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Pentecost Pilgrims

Monday was the day after Pentecost and in Germany it is a holiday.  Some people get together with family, some go out of town for a long weekend or take the whole week off (if they don’t have kids in school) and some just hang around the house like we did.  

After a late breakfast we got out for some exercise.  John and Elisabeth headed out first, John running and Elisabeth on her bike.  They wended their way through the neighborhood and then onto some trails to eventually end up at a playground at the edge of the woods.  Henry and I took the direct route to the playground, he on his bike and me on my speedy feet (walking).  As we went by the Lutheran church where Henry attends Kindergarten we saw a large group of people who seemed to be leaving the church.  I assumed there was a Pentecost Monday service.  We took a different route so we wouldn’t have to ride right through them, but encountered them again a few minutes further into the woods.  I noticed many with gray hair, dressed nicely in suits, but also a smaller group of black men and women, dressed to the nines. Snatches of what sounded like hymns met our ears.  Henry kept pedaling and soon we were in their midst.  Two women walked their bikes and chatted.  Some people carried water bottles in their purses.  We stayed amongst them as the black singers of the group walked through the tunnel underneath the autobahn.  This dark tunnel sometimes alarms me as we once encountered a man who had fallen in a drunken stupor from his bicycle, but this Monday morning the darkness was filled to overflowing with the rich bass and tenor sounds and full soprano sounds of a the four or six men and women who were singing an unknown hymn.  I couldn’t make out the language or the tune, but I sang along.  I just had to. Then we exited the tunnel into the daylight again.  The singing had given me courage to learn more so I one of the bicycle women, “Was machen Sie heute?”  What are you doing today?  She replied in German that they were making a church pilgrimage and were visiting three churches.  “Was ist die Nächste?” I asked in my broken German. “Nathanael Kirche.  Kommen Sie mit?”  She invited me to join them with a smile that warmed me to my toes, so that for five minutes after I had said no I wished that I had said yes, just to stay in that place of joy and purpose.  Instead my joy and purpose was in playing at the playground with Elisabeth as she challenged me to doing flips on the bar that I was too afraid to try when I was her age.  A day later my arms are still sore and I have a callous on my hand, but I cannot forget the joyful pilgrim singers or my happy daughter with her hair hanging upside down towards the ground.  
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Elizabeth Rooney said…
Laurel,

This is splendid. I love the story and your writing, especially the last two sentences. I've been reading Stanley Fish "How to read a sentence" and these just jumped off the page at me. I felt like I was there. Thanks for sharing.

Elizabeth
11:13 PM
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