Ohio 4

July 15, 2013

Hiram is exquisitely deserted. My room has a terrace, where I can stand safely in my underwear surveying the Quad and environs where not one soul is moving.

Did yesterday morning what I never expected to do. I returned to Emmanuel United Church of Christ, into which building I had not stepped for forty years. I assumed that I’d be safely anonymous, everyone I knew dead or gone, but that was not the case. I’d barely gotten through the door when Mrs Steen descended on me–knowing me in an instant. In the sparse congregation that morning were the Steens, Isabelle Taggert (having just celebrated her 91st birthday), the Buida girls (my first baby sitters) and their families. I had a chance to thank Betty Andonian, my mother’s cherished friend in her last years, and Neil Wertz, my father’s cherished friend in his last years. Doug Lazorn’s mother was there. She asked if I remembered him and I said “yes,” leaving out, “he was always the trouble-maker, for whom excuses had to be made.”  Several people knew me chiefly as my sister’s brother. Several familiar names were on the pray-for or homebound list. The service was unfamiliar, but I had been gone a long time. What passed for liturgy seemed improvisational, and when we came up for Communion, it was bread dipped in grape juice. The music was dreadful. This endures through time. The preacher (new, there but six months) was excellent, and preached –on the Good Samaritan– one of the best sermons I ever heard.

Hours left to mope around Hiram, so I did. Without my intending for it to happen, some power led my feet to the corner of the playing fields where the Path lay, and still lies. For the first time since 1972 I walked that path to Silver Creek. Passing into the shadow of the forest made me feel different, sacred. It was hot, still, very quiet. Birds called in the distance (it was nearing dusk) but nearby all was close and silent and holy. I found I could move without making a sound. The woods are more beautiful than they used to be, clean and stately where they had been scruffy and weedy, the canopy not quite sealed over the undergrowth. What a mysterious experience it was! Spirit hovered over it, and me, though the identity of the spirit was difficult to tell. I felt unusually fit and covered the ground with some speed. I met something there, a part of me, which like gold hammered thin had been far away but never separated. I was happy.

When I emerged kids–the boys in white shirts and ties–were streaming to the dining hall at the edge of the fields. I blessed them.