Thursday, January 8, 2009

Pigpen

Sometimes I feel like Pigpen- you know, the character in the Charlie Brown comic strip...

It could be because we have 2 golden retrievors and I have to carry a lint brush every where I go!

But sometimes it feels like I carry things with me- pieces of all the people I have seen over the last decade. I wonder how many kitchens I have stood in, with a stranger in my arms, their tears sliding down to land on my shoulder. I wonder how many hands I have held, how many times my eyes have met someone elses and seen the dispair- and felt the dispair. I let myself absorb it sometimes, like a sponge- here let me take that from you for awhile, let me lighten your load.... I wonder how much of that I carry- how much of that we all carry....

In "A Charlie Brown Christmas" - Charlie Brown wondered about the cloud of dust that surrounded Pigpen- maybe he was carrying pieces of ancient Babylon. Always one of my favorite lines, though I can't quote it exactly. Charlie Brown often has wisdom that escapes the rest of us- it does make one wonder...

1 comment:

  1. Pigpen's "cloud of dust' is clearly visible to those around him...I wonder how much of what you/we carry, the "pieces of others", esp their grief and pain, is visible to those who know us...does it hover around us, or is it absorbed, becoming part of who we are...?...

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