The Power of Place – Thinking of Amy Grant’s “If These Walls Could Speak”

This past Sunday, I was privileged to hear some stories told, corrected, and embellished with added details from others who had been present for the events. One example will give you the tone, I believe.

My Uncle John came to the party for my dad’s 85^th birthday. John had been in the vehicle following my father as Dad drove the family’s newly purchased vehicle home, or at least in the direction of home. Downshifting to pass a truck on a two-lane highway, the rear wheels passed the front wheels and the back bumper was perfectly centered on the concrete-based steel gatepost when it cleaved the trunk neatly in two.

Other stories, though, tracked a little more consistently than the hapless Dodge described above. But not without some meandering into other lanes and events, if not entirely different topics. Be sure to listen to the stories you can while they can still be told intact. My father’s were. Intact. But with enough side-trips and stops along the way that I sometimes wondered when it would be appropriate to ask (as I’m sure I did on hundreds of childhood treks up, down, and across the state of Ohio), “Are we there yet?”

But in thinking of the influential “theres” of my childhood, I would ask, “Is anyone there yet?” No Myerses that I know of are at 610 Joycie Lane in Waynesville. I think a cousin now lives in my other grandparents’ place at 120 Washington Street in West Union. And although I feel like I went home from school to 1080 Warren Drive in Wilmington almost as often as I went to my own home, I know that it was sold after my aunt and uncle were both gone.

And, of course, it’s not just the consistency of grandparents’ and others’ homes (Where Robert Frost would tell me that, once I have to go there, they have to take me in.), but there are other powerful memories locked up in places where I slept most of my childhood nights: 374 Randolph Street in Wilmington, 416 Shade Drive in West Carrollton, and then…San Francisco. But there are so many memorable California places, we’ll save those for another time.

Where are your “theres”? And of whom could you say, “It was theirs,” and perhaps even “I was theirs.” I’m writing this as one of my weekly reflections intended for my colleagues. We work at a hospice where the founder was recently removed, and where many of us were hired by the Executive Director who started our office and, it was announced yesterday, was just removed as well. So, as we meet today, our “wheres” and “theirs” have become a little less certain. Our stories have just taken a turn. Perhaps, for some of us, it’s just a brief meandering from the main road. For some, it may seem that we’ve swapped ends and are backing toward an immovable gatepost.

Whatever course today finds you on please know, at least for now, that there are others who will one day be able to tell, correct, and embellish your story with their own perspectives. My prayer is that we will patiently consider what has been, and what is, and ask ourselves frankly, “Are we there, yet?”

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Here’s a place to find Amy Grant’s “If These Walls Could Speak.” It’s a song that’s been haunting me since Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNzwQI9eSAU&list=RDvNzwQI9eSAU&start_radio=1&ab_channel=BettyAttoms

 

Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Day in Autumn” – being read amidst an even later season of life

I recently posted another meme. Above the high-tide explosion of waves against the golden-hour stones of Asilomar Beach, it reads, “Hope less. Live more.” I am at the stage in life (and, truthfully, I have been so for longer than I would care to admit) in which the list of what I once planned to accomplish, what I once imagined I would have time to accomplish, is shortened more and more by the cumulative effects of old injuries, gradual infirmities, and surprising indignities.

Although my spiritual traditions include “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection,” my life today, in the meantime, has become very different than I imagined it would be. But while I could choose to grieve and mourn past abilities passed, or seek some future restoration or renewal, I now cannot live any other day but this one. I cannot surround myself with any other group, team, or family than those now here.

This Fall-ing of life, when we recognize that some things will now always be what they are, how they are, where they are, and with whom they are—is what I think the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke was getting at in his poem “Day in Autumn.” (Translated by Mary Kinzie.)

After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time

to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials

and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

 

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.

Direct on them two days of warmer light

to hale them golden toward their term, and harry

the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

 

Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;

who lives alone will live indefinitely so,

waking up to read a little, draft long letters,  

and, along the city's avenues,

fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

Whatever fruits, however sweet, you have yet to bear; whatever falling and fallen leaves may swirl around you already; and whatever signs and symptoms of encroaching decrepitude you find afflicting you; may you also find the courage, the tenacity, and the joy necessary to live the day you have today.