A few weekends ago I went and seen Stan in eastern Kansas. It is a very beautiful part of the state. This says nothing for some of the other famous ranges one passes through getting there, like the Smoky Hills and the Flint Hills The last time I was there was almost identical, being with the land locked in cold and snow cover but quiet bright and clear. I took some notes down over that weekend. And today we're in a terrible spring blizzard out on the plains way west of that weekend. I estimate we have a foot of snow already with a strong plains winds. So I just got time to look at these notes and wrote this story from them. Here's the story.

Maple Hill

Every composition requires a name. I could call this story, Maple Hill, and I have. Or I could have named it, The Carol of the Bells, or The Atchison Bridge, or The Antiques of Paxico, or An Weekend at a Friend's House, or The hospitality of an Old Friend Reconnected with, or The Old Houses of Atchison, or The Book Store on Massachusetts Street.

Some would not nearly represent the whole account, for they were just one thing alone in all the weekend having only a few minutes of experience to them. But you come through the song, through the doors of a book store, go up and down on the steep streets of a river town, come into the house of a friend, come out in a church yard on a hill, and out through the end of the weekend. It's all experienced, and each thing at a single time.

So because this story could be all of them, I'll make it true and not much of a story for any of them. But maybe the story became a sermon for that. Because after the wine of the weekend {whatever form that takes, wine being a lot of spirit that comes} leaves you, there are sobering and insightful times to face.

Maple Hill doesnt tell my story but a tiny bit when I stopped in there on the way home that weekend. But a hill is in every meaningful experience. The hills are life's real experience. In the valley of the hills are the lessons and joys. On the slope of the hills is the labor for those. And on the pinnacle of the hills is the vision for it all.

Like a movie where people have conversation around a table in a cafe discussing something deep or romantic, was how the weekend could best be describes. But also like waiting for a movie to begin, the anticipation or reflection of the actually experience can hold more in it without dishonoring the experience because it is what gave you the anticipation or reflection or both. So Stan and I had some good conversation at the fire place in his beautiful home. The next day we drove up to Atchison to see a friend I hadn't seen in probably 15 years or better. They bought an old house on the hilly streets of historical Atchison, and again we were in the living room of this old house, and good conversation took the order of things. On the way back to Lawrence, Stan put in George Winston, and the Carol of the Bells struck deep into my heart. I may be sentimental now, even personal, but please allow it, because during this time I seen in my friends and in other people's faces, and I'm sure it was etched on my own from time to time, that everyone was hard at survival, whether by sickness, desperation, labor, daily obligations, coming age, even hate.

It reminded me of a hard thing I learn. Like so often the case, one don't know what they're doing until they're in the heart of it. But if you don't think you're in the deep things of your heart, you're probably in them to the hilt. If you can find a person's fault or make them look bad, it can make your bad things look better. This was basically the matter of the whole thing. So a lot of people get caught up in this. And many times religion is the vehicle for this. When I seen I was doing it too, I cut it off like a rock, that is, an immovable one. How could I go around what I saw anymore? I saw peoples harrowing desperate things, I saw their psychological damage, I saw their self sacrifice for their pride. I saw it because I had these things in myself or was yet in the heat of experience with them. But I also saw our dammed inexcusable ignorance, the despising of grace, the intentional hurting of hurt, the device and agendas, the blame and excuses of religion. And pity for myself or compassion for others was tried. I didn't want compassion for others, to hell with my pity too, rebellion and scorn tasted good in my hands, how could it be wrong. But I knew it was the reasoning of wickedness and ignorance. So the Rock was too big to go around. And the lesson was burned in, and is still burning in. And in and in and in it goes, further and further, deeper and deeper, getting at all the device deep in the heart, troubling it, where one ain't even ready for it or wants to be ready for it.

One thing that helps save you is when you know you haven't got done what you have to do yet. Even the most bleak future has hope for what you have to finish. The story of my life was in shambles this way. I had a lot of time under the beauty of life but nothing to hold on too. So after I was down in the hills one day, I seen this. There wasn't a resolution because they all fail. All one can hope for is grace to do what they see and not squander it away anymore. So this is a hope that brings resolution to a lot of things. I've tried with all my might to get to the bottom of things. Maybe that's why I have with some things. But taking thought and growing creates problems. So I've accepted there will always be struggles. This is also a hope because you are given grace to struggle whereby there is strength to grow. So coming out on a hill like Maple Hill when the party is over, is a way mark in life even though the visions are sobering. There was an old stone church on Maple Hill. So if this became a sermon instead of a story, you now know where I can preach from.

Brent

I enjoyed your musings, Brent. It was a good weekend. That old native stone church surrounded by a cemetery and Maple trees on a hill outside of Maple Hill has always been an interesting site. Glad you enjoyed reconnecting with our common friend and the Piano compositions of George Winston.