Come Life Eternal

As the  world died around me, I went for a drive.

It was the brightest, cleanest, sunniest of early spring days. Not a cloud in the sky overhead. Not a breath of wind. The crocuses were nearly spent and some neighbors’ daffodils were beginning to bud. Robins hopped on the lawns. I felt that I was in Heaven.

I drove out to the grocery store and picked up a box of oatmeal cookies. On the way to the checkout, I got some plastic jars of soap bubbles as well. I wanted to drive home the long way just to drink in the sunshine, but there wasn’t time.

As civilization fell further and further into ruin, I went to the after school outreach at the church. I told the children it was too nice a day to stay cooped up inside. We went out to the vacant lot under the bare trees, which will be so shady in summer but which provide no shelter now. The sun was so bright I thought it would devour the earth.

We learned the lyrics and the dances to some old Shaker hymns. I taught them to follow me around in a circle with their arms out and palms up, and to bow and bend and turn on their heel while singing “Simple Gifts.” I taught them to shake their bodies at the right time and to take little dancing  steps while we sang “Come Life Eternal.”

Come life, Shaker life! Come life eternal! 
Shake, shake out of me all that is carnal! 
I’ll take nimble steps! I’ll be a David! 

I’ll show Michal twice how he behaved!

And then I broke out the bubbles and a bin of kickballs, and we played in the sunshine for a long time.

All around me, civilization dissolved like a sugar cube dropped into boiling tea. The walls of the world I knew bowed outward and collapsed like the sides of a wet pasteboard box. And I danced with the bubble wand in one hand, telling a little girl that I’d always wanted to be a ballerina. We sang and danced and played until it was time to come in for our treats.

I came home and planted my seedlings. The peas and lettuce seeds are already in the ground, and the strawberry runners are putting out leaves, but there’s so much more to do. Upstairs in my room, I prepared the summer garden with enough seedlings to share with my neighbors for their gardens as well. Nine peat pellets of Johnny Jump-up. Six pellets of lavender. Summer squash and winter squash. Sugar baby watermelon. Catnip to enchant Charlie and Buster and all their neighborhood friends. Cilantro and basil. I put them all under the sunny window, and went outside to pull up crabgrass.

They say the chances of World War Three are going steadily up, and this time, America is siding with the bad guys. They say the odds for a nuclear conflict keep getting better and better. Next year at this time, we might not be a democracy. The whole world’s economy is going to collapse any day. But if we live until summer, we’ll eat well and and admire flowers until frost.

Just as I sat down to rest, Jimmy’s boy came to visit. He asked if I had any snacks, so I made him a bowl of fruit and whipped cream. He asked me to come sit with him on the front porch as he ate it, and I did.

That bright, blinding, glorious sun dimmed as it sank over the flat part of Ohio, out by Columbus where I used to live. The brilliant blue went orange and scarlet as if a wildfire was laying waste to creation.

We chatted about school and the plans for the garden as he nibbled his dessert.

The red light smoldered deeper, deeper, deeper, and then it burned out.

Dusk  fell as he went home in the dark.

And it was night. And I was alone on the porch, watching him disappear down the street.

If it all ended now, what would happen?

If the sun never rose and I never woke up, where would I go?

If, just then, as I was sitting on the porch watching the stars come out, an atom bomb burst and the shock wave vaporized LaBelle, and there was nothing left of me but a soul, what would become of that soul?

If an angel with a burning sword came to collect my soul for the final judgement, I would ask him for a moment to go and look for Jimmy’s boy’s soul, and Adrienne and Michael’s souls, and the souls of the children at the outreach, and the soul of Ms. B and the baby and the Baker Street Irregulars and the Artful Dodgers— just to make sure they were comfortable while they waited their turn to see the Just Judge.

Maybe we could play together, and learn some hymns and dances.

Maybe, as we danced, I would find the Just Judge singing and dancing with us, and discover that this was Heaven. It had always been Heaven. Heaven is not far from us. Heaven is what happens when we’re busy with our neighbors.

Was I afraid? Oh yes, I was terrified.

But on another level– no, I wasn’t.

Come, Life Eternal.

I wasn’t afraid at all.