Bonus Essay: Chapel

Dear friends,

I’m working on a new book of short essays about the small moments of everyday awe that end up saving us. I wanted to share an excerpt of that book with you this week, inspired by a quote from one of my favorite authors and a dear friend, Elizabeth Berg. If you haven’t gotten a hold of her newest novel yet, Life: A Love Story, please do so. Elizabeth writes with a poet’s heart about life, love, and these memories that filter through the years and won’t let go of us. Her novels and memoirs are intentional in the best sense of that word, so often uplifting kindness and connection at a time when we all need to be reminded such qualities are not only still possible, but happening every day. In this new book, I promise you too will fall in love with 92 year old Flo Greene, her infectious voice, and the way she sees the world.


Chapel

And all the way home, I felt like watching that child had let me build a little chapel inside myself, and I’d watched that little girl like she was a living prayer.

—Elizabeth Berg


I am making a chapel inside myself to house the moment that young family made it to the top of Haystack Mountain in Vermont. My husband and I had already been there for a while, taking in the 360-degree view of the Mettowee Valley and the Bald and Middle Mountains when they finally joined us, out of breath from the steep climb. Yet what stays with me now is not the striking view, not the fall asters blooming along the path with their soft violets and whites, thriving in spite of a long drought. What I want to remember is the careful way the mother unstrapped the infant from the carrier across her chest, and then how her other daughter, no more than four or five, came up and cradled her sister’s tiny head. “Hello, my little girl,” she said, briefly closing her eyes to relish in the affection. That same little girl then went around giving some love to her father and older brother, pointing with a little yelp of surprise toward a junco that fluttered up out of the brush and into the clear blue sky. What brings us wonder is so often smaller and more slight than we expect, entering the side door of our consciousness and suddenly taking hold. Yet a scene like this, when brought to life again within us, carves out a sacred space we can revisit again and again when our world turns too frightening, flavorless, or gray. Just today, when I found myself disturbed by headlines and politics, I thought of that little girl, the shared tenderness, and her obvious love for her world. And it was as if that little chapel of memory lit up inside me again.

James Crews

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