FOREVER BECKONS THE DAWN

By Edwin Cooney

I don’t know about you, of course, but I love “clean slates.”  Clichés such as “tomorrow is only a day away!" and “tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life!” have given me, since I was quite young, a sense of newness or redemption from yesterday’s -- and today’s -- drudgery or mistakes.  Thus, for me, a new day can be a new start.

Another gateway between the past and the future can be a vacation.  I offer this perspective from such a vantage point.

Last Sunday night, two United Airlines jets (respectively) swept me out of San Francisco and Los Angeles heading eastward toward Cleveland, Ohio and Erie, Pennsylvania.  This vacation not only meant meeting new people and going new places, but it also meant what my fellow Methodists often refer to as “a new beginning."  Exactly what constitutes an "old beginning" no Methodist (Wesleyan or United) has ever explained, but a new beginning has a special meaning for me during this vacation!

Shortly after I settled into Seat 24A on the flight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, twenty-two year-old Alexandra plunked her tiny self down into the seat just to my right.  A very curious and inquisitive college student traveling home to Southern California for her Thanksgiving holiday, Alexandra was fascinated when she realized that she was seated next to a blind man.

“What’s it like to live in total darkness?” she wanted to know.  So I explained, as I usually do, that total blindness isn’t dark since "dark" must be seen to be identified.

Full of energy and a bunch of presumptions and assumptions, Alexandra made the approximate 52 minutes between California’s fourth and first largest cities lively indeed.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., my trip continued as the Boeing 737 rose into the air and headed northeastward towards Cleveland.  My seatmate was Michael, a young violist with the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra.  Born in Rochester, New York, and raised primarily in Buffalo, Michael, too, was heading eastward for his Thanksgiving week vacation.  He was on his way to visit his fiancé and her family.  Michael had originally planned to fly from Boise, Idaho to Cleveland via Chicago, but a mechanical malady to the aircraft caused him to go to Cleveland via Los Angeles adding over twelve hours to his travel time.  Michael was ready for some shuteye as soon as he settled into his seat.  All of what little conversation I had with him occurred as we were making our approximate twenty minute approach to Cleveland.  Michael told me it is his hope to keep advancing from small town orchestras up to the big time orchestras in the United States, Canada, or perhaps Europe.

Strangely, the atmosphere on the "puddle jumper" between Cleveland and Erie was almost nonexistent.  Except for the flight attendant’s pre take-off and post landing announcements, hardly a word was uttered by the passengers or the crew.

A vacation, like anything else, is what one makes of it.  Still, the best part of any vacation very often is the hospitality provided by one’s host and hostess.  In this instance, my friends Chet and Linda have been more than wonderful in every way.  Chet, who attended my alma mater, possesses a rare combination of wisdom, candor, and humor along with a healthy dose of thoughtfulness.  His wife Linda is generous, creative and unfailingly attentive.

One of the most pleasurable challenges one ever has is to introduce to others the lady he has grown to love.  Marsha is an intelligent, loving, energetic little dynamo of a woman who agreed to marry me last Thursday -- November 22^nd, 2012 -- Thanksgiving Day.  My new fiancée possesses an almost unquenchable curiosity, a thoughtfulness toward others, an undying spirituality and a tremendous capacity to give and receive love.  Like Chet and me, Marsha is a graduate of the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia.  Her alertness, vitality, integrity, imagination, warmth, and compassion are out there for all to see.  As for when we’ll become one or exactly where that will happen isn’t yet definite -- but we both want it to happen as soon as possible.

Happily, sixteen days remain to this wondrous holiday.  From Monday, November 26^th until Monday, December 3^rd, I will visit with the editor of these weekly musings, my friend Roe and her husband Mark.  Then, between December 3^rd and 10^th, Lady Marsha and I will spend time celebrating her birthday and meeting friends and family in Syracuse, New York.

My memory of the two aircrafts that swept me out of California on Sunday night, November 18^th toward Monday’s ever rapidly approaching morning star reminds me once again that while yesterday may be rich in history, tomorrow’s dawn -- God’s greatest gift to us -- forever provides that clean slate on which to write tomorrow’s story.

Thus, forever beckons the dawn!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY