Refuge

I have just finished reading Terry Tempest Williams' book, Refuge, originally published in 1991. I was surprised when I came to the last page. This book had become a daily companion - one of those books where my sense of time slipped away. I find I still cannot completely set it aside.    

There are several backdrops to this memoir. First is the faith of her family. While she eventually left the Mormon Church, she was deeply influenced by the spirituality of her mother and grandmother, and other family members. Secondly, there is the Great Salt Lake, and the birds who find refuge there as they make their long migratory journeys. There is also the story of her mother living with cancer, and her mother's ever increasing faith as she let cancer be her teacher. There is also the death of her beloved grandmother, who also died of cancer. There is also the revelation that her family, among many other residents (not just humans) of Nevada and Utah who experienced radioactive fallout from above ground nuclear testing from January 27, 1951 through July 11, 1962.  According to Wikipedia, by 1994 nine members of the Tempest family had had mastectomies, and seven had died of cancer, including the author. 

 

Nuclear testing was eventually moved underground and then was finally ended in 1992, but we still see the desecration of our earth in many other ways, and this I continue to ponder.  Towards the end of the book, Tempest Williams wrote, "What I do know, however, is that as a Mormon woman of the fifth generation of Latter-day Saints, I must question everything, even if it means losing my faith, even if it means becoming a member of a border tribe among my own people. Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. When the Atomic Energy Commission described the country north of the Nevada Test Site as a 'virtually uninhabited terrain', my family and the birds at Great Salt Lake were some of the 'virtual uninhabitants.'" 

  

This morning I woke from a dream where I needed to return to an old apartment building where I once lived. Much refurbishing had occurred since I had left, and that surprised me. At one time the building was pretty dilapidated, and I thought it would surely destined to be destroyed. The apartment was dark, but through a window I could see a woman sitting at a computer. For some reason, I needed access to that apartment because I needed proof that I once lived there. I knocked on the door, and the woman opened it. I explained my strange mission, and she handed me a key. I was stunned by her generosity. She then asked if I could help her elderly neighbor who lived across the hall. I said I would try. There I met a woman who was over 100 years old. We hugged, and I placed some cash in her hands. She wept, and then surprised me by saying, "My mother needs this."   

  

Jesus asks us to give thought to who is our neighbor. I will add that maybe we should give thought to who is our mother. Who or what is sustaining us? In turn, who or what are we nourishing?  Those who have come before us, and those on the horizon are all waiting and wanting to know. We are not on a linear path, but rather travel along sacred, continuing curves. We have not yet reached the horizon, and we are already there. 

        

 

photograph:  April, 2023