Category: Uncategorized

On the Bering Sea

I’m writing this in my living room, a large room with a Christmas Tree alive with white lights! I left the lights on all night.   I’ll post this at the library later this afternoon; no internet at the parsonage.  I have a huge house to myself, and I have decided that this is, indeed, an adventure. I think I am actually more adventurous now than I have been in the past – except for the inner terrain, as you know… This morning, I sat in the little front room off the kitchen and watched as the “sun rose – “ well, the light came to this northern place, with the white mountains beginning to appear behind the barge docked across the way. I sat there, looking out over the Bering Sea.

The reason I’ve decided that I am an adventurer has to do with the landing of the small plane – a 3 hour flight from Anchorage – that dropped me here. At the Anchorage airport, we were warned that the flight might be delayed or cancelled because there were strong winds in Dutch Harbor. But we took off on time, and the flight was uneventful, a full flight, lots of young men probably coming here to work, a few couples (the new city manager and his wife, as I learned). When we were on the descent to land, we dipped due to wind a couple of times, but then we were stable again. I watched as the plane flew lower and lower, and as the wings came about 10’ from the cliff to our left. On the right, only Dutch Harbor bay… Then, I saw the landing strip – only one on the island, this is it!
We dropped from the air over the sea onto the landing strip, smoothly.

What most surprised me was how excited I was – excited, instead of anxious! I thought it must be great to be the pilot and be able to land on that strip each time. Later in the evening, at a “girls night out” gathering at the cozy home of the concert pianist who will play on Christmas Eve, I learned that the flight from Anchorage later that day had to turn back. So I guess we do have to trust the wisdom of air traffic controllers!  During the flight instructions (given by a wool capped stewardess in jeans), I paid attention for the first time ever about how to open your life jacket in case of a water landing. I did spend a few moments wondering where “under your seat” is!

I almost didn’t make it to the party last night, because it was after dark when I left home, and I drove in light snow in a car I had not driven before. After one mistake, I decided I would allow myself that one, and kept going, back on track. But I had to call the hostess when I was confused, about 3 blocks from her house. On the way home, no problems. It won’t take long to learn the “lay of the land” here.

What I learned today, though, when I shopped for groceries at the Safeway here, is that locals don’t like to go out in this weather – they wait out the snow and winds!  I woke at my usual PST, and so I had several hours of darkness before I watched the light come. Later, I drove about 4 miles to Safeway on the one highway on the Island, hoping the road crew had really salted the road; sometimes, the lanes are right up to the edge of the Bering Sea! It was snowing, not heavily, the whole time. After I bought my basic food – a lot more expensive here than at home since it arrives by barge – I wanted to go to the coffee shop at the hotel on the Island. When I got out of the car, though, I experienced the cold wind, got back into the car, and drove home to have lunch here.

I live about 2 blocks from the old wooden frame Russian Orthodox Church, and about 3 blocks from the City Center, library, aquatic center, and United Methodist Church. If/when there is day with no snow or rain, I’ll walk there. Now, I cautiously drive, remembering the days when I drove in this weather regularly in Wisconsin. Sometimes, the smell of the air makes me nostalgic.

Remember that this is a retreat for me, and I love waiting for the Solstice here, when the light is so appreciated. I’ll check online for the exact day and time this year. Pray for me on my retreat. God is good, all the time… truly…

My Christmas tree is the holiday to me.

I love to reflect on the deeper meanings of the season, and I love to remember our  connection to the people of all ages who have waited and longed and honored the coming of the light after the season of darkness.

I imagine us, dust and snow rising, our boots digging up the roots and leaves of autumn, dancing around the tree that stands in the middle of a clearing in a dark, dark, dark forest … as we dance the passing of time, as we dance the changing of the year, of this moment, of this hour, of this day.  The tree is our altar.  The star that shines above the tree is in the sky, and the sky, too, is dancing, honoring in its own way the passing of time.  As we dance, we feel in ourselves that elemental humanness, that elemental place that connects us to each other, to the tree, to the dust, to the snow, to the sky, to the star.  We are one with all.  We are one.   We feel that elemental place in our guts, in our legs, in the soles of our feet, in our whole selves.  Yes!  We feel the elemental life force of those who circle with us, those who honor darkness, and wait for light.  This is us.  This is all of humanity.

This autumn, I have written often about the descent into the darkness, that place in each of us where the light lies.  This descent into the darkness is for all of us, we are all gifted with the darkness as part of being human.  Yes!  we say into the deepness of the dark.  Yes! we say as we emerge, once again, from that dark place into another place.   We emerge, different, each time we go deep.  We grow older.  We grow wiser.  We are connected to everyone we encounter; we see ourselves in the “other.”  We carry with us, after that deeper journey, something more solid, more whole.  We know we are one with one another, with All That Is.

All of these things connect us to the suffering of the world, for in our connection is our knowing that we are all alike.  We all suffer.  We all know darkness, and we all know that life is hard.  Yes, we say, as we extend our hand to the other, as we extend our hearts into the world.  Yes!

This year, even the moon joins us in the dance.  Mother Moon will be full on the day of Christmas, the Christian way of honoring the Light.  Mother Moon will take our hand, she will sing, she will kick up the dirt and the waves in the ocean, and she will rejoice – yes! – with the coming of the Light.

However you honor the passage of time, whatever your tradition, this is your journey to yes!  Yes, yes, yes…

roses, sunset, 12/15

Days shorten, march toward the darkest time,

shine, shine, shine, day into night.

Shorter days give way – in due time –

to the light, the coming of light.

I will awaken a little bit on that day.  You will, too.

We take our place in the marching of the years, the millennia,

yes, you and I, marking our place in time with the creatures of the forests,

the dancing holy ones –

those folks marching to plant again in spring.

Something in us, something in them, is jarred to life again when the light returns,

lengthens the days,

makes us murmur at the quickly passing life we have lived, we are living.

This autumn, I can see (from my previous posts!) that I have been reflecting on the darkness that is part of us all, and part of the journey of our lives.  Without the darkness  we do not witness the Light.

Now, we are entering the season of darkness.  In the liturgy of the Church, this is the season of Advent – which means, “coming.”  The symbolic meaning is that this time is the time before the Light returns – the Light of days turning longer, of the seasons passing from light to twilight, from twilight and once again, to darkness, and then –  leaning toward light.

From times that pre-dated the Christian era in world history, people of all cultures have honored the Coming of the Light – solstice celebrations, dances in nature on the darkest night, giving way to the first moments of the longer days, the Arriving.  Christians took on the traditions of the past and made them their own, while still honoring the passages of time, of life, and of death.

In the past few years, I have had the privilege of having my eyes open to the changing of the light, from moment to moment, from day to day, from season to season, and now, from year to year.  This past Sunday morning, I called my husband into our room from his morning preparations.  For a moment, the Asian maple outside our bedroom windows was blazing – yes, blazing! – with light.  And in another moment, this blazing light was gone.

Still, we were privileged to have witnessed that blazing red maple.

The years seem to pass this way, also – quickly, darting from one to the next.  Where did those long, long days of summer as a child go?  Where did the winters, never-ending, in the Midwest, with the wicked winds off Lake Michigan, and the darkness that did not ever seem to give way to light?  Where did those long days, confined to bed as a child with the measles, go?  How long ago those dark, cold Christmas Eves when the church was filled with the light of candles, and each child received a box of chocolate-covered cherries for her efforts at memorizing the story of Christmas?  Where are those anxious years of young adulthood, wondering whether I could really make a life for myself?  Where are all those worries, those uncertainties, those conflicts that seemed to be the last?  Where have they all gone?

Like dust, they have flown away, away from me.

Now, I am here, honoring the light and the darkness, watching the days move and change, from moment to moment.  Here I am, grateful for this blessed time, when I fall in love with life more deeply, every day.  I see the seasons change each day in the branches and leaves of my beloved birch tree, outside my front window.  I see the birds change, too, as the seasons change, now in autumn, flitting quickly from branch to branch, and then on to another tree, in search of food for another day.  I see the machine-like movements of the local squirrels, squirreling away food for the winter.  I see how strong – and how vulnerable – each creature is to the changing of the seasons.

We face into time, more conscious of it as we grow older.  We face into time, savoring what we can from what we have saved, learning to trust, more and more, as a child learns to trust, one step, then another, on her wobbly, chubby legs, and then – to walk.

Now, we face into the time of Darkness, before the Coming of the Light.  That Darkness is in you, and it is in me.  And surely, surely, so is Light.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”