Sunrise

We started the jeep as the sun came up

and watched the sun rise three more times 

as we moved in and out of hill shadows.

The last sunrise was at Mount Joy,

at Denny’s parents' grave.

Denny’s major childhood Easter memory

is hearing his dad enthusiastically singing 

“Up From the Grave He Arose!”

and he wanted to spend Easter morning with Walt.

My own childhood memories of Easter 

involve Norman Rockwellian tables 

with tulip centerpieces at Grandma Maud’s House 

containing ham, 

scalloped potatoes,

and sour cherry pie,
which I miss immensely,
and also memories of wearing pinchy shoes

and uncomfortable slips, 

which I don’t miss at all.

One the way home from the graveyard

Denny and I recalled other Easter memories—

Sunrise singing with One Way Street 

on the ski slope in Treasure Lake.

A trip to Houghton 

when we had to pull over quickly for Luke, 

who had been sitting in the back seat 

eating every bit of chocolate from his basket.

Singing in a thatched church 

in a cornfield in Tanzania 

to the accompaniment of swishing feet, 

ululations, 

and percussion on a plastic bucket.

In Oxford’s University Church 

where one man’s “Whoopee!”

echoed in the cathedral.

To the list of memorable Easters,

we can now add 2020.

In social isolation, 

we Zoomed Sunday school,

sang duets online,

and listened to N.T. Wright’s sermon from 2019.

He was talking about some pivotal moments in history:

the Enlightenment in France,

the founding of America.

I pondered our present situation 

and wondered if the future will see 

this time as a pivotal point in finances, 

in government.

But nothing, NOTHING is as pivotal as Easter morning.

The stone was rolled away.

The veil was ripped from top to bottom.

Past and future both were fulfilled 

in one move from death to life.

The world is weirdly, wildly different right now, 

but each day the sun still rises, thankfully 

and, 

even more thankfully, 

the Son has risen,

is risen.

Indeed.

Coming and Going and Coming Again

At sunrise 

the snow was up to the chickedees’ knees 

as they waited for Denny to fill the feeder.

Every Friday that the feeder is full 

is a good Friday for them.

On Good Friday, 

we think of Jerusalem

and the rootedness of that place 

to the center of The Story.

We think of the fall of man

and restoration, the Messiah. 

Of shrieking defeat 

and incomprehensible victory 

in one weekend.

Of the ancient mysteries 

and the not-yet mysteries.

Travel is impossible now,

and we feel the uncomfortable chafing 

of being caught between 

the ancient 

and the not-yet.

Now it is afternoon. 

The birds go have come 

and gone 

and come again.
The raucous redwings
do not practice social distancing
and are wing to wing with the doves.
Peace.

I am couched, 

trying to ponder the holy 

and feeling inadequate. 

I struggle to hold my mind to task

and have recurring thoughts of cookies.

This very day eternal things are happening, 

spiritual, 

medical, 

financial, 

governmental,

things that are changing life as we know it.

Jesus seems like the birds,

coming

and going

and coming again.

When?

Feels like soon. 

Whenever, may we be ready, 

worthy because of the Good Friday sacrifice of Jesus 

and the daily grace of God.

I think I’ll celebrate with a cookie.

Palms and Prayers and Prickly Pears

My palms are almost back to normal.
A few days ago, celebrating the return of spring to the Mountain,
I neglected to put on gardening gloves
before cleaning the leaves surrounding
the prickly pear cactus.
Poor decision.
I tried to fix the painful situation.
I used a scrubbie on my palms,
tried to pull the spines out with tape,
then taped over my hands
to lessen the chances of moving the spines.
Later, while on Zoom for my Wildlife lab,
I set it to audio only
and, unseen by the prof,
multitasked by pulling at the spines with tweezers.
Yesterday we planted one hundred White Spruce seedlings
and most of the remaining spines came off
inside my leather gloves.



It was a beautiful day for planting.
Sunny sky.
Slight breeze.
Upper forties.
I carried a bucket of three-year-old seedlings
about twelve to fifteen inches high,
their hearty root systems soaking in several inches of water.
Denny would poke a hole into the ground with the spud bar
and I would untangle a seedling
and hand it to him.
He would kneel,
tenderly tucked the roots into the hole,
then use the flat end of the spud
to force the soil around the roots.
On to the next!
After watching Denny kneel with the first trees,
I decided his kneeling shouldn't go to waste.
"I am going to pray for people every time you kneel," I announced.
He chuckled. "You always need a system."
"Nevertheless!"
I started with immediate family members,
then extended family.
We worked our way through church pews,
the County Historical Society,
Denny's old teaching colleagues,
then mine.
After one hundred trees, we still had people left to pray for.
Luckily, there are more trees to plant tomorrow.



I have been thinking about prayer more recently.
(Pandemics are like that.)
For years, I have wanted to know how prayer works.
and hope "Physics of Prayer 101" is offered in heaven.
But recently I've wondered
what is the most effective way to pray regarding COVID-19?
Do we pray that the power of the blood of Jesus
will overwhelm the virus?
Do we ask for protection? Healing?
(For whom?
Ourselves?
Our family?
Our friends and neighbors?
Our nation?
Beyond?
I pray a five-year-old's prayer:
"God bless everybody in the whole wide world!")
Do we pray "Thy will be done"?
Do we ask the Holy Spirit to intercede for us when we can only groan?
Do we figuratively rest on Jesus
like a newborn sleeps on daddy's chest?
I have prayed all of these ways this week,
prayers that rise like incense to heaven.

If I am remembering Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles correctly,
(and I may not. It's been forty years.)
Taran, the protagonist,
meets creatures who are weaving his life story
into a tapestry.
He is unimpressed.
There are knots
and frayed yarn ends
and no design is evident.
He is disgusted
and wants to give up on his life
and on the creatures,
but then they tell him that
he is only seeing the back of the tapestry,
that the front is an exquisite work of art.
His hope returns.
I need to reread those books
and Psalm 23.
I will hold them with my mostly spine-free palms
and fall asleep on my Father's chest
knowing that I am only seeing the back of the tapestry.

"I have not forgotten you!
See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands."
Isaiah 49:15-16



Rest well, friends.

Goodbyes and Winnie the Pooh

Two chapters remain in The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh.
Two evenings remain unscheduled before the grandgirls return
to their side of the world for a year,
perhaps two.
Their first week in the USA,
Anna and I went to Goodwill
and found a EH Shepard stuffed Tigger
(not the Disney Tigger).
Lucy immediately claimed him.
A whisker trim and a good washing--
which made him loopy,
somewhat like his tiger cousin Hobbes--
and he then joined Lucy's foxes
and became a bedtime buddy
and substitute pillow.

The Hundred Acre Wood we created last year
has been often re-explored
from the seat of the four wheeler.
Pooh and Uncle Rabbit are still engrossed
in their long conversation
at the foot of a mid-sized oak.
They stay rrrrrrreally still when the girls pass by.

Presently, Paul and his family are visiting friends in eastern PA
and I am catching up on laundry,
spacing out the loads because
even though we have had lots of rain
the well recovers slowly.
I was rolling towels
(Anyone else do that?)
and putting away clothes--
only four pairs of socks (it IS summer)--
and thinking about Winnie the Pooh.
Lucy's nickname is now "Tig"*
and I wondered which character I am most like.
When in college, I travelled upstate New York as Roo
with my roommate Holly as Uncle Rabbit,
but now I relate to Owl,
who thinks he knows everything
and bluffs when he doesn't.
He spells his name WOL.
I saw Denny as Pooh because he is so faithful and steady.
When asked, Denny agreed that he was Pooh,
but his reasoning was that Pooh sits around a lot
and always likes to have a little something around eleven.

The grandgirls' last day here will be Saturday,
the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Next week we will see the same moon,
just not at the same time.
And while I am having a few Eeyore thoughts,
these Pooh quotes come to mind:

"If there ever comes a day when we can't be together,
keep me in your heart,
I'll stay there forever."

"How lucky I am to have something
that makes saying goodbye so hard."





* Anna has gained a nickname, too.
She is Pip (chawming!)
as we also read Pippi Longstocking 
and James and the Giant Peach
among others.

Bigfoot Sighting

For years, Rockton Mountain has been known 

as a possible home for Bigfoot. 

We first heard of the the possibility over a generation ago 

when a Rockton woman found footprints near her pond 

and, upon further investigation, 

discovered some fish were missing. 

She concluded that this was the work of Bigfoot.

Why?

“Those footprints were an inch deep. 

My husband’s footprints are only a half inch deep 

and he’s a big fella, 

so the thing that made these footprints 

has to be bigger than my husband.”

And so it began.

A man returning from a New Year’s Eve party 

briefly saw something in his headlights. 

Bigfoot? 

One has to wonder what else he saw on the way home, 

but that same night, 

a woman who had NOT been drinking 

also saw an unidentified something in her headlights.

Later, a local jogger saw an unidentified creature cross the highway. 

Could it be a bigfoot?

Half-eaten roadkill?

Bigfoot.

Peculiar smell? 

Bigfoot.

Damage in your garden?

You guessed it. 

Bigfoot.

Even though primatologist Jane Goodall 

supports the possibility 

of the yet-unconfirmed ape-like creatures, 

we remained skeptical.

Over the Mountain restaurant, 

a mile from our house, 

advertised an upcoming meeting 

of The Bigfoot Society. 

We smiled condescendingly when we drove by 

and declined to attend.

And then the mystery invaded our lives.

At 2:20 on June 4, 2019, 

we were driving down the mountain 

toward the Anderson Creek bridge 

when I saw the silhouette of a bent over old man 

waiting to cross route 322. 

Behind him was the Moshannon State Forest, 

and in front of him, where he must have parked his car, 

was a spring at the bottom of a very steep, rocky mountainside. 

I watched him walk quickly and furtively across the highway. 

It looked like he was carrying something. 

I assumed he had picked up something that had blown from his vehicle— 

the day before I had watched a man 

retrieve an errant propane tank— 

but I could not see his vehicle 

as the highway curved and obscured my view. 

In ten seconds we reached the spring at the bottom of the mountain, 

but when we got there, 

there was NO vehicle. 

There was NO old man,

and there is NO WAY that a human could 

climb that mountainside in ten seconds.

“Whoa!” I said.

“Whoa what?” said Denny.

“I saw an old guy cross the road 

and then he just disappeared... 

I can understand why some people believe in Bigfoot 

because I have NO IDEA how to explain what I just saw.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see a deer?”

My vision is not what it once was, 

but I know a deer when I see one.

“Deer have four legs. What I saw was on two legs, bipedal.”

I enthusiastically continued to think about 

and then discard possible explanations 

until Denny reminded me that it was possible to think silently, 

a subtle suggestion.

When we saw friends that night, 

I told them of my Bigfoot sighting.

They smiled skeptically but admitted, 

if anyplace around here would have a bigfoot population, 

it would be on Rockton Mountain. 

Mary Kay listened attentively, 

then asked, “Are you sure it wasn’t a bear?”

I assured her that the creature was walking on two legs,

but later that night, eyes wide open, 

I contemplated her remark again

and padded downstairs 

to enter “bear walk two legs” in a search engine. 

Up came a video of a bear walking on two legs.

It. Moved. Exactly. Like. My. Bigfoot.

I phoned a friend, a retired Penn State Wildlife professor, 

and asked him if a bear would walk across a highway on two legs. 

“That would be highly unusual,” he responded, 

“but it is possible...”

So now I think my Bigfoot sighting 

was really a highly unusual bear 

crossing the highway on two feet. 

Two big feet. 

But I could be wrong.

Dinosaur Bob, Glaciology, and Micah 6:8

It is a frosty morning here on the mountain 

and Dinosaur Bob is worried.

Weeks after we trekked down the road to Punxsutawney 

to hear the groundhog prognosticate an early spring, 

the snow remains. 

The robins are two weeks late.

The daffodil noses are still buried.

While waiting,

I am reading David McCullough’s book 

Brave Companions: Portraits in History. 

It contains chapter biographies of remarkable people. 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Miriam Rothchild. 

Frederick Remington. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

I was particularly struck by the lives 

of Alexander von Humboldt and his friend Louis Agassiz.

Agassiz studied rocks in Switzerland’s Aar Valley

and first voiced the scientific opinion of Ice Ages,

that the Alps region had experienced prolonged periods

of being covered by vast glaciers 

whose retreats scoured the bedrock.

When Agassiz moved to America to lecture at Harvard, 

he found similar evidence there of prior Ice Ages. 

Agassiz is now known as the Father of Glaciology.

He loved to justify his opinions 

of science and nature

and his talks were packed with fascinated listeners.

We also love to give our opinions—

just ask us, we’ll tell you!

But last week our friend  

asked for opinions on Facebook 

and I had trouble answering.

She wrote

“What historical figure (not current) 

was not as great as people have thought?”

My mind went immediately to Louis Agassiz, 

as further Wikipedia reading informed me 

that his name had been removed from a Boston school 

when his interpretation of science 

did not line up with some current thought.

How easily he was dismissed!

One of my major memories of college 

was sitting in Ethics class 

listening to the prof go through a list of philosophers— 

“(Insert philosopher’s name here) 

believed 

(Insert philosophy in twenty-five words or less here), 

and this is why he’s wrong: 

(Insert current opinion here.)” 

One of my classmates asked, 

“These are among the greatest minds on the planet; 

who are YOU to dismiss them so quickly?” 

BAM. 

Over the passing decades, 

I have often thought of his words, “Who are YOU…?”

when someone is dismissive 

(often me).

I looked again at the Facebook post. 

Commenters offered the names of flawed people:

Thomas Jefferson.

Lincoln. 

Mother Teresa.

Gandhi.

JFK.

Winston Churchill.

Mister Rogers had not made the list. Yet.

Hmmmm. What IS my opinion?

I immediately thought of Abraham

and how Sarah encouraged him to sleep with Hagar.

How that one act has changed the world!

Obviously, King David would be a candidate

for the Bathsheba Incident.

Then I heard my classmate’s words:

Who are you?

and I responded by quoting another friend:

“None of us are as good—

or as bad—

as others think we are.”

But the question continued to bother me

and I woke in the middle of the night 

to unload my brain on paper:

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Is that language sexist? 

And how far do we go to remedy the translation?

“Hindsight is 20-20.”

We are all influenced by our culture, 

our century, 

our personal stories, 

our belief systems.

We make decisions based on these things.

I look at decisions in history

and recognize that some 

WERE made strictly for selfishness 

and evil purposes, 

but that many decisions have been made

believing information whose faultiness was later exposed.

People have been tasked with making decisions

while being ignorant of important information. 

These people made decisions 

without knowing what the side effects might be.

They were trying their utmost to make their best guess. 

Examples could include plastics,

fertilizer,

the reaction to 9-11,

dynamite,

hand sanitizer,

genetic modification, and

the post-WW II drawing of national boundaries.

We all, hopefully, try to make our best guess 

with the information we have.

We need to hope the future will forgive us our sins,

known and unknown,

as we forgive those who sin against us.

If we cannot gather information 

and then make our best guess,

how are we not paralyzed to make any decision?

Denny recently didn’t notice a stop sign on a quiet street.

When I brought this up,

he responded, “That was one time. 

Don’t you remember all the times I have done things right?” 

I make plenty of mistakes all the time.

I am a fallen creature in a fallen world.

So are you.

I hope I am not remembered for my sins. 

I need to apologize

for things I have done that I should not have done, 

like the Tuxedo Incident 

and things I have not done that I should have done,

like listening with both sides of my brain

and speaking up.

I am often more pursuant of logic than of love. 

Should I also apologize for the mistakes of others?

I recently did that for the first time. 

When someone told a story of being verbally stung 

by an opinionated, self-righteous person, 

I apologized to her on behalf 

of opinionated, self-righteous people everywhere.

Should I also apologize on behalf of mothers? 

Teachers? 

Christians?

North Americans? 

When does “water under the bridge” come into play?

I have been a questioner all my life.

Want to get the teacher off the subject? 

Ask me.

Need someone to ask what everyone is thinking? 

I’ll do it!

For years, our car had the bumper sticker “Question Authority.”

Yet Corinthians tells us, “All things are lawful 

but not everything is beneficial.”

There are times when questions don’t aid in healing.

Sometimes we can tell when that is happening.

And sometimes not.

We try to live our lives by the quote

Err on the side of compassion,

and Micah 6:8,

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

If we have wronged you, 

we are sorry.

Please remember us with compassion.

Peter Pan, Rotten Smells, and a Moose Named James

I will be retiring in about a month
and have just directed
my last classroom performance of Peter Pan.
This past week
I invited primary children to squeeze together on the floor
while parents and adult friends
perched on tiny chairs in the back of the classroom.
We had been practicing since Easter
and the Darling family knew their parts, mostly.
Nana the dog could Woof in the right spots,
the Indians knew their dance,
Crocodile could slither and wrestle,
the pirates were great at "Arrrrrrr",
and the Lost Boys were slightly wild, right on cue.
Pan and Hook had practiced their sword fight.
"Bold boy, prepare to die," growled Hook.
"To die will be an awfully big adventure!" responded Pan.
The choir belted out, "I won't grow up!"
It was a great success.

The day before the play's opening,
I entered the classroom and smelled rotting flesh.
Though I could see no droppings,
no chewed particles,
the smell was somewhat familiar,
dead mouse.
I imagined calling maintenance:
"Hello, Maintenance? This is Sue Shaffner.
I smell something dead in my classroom."
"Something dead?
You mean besides the bear skull,
the deer skull,
the horseshoe crab,
the five foot blacksnake skin,
the taxidermy armadillo,
and the 217 bones recently extracted from the owl pellet?"

Instead I lay on the floor by the heater
with a flashlight,
looking for fur.
I would have taken the heater apart,
but it was covered with child-painted sky mural,
as children needed to stand atop the heater to fly to Never Land and back.
Instead I sprayed every surface in the room with air freshener,
hoping for the best.
After our first performance,
a shy little girl raised her hand and said, "What stinks?"
I started into a short science talk
about rotting flesh and opportunistic mice
when a boy at the next table piped up,
"Well, I didn't know what to do with my egg..."
He reached into his desk tray
and lifted up a pink plastic egg into the air
and a large gooey glob hit his folder
and splattered onto his tablemates' belongings.
The stench exploded.
Kids faces disappeared inside their shirts
and the sounds of gagging filled the room.
Apparently he had not been listening a month earlier
when I had instructed everyone
to take their "Egg Olympics!" eggs
to the cafeteria for disposal.
Instead, his hard-boiled egg lurked inside his desk for weeks
tucked inside his plastic egg,
decomposing.
We opened every window,
took the garbage can outside,
and all cleaned our desk trays
with wintergreen alcohol.
When the afternoon audience arrived,
the rotting smell still lingered.
Thankfully, the crowd was understanding.

It was great to have an audience after weeks of practice.
I had put a tape line on the floor
to keep the climactic battle scene in bounds
but it wasn't helping,
so I asked "Slightly" to set up the stuffed moose cousins
as a front row audience.
The moose cousins,
really Hallmark "Comet" reindeer from the 90s,
are my boys' daily playmates.
They have names written on their butt tags,
named for someone encountered on their day of purchase--
Hans and Tangie from thrift stores in Montana,
Jack and Shirley from Utah,
Barbara and Leslie from local Goodwill trips--
and have Goodwill sweaters to help tell them apart.
"Slightly" loved his moose-arranging job.
He angled their heads to look all around--
some watched the London skyline,
some the clouds above Never Land,
some waited for the pirates to tie up their captives,
some kept an eye on the Jolly Roger--
and then he quickly returned the cousins to their basket after curtain-call.
It was Slightly who suggested that,
during actual performances,
the moose cousins sit all over the bookshelves
so they could still watch the play.

Recently I found a new cousin.
I brought him to school and told Slightly
that this cousin had heard about his good work in the moose world
and wanted to belong to him.
His eyes widened.
I asked if he had a name for the new cousin.
"Not yet," he responded,
"but could he have a sweater?"
A few hours after a sweater was chosen,
Slightly returned to my desk
and whispered, "His name is James."
We wrote it on his butt tag.

James went home with Slightly that day.
I imagine them having adventures in the wilds of Penfield
and James tucked into the crook of Slightly's elbow
as he grows, slightly, each night.
Generations of children have left my classroom
and have grown up.
Many of those kids now have kids themselves.
We know that "I won't grow up" is a lie,
that it happens in the bat of a moose's eyelash.
The last line of our Peter Pan play is
"Wendy never saw Peter Pan again,
but she told the story of Peter Pan to her children
who told it to their children
who told it to their children
for ALL children grow up,
except one."

This new growing season
I wish you pleasant smells,
hugs from small children
or stuffed animals,
and joy in your coming adventures.