<\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Nilus Skete, Nelson Island<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some nights when I wake to a child\u2019s bad dream<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or get up reluctantly to let the old dog out for a pee,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
when rain and wind batter the black windows,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think of the black-clad nuns<\/p>\n\n\n\n
an island away across cold black seas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
each one rising faithfully for midnight prayers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
leaving her warm bed in the darkness<\/p>\n\n\n\n
walking the narrow, wooded path,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
watchful for ice and spruce roots in the skittish leaps of a flashlight beam<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is she thinking of firewood in need of stacking, of berries or bears,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of an aching back, or remembering with pleasure a hot bowl of soup<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unless, each step toward the chapel is already a kind of prayer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matins, both solitary and communal,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
as so many things are\u2014writing, reading, travel,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
illness, dying, giving birth,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet isn\u2019t it surprising, when we first meet the aloneness<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and don\u2019t we wish each person some comfort in the face of it<\/p>\n\n\n\n
whether that\u2019s God or love or mountains or a good dog, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
or this, the solace of returning to a warm bed,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to sleep under soft blankets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
St. Nilus Skete, Nelson Island Some nights when I wake to a child\u2019s bad dream or get up reluctantly to let the old dog out for a pee, when rain and wind batter the black windows, I think of the black-clad nuns an island away across cold black seas, each one rising faithfully for midnight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2562,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/2562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}