Walking Toward Morning: Meditations

In a cemetery once, an old one in New England, I found a strangely soothing epitaph. The name of the deceased and her dates had been scoured away by wind and rain, but there was a carving of a tree with roots and branches (a classic nineteenth-century motif) and among them the words, "She attended well and faithfully to a few worthy things." At first this seemed to me a little meager, a little stingy on the part of her survivors, but I wrote it down and have thought about it since, and now I can't imagine a more proud or satisfying legacy. Every day I stand in danger of being struck by lightning and having the obituary in the local paper say, for all the world to see, "She attended frantically and ineffectually to a great many unimportant, meaningless details." How do you want your obituary to read?--from "Set in Stone"Walking Toward Morning affirms my sense of being present to life. Victoria Safford writes with great joy and attentiveness. These meditations are simply wonderful. I will return to them again and again.--Rev. Keith KronVictoria Safford is currently serving as minister of White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She holds a degree from Yale Divinity School.