(The Charles River with a view of Boston from Cambridge - J.Sobecki)
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
• Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”
So the planned annual
pilgrimage to the cathedral of number nine in the town that birthed a revolution brought the
pilgrim up through the hills of the long tidal river. There ahead a cloud
poured a continuous veil of tears as his vessel and companion passed through a
black hole in the universe. The sound of anguished cries of mothers and angels
could be heard in the rain . No words were necessary as they reverently passed
the sign that read “Newtown.” Silence. Prayers. After years of repeated
passages their vessel and hearts knew this path perfectly to their Jerusalem
but now they were aware of how their journey and nothing would ever be the
same.
Just months previously that great storm of the century seemed to be the first ominous sign of that the universe was turning upside down as it battered their shores of their childhood. Memories were washed away to sea. The boss’s prophetic premonition lament of the light shining on the stranded stony faces on the shore should have warned them. Dreams and homes covered by soft-yellowed sand and water logged flotsam and jetsam saw hand holding families bowing heads bidding goodbye from the new shoreline while attempting to rekindle the flame of faith and hope. They will rebuild.
Then as he neared his Jerusalem, with great expectation of
redemption and deliverance, he crossed over into the town that had become his
adopted home. His welcome was celebrated like a Joycean wake mixed with the
songs of freedom by ghosts of patriots . Constant solemn bells rang out in sacred remembrance for all the broken hearts and the heroes. To him it was and is personal. He and the co-sojourner family pausing their moveable feast softly somberly joined the ever echoing voices of marathoners
and citizens in a reverential defiant chorus of “we are Boston Strong!”
“Storms end, souls consoled and prayers are answered for those
who believe” were words he recalled from a good book.
The prognosticators proven wrong, the rain ended and the sun broke
through the clouds like the first morning. Sitting within a tearful cry from
where a young man on the job in training had his life stolen by the sons of
Satan, he sat in silence watching the Charles flow. His heart moved by the
perpetual flow , the river of freedom – the gift of living in present with his family; the
gift to love and being loved, and the gift of hopes and dreams.
(J. Sobecki)
(Lindsay Malone)
(Lindsay Malone)
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amdg
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