Letters
Letters call us together in the world and in community. I use them to teach, train, tell, talk, and counsel for spiritual development and to guide the sojourner’s spiritual direction. Letters chart a course, document a time, map the mind and lure sweet and poignant images from our minds. If there were no written words, our letters would poetries, fleeting images of the mouth and mind (the heart still beating fast but to abbreviated rhythm). Instead, we have the word, the meal of letters, the structured wine of our intelligence.

Dear Shelley and Sharon,

     We are at Inverness, Scotland, on our way to the Orkneys in the North Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. We drove here from Edinburgh, Scotland, through the beautiful highlands which Robert Burns memorialized in his poetry, though he, himself was a farmer from the lowland areas.

     The scenery is delicious! The highland hills rise directly unceremoniously from more level "footing." Then at other places there are sweeps of green that swirl, bulge, knot, dip, fold, and fall at their edges in craggy bluffs. Adorning these are pastures of green velvet dotted with acres of yellow and deep orange broom plants which grow wild here. They are lacy like our forsythia, but where the wind is especially strong they clump and mound, rather than show off their tendrils--they are a sight to behold! Another canary yellow short flower is planted in fields, and it too spreads like a gold lawn. Interestingly, the heathers, clumped brown, cover the high slopes, and other lacy whites like baby's breath or bridle wreath breaks the broom's gold on some of the lower stretches, close to the road. At this moment, near Broda, we're no more than 100 yards from the ocean on the right and inches from these gorgeous plants and hilly ledges. As if this isn't enough, someone has planted massive purple lilacs and these have the same effect on us as the stretches of rhododendron we had seen earlier.

     Mixed into all this ruggedness are hundreds of flocks of sheep with many nursing lambs, horses with foals and cows with calves. Some of the sheep are sheared, some are long haired with horns and the many orangey colored cattle are so big and beautifully ugly that they look, and make me feel, silly!

     The coastal drive between Helmsdale and Latheron (where we'll turn inward) reminds us of the high cliff edge drives of Newfoundland, but we don't recall that there were sheep there. Today is the first day without rain since last Thursday, a full week ago. Even so, the sky is cloudy with threatening cumulus and with only patches of blue. It's remarkable that in all of England and Scotland we've traveled through so far, I saw only one wooden house! All of them are made of stone or brick. Having turned inward from the coast the scenery is different here. Ray says it reminds him of Montana--the big sky country and the absolute nothingness. Earlier, I had been reminded of our Appalachians as far as the twisting tight and close steep climbs and curves; but what one sees here along the roads, is rustic, not impoverished--though for sure, there are many poor here. Perhaps, what makes it look less impoverished, in this area at least, is that though some farms have been abandoned (near this town called Spittal!) the roofless and/or broken down walls of dwellings still seem substantial--because they are standing stones. The owner of our Bed and Breakfast at Inverness initially reserved and soft spoken, became quite animated when he spoke about the three hundred years of "modern" control of Scotland by the English. "Every country wants control of their own money! Look at it, it's all in London, we need it here at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Inverness!"

     We went on to talk about economic development of these areas, that he believes will bring more tourists and permanent dwellers. (Ray had noted privately that the English with so little land needed someone to feed them; and so the retention of Scotland as a rural herding and agricultural area suited their needs--not unlike our Appalachian area with so many state forests, etc. being a much sought after recreation area, for those so inclined).

     Anyway, we felt prepared for the deeper conversation that time had robbed us of, having done our homework all the way back to the before Stone Henge people (5,000 years ago) and forward up to today. Reflecting on this journey, I, we, are always pleasantly surprised to meet people who are in so many ways familiar. And while it's true your Appalachian ancestral roots are here, and our Western Maryland culture is so similar, I believe strongly that the kinship spirit exists among those who choose to be neighbors.

     I will keep you both in my thoughts as we taste and see the goodness of this land. Soon we'll cross the North Sea to the Orkneys where the runes and ruins of the Celts hold you as if in a hand.


In His Love,
Norma
1998



Dear Rachel,

     "Who has stolen the music from the song bird?" That is the title of the forgotten story you want to share with your children. It is remarkably innocent of artifice and very useful for your purpose. To your question about how to create the sense of "open spectacle" to convey the angel's joyful presence at communion, this is my suggestion.

     Hold up a pair of spectacles with one lens covered (closed) and one uncovered (open) and have the children "see" through them. You will be amazed at how quickly they will know your meaning. Children love riddles and we ought not to hold back the joy of our Christian mysteries from them. In this case you are showing them through analogy that they can witness, that is, they can "see" through a spectacle lens that is open--(clear), the table with the bread and wine upon it, the eucharistic feast. They will intuit the reverence of the "open spectacle," the event taking place, which the joyful angels and they, themselves are witnessing.

     Of course you will take them deeper into the "open spectacle" to show that the eucharistic communion is open to believers across the earth; and the communion is both a feast and a gathering, a spectacle of God; as well as an open spectacle to those who are even outside the body of believers, struggling to see that spectacle through the closed or open lens--that is trying to see through an open, believing heart, or through a closed and doubtful mind. (To witness we must also see into them.)

     The joy that was stolen from the song bird was the pleasure of sharing dinner and feeding her young one who has fallen from the nest before it has learned its lessons--how to fly, feed, and fend for itself.

     Do not be afraid, Dear Rachel, to use the simple things to draw the children's interest. For doesn't Christ bend the rainbow with the same care that he tends to the vineyard, as he measures the grain and celebrates the harvest, and heal with teaching, while he walks upon the waves and still waters? Well then, he has shown us the miracle is a witnessing to a sermon enacted for us all--children, bound and free. Amen


P.S. The work of the church is to use what you have: compassion, miracles and empathy.


Yours faithfully in Christ--Amen



Dear Adair,

     Please pray. Today at Victoria Station I saw a Black woman in a crisp white suit and head covering. She was coming toward me carrying a model of the globe in her hand with an emblem (leaflike) on top of it. As she approached me I smiled and said "I see you have the world in your hands." She returned my smile but said nothing. I studied her as she walked past me quietly wondering why she offered no words, and so I saw the sign on her back that extended from her shoulders to her waist. "God wants all aborted fetuses to be baptized and named so they will escape the evil of Satan."

     Today also, at Canterbury, I saw an intelligent looking, handsome but disheveled bearded man of about 35 with a large backpack and suitcase begging for money. From my seat in a shop directly across from him I could read his facial expression and body movements. He was despairing and frustrated, perhaps even hopeless. I approached him with what I had, perhaps two pounds, a pear, fresh toasted bread and brown sugar. I asked if he was hungry? He said yes, and I gave him what I had. Seeing how truly hungry he was, I said "Please go to a church, I'm sure they will help you," (with slight misgivings since when I had entered a church now being used as a guild hall, on my way to the Mother Church, the Canterbury Cathedral, its door open as if welcoming--I was told sharply by someone smartly dressed, "You must have one of these [a fancy printed invitation] to come in. You must have an invitation!")

     After I told the young man he should go to the church for help, he surprised me. In heavily accented, but clear English, he replied, "I do not believe--I am a Catholic, but I do not believe." I raised my scarf and pointed to my two crosses, the one about my neck and the other, my habit, on my breast. "I believe. I am a Daughter of the King. I am a Christian and I believe." He asked, "Where are you from?" I said, "America, and I believe." He stammered trying to sort it out I suppose, for as he looked at the money I had given him in his hand he said, ". . . but today I believe." I left him knowing he is still in need of proving God is, and will come to his aid, and that God moves toward him in the ways of caring men and women. I do pray for him and that others will be moved to help him. The work of the Kingdom is forever and on going. Will you please pray that those who would be born are nourished and, according to their needs, both clothed and fed? Amen.


England
1998