If I had to guess how many people have sat and conversed around my mom and dad’s dining room table on West 27^th Street in Kearney, Nebraska, I would guess the number to be in the thousands. And if I polled those thousands about the comfort level of the chairs that surround that table, I would guess that that level would be -10 (with 1 being barely tolerable and 10 being heavenly). Suffice it say, these are not comfortable chairs.

So what holds people in wooden chairs that could moonlight as torture devices? (O.K., this may be a bit melodramatic and wholly unfair to chairs that have held many fine derrières for years.) What holds us? Good talk. The best talk imaginable.

When I consider my education—my true and enduring education—I know that it has developed slowly and surely over the course of dining room table conversations with family and friends. Long after the last slice of pie has been served and the ice has melted in our glasses, the talk consumes us. In the next room, the television and its white noise are merely a backdrop for the colors at the table: scarlet words that wrestle with the politics of the day; celadon words of new ideas that, once spoken, burst forth and take flight; gray woolen words of assurance, like sweaters of comfort, that affirm speakers and listeners alike; and, suspended on wisps of vermillion and amethyst, golden words of wisdom that float high above the oval table. These are colors and words for the ages.

Around this table, I grew into and out of myself. I tested fledgling theories and propositions, I shaped infant ideas, I challenged and countered others, I floundered and, at times, crashed and burned. Around my family’s table, it was difficult—if not impossible—to take yourself too seriously, for there were always those to humble you in love.

If family and friends came to this table for my mother’s cooking and hospitality, they also came for my father’s tutelage. Spending an evening in the sanctuary of our dining room table is much like eating the best cheesy potatoes while sitting at the feet of Socrates. You leave with a full belly, mind, and soul. And who could want for more?

In “A Poet in Residence at a Country School,” my father writes of a young boy who struggles to begin writing. He approaches my dad and “wonders today, at least, if he just couldn’t sit on my lap.” In the final stanza of the poem, we read:

And so the two of us sit under a clock,                                                           beside a gaudy picture of a butterfly                                                           and a sweet poem of Christina Rosetti’s.                                                     And in all that silence, neither of us can                                                         imagine where he’d rather be.

In the sanctuary of this table, my parents have taken us all in: those they know and love and those they do not yet know or love. They have sheltered us all beneath their merciful wings, and none can imagine where he’d rather be.

As a 40 year English teacher, I continue to read arguments from those who admonish the five-paragraph essay. As a form, they claim, it is archaic, restrictive, harmful, even evil. Student writers deserve more, they say: the freedom to let their ideas grow “organically” and spontaneously, to move into uniquely “personal” shapes.

To them I say, phooey.

Early, I learned the sanctuary of form from my father who saw its inherent value as a means of focusing the most undisciplined thoughts, of holding them steadily, and then drawing out the finest insights. In his composition handbook, The Shape a Writer Can Contain, he lays out the shapes that have—for me and countless students—given rise to our best thinking and writing.

Paradoxically, these shapes do not restrict but rather provide invaluable boundaries that make us look deeply. They ask us to dig rather than skim, to hone rather than plunder.

Consider the Olympic gymnast as she approaches the floor exercise. Within the boundaries of a regulation-sized mat, she works her magic. Though many will take the mat and perform within the same boundaries at the U.S. Women’s Gymnastic Trials, there is only one Aly Raisman whose choreography, athleticism, and execution are, this day, perfect. The regulation-sized mat and prescribed time limits have not, in any sense of the word, restricted Ms. Raisman. In truth, they have freed her to express herself in ways that defy what the human body can do.

Or consider the sonneteer who unleashes his words and thoughts into 14 finely shaped lines. Faced with the shape of a sonnet, I doubt that William Shakespeare whined about its restrictive nature. I imagine that he looked within this shape and, delighted with the possibilities in its depths, began:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?                                                                       Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

And then I imagine that 12 lines later, surprised at where this shape had taken him, he leaned away from his desk to read the draft that became Sonnet 18, a sonnet whose words endure and express love as aptly and as gloriously as any poet ever has.

For me, the essay has been such a shape. I have watched thousands of students in three different states take sanctuary in this shape with the same sense of possibilities, a valuable means to an even more valuable end. I have cheered when mediocre thinkers and writers have given themselves to this form and, drafts later, emerged as better thinkers, better writers, and better individuals. Sitting on my sofa, red pen in hand, I have graded years of student essays, discovering works that I can honestly admit I would have given my left arm to have written.

My days, however, are perhaps the finest forms. They offer 24 hours of possibilities. And best yet, with each day, there are mercies and options anew. If the previous day’s creative work is not finished, I can begin again; if I see new paths and projects, I can pursue them. There is something hallowed about the sanctuary of a day. Formed with the same number of hours—always the same number of hours—the day does not bind us into tedium or mediocrity. Unless we let it. Unless we desire it.

In T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” he writes of one man who chooses not to see the redemptive value of form:

 For I have known them all already, known them all:                                                        Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,                                                    I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;                                                                  I know the voices dying with a dying fall                                                                  Beneath the music from a farther room.                                                                                                    So how should I presume? 

Clearly, Prufrock should not presume. Measuring “out one’s life with coffee spoons” is refusing to see what a day offers. Claiming to have “known them all already” is refusing to live. Prufrock is a man who would stand with those who rail against the five-paragraph essay. Let him.

As for me and my house, we choose to mine the prospects of the most marvelous shapes. We choose to take sanctuary in form.

My biology friends talk of a pond as an ecosystem in which plants, animals, and microorganisms live together in a finely tuned environment. For me, my pond is a sanctuary.

Actually, my pond is not mine but a neighbor’s; still, my family and I have come to regard it as ours. Fifteen years ago when we moved to the country, we were delighted to find that the pond had a variety of fish–fingerlings to mature catfish and grass carp. And when we decided to feed the fish, our delight grew to amazement as 5 lb. catfish, leviathans from the depths, emerged, their large mouths engulfing entire slices of bread in one gulp. We spent an entire summer wooing them with bread and crackers, urging them closer and closer to the bank so we could take in each barbel, each scaleless head.

Later, when the 3 ft. grass carp was spotted, a ghost-like silhouette barely perceptible in the shadows near the dock, we were awestruck.

If the catfish and grass carp were the big shows, there were countless small shows: bluegills that emerged from spanning beds along the southern and eastern banks; small rock bass that hid among the rocks near the pond dam, and eager schools of redear sunfish that followed our shadows as we made our way to the feeding spot.

The winter that feet of snow covered the pond for months, we waited for the spring thaw, hoping beyond hope that the fish had survived. Most did not, and we grieved to find the carcasses of the big catfish and grass carp floating and decaying near the dock. A few sunfish and bass survived, but very few. And so we restocked the pond.

The next summer, duckweed–a free-floating, seed-bearing plant–made its appearance. As it began to grow and spread across the surface of our pond, we held our breath. Would this veil of green weed consume the pond, depleting the oxygen and choking out the sunlight?

Daily, my husband would drive his lawn mower and small trailer down to the corner of the pond where the wind blew the duckweed, corralling it in along the bank. Using a long-handled rake, he would collect hundreds of pounds of duckweed, mounding it into the trailer and then dumping it into the woods behind our house.

And then the next day, he would begin again. Our resident Sisyphus, he would repeat the task, only to find more duckweed the next day. For months, he raked, mounded, dumped, and waited. Sometime in mid-September, we looked out upon a miracle: the weedless surface of our pond, a sanctuary renewed.

For my birthday this year, I bought myself five koi for the pond. Each night when we feed the fish, we wait expectantly for the flash of white and gold among the hungry mouths of the sunfish and catfish. And when they come, we cannot contain our gratitude that they have come.

In the sanctuary of a pond, one can worship privately and communally. I have spent hours, alone, walking along the bank, sitting at the edge of the dock, or kneeling in the shade–looking, always looking at the wonders in the water. But I have also spent hours alongside my family, sharing these same wonders.

In James Wright’s poem, “A Blessing,” he writes of an experience with two horses in a pasture just outside of Rochester, Minnesota. He marvels at the horses who “bow shyly as wet swans” and “love each other.” As he moves in for a closer look, he admits that he would “like to hold the slenderer one in my arms” for her ear is “delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.” Finally, he realizes: “That if I stepped out of my body I would break/ Into blossom.”

Stepping out of our bodies and breaking into blossom seems the most sacred worship to me.  In Matthew 6: 27-29, we read:

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifespan? And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. . . 

In the sanctuary of my pond, I do not labor to add hours to my life, I do not consider my clothes, I do not worry.

In the sanctuary of my pond, I step outside myself and blossom. Regularly.

At the entrance to a farmhouse, now abandoned, the weeds have choked out most of the wild flowers. Still, a brave stand of Queen Anne’s Lace rises along the fence line. Its stems are fragile, but they shoot for sky, baring intricate white blooms.

If vistas draw us out, intricacies draw us in. Depth is as intoxicating as breadth. It woos us with a finer world that one may only enter if she stops, bends, moves in for the tight shot.

Rewards from the Queen Anne’s Lace are immediate and obvious: thousands of tinier white blooms supported by the tiniest green stems. Each summer snowflake is unique and wonderfully made.

Those who quilt understand the pull and pursuit of perfect stitches laid out like miniature maps in chosen blocks of color. Quilters lose themselves in fine details, and hours pass during which they breathe in measured breaths, each stitch a labor of love and focus. Intricacy becomes intimacy.

How easily calligraphers move from the world of broad strokes and bold sweeps into the intricate land of small loops and whorls, slight lines that end in points almost imperceptible to the human eye. Bent over their work, calligraphers understand the intimate relationship of hand to pen to paper.

The intricacies in our world beckon us just as surely as the vistas do. And if we risk sending our words and our selves into the vast spaces before us, we also risk sending them into those tighter, finer places.

Vista: a distant view through or along an avenue or opening; a prospect

There is something in us that loves a vista. As I make my way down the old highway, my pace quickens until I crest the hill about a half mile in. The vista that appears before me is one that never disappoints.

Layers of elm, cottonwood, birch, hickory, and ash wash the early morning with green. With this vista before me and my eyes fixed on the horizon, I walk with purpose. Space unfolds exponentially; the distant treeline, like a mirage, shimmers with possibilities.

If there be sound in this vista, let it be wind through the cottonwoods. Just this.

On a wall in my house are words my father wrote, words I have learned to live by:

Words have no other choice. They have to risk space. 

In the everyday world of people and things, it is often difficult to find space. We crowd our lives with sound and stuff, fearing the silence and risks of space. Busyness suffocates any seed of thought; words wither under the weight of work.

When I walk toward the vista of northern Davis County each morning, I find that there are words, once dormant, that spring to life. They risk the solitude at dawn, nebulous at first, but clearly taking shape.

Often by the time I reach my turning point and begin the trip home, these words, like a familiar chorus, resound with each step. Having written themselves into this blessed space and time, they will ultimately find themselves committed to paper: the most serious risk.

There is something in us that loves a vista. It offers a sanctuary of space we all instinctively desire.

In the sanctuary of play, no one needs a ribbon or medal. There are no MVPs, no time limits, and no rules that cannot be changed–and changed frequently–with the consent of the players.

Walking this morning, I stopped to admire the two palomino horses in the small paddock about a quarter mile down the road. Watching them, I could not help but remember the horses I used to ride along West 27th Street in Kearney, Nebraska. They were wooden dowels with fabric heads, glass eyes, and synthetic manes. They were decked out with fancy halters and reins. And in our eyes, they were magnificent.

Imagine a herd of neighborhood kids wielding stick horses up and down the sidewalks, a wild and woolly posse with arms and hair flying. This was play at its best. Stories and roles took shape quickly, and each rider lost herself in these narratives.

Today, my sanctuary of play often finds its center in my bedroom. This is where my grandchildren, Gracyn and Griffin, choose to play. Sequestered in the back of the house with the door shut (always with the door shut), the play can continue without adult interruptions and daily distractions.

My bed is the camper, and an elaborate camper it is! With each new day, Gracyn adds another room or feature: a kitchen with a chef (who also serves as a doctor when needed); a dance studio (because she is perpetually preparing to perform some sort of dance); a bowling alley; an office; our own “Fun City” complete with trampolines and water slides; and an ice skating rink.

From my spot on the bed, I listen as she narrates the adventures, dictating the roles that Griffin and I will play. Decked with flashy jewelry and scarves, she imagines us through worlds of travel and adventure. She is always the big sister, Griffin the father, and I am the mother. Griff drives the van and leaves the room–only briefly–to go to work.

As the constant, the nucleus, I remain in my spot to propel the narrative through questions and comments. As long as I am there to witness the goings and comings, the planning and dreaming, the center holds.

In play, we lose ourselves–if just momentarily. Poet Robert Frost writes:

It [a poem] begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction         with the first line laid down. It runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life—not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on but in a momentary stay against confusion.

For me, our play, like the first line of a good poem, assumes a direction with the first line spoken. And then, it runs a glorious course through nights of pageantry with dress-up and made-up song, through moments of tender care for stuffed animals and dolls who play primary roles in every story, and through the comfortably predictable routine of beginnings and endings.

In the sanctuary of imagined worlds and lives, the only conflict resides in which doll will be the day’s travel buddy or who gets to be the keeper of the keys to the camper. There is little we cannot do, and few problems we cannot solve in the camper.

And this play inevitably results in some type of clarification of life, a momentary stay against confusion. For these blessed moments, I do not consider that suffering and uncertainty live beyond these walls. With the sweet weight of Griffin’s body against mine, there is no place I would rather be.

The early morning along the old highway is a sanctuary of sights and sounds. But it is the common blue of the wild chicory and the uncommon blue of the indigo bunting that both delight and surprise me.

Chicory can grow in soil that most plants cannot; it has a deep tap-root that can break through the hardest, most compacted soil. As such, I’ve come to expect the proliferation of its periwinkle flowers in ditches and lining the highways and county roads. It is common and pushes through even newly laid gravel.

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And yet there is something glorious in the persistence of blue amidst the summer world of green.

The blue of the male indigo bunting is an uncommon cerulean, almost neon in its brilliance. A shy, wren-like bird, the indigo bunting often migrates by night, navigating by the stars. From a distance, it appears black until the sun hits its mark. When it does, even the bluest sky pales in comparison.

Each day I walk, I hope to see just one indigo bunting, lit up by the morning sun, close enough to take in its flash of blue for one moment. The indigo buntings of rural Davis County taunt me with their sweet songs. They surround me and–maddeningly–sound close enough to touch. I have learned to spot them on the tallest, barest branches: solitary singers at dawn. Most days, I take solace in their presence in spite of the fact that I cannot see them.

Last week as I was about to leave the old highway to turn onto Monarch Trail, I spotted something on the pavement in front of me. As I got closer, I realized that it was an indigo bunting, dead by the edge of the road. I stopped, stooped to take a closer look. Perfectly preserved, its head was a deeper indigo, its breast and wings, cerulean. Even in death, its beauty spoke life. I picked it up and moved it into the clover that lined the ditch, for I could not bear the thought of a passing truck grinding all that brilliance into the pavement.

As I walked on, I could not help but anticipate my return trip. I would look at the bunting again. I would take in as much of it as I could. I would not forget how the deeper blue gives way to something other-worldly and uncommonly lovely.

The sanctuary of blue in my quest to see the indigo bunting is private and infrequent.  Why would a bird so wonderful choose to hide itself? Why would the sun neglect to halo it each time it moves from the shadows onto an open branch? Why would my eyes fail to see it when my ears can hear it?

When I think of the indigo bunting, I recall Matthew’s words concerning prayer:

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  Matthew 6:6 (NIV)

What is done privately, in secret, is not only acceptable in our Father’s sight, but preferable. I forget this, too often. The indigo bunting reminds me that beauty and grace abound, and it is enough to know that they do even when I cannot see.

The indigo bunting continually prays in a private sanctuary, reserving the abundance of its blue for the Creator. I would do well to do likewise.