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I was out on a walk and it was early morning. January and cold. One of those mornings when you are shuffling because you want to move faster to keep warm, but you have to watch every footfall, have to be cognizant of each step or you’ll wind up on your backside.
There are places in town that act like wind tunnels and on cold winter mornings like this one, that wind can blow up, say Chapman Street by Ace Hardware and smack you right in the forehead.
That feeling is nearly the same as the brain freezes I used to always get from drinking Mr. Mistys too fast at D.Q. when I was a kid. Or as an adult if I’m honest because although they changed the name of those slushy cups of elixir, I never changed my habit of drinking them too fast.
So you know the cold. You might be out in it now, with your paper. I didn’t expect to see anyone, though I happened to see the same friend twice, and I had my earbuds in. I like to walk and listen to audible books. It keeps my pace and keeps me engaged and, if I’m listening to a favorite book, it helps me think; helps focus my thoughts. This particular morning I was walking on a route that would take me past the Holiday Gas Station (yes I know they’ve changed their name - but that’s what it will always be for me). I wanted to snag a breakfast sandwich to eat on the way.
This practice of calling buildings and even streets by what they used to be generations ago is a bit fascinating to me. When we used to have an antique store in the building that now houses the Ely Bike and Kicksled business, people would always refer to it as Breen’s. It had been many things after that including the Co-Op in the early 1990s but most folks knew it as Breen’s that “had anything and everything if you could only find it.”
I do admit that sometimes I’m so distracted with my own thoughts that I refer to The Otter as Hardee’s and an outfitter as The Minglewood and Dominos as Pizza Hut. Hey, we spent a lot of time in all those places. And many of you spent more time in older places that were established for longer periods of time.
I wanted a coffee, but it’s hard to focus on not falling down and uneven frozen ground and drinking coffee without spilling on yourself and at the temps we’ve been having it doesn’t stay hot very long anyway. So I walked, ate my breakfast sandwich, listened to The Fellowship of the Ring
and thought about all the winters I’ve spent in Ely and inevitably, because it was a new year and Christmas had just come and gone, I began to think about my dad. He’d have a flat cap on and a pair of Henry’s choppers with wool liners and probably his red and black checkered Filson coat. He’d be getting coffee somewhere or he’d be at one of the hardware stores.
You might find this odd, but when I think of dad and if I find myself outside, I almost always see a raven. It’s become so commonplace that whenever I see ravens now I wonder if somehow, He is thinking of me, or watching over me. So I descended a benign looking, basically free of ice and snow sidewalk (sometimes the most dangerous for me because I stop focusing on where my feet go) and I was taken by surprise. The frozen banks of snow on this street were about two and a half feet and on the corner in front of me, something was digging into the packed snow. When I got closer, I could see it was a raven. I expected I’d frighten it away and it would return after I’d rounded the corner, but it stayed with its task at hand.
Everyone has heard the jokes during the summer about not leaving your cars unlocked right? Because, around Minnesota, if you do early (you might return to find a backseat full of rhubarb) and if you do later (you’re almost guaranteed to find a half-dozen zucchini). Two bumper crops most of us love, but… well, believe it or not, this morning as I finish this, I can hear a raven with its low, rumbling, garage-door growl, barking at me from the backyard. “Wrap it up, wrap it up,” dad is saying.
What the raven was digging at was the hollowed out end of zucchini that was as big around as a Zup’s stick of hot bologna. It was Thursday and that reminded me that I needed to get some. The raven flew up into the air and out into the street with its cache that was now free of the snowbank. I watched him and snapped a couple of pics with my phone and headed for home. It struck me that I could’ve missed this encounter and although it was seemingly small and perhaps insignificant to others, it was waiting for me. I was struck with the need to say “yes” more when I’m tempted to say “no” and to follow my “ravens.”
Faith isn’t just a concept, idea or noun. It is an action verb. As we interact with others and make our way through life here in Ely, and beyond, names of places change. Sometimes even names of people change. The old familiar becomes a new favorite while other things, places and people are left to memory. Not forgotten.
We learn that sometimes leaving zucchini for someone is the blessing God has for us and sometimes our faith requires us to accept the rhubarb. My point is that Christmas reminds us that receiving and giving are both full of more than whatever was inside the box. I’m not sure just how much nutrition is inside the hollowed out end of a zucchini for the raven and I don’t know what I could possibly give him, but I know that he reminded me once again of my dad breaking trail ahead of me, where I have yet to go.
