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I would say that this post is a letter to God, but I know ahead of time I will no doubt wander so far off track that God might suggest I first get my thoughts in order and quit roaming around so much before I begin speaking to Him.

Not REALLY a concern, I know.  God knows everything all of the time.  He has ALWAYS known everything, everything about everything from the beginning that had no beginning to the end that has no end.  (Pardon me for mentioning this, but here we all are sandwiched between “had” and “has.”)

No, I am not really worried that God will miss the point of whatever it is I wish to say in this early predawn of morning.  Up since two a.m.  Nothing new about that for me as I edge past age 60.  Nothing new about my noticing that not only is it darkest before the dawn but also COLDEST before the dawn.  Nothing new about me waiting waiting waiting to hear the first rooster’s crow before the light of the sun begins to think about warming this spot on earth.

But, I find myself more than waiting for today’s dawn now that I hear that first single rooster call and the last of the coyotes’ howls as they grab their final morsels of food for this nighttime.  I find myself thinking that if God were to grant me ONE personal wish — not a wish for peace on earth on this day when Iran is to tell the world exactly what they might be doing with their nuclear prowess — I know what I would wish for.

It’s not that my wish is unrelated to anything going on in my life.  I could possibly even track my thoughts of recent days to find out how this one personal wish I would ask of God THIS morning became a seed and sprouted into a thought to be written here.

What I would wish for…..

God, I wish for you to show me for TWO LONG FULL MINUTES — as you grant me during this same two minutes an immense and unusual ability to know the essence of all things around the globe  — the true state of the planet, the entire planet Earth — 500 years in the future.

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500 years in the future, God.  Just 500 years!  Please!

I want to know what becomes of us humans.  I want to know if we begin to fulfill the potential You have placed in each of us individually.  I want to know that there is hope our civilizations will come out far more than OK by 500 years into the future.

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I find myself thinking about riches, but the riches I would hope for our species on this planet have very little to do with material gain or material power.  The riches I hope for are of our soul — our impressive important soul.

There is a soul of our species.  Each person’s soul is a part of that soul.  As I think about my hopes for us 500 years in the future I find myself thinking primarily about the riches of EDUCATION.

I am not at all sure that we can ever be more than what we know.

I don’t know very much.

In the future, if education was one of humanity’s most PRIMARY goals, if we valued what we all know together — and then ACTED in unison toward making what we know manifest in the world — we would all be different.

We would be better.

We would all, in unison, make certain of that fact.

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These thoughts I am having and my desire to see 500 years into the future might seem oddly rooted and tied with an invisible umbilical cord to my thoughts about music.

I found myself outside in the cold darkness wondering if the universe of music is as big as anything that can ever be.  God and His Word.  I cannot imagine a Word without a sound.  Sound is music.

For some rather odd (to me right now) reason it seems at least in this American culture we define our reality as we share it together in terms of what we can SEE and TOUCH, what we can hold in our hands.  No doubt my wondering about defining reality in terms of what it SOUNDS like has a great deal to do with this project I am involved with to find musical performance opportunities for the 8-member drum group from Congo that is planning to show up in our little towns by the Mexican border (see recent posts) by the 8th of March.

Drums.  Big drums.  SOUND.  And, when SOUND becomes clear and powerful rhythm what do we have?

Life.

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In my little body, in my little life, I am stretching.  I am being educated.  Even if this drum group from Congo ends up in Hong Kong or India on the 8th of March (they flew off to Bangkok last Sunday) instead of this high desert tiny little world of ours, I have been changed during these days since new possibilities arrived in my consciousness last week.

I also think about all kinds of mundane things right now, of course.  I think about how I can’t quite see how I think I can venture to the women’s homeless shelter to sleep while I give these 8 drummers and their artistic director this house to be their own for the 5 or so nights they will be here.

I shudder, physically shudder at the thought of being locked into a building from such and such a time until such and such a time — when I sleep so little and get up in the darkness and roam around so much.  Roam around in my house, roam around outside of my house, sit at the keyboard with my fingers wandering around in a very tiny universe of 88 keys and their sound.

In the meantime while God deliberates my wish, what are the options here?  (Not a question unrelated to “What will the world be like in 500 years?”)

The best I have come up with so far before this day’s sun appears is that I will remain in this house in the smaller back room while the group is here.  This is a small house filled with the material things I seem to think I want around me.  My weaving loom and spinning wheel and all related attachments, all my art supplies, my sewing machine, bags of rags to crochet into rugs to give away to people far poorer than I am, all of my plants hiding inside from the winter so they can stay alive — where is there room for 10 people to sleep in here?

Bunk beds.  Don’t have any.  OK, idea:  Once the group arrives we simply move as much furniture (my very used second hand furniture) OUT of the house and INTO the yard.  Next step of THIS plan?  I suppose, it would be to make sure I borrow enough folding chairs from someone in town to seat all 10 of us should anyone ever wish to sit down.

And for sleeping?  Borrow sleeping bags.

True, an unusual plan but I am an unusual person.

Next thought?

My next thought is the only logical one I can come up with right now:  “Who in the universe knows?”

Answer is the same one it has always been for all of us, “God, from Whom all good humor flows, is the only One Who knows.”

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