Knowing 1

Take a walk with me.

The cemetery across the street is more like a Victorian park than a dour scary place. Lots of famous graves and stories live there. But, at the same time, it's alive. Crows, hawks, swallows, wrens, nuthatches, woodpeckers, ducks, a heron, woodchucks, chipmunks, squirrels, a rabbit, trees, flowers, poison ivy, and a deer - lots of living things live there, too. People come paying respect to loved ones who have passed on. People stroll with the living, walk their dogs, take pictures and make rubbings for graphic design classes. If you walk somewhere often enough, and you're paying attention, you get to know it. You get familiar with the places you walk, the places you live, the places where you spend your time.

Why do I walk in this cemetery? It's 100+ acres nearby, outside but not isolated. We also have a nice park but we find more dogs and people there and after two years Mom's still working on social-with-dog. My confidence grows slowly. In the cemetery, I can see dogs and people coming and decide if I want to go closer or change direction. Nyah tends to ignore the other dogs, the stones interrupt her view. She'd rather sniff. Ellie overcomes some of her fears walking beside different sized inanimate objects, moving flags, and pin wheels. She'd rather sniff, too. And again, the stones block her view. All and all they give me much better attention, our unexpected encounters with dogs and people keep getting better. My confidence keeps growing (though slowly) and I'm getting to know my dogs better.

When I was a kid, if I could get away with it, I'd wander through the cemetery between Sunday School and church and conveniently forget to return until after the service started. Then I'd hang out in the nursery and help with the kids. Church was boring. I think once, when our Sunday school class took a walk out there someone pointed out the graves of children explaining how children died young from disease and how common it was for mother and child to die at birth.

I learned some arithmetic (maybe the only arithmetic I ever learned) subtracting dates because I wanted to know how old the children were when they died.

I went to the cemetery office the other day to ask about a very large monument of a dog and a child. It's out of the way but quite large so I presume it cost plenty in the late 1800's. I was curious to know if there was any connection to the humane society. Don't think there is. But the lady in the cemetery office was really excited to have someone interested to know more about one of these once living people. That may sound a little macabre but it wasn't.

That's when I got thinking about people wanting to know more - people looking for connections both with the people around them and with people who have passed on.

I was thinking about the desire to find out more and to "know," to understand, to know information- in depth information, to know people stories - family histories, histories of "important" people. I was thinking about the desire to connect, to know and be known - basic day to day social friendships and more intimate relationships. I was thinking about the desire to know God. I'm wondering whether we're just hard-wired to want to know and to connect. I'm wondering if we're hard wired to want to know and be known because God made us that way. He knows us already. Maybe He's hoping that when the things we find out or learn fail to fill the void He left for Himself, we'll ultimately come looking for Him, to know Him. Sometimes we come to know Him better through the connections we make with people and the things we learn. But sometimes we come to know Him better when all those things fail.

I took the long way around but it's not too far-fetched, is it?