Melancholy Summer Day

Nothing quite says 'summer' to me as well as a freshly picked, crisp cucumber, sliced thin on thick, chewy whole wheat bread slathered with mayo. Yum. As I eat this sandwich I contemplate just how blessed I am. I don't deserve it. But I will take it with thanksgiving just the same.

It has been a while since I've posted. Just haven't been in the mood I guess and life has been busy with gardening, animals to tend, and guests coming and going. In Mark's case, he has had a lot of firewood to deliver, plus he also spent a week backbacking along the Pacific Crest Trail in the Marble Mountains with a troop of boyscouts. Good times, all of it.

But yesterday dawned melancholy and I have wallowed in it a bit. Savoring feeling; experiencing tears for no real reason except that they exist and I am alive. And blessed to live in an incredible place with a wonderful man surrounded by all my adoring animals. It is good to be queen! But serioiusly though, there are so many in the world who life doesn't smile so brightly on. I cry for them. And for my friends who have lost loved ones this year and for all of the 'wrong' things in the world. Well, at least the ones I am aware of. It doesn't do a bit of good to cry over these things, but it makes me feel better somehow. Weird as that sounds.

This morning I read a quote that sort of sums up my thoughts on this melancholy summer day. It is by one of my very favorite authors, Madeleine L'Engle. She is writing about the irrationality the damage a tornado has done.

I couldn't stop myself from asking, Why the old apple tree? Why the grand maples? Why did the twister skip the ancient willow, fading with age, or a sapling which wasn't doing well, and attack the strongest and healthiest trees? If the tornado wasn't consciously evil, it was still evil.

I wrestle with these questions which do not have logical answers, wrestle with mysteries, much as Jocob wrestled with the angel. How do we even attempt to understand the meaning of tempest and tragedy, love and hate, violence and peace?

I stuggle, and as always when I struggle to find the truth of something, I turn to story for illumination. And, as I grapple with the angels of difficult questions, I think of Jacob who saw a ladder of angels, reaching from earth to heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descending, linking heaven and earth, the creation to the Creator, not separated from each other, but participating in each other. Delight. At-one-ment.

For God is beyond all our forensic thinking. God is Love.

And this is more than enough.