Rest

On page 156 of 'Between Times' the lovely song spoke emphatically to me.
It spoke to experiences of long ago, when I was a pastor of an unruly
congregation. The Smokies was some distance, but there were times
when I felt a strong compulsion to repair my soul in the highlands.

I drove some distance to Cherokee, the gateway from the eastern side.
Going up that highway was a healing act for me; as the elevation
increased one by one my church concerns dropped away.  When I
got to Newfound Gap, parked and got out of the car, the concerns
were all gone, to be replaced by a mind filled with gratitude and joy.
Oh what liberation!

"I need to go awhile away
-------------
And all my cares forsaken
and in the space they used to fill
I feel my soul awaken"

A lovely poem by a gifted poet!

Death and Birth

Jonas came to this isolated place after losing his wife
and daughters Emily and Lucy something he had never
got over.  On pages 34-5 his new friend mentions a dream
about two sisters of the same names. This provokes sadness,
but it also marked the moment when his grief was subsumed:

"The love he had known had not been erased....nor his
grieving, for he lived now not only for himself, but for each
soul who had been joined to his."

Many people have occasion to grieve but happy is the one
who takes that tremendous step from Death to Love.

Beginning

This blog will now focus primarily on 'Between Time'.
On page 15 Henry described a hike of Drum and Jonas.
Among other things I picked out this sentence:
"Now the resurrected trees bore their mute witness to
the transience of death and the abidance of renewing
life."
Amazing! Written by a poet, a naturalist and quite a
few other things.

Between Times

This post simply records Henry's gift of the book;
you  may expect more posts to come.

Chariots of Fire

The miracle occurred  on page 162:

Rider (Bard's alter ego) came and found Mad Davey dead, Bard's best friend  a few days after Brad had left on his pilgrimage. Rider filled his fairy bowl breathed into it and raised his rivener high over his head, he tuned his heart, his mind his spirit, his whole body to one soul's plea, and called down heaven's fire upon Davey's house.

A flash of searing light and heat...the concussion of blue sound..made the Rider and and the earth beneath him flinch and tremble....Davey,s house blossomed into a great flaming tower.

"Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings 2:11)


 "Give me my chariot of fire"

Laurel

Laurel is a fictious place, but perhaps better said a state of mind (or spirit)

In the Southern Highlands rhododendron and mountain laurel are the two most common plants in higher elevations.  Henry chose the name, 'Laurel' to refer to the area where 'God's chosen people' lived.   A generation of good people lived in that area.  But like Heaven there was two way traffic; some 'bad' people wanted to improve themselves so they moved to Laurel; and conversely some of the people in Laurel chose to drop to the majority and go with the flow.  (to me this seems roughly  comparable to the hardshell Baptist distinction between the Lost and the Saved; those is Laurel are saved while the others are Lost; the author likely had other things in mind when he made the  distinction.)

(The author commented about Lizbet as follows:
Note on Lizbet (p.92): Lizbet's family live in the Laurel, down in the Dismal beside Dark Fork. There is some Shadow darkness in Laurel, too, although Light generally prevails over it there. See Map. http://thesummerboy.com/map.html 

In The Summer Boy the word 'laurel' is mentioned often, but it wasn't until Robberlee, speakng as the gray family at the ferry (Even their clothes were ashen beyond life)  that it was used as a place:
"Robberlee chuckled, “I’m the only fool in the Laurel who ever wants to go the
other way.” (page 66)

The opposite of the Laurel is the Shadow; speaking of the 'gray people':

"Unchecked, their need to subdue and diminish all about them would have wrecked the whole

world. So they were set apart into Shadow until such time as there may be a Mending. But for the

Separation Maker has wrought, we who live in the Laurel would be vanished from the earth and there would be none here to sit in Council.

All of us are still in the world, but the Shadowfolk cannot see us and we cannot touch

them. To their minds we are not real, and to us, they are unfettered death." (page 85)

As the council proceeds it developed that Bard was thought to have come into the Laurel and caused the fear that others with wicked intent might find a way in to make havoc.

Like the on-going problem of illegal immigrants, it became the problem of immigrants per se; the 'good people of the USA' are thought to be confronted with illegal "wetbacks".

It's a place, but also a state of mind!

The Higher Power

Mother is the word generally used in The Summer Boy, but the matter of gender at this point is complex. The Higher Power created the world and not until the nth day did man and woman come about. Throughout the story 'Mother' appears as the Higher Power:

 On page 48 we meet Callie, a very motherly type; she feeds everyone; she has a daughter, Elizabeth, who serves her faithfully (in biblical terms no less than Jesus Christ). Elizabeth appears frequently with help in case of need: "Mama told me to [something] provide every need. At the council she appears out of a tree and runs the proceeding.

 Turn now to page 207: Lizzie says something about 'the Mother' eliciting a reply from Drum

 "The Mother?" there follows:

"God, Spirit, Maker, Mover, whatever word you use, it names the one who is all."

"God is a woman?"
 Lizzie smiled at his query, "Sometime She is; sometimes He isn't."

 That's about as good an answer as can be given to the God question.

On page 218 we see a prayer that Drum raised on his own:
"Holy Father and Mother and Lover and Friend. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you."