To everything there is a season, and the calendar
says it’s the season to say, “season’s greetings, and God bless us, everyone!”
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| Hannah at the Hall of Fame |
Hard to fathom, but it’s almost Christmas again
according to the calendar on the kitchen wall. That particular calendar came
from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown where Cheryl and I took Hannah
last June to celebrate her 13th birthday. Yes, having failed
miserably to pass along to two sons my lifelong love affair with the summer
game, I have raised a baseball-loving daughter – and what a great year it was
for that in these parts!
We live our days, as you probably do, according to
many calendars and the baseball calendar is one among them. Of course, according
to the Mayan calendar, you might never get to read this at all if I don’t rush
on quickly and get this year posted to the blog. So, according to the calendars
…
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| Mike, Cheryl and Clark |
The travel calendar was full of lots of small
jaunts: the five of us spent a grand long weekend at a house on Virginia Beach
in early spring; Martin and I journeyed down the Crooked Road to record what
became his senior project; Cheryl and I joined a couple (Clark and Mike) from
church for a long weekend on the Outer Banks where Clark and I ran a half
marathon (while Cheryl and Mike created a fantastic breakfast for the
conquering heroes!); Cheryl and I had another lovely short trip through Virginia’s
wine country to celebrate our 30th (!) anniversary; I attended
General Assembly in Pittsburgh in early July; and the whole family journeyed to
Chattanooga in later July. Other travels crossed onto other calendars, as you’ll
see.
The academic calendar saw one major milestone:
Martin graduated from Wakefield High School in June! With appropriate fanfare –
which is to say very little for our introverted middle child – we trooped down
to Constitution Hall on a steamy summer evening and witnessed Martin march
across the stage that famously barred Marian Anderson from performing. Wakefield
has to be one of the most racially and ethnically diverse public schools in the
country (and the one where President Obama delivered his Faux-News-controversial“back-to-school” speech a few years back), so it was fun to sit in those seats
and imagine the 1930s Daughters of the American Revolution revolving in their graves!
One of the “just-plain-cool” aspects of life in metro DC is how often the
ordinary parts of life intersect with momentous pieces of American history.
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| Martin |
Immediately after graduation Martin headed of for a
few days at the beach with his girlfriend’s family and then decamped for camp.
He spent the summer on the staff at Hanover, following in his parents’
footsteps as a counselor on those sacred 600 acres outside of Richmond. At the
moment, Martin is taking a gap year before entering the U of Mary Washington
next fall. The gap year is filled with a fantastic, crowd-funded film project
documenting the music, musicians and instrument makers along Virginia’s CrookedRoad. This father-son filmmaking project has taken us to the stage of the
Carter Family Fold, the workshop of internationally renowned guitar-maker WayneHenderson, and the dance floor of the Floyd Country Store. Early in 2013 it may
take us all the way to meet and interview Ralph Stanley. We thank many of you
for supporting the project and look forward to a red-carpet debut next spring!
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| Bud at the beach! |
Martin will be following his big brother’s footsteps
at UMW from which Bud will graduate next spring. He has spent a busy, focused
year of study and work. He spent the summer living back home while completing a
fine internship experience at a small, DC-based tech firm. During the summer he
had a paper accepted at an international academic conference, and traveled to
Melbourne, AU, to deliver the paper the week of Thanksgiving. Those experiences
may point him toward graduate school, and his Christmas break is being filled
with applications to Georgia Tech and UC Santa Cruz. He’s focused on those
schools first for their digital gaming programs, but also high on the
qualifying factors: good ultimate teams! The lad is mad for Frisbee, and
travels extensively to play tournaments up and down the East Coast as president
of UMW’s men’s team club. He is also mad for Monica (as are we), his girlfriend
of several years, and the two of them joined us for a trip down to Chattanooga
over the summer to visit with the southern grands, aunts, uncles and cousins. A
truly lovely time was had by all, as the bucolic pics indicate.
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| Hannah on the beach |
The academic calendar saw Hannah begin her final
year of middle school, which means we’ve now attended the last school music
concert that will include beginning musicians – no more Hot Cross Buns! In the
way of gifted and talented 8th graders, Hannah is a busy kid:
soccer, band, model UN, honors society along with various volunteer service
activities keep the family calendar a crowded mess. Add the baseball schedule
to that (and we are counting the days till spring training) and you’ve got some
joyous chaos. Hannah and I made it to about 10 Nats games last season, and we
were in the seats for the sad end of the season as the hometown boys came up
just a bit short in their last playoff game. The girl suffered a couple of
bouts of “baseball fever,” a strange malady whose only known cure is skipping
school to ride bikes to a big league game.
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| the whole crew |
The work calendar continues more or less apace for
Cheryl. She is now in her 10th year at the Library of Congress, and
still calls her work “the best job in the world.” Even as I jot these musings,
she is anticipating a call from the Library’s human resources department with
news that her job – a “not to exceed” appointment that expires soon – has been
made a full-time, permanent position … at least until the whole institution
falls off the fiscal cliff! (UPDATE: she got her job!) Cheryl continues to teach teachers how to use the Library’s
massive on-line resources, to write and edit content for their blog, and to
represent the Library at various conferences around the country. She spent some
quality time in Vegas this fall, but we heard nothing about it because what
happens in Vegas …. Actually, she was impressed by the sites, amused by the
lights and saddened by the hopelessness that feeds the place and that the place
feeds on. And work was, well, work.
My work calendar has changed rather dramatically
this fall. Beginning in September I went to 3/5 time at the wee kirk. That
freed up the church’s budget such that we were able to hire, for the first time
in anyone’s memory, a church administrator, and, beginning next month, we’ll
add a part-time Christian educator to the ministry team. More changes are
coming, and I believe we’re finally living into the promise that drew us to
Clarendon almost a decade ago.
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| in Seattle |
It’s amazing to me to write that … a decade ago. Now
my own calendar has turned to a new page. I don’t know what the next page will
look like. The transition to a new schedule kicked off with a month-long study
leave in August. The highlight of that time was an amazing writing retreat out
on Vashon Island. It was the first time I’ve ever been to the great northwest
and I loved it! No humidity! No mosquitos! Volcanoes! Oh, and coffee shops on
every corner! I got a huge amount of writing done, and this fall I completed
the first full draft of a novel. In addition, I’ve been recording a cycle of
songs (with Martin playing a variety of instruments including violin, mandolin,
banjo and dulcimer), and trying to get through a long list of house and garden
projects. At some point the household budget will make demands on this calendar
and I’ll be looking for a second part-time gig, but for now I’m taking the time
to do some creative work that I’ve longed to do for years.
The liturgical calendar continues to be the dominant
one in our lives. This season of Advent, of preparing our lives for the coming
again into them of a light that no darkness can overcome, challenges us to seek
out the light that shines forth in each soul, including our own broken ones. As
the great Leonard Cohen put it in Anthem,
“there’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” So, as the
calendar turns to another year, pay particular attention to the broken places because,
as the story of Jesus reminds me, that’s where the light will shine. Let your
light shine brightly, because the world needs still more light to break forth.
Grace and peace to you all.
1 comment:
Amen and Amen. Thanks David.
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