Holydays: The Forest (2)

One Man's Web > Mudmap Theology > Holydays: The  Forest
October 2005

At home, some nights, I stand outside and look at the Evening Star. It hangs, even in our city-lighted sky as a symbol for me. Bright, silent, there.... the sign and hope that something is good and persistent beyond the immediate pleasures of today.

But tonight, under the clouds, with the Evening Star already beneath the ridge, I walked out of the house light to the edge of the forest. Behind me the racket of crickets was as pervasive as home's chorus of highway traffic, but there were frogs burbling a muted melody in between.

At the first skeletal white limbs of stringy bark the light stopped.

The black of the forest absorbed the night noises like a blotter.

In a few feet the crickets were far distant.

A single twig fell.

And the hope of the Star was all around me.

Holydays (3)

Direct Biblical quotations in this page are taken from The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.  

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