November 14, 2015

In This Issue

Remembering St. Mark's with...

Grate Patrol

Learnings from Karen Armstrong's "Fields of Blood:...

What is Catechesis?

St. Mark in St. Mark's Church

A Becalmed Windsurfer's Meditation

thurdinay

What Business Are We In at St. Mark's?

by Peter Sherer

With the help of a few very generous volunteers, Interim Rector Michele Morgan and I have been cleaning up our administrative and financial systems to make life easier for the new Rector. When I describe our activities, several people have said, "That's great, because after all we are almost a million dollar business."

I ask myself if we are a business, then what business are we in, and how do we know whether or not the business is succeeding?

Some church watchers would say that we are in the community-building business and would hold up financial well being and increasing membership as signs of a healthy enterprise. Others would say that we are in the religious culture business, and point to interesting liturgy, sophisticated music and good preaching as indicators of congregational health.

Although there is wisdom in these definitions, I have been thinking recently that the purpose of St. Mark's is to generate spiritual development for its members. If the answer is spiritual development, then how does it take place at St. Mark's and how could we measure progress toward that goal?

Twenty years ago, Rector Jim Adams answered the question by saying that we evolve spiritually by facing into life's difficult decisions and by making increasingly faithful responses. He believed that as we grew spiritually, we would find ourselves less dominated by fear, vanity or other less charitable attributes as we made key choices. He believed that life in the church could equip us to function more authentically in the world.

Jim also suggested that taking classes or volunteering in a church assignment offered opportunities to pay careful attention to whether we behaved faithfully when challenged. So I imagine that some of his measures of spiritual development success would have included counting the number of people participating in Christian Education and the number of people engaged in volunteer jobs.

More recently, Rector Paul Abernathy might have argued that spiritual development was a valuable byproduct of engaging with people of different races, religious traditions, and socio-economic status. In light of his call to pay attention to "the other," measures of our success might have included opening our pulpit to different voices, vigorous outreach and an extended discussion of race.

How would we answer the question about how we generate spiritual development now?

One of many examples might be the work we do with our children. I am pretty sure that the reason the Catechesis teachers are so dedicated is because they see evidence that they are contributing to the spiritual development of our children. It has to be something that substantial-otherwise, how can you explain their willingness to return year after year and go through demanding and costly training at their own expense? I think the spiritual-development motive can be assumed for all teachers of both children and adults.

Do all of us who volunteer to manage some aspect of our community life understand the impact of our effort on our own spiritual development? Do choir members believe that their singing contributes to their spiritual development as well as enriching the experience of the congregation?

The same question could be raised about serving the Altar Guild, Vestry, Outreach Board, or Finance Committee. In my own work as Senior Warden, I am often faced with the choice between what seems easy or popular, and what would be a more substantial and challenging contribution during the transition. As I choose, am I developing spiritually? If so, how would I know?

It seems to me that being articulate about our capacity as an organization to contribute to someone's spiritual development is crucial to our success. Every national poll indicates that millennials, who represent our future, are less interested in things religious but are fascinated by spiritual activities.

How would you answer the following questions for yourself?

℉ow does St. Mark's contribute to my spiritual development now?
╓hat measures am I using to answer the question?

Please feel free to write to me directly or to respond in the next edition of the Winged Lion Review.

Question Session with
Jeff Kempskie, Director of Music

What were some of the key turning points or choices that affected your path to your current profession, and St. Mark's in particular?

At age 25 I became friends with a guy I really related to who also happened to be an organist. I learned you could be "cool" and play the organ (well, sort of-playing the organ is inherently dorky, I think). That friend eventually "gave" me his church job when he moved, requiring me to play the organ for the first time. The novelty and challenge of the instrument was appealing and, after a second stint of teaching music and finally learning my lesson that I was done with it, I decided to again go back to school to study the organ and pursue a career as a church musician.

I credit the "Law of Attraction" for much of why I ended up at St. Mark's! When applying for jobs, I wrote down all the characteristics of the ideal job that I was looking for, spent time imagining and feeling how awesome having that job would be, and then just "put it out there" with the expectation and trust that I'd eventually be led to the right place. I marvel at what a perfect fit St. Mark's is for me at this point in my life and career.

How would you describe your role as music director?

I see my role as selecting and preparing music for the church that enhances people's worship experience and hopefully, at least on occasion, moves them spiritually and/or emotionally and helps them connect with something on a deeper level. In working with any ensemble, I think one of my major responsibilities is to rehearse the group and correct as many "distractions" as possible, such as out-of-tune notes or not being together, so that the listeners might lose themselves in the sound of the music or the text and not think about the people singing or playing.

What role does your faith play in shaping your career aspirations?

Faith played almost no role in my decision to be a church musician, believe it or not. Being raised as a Catholic made me feel comfortable in the church and familiarized me with the music and liturgy, while also instilling in me a respect for the traditions and beliefs of the church, But that's mostly it. I ditched Catholicism by about age 15. It was not because I don't believe in God, because I do, but because I realized my spirituality was much more of a personal journey and something I preferred to explore outside the context of the church. With the exception of a couple years here and there, I've worked for churches ever since I was a sophomore in high school. I simply enjoy working for the church, regardless of my spirituality.

Please describe the process by which music for St. Mark's services is decided.

Something I am required to do nearly every day is discern the quality of a given piece of music and its text. Do the lyrics have substance? Is the music interesting, appealing, and well-written? The types of music I typically select for a given Sunday include hymns, choir anthems, and organ music.

I always start by choosing the choir anthems. The readings, especially the Gospel, are the first things that influence which music to choose. If there are no anthems that complement the readings (perhaps because they have very specific stories or themes to which no music is set), I look at more general or seasonally appropriate selections. Maybe there's an anthem from the previous year that I want to repeat. Sometimes variety plays a role. The choir may have sung music for three weeks in row with organ accompaniment, and so it's time to do something a cappella. Maybe they've sung lots of slow, sustained music, so I have them sing a fast or more rhythmic spiritual. Perhaps they'll have sung lots of easy anthems and need a more challenging piece.

Selecting hymns also involves looking at the stories and themes within the readings. As with choir anthems, sometimes there are obvious choices that fit well with the readings, sometimes not. Repetition of music, to teach it to the congregation, plays a part, as does the need for musical variety, such as fast/slow, major/minor, loud/soft, or traditional/contemporary. I occasionally choose organ music that is based on hymn tunes we're singing for a particular Sunday. At other times, the mood of the organ music can be the deciding factor. Or I'll choose music by German, French, Italian, or American composers, or play music from the Baroque, Classical, or Romantic periods, or the 20th/21st centuries. While I suspect that to some people it may all sound the same, I do aim to mix up the musical selections, since I am well aware it's impossible to please everyone 100 percent of the time.

Did it take a long time to learn to use the foot pedals on the organ while also playing the keyboard and doing the stops?

Yes, the organ is a difficult instrument to play! Depending on the music, certain passages can take hours of practice to develop the necessary coordination to play them correctly and up to speed. Adding the pushing of buttons with your hands and feet to change the stops (often at a precise time, while playing) adds another layer of complexity.

Don't you ever want to play something a little funkier? Were you ever in a garage band?

We occasionally do spirituals or other music that is rhythmic, syncopated or has cool harmony, which gives me my fill of funk. And yes, I did play in a rock band in my early 20's. It was interesting in that we had two singer/songwriters and only performed original music. Our motto was "folk, funk, rock, and junk."

Remembering St. Mark's with...

Crane and Jane Miller

(Editor's Note: As members of St. Mark's since the early days of the Kennedy Administration, Crane and Jane Miller have seen major changes both in the physical facility and in the congregation-although, perhaps, not so much in the spirit of the place. That was evident in their recently shared recollections about St. Mark's in the 60s and early 70s, as it shifted from the small but lively and diverse group revived under Rector Bill Baxter, as well as the full flowering of its unique character under Rector Jim Adams.)

Crane:

Jane, who was already involved with the parish, kept after me to come to St. Mark's. My first Sunday, we were sitting with Howard Park, a seminarian who had sung with the Wiffenpoofs at Yale, and I said, "The music stinks here. Why don't we form a quartet and have occasional offerings?"

Two weeks later, my friend Howard, Lilly Kester [March] and Bill came out to our apartment. Bill came subtly to his point: He said, "I want you to lead the choir." I had a long list of excuses why I shouldn't. To each excuse, Bill said, "It doesn't matter."But by the end, I said I would do it. So for the next five years I was director of the choir.

Jane:

The parish was small, but we had a wonderful diversity of people. Bill invited everyone in. He was open to everyone coming. We had a man who was a violinist and an alcoholic. Another man was an architect who was gay when things like being gay weren't talked about. We had an outpatient from St. Elizabeth's who went to everything around here. Before he would sit down, he put a handkerchief on the chair, and would walk around it and smooth it several times before he sat down. But he had a heart of gold. His name was Albert Archibald. One day I - pregnant, with a toddler on my hip, and a four-year old nearby - came into the church and found Crane up on a long fireman's ladder working with fireman Ed Beller decorating the rood screen. The ladder was on the slippery marble floor, and Albert was the only one holding the ladder. His kindness and good sense was all that stood between me and widowhood!

Crane:

Having completed confirmation class, I was ready to be confirmed. Bill sat down with me and said that I needed to get baptized. I said I couldn't answer yes to all of the baptismal promises. Bill said, "That's OK. Just answer as you can, and we'll work it out." So at the baptism, as he asked a question, I said, "No." He then would give some explanation of what it meant and go on to another question to which I would also answer "no".

He drew the line at the last question, though, and said that he couldn't baptize me if I didn't say yes; the implication was that then I could not become a member of the church. But by that time I really liked the community and wanted to be a member, so I said, "Yes." (A lot of people felt that I never got baptized!)

That was characteristic of Bill's flexibility-he could take you from wherever you were and bring you in.

In about 1964, the Vestry began to look at building repairs and possible improvements. The Vestry retained architect Kent Cooper who proposed that we take out the pews and create church in the round. Without talking to the Vestry, Bill sold the pews to a church that needed them. Then we got the original interlocking cathedral chairs.

On the first Sunday after JFK was assassinated, LBJ came to St. Mark's and Bill preached. The Johnsons knew the Baxters through their daughters who went to school with the Baxters'daughters. Bill's sermon that day is displayed in the foyer as you enter the church.

After 10 years as rector, Bill was eager for a change, and the president offered him a position as a counselor for the Peace Corps. Before he left, Bill set things up in such a way that we would invite Jim Adams, who had earlier given Advent lecture series and impressed a lot of us.

When Jim came to St. Mark's in 1966, I decided it was time for me to leave as director of the choir, and it's been uphill for the choir ever since!

Jim was interested in getting more lay participation, and his first effort was to create a Worship Committee, which he eventually asked if I would chair. So from 1966-72, I worked with the Worship Committee, where we undertook some really awful liturgical experiments. I look back on with wry amusement and embarrassment. I wish I could remember some of them. It came to a point where we had something different every week. One positive and continuing change from that period was having Eucharist weekly instead of once a month.

When Jim left on his first six-month sabbatical, the senior warden at that time was Verna Dozier, and she did a wonderful job. The leadership of Christian Education and other programs was easily taken over by the laity, so much so that when Jim came back, they didn't want to give up their jobs-which may have been what Jim was planning all along. That opened up other things he could do without having the responsibility for everything. He had a wonderful way of suggesting an idea to lay

With over 100 years between us, Jane and I agree that St. Mark's is and remains the most important community that we experience.

If it's the fourth Sunday of the month, it must be
Grate Patrol at St. Mark's!

by Susan Sedgewick

Susan with the Salvation Army Grate Patrol coordinator, Theresa McKillop.

For close to 30 years, St Mark's young people-with adults-have made 150 or more bag dinners for the Salvation Army to distribute to homeless street dwellers on a Sunday night each month. Our kids have learned skills such as how to shop with a tight budget, mass produce sandwiches, and stuff lunch bags with condiments, fruit and cookies.

It is gratifying for me to see our young ones pitch in to make it happen. It is also personally gratifying to have new coordinators pick up the reins from those of us who have spent time purchasing the supplies, recruiting and organizing volunteer sandwich makers, and getting the bag dinners to the Salvation Army. Leslie Allen, Doug Ammon, Heather and Eric Burneson recently retired as our coordinators, and Edna Boone, Erika Lehman, and Donna Sabino have stepped in. Their task may be even more challenging; Doug recently reported a request from the Salvation Army St. Mark's to produce 200 bag dinners, as the number of homeless men and women has grown.

Years ago, when I was coordinator, I had the experience of going out on the Salvation Army Grate Patrol van making the delivery circuit. I remember how beautiful the Mall was on a crisp winter night. But most of all I remember the line of men, of varying races, lined up to receive their meals. An experienced volunteer showed a nervous young teenager and me how to give the lunch bags out in a dignified manner: "As you hand out the bag, speak to each person using 'sir' or 'ma'am,' and wish a good night." Those receiving the bags smiled and thanked us. Yes, there were some silent ones who would not make eye contact; but there were others who made sure those who were able to come to the van themselves received attention from the driver/social worker.

On September 29, I had the pleasure of attending the dedication of Salvation Army's new food truck. For 30 years, a van has gone out 365 nights a year. Starting from Union Station at 7 pm, it makes stops along the Mall, taking dinners provided by churches, synagogues, law firms and businesses to the homeless. On cold winter evenings these dinners are augmented with soup and hot chocolate often provided by the Salvation Army's Harbor Lights facility located on New York Ave. As the driver/social worker distributes blankets and other personal items, he or she can spot issues that require additional professional attention.

The good news is the new van can take four volunteers on the delivery circuit. Our young people over 12 can go with an adult leader, and adults are also welcome! For those of us who have a few hours on a Sunday evening, this can be an amazing experience. Our Grate Patrol team is looking for six adults to commit to serving twice a year as the adult leader. Please contact Doug Ammon or Caroline McReynolds-Adams if you are interested.

Learnings from Karen Armstrong's "Fields of Blood:
Religion and the History of Violence"

by Janice Gregory

Instead of reading fictional murder mysteries, I spent the summer of 2015 patiently working my way through 401 pages about actual mayhem: Karen Armstrong's monumental work about religion and violence, "Fields of Blood." I came away with a new humility and several things that I learned, not all violent.

Armstrong's sweep is wide, beginning about 20,000 years ago with hunter-gatherer cave paintings, moving through early myths such as Gilgamesh and the rise of all the major religions, and continuing to the present day. Her definition of violence is broad, encompassing not only murder and war but also the structural violence of masters over workers that results in disparities of wealth and opportunity.

Armstrong rejects the notion that religion is itself inherently violent. Rather, her primary culprit is the agrarian society-the very food supply system that enabled us as a species to grow in numbers and sophistication far beyond our hunter-gatherer forebears. In the agrarian society, the only way to get more food was to expand one's acreage, including by taking someone else's. Crop failures were common and devastating. People banded together to store food from good years. They designated some of their group to guard their lands and stores rather than farm, which became the warrior class.

Then, as now, people wanted assurance that what they do has meaning. Early rituals and people to lead them appeared, and someone had to organize all this. Freed from the daily toil of the land, living off taxes paid by the farmers, these ruling classes soon treated the farmers as their vassals.

Armstrong's approach meshes well with an anthropological view of human development. Before agriculture, to get more food, people would go on a hunting expedition. There was no worry of crop failure, and apparently no concept of scarcity. If pickings were slim, the group just moved to where there was more food. There was a basic equality of people and a sharing of resources.

As time went on, these wandering bands began to carry food with them in the form of animal herds. Farmers and herdsmen became traditional enemies because the herdsmen replenished their herds and supplies by raiding farms.

As group fought against group, larger and larger groups appeared until only the creation of an empire could produce a modicum of peace for the general population. Of the state of perpetual warfare that accompanied the development of agricultural societies, Armstrong says, "From the first, it seems, large-scale organized violence was linked not with religion but with organized theft."

Armstrong introduces her story of the Hebrews this way:

"When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they probably did not fall into a state of original sin, as Saint Augustine believed, but into an agrarian economy."

And, she notes, Cain was a farmer, and Abel, the brother he killed, a herdsman.

I blinked in delight at statements that hopped off the page as I read. Here are four of my favorites:

Our modern Western conception of religion is idiosyncratic and eccentric. No other cultural tradition has anything
like it.
In ancient Sumer, the first recorded agrarian civilization, the "Epic of Gilgamesh" includes a cry against the ruler's tyranny, "Should a shepherd savage his own flock?"
In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh condemns the violence at the heart of the agrarian state and calls the Israelites to live instead by covenant. When the people demand a king, Samuel responds with a remarkable critique of agrarian oppression. (I Sam 8:11-18)
Many of the protests against Roman imperial rule in Palestine were nonviolent, principled demonstrations such as sit-ins and work slow-downs that were often effective.

In the beginning, religion was never an individual enterprise but part of the structure of society that provided an orderly place and sacred purpose for members of that group. Through the centuries, religion has been bent to the service of whatever empires were in existence, as Armstrong documents in detail. At the same time, religious voices and scriptures have questioned and condemned and thus made visible the violence inflicted on fellow humans.

In recent centuries, the rise of merchant classes opened a new way other than agrarian surplus to pay for the state. The rise of nations offered a new form of organized societal belonging, and religion (in some societies, but certainly not all of them) moved to the realm of the individual.

I found Armstrong's careful outlines of different groups overwhelming in their detail but amazing in opening my mind to how often we talk past rather than with each other because we come from differing organizing structures.

What is Catechesis?

by Kris Humphrey

As a Catechesis teacher, I find that not only do I enjoy watching the children make connections and insights from the lessons, but that I also learn something new from them every week - and perhaps to re-connect with the essentials of my own relationship with God. We hope that all feel welcome to join us on the journey!

That journey began in 1996 for St. Mark's, which offers the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Sunday School program to children from age 3 through Grade 5. We serve about 50 children per year in three classrooms or levels, with average attendance of about 27 every Sunday.

"Wait a minute," you say. "That sounds like 'catechism.' Isn't that a Catholic thing?"

Both words indeed share the same origin, going back to the Greek katekhesis, or 'oral instruction,' from katekhein, 'to teach by word of mouth.' Both are associated with a kind of oral teaching. However, there are critical differences.

CATECHISM, in some of our distant pasts, refers to a book of questions - and answers - to be memorized as a part of foundational religious instruction. There was no questioning, no wondering, just memorization of answers written by others.

As used here, CATECHESIS denotes a method of oral instruction where stories are told and questions are asked, but there are no pre-determined answers. Similar to the parable method of instruction, we tell the stories and ask questions and wonder together at what the author or Jesus or God is telling us. That's the richness of the parable method: Since Jesus didn't give a decoder, we are free to wonder what he meant and to move the story into different ages to bring the message home to us.
We try hard not to over-explain, giving children the ability to struggle with the ideas on their own.

Used worldwide, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is based on the work of Maria Montessori, Dr. Sofia Cavalletti, a Hebrew scholar, and her co-worker, Gianna Gobbi, a Montessori educator. Click HERE for a link to the national Association of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to learn more.

At its foundation, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program believes that all young children have a spiritual life, that God is present to them in their deepest being, and they are capable of developing both a conscious and intimate relationship with God. We provide vocabulary, Bible lessons and connections to liturgy to enable them to become more aware of their relationship with God and to express it.

Children meet in specially prepared rooms that contain attractively displayed handmade materials that are designed to invite children to deepen their relationship with God at their own pace. The program is biblically based and follows the rhythms of the church year. Classes are structured to offer a time of prayer and song, a time for the presentation of a lesson and a time for individual work by the child. The work of the child is their prayer and is the most important part of the class.

The Catechesis is divided into three levels that correspond to Montessori's planes of development. Children from ages three to six are in Level I. Level II covers grades one through three, and fourth and fifth graders are in Level III. As the child matures, the essentials of our religious faith are presented in increasing detail and sophistication. At each level, presentations focus on the life and teachings of Jesus and the liturgy of the church.

Level I (Children ages 3 to 6 years): I Am Known and Loved

The theme for this level is the Good Shepherd who knows and loves his sheep and gives everything for them. The enjoyment of the gift of God's love to the child is the foundation of further religious insight and moral development. This level could be characterized as a "time of joy, love and wonder" in the lives of the children. Presentations offered over this three year period cover parables, narratives from the Bible from Jesus' life, geography lessons, and Baptism. It also introduces elements that allow these children to have a greater participation in the liturgy they see and hear every Sunday in service - things like learning the basic gestures of the Eucharist, the liturgical colors, and the items from the Altar.

Level II (Children in 1st through 3rd Grade): What Can I Contribute?

The overall theme for these years is captured in the image of Christ as the True Vine, focusing on both relationship ("abide in me") and responsibility ("bear fruit"). These children begin to see themselves as living in a point of time with a past and present and future, so basic but cosmic Montessori-based timeline lessons are introduced during these years. As the children begin to discover the vast sweep of God's working in creation and human history, they begin to realize that they have something to contribute to it. Moral sensitivity/awareness begins here - when a child says, "That's not fair!," the child is saying that he or she is developing an internal conscience, and starting to make decisions based on a sense of right or wrong. We give them lessons that ask: Knowing how much I am loved, how am I going to act in th e world?

Level III (Children in 4th and 5th Grade): What Is My Place in God's Plan?

This level could be characterized as a time of "intellectual curiosity about the world and my place in it." Here we bring in the fundamental Hebrew Scripture stories of Creation, the Fall of Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, and Abraham. We explore the Jewish roots of Christian tradition. These children are interested in role models so we study saints and prophets, both old and current. We also study the more difficult passages of the Bible dealing with the end of Jesus' life and more challenging parables, like the talents and the workers in the vineyard. We introduce the students to world religions and explore other sources and traditions, including the lives of the saints and the Book of Common Prayer.

If you would like to learn more about becoming a Catechesis teacher, or any other questions about the program, please email Kris Humphrey (kristenjhumphrey@gmail.com) or Teresa Trissell (tdtrissell@hotmail.com). If you have a child you'd like to bring to class, feel free to have them join us any Sunday!

St. Mark in St. Mark's Church

by Mary Cooper and Randy Marks

There are two windows in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in honor of our patron saint.

The oldest is on the East side of the chancel, the third window from the south wall of the church, above the organ. It features St. Mark with the winged lion that is his symbol. Like most of the windows in the church (except the Tiffany window in the baptistery and a few clerestory windows), the Mayer firm of Munich, Germany, created this window. It is dedicated to former Vestryman Robert Dalton and was installed in 1911.

A more recent window is the small one in the East vestibule (the 3rd St. entrance closest to the garden), dedicated to Grace Sladen Brown, a lifelong parishioner. Made in 1976 by the J & R Lamb Company of New Jersey while they were restoring several of the larger windows in the church, this window does not contain an image of St. Mark. Rather, it includes only the winged lion emblem, along with a book and pen symbolizing the Gospel and a four-petal flower symbolizing the four Evangelists.

We also have a Winged Lion banner that we usually display near the organ.

The parish was founded as Memorial Parish in 1867. In 1868 it was renamed St. Mark's to honor the founding priest, Rev. Mark Olds, who died early in his ministry.

A Becalmed Windsurfer's Meditation
by Brock Hansen

The ocean has long been one of my favorite metaphors for God-immense and overwhelming, nurturing and soothing at times, terrifying at times, and, when the afternoon sun sparkles on its wind-tickled surface, beautifully complex in its never-ending dance.

As the container ship passed while I was becalmed on my sailboard in the shipping lanes off Sandy Point in the Chesapeake Bay, I had a thought. This could have been it. They only missed me by 50 yards. I could have been sucked into the churning of the great propellers and blended into human gazpacho. But the ship was past, and I was watching the first of three waves of the wake grow to five feet and tower over me, sitting on my little piece of flotsam, waiting for a motivating breeze.

And now they pass smoothly under me, lifting me effortlessly, and leaving me awed at the mass of the ship and the slow, silent power of the waves. The ship and the waves are dwarfed in their turn by the incomprehensible depths of the ocean stretching out of the bay and around the world. And now the waves of the wake are gone, lost in the myriad competition of energy patterns dancing up and down the bay, in and out of the estuary, and on to play in the vast fields of the sea.

Is my consciousness like the energy of a wave, having no matter to it, but giving shape and motion to the water? Is it unable to generate itself or even to change its direction, but, in concert with other waves, able to make the great sea itself gentle or terrifying? And when the wave dies in a crash on the shore, its energy is dissipated and disappears into the mysterious pool of climactic patterns that contribute to the birth of storms. And new waves are born of the storms.

If I exist only as a twinkle of awareness on the crest of a wave of relatively organized energy, surging and ebbing for all I'm worth through this storm season I call my life, isn't it silly to imagine that I have any power at all? Shall I be furious that I don't roll along faster or in a different direction? Shall I be ashamed that other waves rumble over, under, and through me and confuse my shape for a while? Shall I be bitter that the direction of my life does not take me beside lovelier vistas? Shall I be sad when the relative organization of my energy is buffeted to pieces by endless confrontations with ships and shores? Or shall I be grateful for the contributions of other waves, that have lifted me higher at times, and for the redirection I am given in my encounters with the rocks along the coast?

thurdinay

by Stewart Andrews

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