Monday, June 20, 2022
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Margaret and God’s spark in Indianapolis
The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
On Thursday last week Margaret saw Dr. Kim, her “hem of the garment” Christian friend and eastern medicine chiropractor, who has often healed her in the past. But we’ve been gone! Two years and this is the first meeting they have had since. And once again, healing happened in the quiet corners of Jen his wife and Dr. Kim’s office and home.
So our two day trip to Indy was filled with joy. Margaret was brimming with energy and hope, and she passed it on to one person after another. At the Eiteljorg Museum she praised the changes at the museum to one of the designers, who beamed with gratitude. At our hotel that afternoon she made friends with three black kids covered with white foam in the whirlpool. All of them had stories to tell, and Margaret listened.
The American Boxer Club’s national show (covid-cancelled the last two years) was just finishing up a week of several hundred dogs taking over parts of the hotel. We got there just in time to say goodbye.
That night, on our way to the Epilogue Playhouse we joined a big block party at the Benjamin Harrison Home for sunshine, music, food (rib tips and coney dogs!), and lots of people celebrating Juneteenth. Margaret talked about recipes with the actress dressed up and sharing stories about Dolly Johnson, President Harrison’s black female chef at the White House.
At the theater Margaret struck up a conversation with the man sitting in front of us and helped his wife find her cell phone. The play, Now and Then, was wonderful, and then we slept.
What a fine day it was!
Saturday morning we reserved for a special outdoor lunch at Maggiano’s. The weather cooled off, the breeze blew through the portico across a beautiful fountain, and Davion made special salmon salads for us. He came to Indy from Texas a few months ago, and we made Texas-talk for awhile. Margaret asked a dad holding his toddler son if they wanted to jump in the fountain. All three of them seemed about ready to do just that.
Juneteenth was a big weekend in Indianapolis. The White River museums were all open and free, and therefore the parking garage was full. So we exited, turned right away from the traffic, and drove west on Rte 36 all the way to Rockville, where we spent awhile in the famous G & M Variety Store, packed and packed with everything you could possibly need. Margaret talked to the cashier about its history, its size, and where to eat pork tenderloin in Rockville. We watched lots of bikers ride by and stop at the Thirty Six Saloon, and she looked for one of them to ask if there was a jamboree.
There was – at least I think so. “Cannonball Harley Davidson presents, Bike Night at Thirty-Six Saloon!” The last one was on June 16, 2018. Everybody wants to party after Covid.
We drove the gravel roads, then, north toward Turkey Run, past the probably haunted Old Indiana State Sanatorium , which was built in 1907 as the Indiana Tuberculosis Hospital. (Ten years later the Hospital Sisters in Springfield, Illinois built St. John’s Tuberculosis Sanitarium, where later, after it was repurposed as the Chiara Center, we received our spiritual director’s training.)
You hve rocked the country and split it open; repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
We pushed on, fording Little Raccoon Creek below the State Sanatorium Covered Bridge, to Sunset View Grocery, which was closed, but we talked a bit to an Amish family who lives there. Then more gravel north to Marshall and the eastern edge of Turkey Run State Park.
Give us aid against the foe, for worthless is the help of men.
When we forded the creek on a concrete pad, the dust on our white Prius turned to dirt. Back home just before dark, we stopped at a car wash and washed the evidence down the drain. Sunday was quiet, the day before my own personal colonoscopy, and it was good to remember so many beautiful people, made even more beautiful when Margaret said hello.
(2 Kings 17, Psalm 60, Hebrews 4, Matthew 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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