This is Part Three of a three-part series about my relationship with what became my Golden Goose Pond.
The morning after Christmas in 2020, I ventured out to my Goose Pond to witness the sunrise. I knew that I would have difficulty accessing my tree stump perch because the pond bank that had been cleared for dredging was now overgrown. However, the gate was still unlocked, and for several months, I had been able to plow through some of the growth to get an unobstructed view of the rising sun. Alas, when I arrived that December morning, the gate was locked.
For several weeks, I continued to journey to the pond hoping to find the gate open, but it never was.
Determined to access the pond, I decided to explore a road that appeared to circle the pond.
Farm trucks and tractors had regularly used the first half mile of the road, but not the second half mile which eventually ended at an open gate on the opposite side of Goose Pond.
For several months, I walked the extra mile to the opposite side of Goose Pond and continued my morning ritual of witnessing and photographing the sunrise.
By the end of May, the second half of the access road had become impassable because of new vegetation. My sunrise journeys to both sides of the pond had come to an end.
Stories of journeys like these typically end with a moral, a lesson or at a minimum, a teachable moment. Obviously, my year at Goose Pond helped me to weather a worldwide pandemic. On my tree stump perch, I was safe and distant from viral danger, and I remain grateful that I had this refuge.
I remember reading once that for Jesus to be heard, the soul must be alone and quiet. I must have heard Jesus a lot over that year. Perhaps I learned that I don’t need pond sunrises to hear Jesus. Perhaps I also heard more of my own voice, that impatient, irreverent, restless voice that always champions the underdog but doesn’t know when to shut up about it.
Perhaps I journeyed to my Goose Pond for the same reason Mary Oliver journeyed to her Blackwater Pond: to be inspired by the river of her imagination and the harbor of her longing, the refuge where she put her lips to the world and lived her life.
Perhaps Goose Pond is where I learned to live mine.
The Mary Oliver poem that inspired the ending of this series:
MORNINGS AT BLACKWATER
For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.
To all the darling citizens who support and inspire me to live my life — live yours. Love to all.
Through some completely weird fluke, I found the origin of the “for Jesus to be heard” reference in the next-to-last paragraph of this post.
I recorded this quote in my journal on March 20, 2005: “If Jesus is to speak and be heard, the soul must be alone and quiet.”
It is from a newsletter once published by the Bruderhof community in Pennsylvania and to which I subscribed. The Bruderhofs are Protestants Anabaptists who protest war and share everything.
Here’s the Wiki link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities
In 2005, I was still attending a church in the inner city of Washington, DC. I no longer attend a traditional church, and doubt I will again because it’s rare these days to find churches — particularly conservative evangelical ones — where Jesus is heard when he speaks.
Dear One, there is something about this combination of beauty and wire fence that speaks to being human on this planet earth. I am also aware of this metaphor of photographing beauty through the fence. I appreciate your extra mile walk to get to the pond. And I am grateful that you created this 3-part series. Also love the Mary Oliver poem and your parallel between Blackwater pond and your golden pond. Since you feel it in your bones, I feel it in my bones, too.
Thank you, Charlotte, who often has lovingly told me what Jesus was saying when I couldn’t hear him or chose not to — and in such a way that I felt the words in my bones.
I never thought about the beauty-and-the-fence metaphor. What DOES it say about being human on earth? That another, even more beautiful “pond” is close, but far away? That we’ll never really be settled or completely at peace in this realm? That we were created for another time and place?
If Goose Pond has one-hundredth of the beauty of that other time and place, perhaps I shouldn’t fear death so much.
Thank you for this gift of beauty. These words will walk with me now as I head out into the woods with my old dog, Diesel:
“The past is past,
The present is what your life is,
…put your lips to the world
And live
your life”
Please, don’t ever shut-up about championing the underdog and even consider going out in the world to do more of it. It is precisely the way in which you put your lips to the world and I am grateful to you.
It’s hard today not to be screaming at Florida legislators about championing the underdog, Beth. Once the pandemic is less whatever in my neck of the woods — there was a super spreader event at my town’s cafe two weeks ago; a three-minute walk from my home — I plan to volunteer doing something to save democracy. Fortunately, I live in a state that respects the rights of the marginalized. I can’t imagine surviving in Florida or Texas or Kansas . . .
Anyhoo, thanks for the encouragement. If things get really bad, I’m pitching a tent on the far side of Goose Pond. Come anytime. Bring potato chips and chocolate.😘❤️
So beautiful once again, Sharon, and love this Oliver poem and the way you have incorporated it into your Golden Goose Pond experience/epiphany/worship/joy/whatever.
I also love the way you hear with your eyes!
“experience/epiphany/worship/joy/whatever”
That pretty much sums it up, Carol.
You love the way I hear with my eyes . . . wow, thanks. That may be the reason why I sometimes not only hear but also SEE Jesus over the phone when we chat.
Seriously. You’re a human Goose Pond.