Vox Meditantis

29th September 1963

The morning mist hung about the pines like a shroud, and I found myself drawn once more to the old path that winds through the forest behind our cottage. The children are at their lessons, and Robert has gone to the foundry, leaving me with these restless thoughts that seem to multiply like the sparrows in our eaves.

I sat upon the fallen oak where I used to sketch in my girlhood, before duty called me to other purposes. The bark was damp beneath my fingers, and I watched a red squirrel dart amongst the branches overhead, its tail flickering like a painter’s brush against the grey canvas of sky. How effortlessly it moves, how perfectly fitted to its world. I wondered if the Lord grants such certainty to all His creatures save womankind.

There is something in the turning of the leaves that speaks to me of endings, yet also of a beauty that comes only through surrender. The maples burn scarlet and gold, spending themselves gloriously before winter’s arrival. I think of the watercolours I once painted of these very trees, hidden now in the cedar chest beneath my wedding linens. Robert says there is no time for such frivolities, and perhaps he speaks truly. Yet when I see the deer stepping delicately through the morning shadows, their ears pricked like prayers, I feel something stir within me that all the washing and mending cannot quiet.

The wireless spoke yesterday of the troubles in Birmingham, of children no older than my Mary walking through hatred with such dignity. I wonder what manner of strength sustains them, what well they draw from that I have somehow mislaid. Perhaps it is the same force that guides the hawk circling overhead, riding the currents with such sublime purpose.

As I walked deeper into the wood, I came upon a fox’s den beneath the roots of an ancient beech. The earth around it was worn smooth by countless comings and goings, and I marvelled at how this creature has made beauty of mere necessity. Her home is art itself – formed by instinct, shaped by need, blessed by function. Is this not what the scriptures mean when they speak of lilies of the field? They neither toil nor spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

What then is my number one priority tomorrow? The question came to me as naturally as breathing whilst I watched a wren building her nest with such meticulous care. Tomorrow I must tend to young Thomas’s fever – the willow bark tea that Mother used to brew will serve us well. I must also finish the preserving, for winter comes whether we are prepared or not. But beneath these earthly duties lies something else, something harder to name. Tomorrow I must find a way to honour both Martha and Mary within myself – to serve faithfully whilst keeping alive that part of me that hungers for beauty, for expression, for the sacred made manifest in colour and line.

The forest holds its secrets close, like the village women clutching their prayer books. Yet it speaks to those who listen with more than ears. As I made my way homeward, the late afternoon light slanting through the canopy like church windows, I understood that my weariness is not mere tiredness but a kind of spiritual drought. The well runs shallow when we forget to tend the springs that feed it.

Tonight I shall retrieve my old sketchbook from the chest. If I cannot paint the world as it is, perhaps I can capture glimpses of the world as it might be – where creatures move with purpose and seasons change with grace, where a woman’s yearning for beauty is not vanity but worship, as natural and necessary as the breath of life itself.

Early 1960s America and the Birmingham campaign shape the diary’s backdrop, with nonviolent protests confronting entrenched segregation and drawing global attention through shocking images of children facing police dogs and fire hoses in May 1963. Led by figures including Martin Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference sought to desegregate Birmingham through sit-ins, marches, and boycotts, culminating in the Children’s Crusade and mass arrests that pressured local leaders to negotiate. Agreements in May pledged desegregation of public facilities, though backlash included bombings that sparked unrest and federal intervention. The campaign helped spur President Kennedy’s call for civil rights legislation, contributing directly to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and continuing activism through the March on Washington and beyond.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved. | 🌐 Translate