May every tear be washed away...

For Marcy and River Beau




This is a message for everyone that loved and still loves someone that has passed away, for those that are still here as well as those that are unwell, and contemplating their last sleep.

Remember who you loved, whether they are here or not, they are still part of all of us, especially you. You will always love them. They will continue to live deeply embedded in your heart— an extension of you, so intimately linked— never to be spiritually separated. Love, after all, is stronger than death.

Despite whatever has taken place, or will take place, we will all be reunited— someday. For in that final state, we are told that 'every tear will be washed away' and every hurt healed. And while the physical elements may melt away, what we are promised is that everything worth wanting will be restored.

And so when any of us must die, and after our souls have disappeared, they will nevertheless be re-made in some final place— which is more beautiful than even the most beautiful thing or place we can imagine now. After all, God, in any religion, makes all things new.

It is this sense of newness, and of finding again what one had lost, and of being reunited with old friends after a great purification that is the profound and moving theme of C.S. Lewis's 'The Last Battle'.

I hope and believe that when we see our friends again, whoever they are, or whatever role they may have played in our lives, that they will be glorified in such a way that is almost too beautiful to be comprehended by us.

If all of this is true, it may be that in loving anyone, or anything, we perceive the angelic personality that lies hidden within them, no matter what species— human or animal. Surely this essence lives in all of us.

Perhaps that is why in all of us there is a creative spirit which is somehow our way of interpreting or understanding a language that is not of this world.

May all your tears be washed away....

Entice, enticing, enticed, enticable?

Today someone asked me if I was 'enticable?'

After getting over the fact that I don't actually believe 'enticable' is a real word, I had to think about the question a little. What does that mean? Am I capable of being enticed? Do I even want to be enticed?

As I watched the last remnants of the once again 'hottest' day of the year disappear behind the hedge, I rather self-indulgently contemplated the question (instead of all the other extremely heavy news items - lost planes, cold and deep quarries, river-swept children, battered mistresses, etc., etc., etc.). Yes, my mind needed to drift a bit, somewhere far away from news and work and planes, like clouds.

After bidding good evening to June 1st, I sat down in front of my laptop, feeling inspired to write, capturing a little memory fragment leftover from another June day in the not too distant past. Here it is...

Mad Dogs and English Summers

One early summer day some years ago when we were all a few years younger, my children were playing with a kite in the garden with some friends.

The garden was on a slight hill, so as you looked up towards the end of the garden, all you saw was an endless sky stuffed full with soaring birds and cotton-wool clouds. On this particular day, a spoiled wind would not be satisfied with just the tumbling children, a silly dog, the whistling companion, and the soaring birds. I could hear its silver-fronded whisper beckoning me to come and play.

But I remained steadfast. Standing in the kitchen, sipping Lapsang from a chipped cup, I only watched from the window as the children unwound the string from the stick, saw them look towards the sun and the birds and the sky, wishing their kite would launch itself into the blueness rather than spiral headfirst into the grass. Time after time they tossed their unwilling playmate into the clutches of the wind, hoping the wind would grab hold of the little kite's hand and run through the air with him. Alas, after too many flightless attempts, a deflated kite once again fell to the earth. As it did, one very disappointed child threw down the stick - was it in disgust or as a challenge to his friend, or sibling, or the wind?

What a chance thought the wind. Now my little playmate can roam free, run with me, kiss the clouds, and dance across the tips of hills and fences. And so, grabbing hold of the kite's smallness, off they flew. As the kite rose gracefully, its thin string unravelled until it stopped abruptly, tugging at the last remnants of captivity - the stick. A tug-of-war ensued, but to no avail, the knot was tied well. As such, the wind and the kite agreed they would just take the stick with them.

Off they flitted: whipping through the lupins, picking up speed, preparing to leap the hawthorn and holly hedge, and then into the wild paddocks below. Then, all at once, the kite was jerked backwards caught in the thorns of a rose bush. The wind, so surprised by the suddenness (not to mention the strength of the pink petticoated plant), stopped for a moment to catch his breath. As he did, the mad dog, who only lives to chase slobbery tennis balls and chew firewood, grabbed the stick in his mouth. Springing forward like a wound up pony, such joy was uncontainable, it knew no bounds. And so the smiling dog leapt with both paws in the air, triumphant.

As it turns out, in the centre of the garden was a large flower bed, the ideal track. And so it was around the large blossoming flower bed that the smiling, boundlessly joyful dog raced. As he picked up speed, the squealing children joined in. They looked like flying ducks running madly round a racetrack: all of them in a streaming line - the kite whipping through the air, the wind wrestling his way through the grasses, the children with arms flailing, reaching as far forward as they could, all following the one mad dog with his stick.

At last I joined them in the garden. The mischievous wind got his way, having successfully enticed me to join his noisy crew. Who could resist such an invitation to come and play -- how could one refuse such laughter, the sheer silliness of the sun, the blueness of the sky? And there we remained, all of us, spending one of the most memorable afternoons chasing an obsessive dog round the garden, trying our best not to stop him, the kite, or the wind from having so much fun.

Enticable?

Now thinking back to the original question, the one that started the memory ball rolling in the first place - am I enticable?

Well, given all the right circumstances (and if 'enticable' is really a word), I guess I would say the answer is yes.