the mountains, the morning

Although my childhood began in a pig and corn raising town off the Indiana highway, at age seven I was transported to a land of ocean and hills, forest and mountains. The window I sat beside in sixth grade framed Mount Tahoma (Mt. Rainier), in a city bordered as well by the Salish Sea.

Recently amid dark days Tim and I traveled to Tacoma, my coming of age city. We stayed two nights in my brother and his wife's beautiful condo. We rested.

We took the ferry over to Vashon Island and visited Abbot Tryphon and the other dear monks who live, pray, and do permaculture gardening there.

Father Tryphon loves his home (and his kitty). Like every Orthodox priest, while serving the Divine Liturgy he asks the people's forgiveness. I think, though, he did this more times than is required.

Hearts lighter, Tim and I came home for Holy Week. Again we entered the journey to Christ's Passover, which travels through his Crucifixion. That the most supreme Rationality, which is beyond human reason, the Infinite, the Creator by nature a coexistant multiplicity, actually suffered, entering the realm and nature of us his creatures (a sundered multiplicity), in order to save and restore humankind and therefore all creation, is everything. In other words, I believe--as someone said this weekend--that there would not be a Resurrection without the Cross.

I'm reminded of the presence everywhere of beauty: my parents observed this birthing me on the plains of Indiana, and a thief on a cross beside Jesus saw it, too.

I wanted to see dawn from Spencer Butte yesterday morning. The hike was made with friends who paused willingly every little while, waiting for my out-of-practice lungs and trembling legs to rest.

The truth is no one completes this journey to sunrise on their own strength.

I love this city and state of my old age.

I'm grateful for brothers and sisters and friends.

I treasure the dawn of this bright morning.

a recognition

By means of things in the natural order, we can be trained to a perception of all spiritual truths.

~ St. John Climacus ("of the ladder")

The gradual turning takes place, outdoors and inward. A spring of sadness, germinations and blossoms delayed by an icy winter. Yet they haven't been thwarted.

An early morning thought came: brokenness in relationships has many causes, one of which is having an agenda. Agendas look to me larger and ornerier than simple bright plans and dreams. Agendas smack of consuming passions that override caring concern and can lead to regretful actions.

I started thinking this in terms of other people. During prayers I had to turn the focus self-ward. Agendas? Me? Oh, yeah. Especially, particularly, that one. Hm. Yes. Years and years of that one.

Maybe agendas can only be recognized by their fruits. Young, eager dreams open petals to the April breeze. Hoping for pollination, they accept what comes without raging over what doesn't.

Too often I've sought to circumvent nature, building a system, my sure-fire agenda inside cement boxes, calling it real. Busy as it appears, such activity winds up empty.

The flowers instead offer themselves to follow the season's meandering trail. In joy they spend everything, not plotting exact parameters for success. Without looking efficient or trendy, they simply are who they are and become what they become.

May I truly observe and come to follow this, another offering by St. John of the Ladder, who in stillness opened like petals the efforts of his soul:

Let your prayer be completely simple. For both the publican and the prodigal son were reconciled to God by a single phrase.