Wondering and Wandering

December. Time of gathering darkness into which will be carried, bravely, the promise of light.

Well, bravely—or not, as the case may be. The light will nevertheless return.

     I wonder as I wander

It has to have been a woman who dreamed the words of the Appalachian folk carol into being. Walking outside under a hard black sky, filled with icy stars. Going to the outhouse maybe—because what else could tempt her away from the feather bed that wrapped itself so warmly around her body–

     I wonder as I wander out under the sky

The stars twinkle. Beautiful, but remote. Icy. Indifferent?—no, surely not. After all it was a Star that guided the Magi to the newborn’s manger-crib.

     I wonder as I wander out under the sky
     how Jesus the Savior did come for to die
     for poor o’nery sinners like you and like I--

O’nery. Now there’s a country word. Stubborn, defiant. Unreasonable. O’nery.

     I wonder as I wander 
     out under the sky

The stars twinkle, and are silent.

The frozen grass crackles under her feet.

     When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall
     with wise men and farmers and shepherds and all

A woman, with a knowing about woman things, brought this song into the world, I’m sure of it. She pictures the scene: a crowd of men, standing around and gawking at the poor woman and her squalling baby–

Just go on now and let a body get some rest! she chuckles to herself. Birthing is hard work! Go on, now. Git!

She opens the half-moon door, hikes up her nightdress, and squats.

     but high from God’s heaven a star’s light did fall
     and the promise of ages it then did recall

Ah, the stars again. Holding the promise of ages. It ain’t the star that’s got to recall, it’s us, she muses. The star calls us back to something we already know, but forgot.

     If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
     a star in the sky or a bird on the wing
     or all of God's angels in heaven for to sing
     he surely could have it 'cause he was the king

She pees, shakes herself a bit before dropping her dress. Heads back to the house.

     I wonder as I wander out under the sky
     how Jesus the Savior did come for to die
     for poor o'nery sinners like you and like I
     I wonder as I wander
     out under the sky

The melody rises into a question mark, then drops back to earth in uncertain cadence.

She takes one more look up at the distant stars before going back inside to bed.

Three days a week or so, my husband picks me up at the library at 6:30 pm. I write in the quiet study room. The tall wide windows, unbroken by panes, face west, overlooking the parking lot and the grounds beyond. In the summer I have to draw the blinds to keep from being blinded by the sun’s brilliance.

But today, more than an hour before I expect him, the December sun is already sinking behind loblolly pines and bare-limbed trees, clouds muffling the light. Then, without warning, the sky bursts open into fiery streaks of orange against cerulean blue. It opens into eternity, I think, without really understanding what I mean. The deep blue invites my gaze out and out, the sky unfurling into infinity.

God knows, I need to recall infinity, to center my heart in mystery.

The season we’ve just come through has been brutal and earth-bound. A man who should have been disqualified even from putting his name on the ballot, is now elected to the highest office of the land. A convicted criminal, an adjudicated sex-offender, and a wanna-be dictator, our president-in-waiting consorts openly with White supremacists. The plans and policies that he does not deliberately leave nebulous, are clearly and unabashedly fascist. And he is hell-bent on putting into positions of authority people who are as brazenly corrupt as he is.

O’nery don’t begin to cover it. Evil feels a lot closer to the truth. (Is there a word beyond evil.)

     I wonder as I wander

The enormity overwhelms me. Immigrants who are threatened with deportation and separation from their families and children, even though they are here legally. LGBTQ friends whose marriages have been legally recognized for less than a decade. Parents who run the risk of being declared criminals for loving and caring for their trans and queer children.

Young women who miscarry and fail to receive adequate healthcare because they and their doctors risk being indicted under harsh abortion laws. Women who will die (and have already died) from being denied the care they need. Victims of rape and incest and sexual assault, children impregnated and forced to bring the pregnancy to term. Older folks who despair to see their hard-won gains trampled by courts who care more about politics than justice.

People of color, Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, including my husband, in a world where armed White supremacists are sanctioned and encouraged by racist politicians. In such a world, I do not expect the deaths of innocent Black men and women at the hands of vigilantes and police to decrease. Every time my husband–an angry, proud Black man–leaves the house, I hear myself say, “I love you, sweetie. Be safe.” I wonder, with perhaps just a touch of melodrama (but perhaps not), if I will see him again.

What the —

I need to pause. To reconnect with mystery. To engage with wonder.

Mystery resists being summoned, that much I know. I am more likely to encounter mystery and wonder when I am wholly present to what is right in front of me. The browning leaves of the red maple tree in our front yard. The bare branches of the crabapple. The quick shift from thick misty rain to clear skies and breezes that ruffle the wind-chimes into a riot of ringing. The cerulean blue yarn slipping smoothly from one needle to the other as I knit a blanket for me and the man I love.

Cerulean blue. Things I knew, or didn’t know, or had forgotten, come home to me all of a sudden. I know the word cerulean–and the color–but just now it lands like a surprise. A tiny explosion of joy in the center of my chest.

     I wonder as I wander out under the sky

I allow myself to rest for a moment in mystery. I breathe and remember that something larger than I, something I do not understand, is cradling the earth and sky in their loving hands. Leaving me free to do what I can: to pledge myself to stand beside and for those I love.

Over my head, the plaintive carol tangles with dark branches I can no longer see. It sings inside me along hidden strings, breathes through invisible pipes. Filled with wonder and lament, a meandering meditation. As I wonder and wander, darkness closes over me, sprinkled with twinkling stars.