon, dance and dive to His applause, as the lizard somersaults in miraculous circles between earth and sky. The locust clings to His shoulder, informally keeping score. And the snake, rising in her delicate spiral, sways in soundless harmony to the rhythm of their play. The jackal chuckles, sprawled like a pup on the sand, belly up, feet akimbo, giving in to the joys of the romp. Even the lion remembers some kittenish glee in a mock wrestle with this gentle man.

I thought I heard an echo of something said at a place in the desert a long time ago, where a man went to find Himself and finally, breaking His solitude before His fast, sought the company of animals.  Why He did this is not so hard to fathom. Why does anyone seek the company of animals? For refreshment and companionship. Perhaps this man had deeper reasons.

The echo I hear is this: 

No more scapegoats, my friends. No more sacrifices. No more blood of the lamb on the altar stone. No more dead pigeons. No more an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I AM the eye. I AM the tooth. Humans are a blood-loving race. (The earth has never cried for blood, nor the heavens either.) Their hunger and thirst for flesh and blood shall be sated. I AM become you. And this is the beginning of the end.

And so, the lion wept.

They came, across miles, some of them, and formed a gathering: the lion, the ram, the jackal, and the locust, the lizard, pariah dogs, the snake, the vulture, the dove (she had never left Him), and the small brown rat….. they were there, on the misty heels of the angel who rolled away the stone, before the Marys, to greet Him in quiet, doubt-less welcome, when He walked out of the tomb.


Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.

Holy Spirit in the House

by Deborah LeFalle


I grew up on West 58th Street in Los Angeles, California during an era when neighbors looked out for one another, children played outside in summer until dark, and borrowing a cup of sugar was commonplace. Our neighborhood consisted of modest craftsman homes, industrial businesses adjacent to the Slauson Avenue railroad tracks, and small storefront establishments of various types. Of all the storefronts I remember, there was one in particular that stood out. It was a tiny Pentecostal church situated on the corner of West 55th Street and Denker Avenue. Since our family did not own a car we mostly walked where we needed to go; and my sisters and I would get an earful whenever we had occasion to pass by this church on a Sunday afternoon or evening. We would hear jubilant sounds of hand clapping, foot stomping, piano playing, tambourine beating, and voices singing, shouting, wailing, praising, and talking-in-tongue (though we did not know what this was at the time). The whole building seemed to rock. From up to a block away in either direction we knew in an instant when a worship service was underway. The double entrance doors were positioned diagonally to the corner roughly ten feet from the curb, and I always wanted to stop and peek inside but could never muster up the courage.

            My earliest recollection of exposure to religion dates back to Bowen Memorial Methodist Church on Trinity Street in the Historic South-Central neighborhood of L.A. Its architecture was exquisite – a prominent treasure of the community in which it sat. I vividly remember Reverend Bain’s sermons that would begin low-key and composed, then gradually combust into a full-fledged hallelujah session in preparation for the alter call that would follow. His black velvet robe would dance with vigor across the pulpit platform trying its darndest to keep up with his high-energy gestures displayed in delivering the morning’s message. I especially liked Sunday School at Bowen because we got to color Bible story pictures and have tasty snacks if we were good. But when my aunt departed Bowen to follow Rev. Bain to another congregation he would lead, so went our transportation.

            Our family next found our way to Pilgrim Congregational Church on Normandie Avenue off 46th Street, within walking distance of our home. We met new friends, and my mother even taught Sunday School there. A pleasant and memorable experience, but with Mom’s longing to be back in the midst of the Methodist tradition, we eventually followed Rev. Bain as well and settled in at Vermont Square United Methodist Church on Budlong and Vernon Avenues. By now we had our first family car, a VW Bug. Since neither of my parents were drivers, my oldest sister who had just reached driving age and obtained her license was more than happy to shuttle us around. And although we had found our niche at Vermont Square and were very comfortable at this progressive church, thoughts of that tiny Pentecostal church on 55th and Denker never left my mind.

            I moved away from home after high school to attend college up north in San Jose. With newfound independence, organized religion took a back seat to my young adult collegiate life and I stopped going to church for a while. When I resumed attending church again several years later, it was at a Southern Baptist church where I remained for the next two decades. This church, however, was way on the other side of town and I yearned to find a church closer in – preferably in my immediate neighborhood within walking distance. For me, there is something very spiritual about walking to a place of worship.

            Some 30 years after first arriving in my new city, I found Lighthouse Community Church and it found me. Now closed, it was a small church right down the street from my home. Although many moons had come and gone since my childhood experiences, I never forgot my growing years in Los Angeles. And that curiosity about the goings-on behind those storefront doors way back when? Interestingly, Lighthouse was of the Pentecostal faith… and I was exultant I finally got the chance to peek inside!


Deborah LeFalle is a former college educator who started writing in her retirement. Besides writing she enjoys being involved in the arts and humanities, digging into her family’s past, and spending time outdoors communing with nature. She resides in California’s Bay Area where she has authored two chapbooks.

The Bristol Dogs

by Paulette Callen


Perhaps it was the implausible drama; the extreme contrast from dark to light, warm to cold, death to life; the inexplicability of it and the impossibility of describing the depth and nature of my experience, but I never told anyone about it — this tiny event that unfolded as a gift from and a glimpse into a universe that is essentially loving.  That’s how it felt at the time.  And still does.

To understand my enchantment, for that is what it was, one has to understand my feeling for dogs.  Unless we hurt them and warp their natures, turning them insane — to either aggression or fearfulness — dogs are possessed of all the goodness and joy and altruism that humans only ever aspire to.  I think dogs are the angels among us.  I have experienced first-hand their intelligence, compassion, intuition; their living-in-the-moment joy, their loyalty, and devotion.

The place is Bristol, South Dakota; the time, January during the three-day blizzard of 2012.  I am staying in the nursing home where my mother is struggling to die.  The nurses called me to come back from my home in New York.  She is unresponsive, they told me.  But she isn’t.  She bats their hands away if they so much as try to moisten her lips.  She doesn’t want to be touched.  I don’t know if she knows I’m here.  I do know that she wouldn’t care if she did.  Her room is dark and foul with the rankness of her dying breaths.  Her eyes are completely black from renal failure. I’ve never seen her so thin.  I’ve never seen her without her teeth. The person in the bed looks nothing like my mother.  

In my first novel, I wrote a scene where Gustie, after sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one for days, ventures out and loses her way in a blizzard.  She is guided home by deer —phantoms, the spirits of deer that no longer exist in that time and place.

The blizzard ends. I go outside for my first walk since I began her deathbed vigil.  The sky is sapphire blue over a landscape of brilliant, sparkling white, unbroken snow.  I’m numb and feel disconnected from ordinary life.

I blink in the unmitigated brightness of snow and sun and sky, which seem to reflect each other, exponentially intensifying the brilliance of each.  Shimmering white, ethereal white, a whiteness not possible in the city, a whiteness that bespeaks beginning-of-the-world purity and cleanness stretches as far as I can see — a considerable distance as there is little to break the view.  Bristol is a thriving community, population 341.  The nursing home perches on a small rise at the edge of town, and in a town this small, you are never far from wide open spaces. Only the sidewalk around the nursing home has been shoveled, and only a small area in the parking lot has been cleared.  Suddenly, as if materializing out of the light itself, in the distance appears a dark spot that, as it gets closer, takes the shape of a brown dog, laughing mouth, flapping tongue, bounding through the snow.  Barreling straight toward me. A young Hershey lab.  He is warm, as though cold and snow do not touch him.  He leaps around me and up, resting his paws on my shoulders and I embrace him; swept into his luminous eyes, I return his smile.  And then, out of the same ether appears a black dog, leaping joyously through the snow.  He is older, more filled out, but also warm and sleek.  His dark eyes are large and lustrous, and I feel seen.  My first thought is Are you real?

They clearly are friends and play with each other and with me, and even as I play with them and pet them and allow them to leap up on me, I am not sure that they are real dogs.  I’m feeling like the character in the novel of my own creation.

When their exuberance carries them off, bounding through the snow and out of my sight, I realize that my face is near frozen and I should go inside.  A lady in a wheelchair parked by the window greets me: “I thought they were going to knock you down!” and then I know they were flesh and blood.  When I ask one of the nurses who lives in Bristol about them, she tells me they are strays.  Hunters often abandon their dogs here, she says.  A woman feeds them and takes them in out of the cold.

They were not spirit dogs but dogs with spirit, the spirit of generous joy and friendship and delight in being alive.  I’d never seen them before. I never saw them again.  They came to me at just that moment as a gift.  Nothing and no one living or dead could have refreshed me, comforted me, as they did.

Not the nursing home chaplain, a kind woman who came into the room the day before, sat down (uninvited) and asked if she could pray with me.  The asking was in such a way as to make me believe that she needed it, and I said “You can pray for my mother if you wish.”  It is not for me to deny others their prayers, their comfort, but in my mind I screamed, If God answered prayer, do you think my mother would be lying here like this, rasping out every breath, for days and days?  (Why does God have to be begged and cajoled into doing the right thing, anyway?  And when he doesn’t, why do we let him off the hook?)  So, the chaplain prayed.  I did not.  I fancied that she left, puzzled or pitying. 

Had my mother’s death been peaceful, serene, like the deaths described in all the books I’d read on dying, or like I’d heard others describe the last moments of their loved ones (“she saw the Lord,” “he saw the light”), I’d have maybe murmured a prayer, but it wasn’t.  Her dying was hard to the last second. She died with a snarl on her lips and black eyes that seemed to see the minions of hell coming for her.  The nurse said, “This is often the case with Alzheimer’s patients.”  I see.  Then dying is wholly dependent on the dying person’s state of mind.  There is nothing objective at work here?

The nurses left me as soon as they had pronounced her dead.  I tried to close her eyes.  They would not close.  Even this! I thought.  She had never allowed me to do anything for her.  Even this.  I tried again and then left them for the undertaker or someone with pennies in their pocket.

What did the dogs do that the chaplain could not?  They gave me the experience of joy, connection, beauty, fun — not just the wish for the promise of it.  They showed me the other side of the nature of things.  The sad side, the darker side I’d been living, in that dark, rank, room, and that is the nature of things — everything dies.  Even stars.  But the flip side is that what lives can live in joy.  Asking the question, Where’s God in all this? and trying to answer it, does not increase our happiness.  Playing in the snow with a couple of dogs does.

This true story is in a small anthology that no one has heard of, let alone read, called “Epiphany” published in 2015.

Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.

Late is the Hour

December 15, 2020                             Volume 5: Issue 3


Late is the hour.

Matthew said it like this:

“Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”    -Matthew 24:42-44

Paul wrote:

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”   -2 Timothy 3:1-5

And, as if we couldn’t already see all these things, Jesus himself said:

 “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.” – Luke 21:10-12

We’re not there, yet.  At least not in the United States.  But we’re getting close.  Jesus goes on to tell us that, “This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”

Late is the hour.

Stand ready.

And behold the power of the Lord.

Winter

by Greg Feezell


I can’t say “She’s in heaven.”
I can’t say “She’s not in heaven.”

Only this:

“Yesterday, I saw the snow falling.”


Greg Feezell has taught elementary and middle school in the United States and Japan. Born in California, he now lives in Yokohama, Japan, where he teaches reading, writing and poetry to middle school students. He is a jazz enthusiast whose dreams of writing a poem like Paul Motian on the drum kit. Greg eschews social media, don’t bother looking him up.