Of Green Stuff Woven by Cathleen Bascom

Author:Cathleen Bascom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: conservation;nature;prairie;tall grass;iowa;plains;des moines;episcopal;woman priest;conservancy;environmentalism;land development;urban development;gentrification;church life;social issues;green
Publisher: Light Messages Publishing
Published: 2020-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Indian Grass

Sorghastrum nutans or Indian grass has flowering stems to seven feet tall. The seed matures from September to frost and the flower heads are chestnut or copper colored. As forage for animals, Indian grass is nutritious both green and as hay.

–Note from Dean Brigid Brenchley’s Prairie Journal

Denver, 1980

I had been such a snarky agnostic, who could I tell that I might have met God? The Monday after my Vail ski crash my high school’s zany creative writing teacher, Mr. Steinberg, was busy balancing his chair on top of his desk. In appearance our teacher looked like Woody Allen stretched long. Next, he crawled up on the desk, stacking an array of books, some fruit, and a mop. He was creating a woman figure for us to describe, to teach us about metaphor.

Reverse metaphor he called it: like how can a persimmon also be a nose?

Having left St. Clare’s for public high school now, Mr. Marzetti, Monica, and Sister Julian were not at hand to talk to about this God encounter. So there was really only one candidate for my revelation, an equally snarky but believing Catholic friend named Erin Kelly who sat directly behind me in creative writing class. Her verbal repartee was exquisite, and her college-aged sister had set her up with a fake ID—which gave her heroic high school status. But still, Erin made no secret that her religion was a big part of her life. Somehow for me her worldliness gave her spirituality credibility. I felt that Erin was someone I could trust with my new openness to the Divine.

Earlier, as part of a class assignment, Erin and I had whimsically written of “Metaphysical Experience.” So, watching Mr. Steinberg with chalk clouds on his tweed jacket and reddish beard, I scrawled on paper:

Kells, I had a metaphysical experience at Vail. For real. Think I might believe in God after all. Quirky

She wrote back:

Meta! With a capital M. Excellent. Can’t wait to hear about it. p.s. I hope this metaphoric goddess doesn’t fling Steinberg onto the floor as a sacrifice. She looks fierce.

It was through Erin that I spent over a year as an “exploring Catholic.” Erin’s Catholics were more ethnically and economically diverse than people at the Episcopal church my family erratically attended. Mainly they were enviro-hippies—with head-scarves and hiking boots—who believed in Jesus and Transubstantiation. Erin’s Sacred Heart youth group folded a hodge-podge together in a fashion rare in those status-conscious air-brushed-suburbs of the seventies. Most importantly, Erin and these others corroborated my experience of Divine Love. Some of them had experienced similar things and adored my conversion-through-snow-jump story. For us, the Rockies were the backdrop of our faith.

One day, while driving up to the mountains for a camping retreat, Erin and I discovered there actually was a Church of the Metaphysical in Denver. We simply liked the phrase! We swore we’d attend someday. But we never got quite that far out of our Catholic and Episcopal worlds, and before we knew it we were off to college.

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