An Afterglow of Tenderness
Janet, once a stranger, now a friend, happily lost in Ivan’s words……
It is a tender matter to invite people into your home, to welcome them into your private place of thought and care. There is the potential for rejection, for everyone choosing to be somewhere else other than the little corner of the earth you have nurtured.
But when I am brave enough to cast an invitation out into the world, with no hope of response, the universe tosses back a dizzying array of delights which always trails past the initial gathering. Don’t you just love the never ending generosity of spirit?
It all started - as the best of things can do - with a playful rumour circulated by Dougald Hine to suggest we might have birthday parties to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Ivan Illich in early September. Maddy and I, having been influenced by Ivan Illich’s thought, and eager, as always, to share our bucolic hideaway in southern Ontario with others waved our hands in the air and pinned our home on the world map to offer up our home as a potential gathering place. (It should be noted, we are fan girls of Dougald’s work and drawn naturally to his gracious offerings. If you haven’t read his book ‘At Home in the Ruins’, you really must - it is essential reading for those concerned with matters environmental, spiritual, social. Well, if you are concerned about important matters: It. Is. Essential. Reading.)
Around the time Dougald was initiating his joyful conspiracy of a world wide birthday party, I stumbled again upon this wondrous proclamation from poet David Whyte
‘This is not the age of information.
This is not the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.
People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.’
As a child I was enchanted with the Biblical story of people gathering on a hill side sharing what little they had to create an abundant picnic. Perhaps this is why I was drawn to Illich’s thought on the power of conviviality, wherein the hope for this world lies in small hospitable gatherings of people offering a place at the table for everyone, knowing there is always enough - enough food, enough love, enough joy, enough fun - for everyone.
Our little gathering took place over lunch in the garden under the Locus tree. It was a glorious September day, full of bright sunshine and blue sky, the end of season flowers leaning on one another in messy array, like happy drunken guests at the end of season party. The bees were buzzing, the chickens clucking, the children scrambling about…….there was the bounty that people brought to the table to share……. the lovely spirit of sweetness that lend a magical air to the afternoon.
Blaine regretted we did not sing happy birthday to Ivan. Me too! And what was I thinking of not having a birthday cake? But still we celebrated with gentle conversation, times of rest and walking together, all of us refreshed at days end. And Lynda, the brave girl who drove from Toronto to our remote dead end road - her friends thought it a wild thing to do - turns out to be an author who wrote My Vertical Neighbours - How Strangers Became a Community. So fun.
So, thanks Ivan. Thanks Dougald. Thanks Madelaine, Connor, Theodora, Emmett, Lynda, Janet, Blaine, Jill, Bruce, and Leslie for accepting the invitation. Thank you to my family who gathered the next day in a particularly joyful way. And to those who stopped in for tea to help putting up the dried herbs. Somehow, the mere issuing of an odd invitation into the universe resulted in three days of happy memories for all of us here - and I think for everyone who visited us this Labour Day Weekend.
Happy Birthday to you, Ivan. If what you experienced in death wasn’t delightful surprise enough, perhaps all of us celebrating your birthday this weekend, will be another unexpectedly happy surprise. Hope so. Thank you for a life well lived and all the instructions/thoughts/invitations/admonishments/wonders you left behind for us to ponder.
Every blessing.
