| SUMMER BLUE
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4nd Edition - July 14, 1999 MORGAN'S MOMENT
- Art Morgan
WORKING?
"What are you working on?" A friendly question. I'm often working on something. "Nothing," I replied. Feeling guilty for not working on something I said that I was doing some writing for a February event. That sounded better. At our camp everyone "works" a bit in the morning. Max spent his month here learning to read. That was his work. So Jean's work for the month (besides her usual long list of activities) was teaching Max to read. Max told me I was lucky because I didn't have to go to work. I think he meant not having to work for money. I don't like to think anything I do is work. Some things I enjoy less than others, but in general the doing of whatever is required has joy in it. Maybe he's right about being lucky not to have to go to work. If nothing I do feels too much like work I'm lucky indeed. That's my goal—to avoid "working." |
Summer Address a-morgan@peak.org Well, grandson Max has gone home after a month residency. Karen, just back from a week in California with Lauren, came to take him home. A good camper, a great sailing buddy, and now a budding reader!….. On the calendar we show a free day until the 16th when our sister-in-law, Birgitta and Richard are coming from Sunnyvale…On the 17th Ken and Marilyn Salter arrive from Ashland with twin 11 year old grandchildren, Lauren and Kendall….On the 18th Grace and Linda are scheduled to arrive. This whole bunch will be gone by the 21st…. Jean's birthday is the 18th, usually observed locally in some appropriate manner…. Terry and Marlene Lorenzen from Sunriver are soon to follow, with others unscheduled. There's still August to go! We'll have another list for that month. CURRENT READING
The other book on my table, almost finished, is Wally Lamb's first, "She's Come Undone." I read his second and like it, so looked this up. The NY Times called it "An Ambitious, often stirring and hilarious book." I fail to catch the hilarity in his story of a troubled girl who eats her way fat and struggles to free herself from her need to be addicted on her way back to "normalcy." There's grace, mercy and hope in it. |
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By coincidence, this week's "plot" in B.C., one of the few comic strips I read, involves a whale. Finding the words "Jonah was here," is the proof of his plight. (I won't get literal about the "fishy" aspect of the story). The coincidence is that this has been the week of the whale here in camp. We sighted one just off our sailboat about a week ago. We suspect it was the one that was found dead in Gig Harbor two days later. Then on Tuesday the 13th, Jean, Karen and Max called to point out two black, spouting whales in the middle of the bay. Although the pair rolled their way along more like dolphins, we suspect that they were Orcas.
Unbelievably—because whale sightings are rare in the South Sound—two large
Gray whales sounded just off our beach. We were able to see their gray
shapes just below the surface from our deck high above the beach. They
spouted and rolled several times in the half mile we were able to see them.
We have felt lucky to sight them far out in the ocean, often seeing only
the blow vapor and possibly a back. But our view on Wednesday topped our
best sightings. (I'm not counting that morning with Brian Cleary of the
northwest shore of Vancouver Island when we found ourselves right in the
middle of a pod of feeding whales!)
This is the year the Makah tribe "harvested" a young whale off the Washington coast. This was a treaty whale kill that created a great deal of controversy in the area. As those giant beasts cruised by I tried to imagine having one of them at the end of a line, especially while riding in a canoe! In the famous Jonah parable, God appoints a "great fish" to swallow Jonah for three days and three nights. It's really a powerful story. A whale would have worked as well as a great fish, as far as the story is concerned. Where he was, was in a pickle. If you've ever been close to a sounding whale (as we were one day) you will know that whale breath is very, very bad. To be swallowed by a whale would not be considered a great rescue. Then to be vomited on to a beach by a whale adds to the corruption. Who would want Jonah around after that? The Jonah story makes a whale an agent of God's activity. It takes a whale to get Jonah's attention. Don't mess with God. You don't know what lengths God is willing to go to get in your face. (At least that's what it sounds like.) So, one of God's agent creatures swam by. Several, in fact. I wondered whether they were also dying, starving in a depleted ocean. When our life-giving sea no longer produces fish, and when ancient whales can no longer survive, there just might be a message there. Their population may be exceeding their food supply, just as in the human population. They may be calling up to us on our deck, "We're in trouble….." They slap their mighty flukes and sound. They soon appear and spout again. More words come up to us…"…..and so are you!" It took a whale to get Jonah's attention. What will it take to get ours?
— Art Morgan, Summer 1999
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