holiness was all around us
Holiness was all around us
Better, it was a walk of miracles
(I’ve been taught that the truth is that holiness is always around, so perhaps it was my rapturous companion who helped me see it that one Sunday)
(Every Sunday is a holy day, but whether miracles happen then, that’s another question with ardent proponents and detractors)
First, we finally met the family
going into the gated house
that flys the French flag.
I gave the woman carrying
the groceries, herding the children,
an English “Bonjour,” hoping.
And she gave me a Parisian one in return.
The license plate on the mini-van
said “Consul.”
Then, in the park a sturdy child
was having an accordion lesson
from a beaming woman
who had a guitar case, closed
beside her.
And in another park (they punctuate our walks)
a woman was encouraging a black Labrador
whose back legs were hanging in a wheeled metal
frame. (I recognized the dog, I’m sure. It was the one we saw, so still, brought in on a stretcher board to the emergency clinic in the middle of the night while we waited with Blaise – I wanted to let you know he survived.)
All this in a San Francisco fall day.
Bright, warm, but crisp
and dry.
That last element came to mind as I saw
brown California hills in the distance.
And that discordant note (the map marks the area as “severe drought”)
reminded me of how I began that day,
Hearing a story about Jesus
performing a miracle, on a Sabbath.
Going to a woman, not waiting to be asked
who had been bent over for
eighteen years.
He touched her, she was healed
But the Church people were
unhappy with Jesus
for straightening her up on a holy day.
Looking at them he asked (and I wondered yet again if we was not aiming his healing power, like a banked pool shot, at the Church leaders all along)
“Who among you, having an ox or ass,
will not untether it from the manger
on the Sabbath
and lead it to quench its thirst?”
And standing in the California sunlight, I wondered,
“Who will untether these trees, this earth
and where will we lead them to drink?”
