December 2, 2007
Sunday
Awake, awake, and greet the new morn . . .
The rising sun shall crown you with light,
Be strong and loving and fearless.
                      — Marty Haugen, b. 1950
                           American composer of liturgical music
It was 5º by the kitchen temperature gauge when I got up this morning just after six. I made coffee, fed the cat, and went out to my hut to turn on the heater and read the overnight e-mail: a friend can’t open the attachment I sent her of a piece of my fiction, they’re expecting cold and sleet and general crappiness in central Pennsylvania this week (it will be sunny and 50º here tomorrow), Ron’s choir concert is set for the Sunday after I get back (good news!), someone is graduating from college a semester sooner than I thought (slightly bad news — I’d best get knitting!).
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. If things were “normal” in my life right now, that is, if I were at home in my suburban enclave reading home decor and holiday cooking magazines instead of in the wide open spaces of Wyoming writing a novel, I’d be getting things ready for the Decorating of the Tree and the Ceremonial Watching of Dragnet. I’d be planning out the timetable for kneading bread and preparing the tortellini en brodo that I traditionally serve on this night.
Back in the residence I poured my coffee and sat down with the Advent devotional booklet prepared by the Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots, U.S., a resource I have used since I discovered this organization in 1997, with their acronym LAMP, during an Advent when I was feeling a good deal of darkness. This group brings spiritual and physical sustenance to isolated people in South Dakota and Montana, parts of Canada, and elsewhere, always with a sensitivity to the native culture. Ten years ago their materials helped me through a dark time. I had no idea then that I would come to love the people and culture of the High Plains as much as I love the Pennsylvania Germans near where I live.
Advent is all about renewal and moving forward. I knitted while I thought about the strength and courage, the joy and the gladness that are mine every single day, even way out here, far away from the people I love and who love me.
But I could not tarry long with C&C this morning. The temperature had dropped to -2º when I went out to brush yesterday’s snow off the Prius.
It is more than twenty miles to Sheridan. I ignored my GPS, which always suggests the direct route, even if that means unpaved roads through cattle grazing lands (you never see “Caution: Loose Stock” signs in Pennsylvania). Route 14 down through the canyon is a bit longer but well-maintained. It was bright and clear this morning. I passed antelope standing along the ridges, horses with blankets of snow across their backs, two bald eagles in a high tree. I was glad I’d allowed some extra time. I approached a railroad crossing just as the gate was coming down, and I had to wait while four engines pulled 100 cars loaded with coal south to north through town.
I was headed to Trinity Lutheran Church on Crescent Drive in Sheridan. On my first trip to Wyoming I enjoyed extraordinary hospitality at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Riverton. Walking into Trinity, I knew I was in for exactly what I wanted. There was an angel giving tree in the narthex (people take tags and buy the gift indicated for anonymous people or families whose names have been obtained from social service agencies) with items already arranged underneath. “Remember the gifts must be in place by December 9,” said the bulletin, and I knew that the bulletin at Tree of Life in Harrisburg probably said the same thing.
For the next two and a half hours I was a stranger in a familiar land. One of the hymns was the above-quoted Marty Haugen number, one of my favorites. I noticed that I was the only one who seemed to be singing with confidence. “Well, that’s a new one, eh?” said the pastor in his midwestern accent. “Well, we’ll learn it eventually.” I had to smile. It’s in the new worship book put in place this summer. I don’t like most of the new settings in that book, but at least I have “Awake, Awake.”
The rest of the liturgy was in a setting I do like, one of the more traditional ones. (Full disclosure: I have been practicing as a Lutheran only since 1992. But that’s long enough to get set in my ways and to be disheartened by the newfangled “contemporary” liturgies that some people find refreshing.) In his sermon, Pastor Phil addressed the “true meaning of Christmas.” Is it spending time with family and friends? Appreciating the beauty of nature? Being especially generous? All those things are important, he said. But the true spirit is really about the profound change that can happen in your own soul, the decision once more to move into whatever a new year might bring with courage and resolve.
After the service I went downstairs for coffee and cookies. Just as at St. John’s, a woman about my age invited me to sit with her and a friend. We had a lively talk about old liturgies and new, the ones we’d grown up with, the ones we’d had to learn to like. Then I went to the pastor’s Sunday School class. Remarkably, he talked about the age-old controversy among Christians regarding the choice of cremation or earth burial. The heart of my novel! I took notes, you betcha!
When I came back up to Jentel I made bread, a Greek variety psomi, plain farm bread. I’d made the prozimi, the starter, yesterday. It’s the bread my novel’s central character is making at the beginning of the story in order to impress her Greek boyfriend, and I happened to have the recipe in my manuscript files. Even though this is not my kitchen and I had to use high altitude flour and make some other adjustments, the bread turned out well. So did the tortellini en brodo I made a big pot of and left on the stove beside the bread before I came over to the hut to work.
Now if I only had my tape of the 1953 Christmas episode of Dragnet.
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