WHAT DID NOT END [M, 9-18-17]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… ©

One of the neat things about Bloomington is that world-renowned musicians of every genre live, and perform, here. There’s John Mellenkamp in rock, and Sylvia McNair in Opera and Broadway [and watch for Katherine Jolly], and Dominic Spera and Pat Harbison in jazz [and, before their deaths, David Baker and Al Cobine], and Carrie Newcomer in folk. There are many others, just as good but not as well known. I guess it all started with Hoagy Carmichael.

Saturday night we went to hear Carrie, something we do every year or so. She always sells out, of course. She has that rich full deep voice that she uses so well, and that Quaker activist manner, sweet and insouciant at the same time. More than most singer-songwriters of her genre, she is a good poet.

She introduced one of her songs by saying: “When my husband and I moved here, it was just for one year. That was thirty years ago. I fell in love…with the hills and the trees, with the geodes you can pick up in the creek beds, with the funny looking court house, with the strings of lights downtown at Christmas, with the wonderful farmer’s market, with the tomatoes and sweet corn, with the friendly faces. None of those ended last November.”

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] Having met and married while at IU in Bloomington, IN, we became Bloomarangs in May of 2015, moving back to where we started, closing the circle. We no longer live in the land of winter, but I am in the winter of my years, and so I am still trying to understand Christ in winter.

I tweet as yooper1721.

Another thing that did not end in November, good writing: Katie Kennedy is the rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published by Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her latest book is, What Goes Up. It’s published in hardback, paperback, audio, and electronic, from B&N, Amazon, etc.