Building Bridges

Saturday afternoon. 

A typical Canadian January in Peterborough Ontario.

Half a dozen kids are sprawled on the floor of the art studio, delicately handling a variety of somewhat unusual building materials - toothpicks, raisins, straws, connectors, newspaper wands, masking tape...

We are building bridges.

Well, not totally true. 

We're getting to that, but right now, because the unusual materials require some experimentation, the results are more like squares and triangles, cubes and tetrahedra and geodesic beginnings.

But we will GET to bridges...

In front of the large studio window, (with the wintry scene beyond the glass framing her), sits my new friend.

She is the mother of one of the kids. She sits patiently, smiling at the goings-on, occasionally speaking softly to her child in Arabic.

We had met before at a previous art group, got to chatting about her new life in Peterborough - home, family, getting around town, buses, schools.

The weather.

When she shows up to this session, we smile at each other in mutual recognition.

Her child, chatty and cheerful. 

But there is an edgy nervousness that may explain some of their difficult past - the many moves, the destruction of their beautiful homeland, a child's over-eagerness for acceptance.

She sits quietly, smiling warmly whenever our eyes meet. 

When she glances at the clock and stands, I make my way over to her. 

It is mid-afternoon, and she asks if she may use the empty room next door, for just a moment.

To pray.

She is a gentle woman. 

I am struck by the grace she carries with her.

In spite of horrors in her near-past, she is trusting, kind, loving. 

She tells me that Peterborough is such a peaceful place. 

Peterborough.

With the river running through it, it is a city of bridges.

Linking one side to the other, west to east.

Such a peaceful place.

(God, please let it stay that way.)