HILLSPEAKING
from The Anglican Digest
ADVENT - CHRISTMAS - EPIPHANY A.D. 2001

WHAT DOES an 82-year-old man do at Hillspeak?

Well, for starters, he takes a morning walk on the Silver Cloud Trail with Godfrey.

If it's springtime, he checks to see how many "candles" there are on the Virginia pines lining St Mark's Lane and how many daffodils are up and blooming in St Mark's Cemetery, and how much the forsythia is abloom along the county road.

If it's summer, he checks to see how the quail and martin populations are developing in their respective habitats, and whether or not the crepe myrtle is in bloom.

Come autumn, he will try to compare mentally the color this year with how he remembers the color to have been last year; taking special note of the Virginia creeper, the maples, the sumac, and the persimmons.

Winter walks have their own areas of concern: If it snowed the night before he will look for bird and animal tracks; if there was ice, he will check to see what damage, if any, has been done to trees and shrubs.

By the time he has finished checking on the status quo on Grindstone Mountain and had breakfast, the eight o'clock bell has rung and it is time for intercessory prayers in St Mark's Chapel. (Prayer requests come from all over; November's prayer list alone has requests from Arkansas, Nevada, California, Florida, Missouri, Texas, North and South Carolina, Australia, Ohio, Canada, and the District of Columbia.)

After chapel the work day begins in earnest. Maybe there are books to check in for Operation Pass Along or vestments to be passed along to a 3rd World Anglican priest or bishop. Or maybe there are books to be catalogued and placed in the Foland Library. Or (and this occurs seven times a year) there is a flyer to be written
to describe books selected for and offered through The Anglican Bookstore. On the other hand, it may be a matter of writing a "Hillspeaking" such as this, or a 'Tidings' for the Episcopal Book Club.

Evenings are often spent with one of five cats curled up in his lap while he reads a book or listens to music or just chats with Patient Wife about the doings of the day -- never very exciting but almost always quite satisfying.

One way or another, time passes serenely and quickly, and he, himself, often wonders what he has done.