Is The Sky Falling Yet?

"Field of Sky" (c) Rick Sievers 9-08


I’m on my way home from a 25 hour work day, sitting in the downtown Vancouver Starbucks. I am halfway home, pausing on my way north in my old favorite haunt. As usual I eavesdrop on conversations to pick up strings for weaving on the page. The urban are talking about the same thing as the country folk. Our nation seems to be on the precipice of another crisis. There is financial collapse on Main Street. And the good ole boys are raking in 700 billion dollars on Wall Street. People seem to be afraid or indignant. They want to know how to keep their homes from being inundated while the sky is falling.

This place is halfway between the p/c trends of Portland and hunkering fire tending in the mountains. The sky is tumbling down all around us. At least that’s what I’m hearing on either side of this steaming caffeinated state.

Soon I’ll be driving home to a new amour of Harvest Brown shingles. I hired a hard working, hungry man to re-roof my cabin and out buildings. He’ll also help staunch the trickles that periodically creep through the roof of our main house. (It’s amusing how the rain seems to find it’s way right in to the cabinet that houses the water color paints.) Right now he’s up on our roof sweating out his life, pounding nails and making my life seemingly more secure.

When he gave me his bid last week he looked at me earnestly and said: “You know, the world is coming down within three months. Dude, you better prepare.” He explains how he has five years of food stored, how the great tribulation is coming, how only fifteen million people will be left on earth by the year 2012. Right now he’s up on my gables, flashing my chimney and binding metal into the eaves. He’s still making a living at the end of the world, keeping the storms out.

Now, he may be correct in his prophecies. He also may be making his fears self-fulfilling. There is a terror laden glee in his eyes as he describes the end of history. I consider what he says. Frankly, I understand his view. And I also muse how we always live near the end of the world. One never knows when life will turn us into something else. Yet, I am still putting a thirty year roof on. I am also adding a skylight on an accessory house that we’re dreaming up from the good green earth.

At this moment I am not afraid. And I’m not overjoyed either. The cabin and house and family need protecting. The sky is wide, wild and wet. We are small. beautiful and vulnerable.

Like yesterday, I’ll come home to find a radio blaring the jargon of "being right" from the top of our chimney. I’ll hear words that dehumanize the other side. The words are like the drug of religiosity. One can hear versions of this same diatribe from the south/left and from the north/right. And here I am in the middle, sipping my coffee, grateful for the cyan and silver in the Autumnal air. I’m grateful for how the muscular clouds dance wildly around the loving sun. I’m grateful to start my day with good news instead of bad.

The rain has been diverted from the heart of our home. A faithful servant of Armageddon nails up the composition with staples and careful cuts. I am rich today.

"Falling Sky" (c) Rick Sievers 3-07
The sun peeks into my empty coffee cup. I know it is time to go home. Perhaps the scary dreams will drift across the airwaves later. But right now I will step gratefully into the fresh morning of falling leaves, heavy with last nights rains.

Season’s change. Yet something… someone… sacred remains true within us. At the moment impermanence and challenge are a part of this world. I’m glad I paused here, halfway, on the way to the future. My cabin is waiting and full of Love’s voices. My home, locked and cluttered, will happily welcome me when I finally arrive. I am always home. I am free in this middle place, sheltered within the elements and rooted in the earth.


Rick