Return

After a week in the courts of an ancient cathedral, it is hard to step back into this little chapel that clings to a winter-barren hill. I close my eyes and listen to a soft "t-thick, t-thick" beneath the hemlocks. I lie back on my red sled and look up into the pine.

No towering priests here. Just the same old sights of dogwood in the dying sun, and wood-winged bushes reaching skinny fingers to the wind. I breathe deeply and try to catch some sacred scent that will enliven me. Try to catch something on the breeze that will compare to that place of grandeur and mystery. Nothing new is in the air.

My chest feels heavy, as I try to squeeze back into this small place. It feels like coming to a makeshift altar after some kind of pilgrimage to Jerusalem's temple. Quaint, familiar. Too little to be God-sized. Too old to my senses to make my soul feel new.

Still, I feel You try to come to me. The buds of the wood-winged bushes swell. Life pushing through.

Quicken my fingers. To feel the pulse again.