The View From Here

Note to my Faithful Readers:  I wrote this essay in the weeks after the tragic shooting in Lewiston, Maine in the fall of 2023.  Due to some brief technical issues with my website along with my own busy holiday schedule, I neglected my blog for far too long.  I am now able to post this essay.  I thought about omitting it, but as I read it over, I realized that the core message, which I retained here, is just as timely now as it was when I wrote it weeks ago. May we never forget.  I offer it with prayers and love as we begin a new year, a year when I pray that we will find solace and hope and, dare I say, joy in 2024.

Every morning when time and weather permit, I am outdoors on my west-facing patio- a patio that could be better described as a tourist’s lookout point.  The view rivals any carefully placed roadside pull-out created by highway departments across the country.  I feel incredibly humbled by this gift, the gift of space and vista, and the unobstructed view down the hill and onward towards the small town of Clifton located 3 miles away.  I have a couple of chairs perched on the patio’s edge and from there I can make out the abandoned grain elevators and the tops of the brick and limestone buildings that make up the area we call downtown.  On September and October mornings, I often hear the drum cadence of the high school band practicing for football halftime shows and band competitions.  I always hear the sound of train whistles and the distant rumble of the freight cars passing through town.  Their swift journeys north or south remind me of the connections between communities near and far.

Today, the sky is quite cloudy with leftover reminders of heavy rains that fell yesterday. The high school band practices have ceased until next fall, and the January skies can only be described as dreary…and yet… As I sit with my face turned towards the West, I notice that the town is softly illuminated by sunlight– a patch of light that makes the limestone buildings shine and brings the town’s silhouette into sharp focus. Surrounded by the iron grey clouds is a patch of the pure blue Texas sky that appears to be located over downtown.  As if by magic, the blue patch widens and begins to move. It is the clouds that are moving, of course, but I am entranced by the illusion that the sunlight is slowly working its way towards me.  In a matter of time, I will be the recipient of a warm and clarifying light, as my own home (also limestone) will seem to glow and the colors of the remnants of plants on my patio both deepen and brighten at the same time.  I welcome the sunshine’s influence on this gloomy day.

Today, my heart is weighed down with memories, with the burden of tragic news from my beloved adopted state of Maine. I have a double-sided heart that has nothing to do with aortas or ventricles. One side of my heart grows with the strong roots of my Texas heritage, the family bonds, and the community and connections that characterize the intrinsic goodness of Texas life and culture.  The other side of my heart is lush with the beauty of Maine, a beauty not limited to show-stopping images of golden forests and craggy coastlines that we associate with that unique corner of the United States. My heart beats with the steadiness of the hard-working, salt-of-the-earth Mainers. That side, that Maine-rooted one, is tender and damaged today. Mainers are suffering now, and I suffer along with them. It is personal. The photographs of Lewiston’s city streets are so very familiar to me.  I’ve been in Lewiston dozens of times–shopped, supervised student teachers in neighborhood schools, taught workshops, and met friends for coffee. I’ve dodged snowbanks on deserted streets as I wended my way through town in the wee hours of the morning on the way farther northwest to my hometown. On the nightly news, I see the careworn face of Maine’s governor as she tries to process this tragedy that truly cannot be processed. It is not merely a media film clip. It is personal. We worshipped together at the same church for many years.  I see the bridge over the mighty Androscoggin River that borders Lewiston. It is personal. I recall the dozens of times I crossed that bridge or drove beside that river as it rolled towards the ocean.  This tragedy, this loss, is personal for both sides of my heart, and truly there is no division. There is only a stunned unity with those who suffer. Wherever we call home, where we play, worship and work, their loss is our loss.  Their grief is our own.

Today, it is too early to write or talk about healing, or moving on, or sense-making, if that is even possible.  These few words that I write are overshadowed just as the sun is by clouds, overwhelmed by a tragedy that has no words. There is little comfort for a community that has been irrevocably changed.  Prayers and hopes fly upwards and onwards, nevertheless, towards those with wounds deeper than the deep Atlantic.  Texan or Mainer, or both or neither, our hearts are heavy.  Our spirits are wounded.    The faces on the news are our faces. The streets of Lewiston are the streets of Clifton. The sounds of people mourning echo like the mournful wails of the freight trains that pass through town, connecting our communities, so far in distance, so near to my heart.

Today, I merely note the pathway of the sun, the presence of clouds, the coming of light and the lingering greyness. I observe these phenomena, but do not presume to draw a glib analogy that would be trite at best and callous at worst.  All I can do with my double-sided heart is grieve and hope, give in to love and to anger, search for answers amidst unanswerable questions, and resolve to work for solutions even though they seem right at this moment, beyond reach. I pray for wisdom and courage to work towards peace even in the face of despair. The state motto of Maine is Dirigo, Latin for I lead. It is a motto we could all adopt. We Texans and Mainers have a lot in common, yes we do, besides our climates of extreme weather (hot/cold) and our vast expanses of rural beauty. We are known for toughness, for endurance, and for problem-solving. There truly is not a two-sided heart within me, nor within any of us.  There is only one, ever connected, ever bonded.

The view from here this morning portrays our world as it is, with all its darkness, with all its light.  We share one heart, a grieving heart and a hopeful one, one that is filled with a mix of luminous light and almost impenetrable darkness. The view from here bids me to consider, and compels me to ask of myself and all whom my words touch: How can we lead our world into a place where Light prevails and Darkness fades? I confess I do not know the answer, but I pray, oh I pray, that there is one, glimmering through the clouds.

What came into existence was Life

And the Life was Light to live by

The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;

The darkness couldn’t put it out

John 1: 4-5 The Message