wayfaring stranger

It has been a long, hot summer. The garden ran amok with weeds and greasy beans. Every day there seemed to be more squash than the day before. Mama and I have canned over 75 quarts of green beans, frozen 6 bushels of creamed sweet corn, frozen yellow squash and zucchini, canned tomatoes, picked and frozen berries. We are plumb wore out...
The weather on the farm has been hot and dry. Our hay cutting was reduced by drought to only one cutting and yielded half of our normal crop. The pastures were crispy brown in July and we had to begin feeding hay early. We cannot make it through the winter without buying hay. Putting food up for people and animals has been a long, hot gamble this summer. The late freeze followed by a drought decimated the apple crop, stressed and killed some trees. We ran our pump in the stream to water our garden most of the summer.
Like my beloved mountains, my soul has been parched this summer. No words of wisdom, no flowing streams of connection to the Holy, no soul searing experiences of joy and gratitude... only struggle with a change in medicine for my ADD, a sense of distance and separation from my spiritual home at church, a dryness in my mouth that has kept me from singing my song. In the middle of the summer desert of the soul have been glimmers of green pastures and cool waters... our grandchildren at the beach laughing at the waves... working along side my mother, sharing the old rituals of preserving the food we have grown... remembering those we loved who worked with us and are now dead... tears shed in remembrance as we shucked corn... old friends moving to town... it was not all dust and drought.
One of my dusty places has been my struggle to stay connected to my church. At sixty years of age I find myself once again losing my footing in an institution I love beyond measure. For the first time in my adult life, I turned down the opportunity to teach children in Sunday School. My language and theology are out of date... out of sync with the current liberal standards. I no longer feel free to speak my truth. If I use the word Lord or say Our Father or use masculine pronouns for Jesus, I will offend someone. I can no longer chuckle about the differences. I am gasping for air... for affirmation of my faith and language... for room to be one of the Wise Ones whose past and present are seen as a gift, not a handicap.
I am an anachronism. I know that... a white, southern, stay at home mom who mostly worked part time, married to one man since 1969, not poor, not gay, not oppressed, not living in a war torn country... just a woman who has loved her church, loves her family, loves her neighbors and tries to help out by "mom-ing" those who need mothering, offering the gift of hospitality to those who come my way. Why am I feeling less than? I do not march. I rarely sign petitions. I vote regularly but am not active politically. I hear echoes of the Social Gospel of the seventies in the current emphasis on peace and social justice issues. I agreed with it in the seventies. I agree with the current stands in our church on peace and justice issues. But then and now, like canning beans and freezing corn and squash and berries, it wears me out. There is not enough of me to spread out between all the causes... not enough soul in me to heal all the hurts of the world... it has become crucifixion without resurrection for me.
Maybe I am just getting old and crabby. Crabby runs on my mother’s side of the family. Maybe I am just tired of hearing nothing but bad news. Maybe I lost my belief in salvation by our works... salvation doesn’t show up often in my world because of my efforts. Like Elijah, I have been living in my cave this summer, afraid for my soul, weary of well doing, withered in the heat of a language and theology that provides no shade for my soul, waiting for God to save me and whining a little while I waited. As I wait in the cool darkness of the cave, I am listening for God’s still, quiet voice. All I have now is the silence... and hope.
"I am a poor wayfaring stranger, while traveling through this world below... I am just going home". Please, God, let me find home again.