Prospect View

Several years ago, I took a class at the University of New Hampshire. I forget the name of it, but it was subtitled something like "the use of space in 19th century American literature." As I love 19th century American literature, it wasn't exactly a hardship, but we did read some of the more obscure works in the American lit repertoire. One class was all about the "prospect view" and we read stuff that had us looking at things from a perspective that we aren't used to...the view from above. It changed everything about the way I literally look at things. The view from above is vastly different from eye-level, actual experience...and yet that perspective helps you understand the context of the actual, eye-level experience.

Trouble is, we don't always have the time...or make...or take the time to step back to get the prospect view. We're often so busy just living our lives that all we see is what's in front of us that we have no idea what's around us. I remember the first time I rode through the town of Bolton on a bus. I'd lived in that town for nearly 20 years and had ridden/driven through it on my way to AUC or church thousands and thousands of times. I thought I knew every inch of its roads. And yet early one morning I rode a bus through Bolton on my way to the airport for my first Youth Ensemble tour. I was sleepily looking out the window, watching the familar sights of my town pass by when all of a sudden I realized I was seeing a town I'd never seen before. In a car, you see things essentially from eye-level. In this big coach bus, I was seeing over fences and roof tops...and seeing things of that town I'd never seen before! I literally experienced the prospect view.

Today, I experienced two prospect views, very different from the one above. I was planning to go to camp meeting for church, but nearly there, found myself turning off into the Eastwood Cemetery just over the line into Lancaster. It's where both sets of grandparents and one uncle are buried, so I've been there many times before. The year my grandmother Aastrup died was a turbulent time for me at work (I was teaching at SLA at the time), and I'd often go park by her grave after work and listen to music while I caught my breath and refocused. But it's not just the five family members there that make this cemetery interesting to me. It's the fact that in the space of the two"blocks" on either side of Prospect Road where my grandparents are buried (one set at each end), there are probably 3 dozen other people that I know. Some are college classmates, some are parents of friends, some are colleagues, some are students tshat I taught, some are my college teachers, some are Adventist pioneers who died before my time, but who are featured in denominational history texts enough so that I feel as if I know them.

It fascinates me that within that small space, there are so many people that I've known, or know of. Every now and again I like to imagine what the Resurrection Day will be like when all those Adventists rise up and look around them and see others they've known (because if I know so many of them, surely they will know each other, too). I'm sure there are probably other cemeteries that have a concentration of people buried there who know each other...small town church burial grounds, for example. But somehow this seems different to me. I'd like to be there on that day. I think it will be incredibly exciting to meet so many friends on their way to meet Jesus. This morning, as I drove through the cemetery, I reflected on the lives of each one as I passed them, longing for the day when we all get to heaven.

From there, I drove out to Prospect Hill in Harvard where the Sears (of Sears, Roebuck fame) once lived and where the Alcotts spent 8 months in a commune called Fruitlands. This, too, is a place I used to go to when I was in college and then later when I was teaching at SLA. It has an amazing view clear across to Mount Monadnock (on a clear day) and is one of the best places I know for sunsets. It had been raining much of the night and morning, but had just stopped, creating a mistiness rising up out of the trees that the camera doesn't do justice to. I sat and thought about how my life has changed since the first time I parked at the top of that hill 33 years ago. So much I could never have predicted! I'm not so sure I would have wanted to know then what would happen. But I am glad for how things have turned out. The Prospect View today was about being content with my life as it is now, no matter how different it is from my early plans for it, and about living so that I have no regrets when my time is up.