two maple keys

Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Now read this. Really read it.

I was standing lost, sunk, my hands in my pockets, gazing towards Tinker Mountain and feeling the earth reel down. All at once I saw what looked like a Martian spaceship whirling towards me in the air. It flashed borrowed light like a propeller. Its forward motion greatly outran its fall. As I watched, transfixed, it rose, just before it would have touched a thistle, and hovered pirouetting in one spot, then twirled on and finally came to rest. I found it in the grass; it was a maple key, a single winged seed from a pair. Hullo. I threw it into the wind and it flew off again, bristling with animate purpose, not like a thing dropped or windblown, pushed by the witless winds of convection currents hauling round the world's rondure where they must, but like a creature muscled and vigorous, or a creature spread thin to that other wind, the wind of the spirit which bloweth where it listeth, lighting, and raising up, and easing down. O maple key, I thought, I must confess I thought, o welcome, cheers.

Dear Annie Dillard. This is from her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I love finding similar souled authors. Sometimes when I'm out walking, I'll suddenly breathe in deep and suck down all the outsideness that I can and when I breathe out again it's with a laugh and an alive feeling. This feels like that. O, it feels like joy. Can we pause for a moment and breathe in and suck down all that goodness and peace feeling? It's fall right now and things are changing. Then let it out and laugh for your life. O brother. Can anyone write that the way that it is?

Thomas Merton wrote, "There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues." There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Once I start in on Annie, I can't stop. None of my own thoughts run by untainted by hers. I love it. I won't be itsy or bitsy. I wasn't born for it. I live on purpose. Today I'm going to go play with preschoolers and I'm going to shake my crimpy hair at them and growl like a lion and feel strong and silly. Hullo. I'm praying for courage today. Courage to risk life and openness. Sometimes I feel so cliché and laughably philosophical, but this is it. This is the only time we have.

These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.