Chillicothe Sunday reflection

In dedication to refinement, slowing life down, reducing and creating space within time, the weekend of theatrical entrainment in Chillicothe, Ohio has proven to be a blessing. The Tecumseh outdoor drama is an extravaganza that only a witnessing can do justice, the daylong event monumental in educational experiencing. The backstage and living history tour revealed the seriousness of the play as it was understood the actors and actresses come from throughout the United States in order to participate in the small town Ohio performance. The young lady spending quality time with the tours, sharing her life and aspirations, performing the role of Tecumpease (Sky Watcher)—the sister of Tecumseh (Panther Passing Across the Sky), hailed from Washington D.C. Her father was in attendance, for the first time observing his daughter perform in the play, requesting photos of his daughter as he noticed me taking pictures. The play is amazing. The outdoor theater is incredible to experience, the flow of action possessing a depth and stunningly sensual and visual arousal. Horses running through scenes, charging up and down side hills, a pond midfield for passing—canoes paddling across, beyond a distant tree-lined path populated by scene enhancing background characters, two side stages with rocky formations for various elevations of acting, characters talking and acting while ascending and descending, explosions, smoke and the incredibly loud sound of muskets being fired, fighting scenes of impressive frenzy, campfires, Indian and settlers dancing—all historically accurate and powerfully told with compassion and sensitivity perceiving a greater truth. Wonderful and absolutely exhilarating to behold. The play is deeply entrenched with the small town life of Chillicothe, a forty-plus year history dating back to 1973. Today we have decided to lounge about the Greenhouse bed and breakfast. The Victorian home in the heart of downtown surprised with location, providing in its backyard St Mary’s, the downtown Chillicothe Catholic Church. Attending morning Mass proved to be a short walk away. Typing right now, I am listening to the ringing of Angelus bells from the Church. The proprietor of the Greenhouse informed us St Mary’s, possessing a large painting of the Assumption of Mary, recently experienced a massive renovation. Witnessing the interior of the Church, I was surprised by its lack of decoration, settling into the clean bareness, the freshness of soft colors—cream yellows and lighted blues, the only attention grabbing statues being Mary and Joseph standing together. Joseph is larger in size and impression, holding the infant Jesus. The high ceiling church provided a sense of spaciousness, freedom of movement, especially with respect to the pews, allowing plenty of room between pews, one able to easily walk down the pew even with kneelers placed upon the floor. I delighted, possibly over-romanticizing, in the small town ambiance of the parishioners. Reflecting, I imagined the structure of the socializing being based upon familiarization, relating matters to the idea that if one desired to be left alone, able to be whomever one desired to be, free to come and go in identity, delusional and deceptive in presentation, one needed to reside within the city. Within the overcrowding and chaos of the big city life, solitude and seclusion remained intimate. Strangers are always to be met and interacted with. If on the other hand, one desired for others to know everything about one’s self, including family and personal history to a degree even greater than the possessor, a small town was the life to pursue. In a small town, mystery and delusion is forcefully removed. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. Dee, the owner of the Greenhouse, talkative and lovingly sharing in her home, a retired schoolteacher of eighty-one years, active as a wife, mother, and grandmother, demonstrated the relevancy of the matter when discussing the fact she is without a church at this time. Complications arising from a new minister banning the retired minister from the Presbyterian church she has attended for all of her life has caused her and many of her friends to abandon a church of lifetime attending. It is the first time in her and her husband’s long life they have experienced such a quandary. During the Mass at St Mary’s, I cherished the people surrounding. A farming family, as I envisioned, sat directly in front of us—three generations present. The attractive teenage children, two stout boys and a rustic beautiful tomboyish girl, stunning in her sundress, possessed a distinct simplicity and wholesomeness. The same for the granddaughter’s expressively and expansively decorating the walls of Dee’s home in splendid photographs. The idea of families resonates, central to life being the intimacy of intimate relationships. The Tecumseh play shared in the expression, expanding and bursting ideas, with the reality of the Shawnees lived lives contrary to Christian lives, yet absolutely centered within the family unit. Brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers central to the tribal unity, formation, and survival of the Indians way of life. The Gospel reading today, during the Feast of the Assumption weekend—the bodily ascension of Our Holy Mother into Heaven, evading the ease of black-and-white scenarios, passing beyond declarative statements, the concreteness of right being a matter of proving others wrong being usurped with Jesus declaring mysterious words to be pondered:

“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”