The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean;
Holding the curve of one position.
Counting an endless repetition
~ Robert Frost
This past week in Bible study and in my weekly “Spiritual Literacy Small Group” I had occasion to reflect on my grandmother and my mother. The phrase I used for both is they had a “deep river faith.”
Many were blessed by these women, I, doubly so, because they raised me; both were constant, consistent, steady, weathering whatever season, sorrow or renewal.
One of my favorite images is sunlight on water, the liquid light glistening like jewels. The light shone in Gram and Mom, was reflected in their actions, they carried the light with them, bore light through the dark and scary places and taught others to do the same.
The opening poem by Robert Frost was introduced to me this week during small group. I was paused by the line “being shore to the ocean.”
Emma and Dorothy had and maintained the right perspective, a humility of service and self-awareness, knowing who they were, grounded, strong and in service to the faith they professed, blessed be, in how they lived.
There is a rhythm to the ocean, “an endless repetition.” Mothers have a routine of care and nurture, they set the schedules and the order of the home. My mum was into her 80’s still cooking the holiday dinners that fed our brood, she taught Sunday School for 65 years (!!); Gram was in her 90’s still baking bread during winter and sitting on the glider in summer shelling beans.
I think of both often and especially on this Mother’s Day. After each school day when I’d come home and change into my play clothes, gram asked me, “Tell me, what did you learn in school today?” During the high school years, when awakening early was a hassle, mum would enter my room and say, “Come alive, Sally!”
This day and ever onward I will trace the river’s flow within me, I will learn its rhythms, I will be constant, I will live boldly for I am Emma’s youngest granddaughter and Dorothy’s youngest child --- blessed to be a blessing.
