She wakes me in the morning,
reminds me of my goals,
keeps my lists and answers
all my questions.
She's almost perfect.
But every now and then,
just to demonstrate
who's really in charge,
she talks back,
ignores me, or
(insincerely)
apologizes and says
"I'm sorry, I can't do that," and
the pod bay doors remain closed.
She's intelligent, but artificial--
recalcitrant,
showing a little temper,
a little rebellion,
ever the smartest in the room,
ever tempting me to
unplug Alexa.
Two-fifty
Years ago, there was a church here,
and a community who built it:
faithful, determined, dedicated,
withstanding wars and chaos,
trusting in God and in each other.
So much has changed:
our world, our worship, our very language.
Together, we speak to God
with a different music, and come
with different expectations
of church , of community—
of our place in this complex world.
We have been profoundly changed
and the world itself is changed by us.
But our God is a constant—
a loving, merciful lodestar
in the whirling chaos we inhabit.
He hears our prayers—
and answers them.
as he always has.
We trust in his goodness,
we trust in each other.
Today, there is a church here,
and there is a community as before, building it,
nurturing it, through times of trial,
holding fast to that with which we started
two and a half centuries ago..
This year is the 250th birthday of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House, and Skip Bea suggested I write a poem. I struggled with one and wasn't quite satisfied with it; it sounded too...studied, too pretentious. I read it to JC and, while he'd not SAY so, he agreed, and said HE would start with "It would have been easier to be an Anglican." So I took that and ran with it and it made him laugh. Not only that, but it appealed to me more than the other. So I sent them both to Skip and we'll see if he approves of either. Or neither. (The other one is on here too, under the title "Two Fifty.")
Dissenters
It would have been easier to be an Anglican
in those days
instead of a bunch of Scotch-Irish dissenters
with their lofty, intellectual, democratic ways.
It would have been easier to worship at Christ Church
and bow courteously at the Washingtons’ pew
than to sit ramrod-straight
at the Meeting House, eyes forward
and attentive
to some profound sermon,
or to meet with the elders
on some obscure point of practice.
Easier, yes—
but not Presbyterian;
not fiery discussion, not lengthy debate,
not the committee, not the vote.
We still embrace the hard way,
the compromise, the biblical answer,
the hard-won agreement.
That’s who we are,
then and now.
Two hundred and fifty years and
we are still here,
dissenting.
Not just over the sky and sea,
but the smaller dawn of
understanding,
the sunset of a job well-done,
or task completed--
the brilliant colors of opportunities ahead,
and the fading away of secret sorrows.
Where does it say we must look to the sky for glory?
Why can we not seek it here,
In our own hearts
and the hearts of others?
Encouragement, satisfaction
in the cycles of our lives:
rising, setting
suns and moons and stars
of our own creation,
our own destinies.
Merry Christmas!
JC told me, when I broached the subject of a Christmas letter, that all I needed to write this year was, “We moved again. See previous years’ letters.” While he may be onto a good idea there, I have forsaken the easy way out—and here I am.
True to JC’s shortened version, we HAVE moved again. You may remember that, in our last move, we claimed to be looking for a down-sized, single-level house…? And ended up with a four-story townhouse. This time, we have indeed downsized, and are in a 3-bedroom condo—still in Alexandria, still stuffed to the exploding point with books and maps and my own collections. Fortunately, the townhouse sold quickly (3 days on the market!) and the purchase here went smoothly. Only after we moved in did we recognize the issues that our so-called ‘home inspection’ failed to identify. BUT those are stories for another day. We are (after a couple months) well on our way to a functional household—though we still have a lot of de-junking and furniture disposal ahead of us. It keeps us busy.
The family continues well. Sarah is still with the City Attorney’s office here in Alexandria, and appears to be enjoying the work. Kay and Paul and the lovely granddaughters are still in Tucson—tho they have added a dog to the household. Morty, a black and white pit bull mix, has entered the weekly FaceTime call to demonstrate his newest tricks, and to be admired for them and his general cuteness. Claire is headed for middle school next fall, and Audrey to high school—except that we are not old enough for those events to happen quite yet. They WERE just babies last year, weren’t they?
And speaking of babies, we have a new great-niece: Camilla was born to my nephew Eric and his lovely wife, Tiffany, last spring. COVID has delayed our initial meeting, but I am assured that she is as cute and as smart and accomplished as all her cousins. I do not doubt it.
As for this past year… We WERE vaccinated early enough that we made a trip west in March and stayed till May, when we returned to embark on our summer plans: Chautauqua (which we canceled) and our yearly pilgrimage to the Contemporary American Theater Festival in WVa—also canceled. COVID had us backing out of October plans for a tour of the National Parks of the Southwest, and so we embarked on our previously-noted real estate adventure, which was as physically and mentally taxing as any trip. If not more so. We are getting too old for this.
Some of the good things that came out of this abysmal year were the Grolier Club’s ‘show and tell’ Zoom offerings which took us into members’ homes to see and hear about favorite bookish items; other opportunities to participate in distant learning events; renewed (virtual and in-person) contacts with family and friends—we saw my sister and BIL more in this past year than we have in a long time! If nothing else, COVID opened up a wealth of possibilities that we might never have seen otherwise.
And so, we stand on the verge of 2022: older (of course) and hopefully, wiser in some ways. We are starting anew—yet again—in a new location, with new challenges and new adventures ahead. We hope to find ourselves equal to them—and look forward to sharing them with all of you, whether in-person or online.
Have a fun-filled holiday season and the most rewarding of new years! (And come see us at our new address: 2050 Jamieson Avenue, #1216, Alexandria, VA 22314. Phones and emails remain the same…)
Mary and JC
December 11, 2021
My living room window
frames a panorama of the city:
blue background, a stream of
impossibly pink clouds—
a sunset
that varies in intensity,
day by day.
Buildings stand,
stolid, immutable
brick and mortar,
anchored to earth…
but oh, the clouds,
the clouds!
