Neil Young & Drew's truck

Gratitude is riches it says somewhere in the Bible. 

I went to sleep last night reading Neil Young's new book, "Waging Heavy Peace", digging the way he seems so content with his life and so willing to let bygones be bygones. There's a terrific passage in the back-third of the book when he's remembering the moment he became himself--playing a guitar in a club in Toronto--and I admire the way he uses phrases like "I'll get back to you later on that" or "I'll report in awhile on how this all turns out" to keep the narrative flow going.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. It's a Beatitude that I've thought about a lot since I first had to memorize all the Beatitudes in Christian Science Sunday School. I don't think it means what I was taught it meant--that you should give everything up for God--I think it means that it's your job in life to find out who you are, and if you live your life with that mission your life will be filled, and God can't help but be happy.

This morning when I woke up, I promised myself I'd wait until I was listening and could hear something that would get me out of bed. As I only had a few minutes to give myself in this pursuit, I closed my eyes and kept them closed until I heard the foghorns in the bay. Let there be light it says somewhere in the Bible, which my former friend and Bible scholar Tim Reynolds always used to say really means, Let them have eyes.

Last week, Drew drove us from fishing spot to fishing spot on the Wilson River. We'd park off the road and scramble down the bank and fish for an hour, two hours. He'd brought a cooler to keep all the fish we were going to catch--steelhead, we hoped--but we caught nothing. Trying one part of the river, we'd move on and try another. There was so much to be grateful for, like water and trees and mysterious fish that kept their lives for themselves.