Some Days, the Sky is Actually Falling (or at least the Vinca and Blackberries)

This is how the fear moves in.

Maybe you are out on a walk with your dog. You are traipsing up your street, thinking of how you want to hurry this up so that you can get back home and drop off the dog and go for a run. You would really like to get a run in today, and the dog doesn’t like running. You know this is hard to believe; aren’t all dogs hardwired to love running? Not this one. When he sees you in your running shoes, he slinks the other way.

So there you are, heading up the road to the corner, pulling the dog along toward his favorite bathroom spot when you notice that something is different. On the side of the road there, where there used to be dreaded vinca and blackberry vines? There is now a hole. A big hole. Maybe eight feet wide? And it is nearly full of water.

This cannot be good. You wonder if another water pipe has broken? This happened last year in right around the same place.

You text your neighbor the firefighter. He calls the patriarch of the town, the captain of the volunteer fire department, the one who has lived here forever, who knows everything.

Sadly, it is not a broken water pipe.

“That’s an old mine shaft,” the patriarch says. “This happened once before. The county came and filled it in. A dog fell down. The owners called the fire department. We arrived, threw down a ladder, and pulled it out.”

Well that’s a relief, that this particular mine shaft has yet to kill anything. As far as you know. But still, it is a little disconcerting, that sometime overnight in the rain a hole just opened up, right up the street from your house, where before there was no hole. You’ve walked this piece of land. Pulled weeds there. Encouraged the poppies. Now there is nothing.

Apparently, in a war between an old mine shaft and the blackberry bushes and vinca, the mine shaft wins.

Who knew?  (See my blog entry here for a reminder of my https://www.ordinaryholy.com/yarrow-is-bad fight with these two invasive plants).

You have a sneaking suspicion that this hole is on land that belongs to you. You’re not sure, though. Property lines in these parts are a little fuzzy. You’ve never bothered to have it surveyed. What was the point? Thankfully, the gaping hole is not where you park but a stones throw away. If a car had been perched there? It would be gone, pulled into the abyss.

Your neighbor grabs his fishing pole, puts a weight on the line, and then lowers it down, down, down. They unreel maybe 100 feet of line before they hit soft mud.

This is one deep hole.

Your neighbor the firefighter makes calls. First to the county, and later to CalFire and the Sheriffs’ Department. Your neighbor the town patriarch makes calls to people he knows at the county.

Today, a week later, the hole has gotten bigger. Last Wednesday, county workers put flashing barricades around the hole. They arrived early, stood in the rain, and finally unloaded a gate panel that could serve as a protective cover. They then erected a makeshift fence around the hole of poles and wire.  Workers drew concentric circles of pink paint around the hole. You notice that there is pink vinca in the water. Not much. Just a little. Maybe not enough to be concerning.

Over the next few days, there is a steady stream of county cars pulling down your once quiet lane. They get out of their county cars or trucks, peer carefully into the hole, and stand there, looking. One group of employees from the Public Works Department tells you that the workers who arrived earlier, the ones who put down the gate panel and makeshift fence? That it probably wasn’t safe for them to have done that work, and that their supervisor is now in a bit of trouble.

The next day, there are more workers and new fencing which now surrounds the old fencing. Also, there are signs which advise you that this is a dangerous area and to keep out.  Ironically, this beefed up fencing arrangement seems to be drawing people from the community.  Everyone  wants a peek at the hole. You’ve witnessed several people go around the fence to try and get a better look. This is especially disturbing to your neighbor the volunteer firefighter, who trots up the road with his ax on Sunday afternoon (He is chopping down small trees) and tells the interlopers to go away, please.  They do. You wonder if the ax has anything to do with it?

What is to be done now?

Your neighbor reports that a county engineer told him that you might have to evacuate, that there’s a rule if you live within 300 feet of a mine shaft.

Nobody has communicated this to you, though, and it’s been a week now, so you hope it’s OK to stay put.

So here you sit, on a lovely Tuesday morning, and there is a hole up the street, and it is maybe 100 feet deep (One county official told you they estimate it is between 100 and 150 feet deep) and full of water. Thankfully, it seems like the county is taking responsibility for it now, although you have a sneaking fear in the back of your mind that maybe they will change their minds and decide it is your responsibility after all.

This does not appear to be something that you could just run to Home Depot for.

The slogan,  “You can do it. We can help.” Maybe not this time.

You have been meditating on Father Thomas Keating’s Welcoming Prayer for a long time now. You’ve printed it out and use it as a bookmark in your calendar.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” it says. “I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing.”

On the surface? Most people would say it’s bad to have an open mine shaft on your property, especially if there’s any chance you might have to fix it yourself.

How could this ever possibly be good?

You don’t know.

But in this world, in this world where we are swimming in grace, where grace is every breath? How could it not be good? How could it not just be part of your grand adventure?

So for now? You wait. You are grateful no one was hurt in the initial collapse. You try to rest in the fact that  you are loved and you don’t have anything to prove and you are already at the party (thank you Rob Bell). And you wait to hear from the county, to see what will happen next.  And the fear that has moved in? It’s still there. Except there is a little bit of space there. Just a little. It’s sitting across the table from you instead of being lodged right in your heart. For now, that is enough.