Perseverance

I am currently combing through a great braid of nostalgia. I've been peering at mountains and reciting analogies all day in my little mind. A dear saint celebrates his 69th birthday, and little, connected themes have beaded and linked all throughout my mind's eye this evening. Glistening lights blur out my right, the mandolin is howling in my heart, my first Christmas tree stands at attention (not yet lit), and my mind is marching through some themes recently cemented and now celebrated.

Some weeks ago I verbally delivered my conclusions on the people I've encountered in the far northern mountains; they've smoothed my own ripples, and intimated to me the perseverance of the saints. I've thought of the whipping winds, far off gully's, and all that those northern regions boast. I've attempted to sort out my love for the mountains, and have concluded 1.) that it's true love 2.) that they are very instructive to me.

I relish effort. I like wildness, intensity, beauty, rawness, and the bleak mid-winter which presents itself always in the far north. These features innately appeal to me, and drew me long before I could understand the why. I have always preferred first the ore, and find delight then in the shavings from it presenting that purposeful product. Weather is secondary to living, but in it we find so many analogies and so very much truth.

The mountains grant the sweetest of repose, for the gift comes with toil. Clouds part and the sun shines to truly grant life and peace after much ado about many things. You find there a respite which lasts but a shake -- its presentation bringing spring, summer, and fall at once and pounds the earth with a plenty no storehouse can contain. The amenities offer now a shield, but sustain no man from the rapping torment of the tumult and wind.

To be continued... Soon...