Weaving Down the McKenzie

By Paul Roberts 

There have been many times in my writing over the years, but particularly during this last year, while blogging through Grow Me a Story, that my thoughts have turned to very specific people as I am writing; family members, old friends, and lately Sacred Community Garden members in particular. I’ll find myself writing along, and a thought or a phrase I am about to write, or one that I have just written, will bring one of you to mind. I’ll pause, and think about you, and spend a brief moment hoping you will enjoy a particular turn of phrase that I have chosen to include in my writing. Sometimes it’s my own writing. Sometimes it was crafted by someone else, but the idea is something that moves me, and in that moment, I want to share it with you.   

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue

An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view

A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold

A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

If you are from my generation - I’ll turn 63 in November - those words, that song, that artist probably brings a flood of emotions to mind, and if that flood does it’s work, you and I are able to realize that we are in this thing called life together, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live, and it has everything to do with being human and very little to do with being in a legally binding relationship.

I recently heard from my good friend Isaac Asimov, who spoke to me through one of his characters, and had this to say about the connections between human beings and the tapestry that is life:

"My death…is not important. No individual death among human beings is important. Someone who dies leaves his work behind and that does not entirely die. It never entirely dies as long as humanity exists…

The work of each individual contributes to a totality and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives - past and present and to come - forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time…An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole?

…keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you. There are so many other threads, each valuable, each contributing…”

I was baptized in the McKenzie River yesterday. I went down into the cold, clear water with my oldest brother, rowing side by side, in unison, our oars pushing us faster and faster to our end.  We were spurred on by our guide Gary, his voice calling out calm and clear, full of parables that led us through each rapid, around each bend, and in the end, called us quietly homeward. A wonderful addition to the tapestry of my life.

But I’m learning that just because I am approaching the end of one trip, the river doesn’t stop flowing when I stumble on frozen feet to the shore. The river moves on, the weaving of the tapestry continues, and more stories will continue to be told.

I intended my Oregon trip to be a time when I would experience all of the tools in our Grow Me a Story toolkit - sowing seeds, creative rendezvous, times of awareness, connecting with my Creator, and experiencing community. I think I was successful.