Catharsis

When the rain came down, she was looking out the window at the hills. They should have been green, but they were brown, the life leached out of them by the hot harsh glare of the sun. She watched the long grass sway in the wind, watched invisible hands tug and pull on the stalks, watched the dust turn to mud and the mud turn to puddles. She tracked the invisible movement of the sun through the sky, hidden though it was behind dark pewter clouds.

She watched countless drops beat their bodies into the dust-ridden ground, stamping it into something new. She watched them wash some things clean, like the dusty leaves on the tall oak trees, and watched them make others dirty, like the roots of the grass and the clapboard on her house.

She wished they would wash her clean and dirty, too. Removing some things and covering others.


The rain drummed late into the night, filling the freshwater barrels and making the animals huddle, wet and miserable, under the porch and eaves. When the dawn finally broke over the marbled dark clouds, creating a glorious sunrise to smile on the fresh day, she was no longer watching, and she no longer cared.

Fire

I speak often of home. I call Franklin home sometimes, when I'm returning from trips and when people ask where I'm from. I call Preston home other times, or New England, when I'm saying where I love most, where I'm pulled to. I have two homes. My mom's, my dad's. Preston, Franklin. North, South. Many pairs, many preferences.

But when I close my eyes, I see it. When I wandered among the borderlands, the Borderlands, searching for the thin place between heaven and earth, I found home. The place that left marks on my heart and longing in my eyes.

Iona of my heart.

My heart, my heart.

Is it wrong to thirst for leaving? Is it wrong to want to part from my family and friends physically to seek a place where I know no one but God? Is it wrong to desire a change in everything, from the way I think to the way I see, to want to turn away from my birthplace and my homeland?

I close my eyes, and I am there. The top of Dun I, the wind whipping around me, my smile huge, the sunset before me. The hand of God playing with my hair and touching my face, telling me blessed, blessed, you are blessed. The Spirit filling me, that fire. I was so alive. For the first time, I was alive.

"When you come back from a pilgrimage like this, much may have changed..."



I prayed for fire, and fire I found. Fire in my heart to think of the places I've been, to think of what I have left to do, to think of all the stories I want to tell. It is impossible to separate the secular from the spiritual on such a pilgrimage. God was present in the laughter. He was there in the coincidences that led us to spectacular detours among the highlands. He was there in the frustration and the lessons we gained. And I can't keep quiet about an experience like that, nor can I keep from thirsting for more.

Life as it should be. A life where the gate between this place and beyond stands wide open. The life we were meant for.

I close my eyes, and I am there. The Abbey on Iona, the beach, the sandy ridge where the lamb kissed me, Glasgow Cathedral, Dryburgh Abbey, the ferry, the Pilgrim's Way. Heaven on Earth, the closest I've been, the happiest I've been. The places that lit the fire and have left it burning still, driving me to wander until I am home again, to wander for the rest of my days until I can truly rest at my sunset, to rise again on the other side, the true life beckoning me forward.