Thursday, December 19, 2013

Another Taste of Moonshine

Smooth and round a day ago, the lemon gelato moon has begun to melt, flattening from the top downward, and its light is puddling in the mist surrounding its base.

Monday, December 16, 2013

December Moon

This sky is the color "midnight blue" from a box of sixty-four Crayola crayons with sharpener, and it's as featureless as the surface of that wax stylus when it was brand-new, shiny-smooth, as yet unmarked by fingernails or other crayons, still sharp and unbroken in its pristine wrapper with the neatly lettered, mysterious name. I wasn't allowed to stay up until midnight, of course, but this crayon, with its honest childhood smell, promised to show me what it would look like if I could see the sky at that late hour.

It isn't midnight now; it's barely dark, and the moon is just beginning its climb from the horizon into that smooth, flat, midnight blue sky. The moon is pale buttercream yellow tonight, but it isn't soft-edged like a frosted cupcake. Instead it is as sharply round as the circles an art teacher cuts from construction paper, circles I try in vain to copy with compass and tracing patterns and round-tipped scissors. The moon's edges are so sharp, in fact, that the sky looks as if some gigantic teacher has cut one of her perfect circles from it, and I can see through the dark into a world of light beyond, a world where  beautiful and warm and welcoming people are smiling and waiting to meet me, shining a light to show me the way in.

I think if I can get there, they won't even mind that my circles are a little pointy.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Nelson Mandela Has Died

It's a dark and dangerous jungle out there, full of tangled vines hanging heavy with hidden intentions as well as gaudy displays of obvious positions. Tooth and claw are ever ready to slash and gash the unwary as well as the aware.

A man died in that jungle. Like every man, he had done good things in his life. Like every man, he had made mistakes. Unlike most, many of his deeds were publicly known. Still, he was a man, and he died. He lived, he died, a man.

"Ah, we are so lost."

"Oh, he was so good. We miss him."

"No, he was a devil. Good riddance."

"He showed us God."

"Thank God he's gone."

Seeking words, when someone dies, we cry with loud voice, "I . . . "

But I am not the one who lived the life, who suffered the blows, who struggled for sanity, who accepted the role, who fought the fight, who called the judgments, who chose the way. I am an observer, many times removed, and my vision is affected by every filter placed between him and me, every voice of interpretation or propaganda.

Who am I to say he was good or bad? Who am I to explain his place in history? Who am I to predict the future impact of his life?

And who are they, the hissing, growling beasts lurking in the shadows of greatness, hiding inaction with loud protestation or proclamation? Who are they who shine their tiny torches from under their bushels to enlighten the world about this man's light?

And what does it matter who we are?

A man lived. A man died. He was a man.

We all live and die. Are we being all we can be, shining all the light we can shine, making all the difference we can make? Why instead do we jump from hiding or pause in the clearing to see if someone else took a speck from his eye? What of our own eyes? And whether our eyes are clear or clouded, does it make them clearer to say we saw what he saw, or to say he could not see?

I tire. I see Jesus looking over the Holy City full of unholy busy-ness and nearly empty of eyes to see. Blind beggars all of us, striving for more, when we have been given all. I am not called to be Mandela, nor am I justified to judge him.

He was a man. He lived. He died.

How will I?

Thank God that in the midst of the posturing and pontificating, the canonizing and vilifying, at last I found a place of peace. One quiet voice spoke, and I heard it, and the jungle grew still, the storm calm.

"Go well, Madiba."

Thank God.