Hawthorne

Yesterday I went to Hawthorne. That's South East Portland for the non-initiate. I didn't feel allowed to call it that till after I'd been there three times and seen it in various states of seasonal dress. I've seen it bare and scraggly all winter, as if the leaves fell off the trees and turned into shreds of old notices torn from telephone poles and grocery store walls. But yesterday... yesterday I turned off Belmont onto 29th and realized that I didn't know Hawthorne at all.

In this little wedge of lively ground caught between the prongs of the Columbia River, nature is only just tolerating mankind's infringement on its territory. After lunch at a little Italian place on the corner of Hawthorne and 32nd where I had a Caesar salad and tomato basil soup that made me glad I had taste buds, and where a little girl at the counter kicked her feet into the bar and smiled and waved an individual-figured wave when I smiled at her, and where a guru of tie-dye held forth at length about his craft to the fascinated barkeeper, and where our water pitcher was a green glass bottle, Conor took us for a walk. In utter astoundedness of spirit I waded through drifts of chestnut blossoms, pine needles and green maple helicopters. Ranks of iris bowed over the sidewalk as if Jesus had just passed and they hadn't quite recovered yet. Rhododendrons towered and lilacs drooped, ivy raced and climbed and I stopped to smell a thousand roses. Columbine grew in the cracks between sidewalk and rock wall, lavender waved in fierce solitude, rosemary appeared on almost every corner. I saw palms and eucalyptus, rock roses and succulents, poppies and bamboo, and over all the zinging gloss of a billion new leaves in full song. I was so high I was about ready to lift off my feet and fly. And how I wished I could!

Then we arrived at Laurelhurst Park. Margaret said, “Now we go into Narnia.”

Of course she would say that for the first thing you see is a well-appointed lamppost on the corner of Oak and 35^th. But then you discover she was only being accurate because once past the lamppost you realize that those two guys who designed Central Park (and somehow ended up in South East Portland) took a cue from Adam and chose to manage creation, groom it, shape it, corall it, and let it be. They knew it would make its own splendor if it were but cared for.

I had no idea this beauty existed. No clue it was there! All winter it lay there, sticks over which to imagine.

Oddly enough (no, strike that— odds are for atheists), there was a spiritual bookend to this natural day. Margaret and I had a brainstorming session back at the house, and in the course of it we prayed and battled and tore down and released and blessed and cursed and took ground in a terribly exciting and exhilarating couple of hours. I've heard it said that you must practice warfare, but I've always sort of blown that off. God and His power are always the same, how could my practice change that? It doesn't. It changes me. I get into the habit of feeling His leading, His power, and I get accustomed to the sound of His voice. Just as it takes time in a new relationship to learn what the other person will do in a given situation, so it is with the Lord. What saddened me when I got home, though, was the fact that Margaret is one of few kindred spirits with whom I can do battle on that level. Not having the agreement and unity of spirit with a large group of believers stunts my growth! I had no idea that the power and beauty with which we prayed yesterday was there. I couldn't find it on my own. Just as more creativity flows out of two musicians working together, so the most imagination and creativity flows out of a group collaboration. That's why it's the Body of Christ, plural, not the United Arm of Christ of Seattle, singular. The Body covers the globe, and it also covers the ages, as those who have gone before us leave their wisdom from which we would do well to learn. I don't want to be one tree in the desert. I want to be part of the natural symmetry of the Park of the Lord.