The Spotlight
I have to tell you about this moment - this spectacular moment.
It happened on a recent fall day on a walk with the boys to a tucked away waterfall.
Then at just the right moment when the sun as spotlight
Illuminated the slender, tall drop of the fall
Stood David
Arms open. A moment of abandonment.
A baptism of joy.
As I age, I can see too many of such moments that I’ve missed.
How often we walk that road to Emmaus
With the unseen sacred in our midst.
DB
*****************************************************************************************
 |
| Rainy autumn day October 2011 Shady Spring, West Virginia
Driving north on I-77, there’s that moment when I know I’m back home.
Somewhere after the East River Mountain Tunnel,
after the Wild and Wonderful West Virginia sign,
but not quite to Princeton, I realize I'm there.
I turn off the audio book I’m listening to, roll down the windows and breathe.
I drive through Princeton, pass the road to Pearisburg- my old turn to Virginia Tech.
The road heads up past Camp Creek to Flat Top Mountain. I’m back home.
South Carolina has been home for 23 years,
but West Virginia will always be back home.
The cadence of the mountain lives in my voice and in my ways.
I can trace six generations of mothers back in these Appalachian hills.
Sandra Sue, Edith Vale, Mattie Sona, Virginia Belle, Amanda J, Ann Mary.
All lived out their lives within 100 miles of that Shady Spring sign.
Two live there still.
There’s something about going back home that renews my soul.
It’s where I began.
It’s where I will breathe,
hike,
rest,
talk to my mom,
and begin again.
AF
********************************************************************************************************************** |
How do I wind up
So wound up
In things that don't matter?
Running circles round my problems,
Testing every angle,
Til I am so twisted,
I can't possible untangle.
What I really need
is to wind down,
Release the tendrils that bind me
To self-made burdens,
Unwind and reach out anew
Until, finally, God, I wind up
wound up in you.
SS
