[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Sorry -- sent this earlier, but I'd got the address wrong (working on 
laptop instead of usual 'puter). -- Molly


A Walk in the Woods

We have had an extraordinary fall, mild and open and long. The leaves 
didn't begin to turn until well into October, and until about a week ago, 
they were still hanging in there. My front yard is astonishingly green, 
even now.

It has been an extremely good time for long walks. And so last week I got 
myself out to the conservation area, just past the city's tiny airport, for 
an hour's march through the woods. It's a much-loved place of trees and 
paths running alongside the water. On a mild and sunny November Sunday 
afternoon, it was busy with couples and families, people walking dogs, 
people walking alone. People here are generally not particularly friendly, 
but just about everyone made eye contact and smiled and remarked on the 
beauty of the weather.

I walked at a speed I found pleasant, shuffling through any leaf-drifts 
that came my way, utterly contented. I thought, "There isn't a thing in my 
life that I want to be different, these days." Okay, I'd like more energy, 
maybe, but that's about it. For the rest, there was just thanksgiving.

I've learned through extensive experience that the world being what it is, 
belief in God is not necessarily going to make life any easier; in fact, 
quite the contrary. The New Testament is full of messages about suffering 
and endurance. We''ve been promised the Kingdom, and we believe in the 
promise, but we don't know when the promise will be fulfilled, and until 
then this world is full of Fallujahs. But the New Testament is also full of 
messages about faith and hope and the certainty of prayer, and I find 
myself believing in those promises too -- not in God's making this life any 
easier, but in God's changing the way I deal with it.

Life has been full of deep inner work for the last while, but it's starting 
to bear fruit: a difference in the way I see myself and deal with others, 
more self-kindness, more other-awareness, a fair bit of forgiving, a 
growing sense of acceptance. A sense of anticipation, of moving forward. I 
can accept the reality of my own and others' shadows, but they needn't 
dominate my personal landscape as they have in the past.

To my delight, I found a patch of milkweed with some pods still unsplit and 
full of seeds, and picked a pod and broke it open, remembering the spring's 
promise: that whatever happened, there would be this beauty in the fall. 
These brocade-like rows of seeds and these creamy, gleaming silks, lying so 
neatly in the pod, formed an order ready to explode into motion at a 
touch.  I let the seeds fly in the mild lake breeze, thinking, yes, there 
are some things you can trust in absolutely: milkweed by experience, God by 
faith.

For all will be well and all will be well... Yes, there's Mud Season to 
come, and winter's rigors after that, but also winter's beauty. This fall, 
for the first time, I planted daffodil and tulip and snowdrop bulbs, and 
they wait on the other side of winter too. We'll get there. We really will.