Dreaming the World

A blustery day, warm and windy. The clouds are thickening and there will be rain tonight. Early this morning there was a good deal of bird song that quietened when the wind rose. I’m not sure whether there was less song or whether the wind drowned it out, or both. In the yard, the first shoots of daffodils have broken through the thawing ground.

I’ve settled into reading Jane Kenyon’s prose collection: A Hundred White Daffodils. Many of the pieces are short, written for her small, home town newspaper. Her work is engaging, demonstrating her keen wit and compassionate heart. Much of the prose, like her poetry, is about everyday life and death in her New Hampshire mountain village where she was a hospice volunteer for more than a decade.

Reading her words I find myself taken back to small town life in Vermont in the eighties and nineties: church suppers and Christmas Eve pageants, gardening and the turn of the seasons, snowstorms and the joys of spring and fall, and of course, coffee with friends. She captures small town life exquisitely.

Repeatedly her prose returns to the theme of living life as a Christian, abet a very liberal one. Much of her writing concerns the goings on in her local church, which she notes is distinctly liberal, a rarity in New Hampshire then. She wants to have a huge heart and to act in the world as if her heart were enormous, even as she acknowledges her human foibles and limitations.

Jane longs to be actively engaged in the world but is also drawn to the wood fire, her writing room, and her beloved dog and cat. She returns often to the tension she feels between them, a state amplified by her frequent bouts of sadness. Still, she is grateful for much: her life, her beloved, a mountain to walk, a gift of daffodils, or just the opportunity to feel gratitude. She knew life and love are precious and passing, even before her cancer, and held both close and dear.

Jane had no space for hatred, lies, and harm to others. She read and studied the Bible, and her Christianity was engaged, playful, and honoring. She attractively worked to undermine the authority of those who harmed others, and while forgiving, she maintained a strong moral and ethical compass.

Sitting here, Nori curled up on the sofa behind me, I find myself wondering how Jane would interpret and engage with the present moment. I’m sure she would rebel against the notion that lies, hatred and harm are somehow Christian values, and might well ponder just where that idea might have come from. I’m certain she would have found some way to action, perhaps through her church, community, and prose and poetry. Certainly she would have kept Jesus, the wisdom of her pets, and the sacredness of everyday life as her guides, and gratitude as a practice.