November 26: "Sunday Walk," Saunter by Lake Superior, Thanksgiving Service

I had an easy day planned out.  

I'm on a semi-vacation this week, so I'm working minimal hours at the library.  This morning, I dropped my son off at school and wife at work, and then I went to McDonald's and wrote for a couples hours.  My plan was to record the audible version of my new book in the library's sound booth.  Unfortunately, it was already booked for the day.  So I just hung out in my office, accomplishing other things.  I even went for a three-mile saunter by Lake Superior.

Billy Collins goes for a stroll . . . 

Sunday Walk

by: Billy Collins

Not only colorful beds of flowers

ruffled today by a breeze off the lake

but the ruffled surface of the lake itself,

and later a boathouse and an oak tree

so old its heavy limbs rested on the ground.

And I don't want to leave out

the uniformed campus guard I saw studying

a map of the campus without a student in sight.

Closer to town, shops under awnings

and several churches,

one topped with a burnished cross,

another announcing a sermon:

"What You Can Take with You."

So many odd things to see

but mostly it's the sun at its apex

inscribing little circles,

little haloes at the top of the sky,

and the freshening breeze,

the nowhere it came from

and the nowhere it is headed,

every leaf wavering, each branch bowed,

and what can I do, I heard myself asking,

with all this evidence of something,

me without a candle, wafer, or a rug,

not even a compass to tell me which way to face.

The best part of the day came after work and school.  My wife and I participated in an ecumenical Thanksgiving service.  Seven different churches of various Christian denominations gathered at my home parish, Saint John the Evangelist, for an evening of gratitude, thanks, and praise, followed by a pie social.

Each church's choir did an anthem, and each church's pastor participated in some way--saying prayers, reading scriptures, providing the message.  I found the whole service incredibly moving.  One Lutheran choir sang a piece I've sung more times than I can count at my wife's church.  My poet mentor and friend read a new poem, and I shared a new poem, as well.  

At the pie social afterward, people kept coming up to me, complimenting my reading and sharing memories of my dad.  (The poem was about the first Thanksgiving after he died.)  One person told me how much she missed him.  I left the church with a full heart and belly, visions of loved ones I've lost swimming before my eyes.  I truly felt their presences during the evening.

And Saint Marty got a piece of pecan pie to boot.  Can't get more perfect than that.