Late Migrations

 

The congregation that I belong to is participating in a year-long, long-distance adult education program called "Aging Grace-Fully," and is made up of eight opportunities to listen to authors who have written something on this topic. At St. P's, we have chosen to follow each of the talks with a discussion, as part of our own adult education. My co-leader and I decided that we'd not only remotely attend the talks, but would also read each of the books.

The next author to be interviewed is Margaret Renkl, who wrote Late Migrations. The book is a collection of essays. They are an intriguing combination of observations about the plants, birds, and animals of the natural world, and reflections about human aging and the loss of loved ones. Emphatically, this is not a book to read hurriedly. One or two, perhaps three essays at a time would be about right. Reading one is a bit like listening to a piece by Philip Glass, where each phrase is savored. The take-away message for me is strangely reassuring and goes something like this: Human life is part of the natural world, where the rhythm of creation, aging, and death is ordinary and right and to be expected. It is all by our Creator's design.

The writing is thoughtful and exquisite; the illustrations, provided by the author's brother, are infrequent and perfect.

Permit me to share an excerpt or two:

From p. 186

    "Human beings are creatures made for joy. Against all evidence, we tell ourselves that grief and loneliness and despair are tragedies, unwelcome variations from the pleasure and calm and safety that in the right way of the world would form the firm ground of our being. In the fairy tale we tell ourselves, darkness holds nothing resembling a gift.

    What we feel always contains its own truth, but it is not the only truth, and darkness almost always harbors some bit of goodness tucked out of sight, waiting for an unexpected light to shine, to reveal it in its deepest hiding place."

And from p. 66

    "In 1988, during one stop on our honeymoon, my husband and I visited the San Diego Museum of Man. On display at the time was an exhibit of ancient clay figures. The human figures were all visibly different in some way: people with dwarfism, people missing a limb, people with severely curved spines or extra fingers. An informational placard explained that these figures had been fashioned by members of a tribe who revered physical difference. What we call a disability, they had considered a blessing: God had entrusted to the care of their community a rare treasure, and even in their art they strove to be worthy of that trust,"