Mrs. Arable goes to Dr. Dorian, worried about Fern. Fern's been telling her mother about the characters in the barn, and her mother is worried. She doesn't understand Fern's love of pigs and spiders and geese and sheep. She also resists believing in the miracle of Charlotte's web. Dr. Dorian tries to set Mrs. Arable straight about the need to have all the answers in life.
Over the past year, I have dealt with a lot of change in my life. Changes I don't understand. A church displaced me from my organist job after 15 years of service. My hours were cut at the medical office where I work, and then I was cut from that job. Things are changing at the university. Colleagues are retiring. The Department Head is leaving at the end of next academic year. If I were to choose one adjective to describe the last year of my life, that word would be "tumultuous." Tumult here. Tumult there. Tumult, tumult everywhere.
I have a sense that God is sending me some kind of message with all this change. For the life of me, however, I have no idea what the hell the message is. Maybe I should stop trying to figure out the message. Maybe I should be like Dr. Dorian and stop trying to understand everything. Eventually, answers will come my way. I'm simply making myself miserable by worrying all the time, and all that worry is not helping me in any way.
So, I will accept my current state of being. Accept the questions without worrying about the answers.
It is the last weekend of National Poetry Month in the United States, so, of course, I have to include a poem this evening. This poem comes from The Best American Poetry 2012. It's by Elaine Equi and was first published in New American Writing. It's about stories we read and tell. And it's about how life falls outside of plots and climaxes and denouements, in the bogs and swamps. The messes.
You know, where Saint Marty has been for the last twelve months.
A Story Begins
by: Elaine Equi
The same as other stories, but we follow along in case something different might happen.
Just one different thing. It leads us to a ledge and pushes us over.
Every story has a climax in a way life doesn't.
It puts us back where it found us. It opens our eyes which weren't closed, but felt that way because what we we saw was happening inside the story.
We are the excess of the story--that which it cannot contain.
Washed ashore.
What was the story about?
I can't remember. A dwindling, dim-witted tribe.
Every month when the moon was full, they'd sacrifice another virgin, but could never figure out why the crops still wouldn't grow.
Confessions of Saint Marty
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