Yesterday morning, after beloved grandson Dmitri and his equally beloved parents had gone home after our wonderful Christmas together, David and I were feeling pretty sad. Rather than indulge in gooey, fattening holiday leftovers, we oh-so-maturely opted for a brisk walk around Concord’s Great Meadows. A wildlife preserve beside the Concord River, Great Meadows is a perennial favorite. 

One of the first things we always do at Great Meadows is to check out the  ”recently sited” blackboard which hangs on the kiosk at the preserve’s entrance. After they’ve walked around the preserve, birders and small children note what they spotted. Sometimes these chalked notations are pretty fanciful—dinosaurs, sea monsters, etc.—but always worth reading.

Yesterday, however, there was nothing written on the blackboard except “Happy new year!”

“A clean slate!” I thought. “Literally!”

 What would a clean slate feel like? What if my considerable “trespasses/debts”, like a messy, much-chalked-on blackboard, had been vigorously erased somehow? As we walked (Great Meadows being flooded, our walk continued around Cambridge’s Fresh Pond, instead) I contemplated myself as a clean slate. It was exhilarating!

I’m not a clean slate, of course. I have made many mistakes.  But every week, when I listen to formerly incarcerated men and women talk about how they’re turning their lives around, I am reminded that although our “chalk marks” are never completely erased, with Spirit’s help, there is Possibility, Hope; can I say Redemption?  

Maybe not. I’ll admit that maybe I’m using the word “redemption” incorrectly. (unlike my “literally” usage which was spot on!) In traditional Christianity, as I understand it, redemption means being delivered from sin and happens through sacrifice. I’m talking more about a spiritual process by which the possibility for change and growth are acknowledged, honored, and acted upon by both individuals and the larger community. A “beloved community.”  

 I plan to keep using the word “redemption”—as elucidated—as often as possible because such a loving and forgiving concept feels like something people of faith (that’s me!) should just be saying.

And witnessing to.

The problem with not writing for The Somerville Journal anymore AND taking a break from novel-writing is that everything, EVERYTHING becomes a possibility for this blog. The early morning light sparkling through the massive icicles hanging from our neighbor’s porch? The overheard comment at a Somerville Avenue gas station  today? A (probably Arabic-speaking) guy pumping gas said to an SUV owner: “You’re better off with a Toyota than that thing.” The politics of who makes way for whom when two strangers approach each other on a narrow, snowy sidewalk pathway?

But in honor of Hannukkah, I think I’ll talk about light/Light. Which, as I’m sure you’ll recall, was the theme for my Christmas stocking gifts last year. (This year’s theme: From Around the World.)

[FYI: Something like what I'm about to say was said yesterday at Meeting by dear friend/Friend Mehmet Rona:]

It’s a miracle, isn’t it? As of yesterday, the days are getting longer. Right at this moment, the sun’s starting to melt our icy sidewalk. When you REALLY contemplate the miracle of light, then it’s pretty easy to accept that, yes, it was possible that only enough oil for one day miraculously stretched and stretched, right? 

In honor of this miracle, today at Cambridge Naturals, I bought Sunbeam Candles, 100% beeswax, as stocking gifts. 

“Wait a sec,” you say. “Light was last year’s stocking theme.”

Oh. Did I fail to mention that these candles were “Created with Solar Power”? How People’s Republic of Cambridge can you get?!

Judging from the frenzied activity at my bird feeders, tomorrow’s snow storm will be a doozy: lots of cheeky, fat sparrows and late this morning, a female goldfinch at the niger seed feeder. Usually skittish and/or really fast eaters, goldfinches, at least the ones who visit MY feeder, stay briefly and then flitter away. But this particular gal ate and ate and ate. That she lingered so long just feet away from where I watched her gave me a much-needed opportunity to reflect:

Before the goldfinch’s arrival, I’d been missing Allison a little bit (she’s spending Christmas with boyfriend Dustin’s family this year.) But the goldfinch reminded me, as goldfinches always do, of Michael Merkin, who, when I’d visited him at a Hospice in Queens, had assured me that, yes, he was dying, but he’d be back. One summer afternoon, a couple of months after he’d died, I was sitting on the deck writing in my journal about Michael and his deathbed promise. Just then a male goldfinch flew to the feeder. “Is that you, Michael?” 

A few years before that visitation, however, Allison had been mock-jealous that I lavished so much attention to the feeders. She especially resented that I babytalked and cooed when goldfinches showed up. (Who could blame her, really?!) “They’re our competition,” she told her twin, pointing to a pair of goldfinches. “Now that we’ve gone to college, Mom’s replaced us with THEM!”

No golden bird, not even a reincarnated Michael Merkin, could ever replace my precious daughters. That a very hungry goldfinch lingered for a deliciously long time this morning enabled me to remember Michael, Allison’s wiseass quip, AND to experience the unmitigated joy I always feel when a goldfinch comes to feed. (I feel only slightly less euphoric about chickadees.) 

Yesterday, at Porter Square Books, I ran into Wendy Jehlen. In her mid-thirties, daughter of good friends Alain and Pat Jehlen, mother of two beautiful daughters, Wendy is a gifted dancer who’s also an interpreter for the deaf. Seconds before she’d entered the bookstore, apparently, Wendy had learned that the mother of one of her daughter’s friends had just died. “She was my age,” Wendy said tearfully.

The grim faces of the people I’d passed on the way to  Porter Square very much on my mind (people, I’m guessing, suffering from what’s happening to the economy), Wendy’s sad news, and knowing how many of my own friends and family are presently going through hard times, I commented on what a challenging Christmas this was going to be.

Wendy’s face brightened: “There’s a wonderful piece written right after Pearl Harbor,” she informed me. “I’ll try to send it to you. But basically it’s saying ‘Christmas happens even in the midst of hard times.’ ”

Ah ha! We’d talked about exactly this same concept in yoga class last week. Annie Hoffman, our amazing teacher, had read us something about how we’re essentially and fundamentally joyous beings. Sounds like the Quaker construct of Inner Light, doesn’t it?  Put in another way: Within each of us is Joy, Light, That of God, Love, or as this shiny, hopeful, loving and generous whatever-it-is thing is sometimes called at this time of year, Christmas Spirit. (Since we’re talking constructs, here, I can be a little sloppy with language, right? YOU try writing about the Unexplainable!)

That’s the thing about essential and fundamental: Like the sun, it’s always there. Even at night. A New Yorker short story about a deeply unhappy family on a ski trip who, to their surprise, were touched by the spirit of the season, ended: “Christmas happens.” 

Yikes. What sort of a blog is this when I post so rarely? Answer: A blog that can’t quite take itself seriously, apparently. Dustin, daughter Allison’s boyfriend, and (daughter) Hope have challenged each other to a blog-off, i.e. a contest to see who can be first to post. The slowpoke then has to write on the same theme the early bird dictates. Pretty impressive when you consider the East Coast/West Coast time difference. Should I consider joining?

Two reasons why not:

First: An old story I’ve heard a couple of times at Friends Meeting at Cambridge illustrates how I presently view this blog: An eighteenth-century Quaker, the story goes, was led to travel to a lumber camp outside Philadelphia in order to share God’s love with the hard-working and, presumably, hard-drinking men working there. But when the Quaker (imagine the Quaker Oats guy) arrived, the camp was deserted. Disappointed, the grey-clad gentleman nevertheless entered a large, empty room—maybe the dining hall?—and  spoke. Years later, still looking like the Quaker Oats guy, he was in London when, suddenly, a total stranger came up to him, very excited, and introduced himself. “I was there that day you preached at the lumber camp. I was hiding under a bench. What you said really moved me. Thank you.”

So maybe someone’s reading this?

Second: Yesterday morning, after a ten-year stint, I submitted my last column for The Somerville Journal—for reasons not necessary to go into here. Last night, when I reported this development to my “Creativity Circle,” i.e. Wendy Sanford and Susan Lloyd McGarry, Wendy wondered how and where my making-meaning-of-the-world impulse, which had informed so much of what I’d written for the Journal, would find a satisfying outlet.  

“Maybe, now, people will start reading her blog,” Susan Lloyd suggested.

So I guess I should provide these as-yet-unknown folks something to read, huh?