Easter once again has me thinking of Dragon Run, the cypress swamp that marks the boundaries of Gloucester and Middlesex Counties. I’ve noted before that Virginia has a mild climate. Sometimes, particularly lately, we’ll go from almost no winter directly into spring, when wisteria takes over our lane.
But if there is no snow and no rain, there are problems on Dragon Run. Without rain certain parts of the swamp, always shallow, get choked off by the river weed that grows up from the floor of the swamp, making passage impossible even in our kayaks.
In short, an impossible season.
But perhaps not too worry. Every season is impossible. Coaching rugby, I’d often had only 11 players minutes before kick-off, but another four would show up at the last minute, and the game would go on. I don’t even want to talk about the impossibilities of working an amateur theater.
So, every season is impossible, a pilgrimage of grace.
That sounds positive, and I usually use the expression “pilgrimage of grace” in the most optimistic way possible (see my second book, Sleeping Dragons, which suggests that all of life is a pilgrimage of grace).
But, of course, historically, the pilgrimage of grace was the last sustained resistance of Catholic England against Henry VIII’s reformation. Henry negotiated with the leaders, promising them amnesty. They surrendered, and he had them brutally murdered. Not all pilgrimages end well. Sometimes dragons are real.
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