The Only Real Thing



I attended Dundee Elementary School with my brother and sister
in the 1950s. Now my great-niece Desi and my great-nephew
Bowen are students there. Built early in the 20th century, 
Dundee was beautifully renovated and restored in the 
1980s. Architects, RDG Planning & Design, Omaha

SAFE PLACES

When I was six years old, I was afraid of

the Cold War, the Communists, nuclear bombs,

and whatever atrocities I could invent out of

semihistorical, quasi-true stories my brother

would whisper in sinister accents, with grisly

asides and horrific embellishments. Probably

he was as frightened as I was. Maybe we had an

unspoken agreement: I was the terrified child,

crying to break any heart not of granite
till Daddy gave in to annoyance or pity, I 
never knew which. In the warm, fragrant

nest of my parents' bed, I slept the sleep

of the innocent. My brother apparently 
got all the comfort he needed
vicariously. Somehow, in some way,
that must have been 
sufficient

for him.

No matter how sad, how extreme the calamity,

however scary the story might be, I was

safe with my mom and dad,

safe at the neighbors’,

safe in the chapel, and

flower-gardening-made-easy.com

safe at my school, where

forsythias, lilacs, and quince bloomed in spring.

The air-raid drills didn’t frighten me, only I

felt pretty silly when having to crouch
like a frog on the floor, with instructions
to lock hands on the back of the neck.
Even in first grade we knew that the stuff they called

nuclear fallout was more of a threat than our

six-year-old hands could deflect. Whatever—

I never imagined such desperate tragedy; one
that could walk in our classroom one day; one so
despicable, dangerous, angry and sick; one
inconceivable... and blow us away.

I thought I knew fear but I didn’t know this: The most

frightening things tunneled into my mind with the
monsters and witches and gremlins that rattled the blinds,
creaked the floors, and ate six-year-old girls for a snack
late at night, when the wrath of hell, multiplied ten million
times, wouldn't wake Mom and Dad. 

But then I, for a moment’s peace, never had need to
destroy everything that is childhood, breathing, heart-
beating invaders--the enemy--something that lives
in the mind--something I might be if my heart had
been savaged and left to bleed, wither, and die. To
imagine a vast, damaged, infertile land of aloneness,
despair, and insanity—I've never dared try. But
now, God, I want to see without being diseased
mind and body... how? How can it be that he
scorned his own flesh and he sought the abyss, and
he punished the agent by which he was made, and if
he had known how to he would have killed you?

Teach me to pray for this man and his family. Did they

know him, his grief and his anguish? His pain? Did they see 
the dark as his illness revealed it to him? When did his world 
start to dim, then go sunless and cold, empty and still?

Then show me two dozen children with guardian angels
as Heaven's door opens, as each is embraced. Please,
may the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers and 
aunties and all of them witness it too.

In your grace keep us safe, keep us loving and
certain of love and believing in what is the only real thing 
and the only truth, even today, when we can't comprehend
what we see:

Love is him

Love is them
Love is me
Love is you
Love is everything

Where None Had Been

 

Holy Light


Heaven wept so many tears
(the angel told us), there began
a waterfall, and streams appeared
where none had been.

Where none had been, there filled a lake
and angels gathered there to pray
for you; we grieved not for his sake—
He lives today.

Where none had been, now rivers run
of joy and sorrow, side by side:
sweet, healing streams of tears that come
from angels’ eyes.

Throughout the night the angels prayed
with him—Did you know he was near?—
until the first and bravest ray
of dawn appeared.

His soul (the angel said) is young
and curious. Upon his face
shine wisdom and compassion, love
and Heaven’s grace.

In this life or another, you
will know him; trust your intuition.
With him will go angels, too,
as they have done

through eons long passed out of sight
since God in love created him
to be a ray of holy light
where none had been.

In memory of Monty Fey 1936-2011

Archer, Hold Your Arrows Now



Above: Medieval Archery Competition. Below: Depictions of the 1415 Battle of Agincourt

Food for the Wounded Heart

O God, make soft my wounded heart, which
wants to grow a dragon’s skin so it cannot be
pierced again, a coat of armor to deflect the
daggers and the arrows that with deadly aim
would make it bleed. But I need courage more
than shielding now, to keep my heart exposed...
to open and remodel it. I wish it to become a warm,
inviting heart, O God, one that is friendly, even
welcoming, for there are those it would embrace
and make for them a fragrant garden, sweet and
safe and scented with the rose, the lilac, and the
honeysuckle vine... a place above the grime of city
streets where visitors can climb to find security,
as squirrels sniff the air and scurry to their nests
before a storm. Here is my heart, my precious
ones, I cry to them. Here is protection; here is rest.
Now close your eyes and listen. You will find that
everything there is to know about reality is said
between the steady heartbeats and in whispers
at the pausing of the breath. And I would teach
them that to love is not a risk at all; it is an antidote
for death. Love speaks the language of the soul, of
sunlight, of the nightingale, the hum of summer in the
grass, the old oak groaning in the wind. If love is
stolen from an open heart, there is in heaven an
unlimited supply of it, and innocence as well.

My wounded heart, left to its own devices, would
have long since withered, gone to seed, all but
invisible among the weeds whose thorns make
inhospitable the space around. How could it heal,
this heart inflamed, when barely capable of
pounding blood through arteries and veins?
Created durable enough, it must have maintenance
just like the rest of us, with exercise and fresh air
and a diet rich in love. Admonishment to toughen
up is well regarded, and the heart is, after all, a
muscle not to be neglected, but its nourishment,
the best of it, is heaven-sent. No heart can thrive
on bread alone.

O God, make whole and clean my wounded heart
and sweep away the scales; it needs no armor from
now on. I call to the archer, Hold your arrows. I am
friend and no one’s enemy today. Almighty God,
endow me with endurance and vitality, for I would serve
thee and be happy, as my heart, by nature wise,
by thee restored to purity, advises me.
-------------------

The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day, November 3. NS), near modern day Azincourt, in northern France. Henry V's victory had a crippling effect on France and started a new period in the war, during which Henry married the French king's daughter and his son was made heir to the throne of France. However, his battlefield successes were not capitalised on by his heir, Henry VI.

Henry V led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. The French king of the time, Charles VI, did not command the French army himself as he suffered from severe, repeating illnesses and moderate mental incapacitation. Instead, the French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party.

The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which Henry used in very large numbers, with English and Welsh archers forming most of his army. The battle is also the centrepiece of the play Henry V, by William Shakespeare.
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