Sensitive to Springtime: Saved by Dogwood, Luscious as the Moon

When I was a young adventurer just in from California and Europe in the 60's, I drove to visit my grandmother one beautiful springtime evening. She was in bed listening to her radio preacher when I arrived. It was the 60's, and I had done some things I hoped she would never know about, but figured she probably understood through a veil, dimly.

I went into her dark bedroom, where she, hale and hearty at nearly eighty years old, had retired for the evening. I told her not to get up, just wanted to say hello and goodnight and see you in the morning. I saw her silhouette in the dim light from the radio and sat on the bed beside her, listening, but only a tiny bit, to the sermon in the box.

She held my hand and asked me how the drive was. I told her that the dogwood blossoms along the way had been so overwhelmingly beautiful that they looked good enough to eat.

She leaned back against the pillow, running fingers across her brow and through her long loosened grey hair, thinking that over for a moment. Then she said "Well, now I know that you are saved."

I was stunned, knowing in my heart that I could never meet the criteria imperative to her lifelong ideal of salvation. But somehow she managed to reach through eternity to my Druidic soul, and left me feeling open, forgiven, blessed and hopeful.

How did she do that? How did she jump from our preceding generations of indoctrination about what it takes to go to Heaven: daily devotions, church every Sunday, strict adherence to the Ten Commandments, unceasing prayer, hard work - to see that this little unfocused know-it-all lazy me, fragrant with the smells of the 60's, loving her, loving life, loving dogwood - was "saved", and part of God's eternal kingdom? And yet she did it, not through any dim veil, but with the wisdom of her years.

So if you believe, and if you know some young "sinner" who feels like eating dogwood, you can give him or her some hope for his future by taking a chance with your faith, slipping into his world for a moment, and saying something so truly forgiving, generous, loving, and kind.

Every time I see the dogwood bloom again in the spring, so tender, ivory, and luscious as the moon, I believe once again, thanks to my grandmother, that there's still hope for me, and of course always, for those I love.

Who knew William Buckley founded the conservative movement? Who knew it was a movement?

I thought conservatives had always been there, they were the top, the wall, Kafka's Castle, the Man, the thing good people had to go against since the beginning of time. But to read today's obituary of William Buckley, and to hear him hailed as the intellectual founder of the modern conservative MOVEMENT...wow! a movement!? There was a movement? Vraiment? Well now wait a minute...I think I want some of that. My parents listened to his show, they found him entertaining in one way or another, although I never understood exactly which way. Of course I was not always crazy about William Buckley, his voice was unusual, his arrogance was undeniable, his idea to tattoo AIDS patients shocking, his occasionally frightening ideas, odd. But come to think of it, as I sat with my parents, he never bothered me that much,he was interesting. I loved his vocabulary. And now that he's gone I want to know more about why he said the things he did.

Suddenly, this week at least, being a conservative has a certain je ne sais quoi...I like the sound of it. I want to be Peggy Noonan. I want to be on the Board of Trustees of the Manhattan Institute. A liberal? Ewww...that's Hillary Clinton. That's the B word. That's bra-burning, beat-up-toenails and Birkenstocks, banners waving, bailing out some lazy and unprincipled folks with services and money...the heck with all that. And they say Barack is more liberal than Hillary but I won't believe it. I want him to win the Democratic nomination for sure, and after that I'm not 100% sure.

My Christian heritage says to remember the afflicted in spirit, and I have done what I could, I gave my goods to the poor, it's an easy stance for a young liberal to take, but the chain of Biblical translation into our present vernacular has not held up the true meaning of charity, caritas, as in "faith hope and charity." It's not the liberal give-away, it's a very pure kind of love: loving-kindness. Is that more conservative, or is there no connection? I need William Buckley back just for a few minutes please. I want to ask him a few questions about where he stands on all that, and why. I want him to autograph my still unread copies of "Up From Liberalism" and "God and Man at Yale." But it's too late to get in on the ground floor of that movement. I was in on the other one, and it was great but I always felt I was looking through a glass, darkly. Now old age is settling in, and I'm starting to see something else, face to face. But I still can't quite put my finger on it.


1 Corinthians 13
1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.