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Volume 31 Issue 3
Restoration
 In this issue of Pilgrimage, David James Duncan writes about restoration as it applies to moving water, the movement of the Spirit, and sustenance for potentially lost souls. Susan Tweit describes a restoration project that reminds us we can do good work in small ways. Michelle Nickol hints at the kind of restoration that is needed on both sides of a prison wall. Nancy Leigh Harless tells the story of a good laugh that suggests the possibility of rehabilitation for a community of women in the war-torn Balkans. Amy Frykolm describes a turn toward the restoration of dignity that she witnesses while working in a high country soup kitchen.
“We can do no great things--only small things, with great love.” Mother T, we tend to forget, helped homeless Calcuttans one sick or dying person at a time. Her advice, I believe, could save more than a few souls from succumbing to the darkness of our times.
Why do I strongly believe this? Because one such soul is mine.”
~from “No Great Things...”
by David James Duncan
The return of so many kinds of invertebrates gives me hope. Hope that we can indeed revive this block of abused and neglected waterway. Hope that we can bring pockets of wildness like this one back home to the urban places where most of us live. Hope that our legacy on this miraculous planet is not, after all, just that of a destructive invasive species. Hope that humans, with the help of these myriad fluttering, crawling, and hopping lives, can restore what we have nearly lost: our hearts’ and spirits’ connection to the continuing wonder of life on Earth, the only home our species has ever known.?
~from Restoring a Creek–and Hope–At Home
by Susan Tweit
photo by Lance Richardson (www.lancerichardson.com)
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