Frog Hollow Journal

Read by Sam Heatwole, written by Jim Fairfield

Jan 9, 2010

Kids in elementary school are impressionable; at least I seemed to be. January is an impressionable experience in rural Manitoba, arguably the coldest province in Canada. The windows of our one-room school were framed in sculptured ice; the condensed breath of 13 steaming kids froze from the bottom up on the window panes. Even though the janitor sealed visible cracks with strips of heavy woolen felt, winds from the Arctic with nothing to stop them but a few thin poplar groves whipped around our little school building and shook its seams loose.

In that draft-ridden one-room school on the banks of the Red River, Mrs. Fredrickson taught me to love geography. She used a big map of the world on a roll she pulled down over the blackboard, a huge window-blind sort of thing painted in vivid reds and greens with indigo oceans and inland seas of a lighter hue.

A sturdy Icelandic blonde, Mrs. Fredrickson came to Manitoba as a child. Like many first generation Canadians, she became a fierce loyalist and in her classroom gave preference to imperial history, but come January, she couldn't help herself. She fled to warmer subjects, and we studied the culture of the South.

We'd push back the desks in front of the blackboard near the vent from the furnace, and Mrs. Fredrickson would find the pitch with a tuning fork she kept on her desk. Every day through January we'd work up to "O Shenandoah, I long to see you...," and staring out of the frost-rimed windows at the whitened landscape, my heart would fill with an unaccustomed, indescribable longing. I felt sad and elated and puzzled all at once--and I didn't know why. Not then. It was years before I knew what was missing.

One of the realities most of us wrestle with is the longing for place -- however we may think of it. Somewhere else, in some way, we will be truly "at home." A better climate. More satisfying job. Kinder kids. Happier circumstances.

We want this to happen to us but aren't able to map out how to get there from here... maybe win the lottery. Then we can fire the boss, dump our problems, move to a better location, find more caring friends. So God, please let me hit the Big One.

But what if it doesn't happen the way I want it to, and I have to live with what I've got?

Success then becomes surviving what we learn about ourselves and the illusions we call existence. Yet it's hard to dismiss the illusions, if we're convinced they're the truth.

How do we cope with the human condition -- illusions and all? The New Testament gospel of Matthew tells of a crowd gathered on a hillside, hoping to catch a miracle or two from Jesus.

Jesus had a profound effect on people. He seemed to draw their longing for place and for something better into a commitment to follow him until they found his reality and discovered the kind of kingdom he said was so near.