HAINES -- We sang my favorite hymn in church again recently, the one about the saints of God.
"I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true, who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew, and one was a doctor and one was a queen and one was a shepherdess on the green..."
I nudged my husband during the next verse as we sang "...and one was a soldier and one was a priest and one was slain by a fierce wild beast ..."
He had spent a cold night out on the Chilkat River flats looking for bears. He sits very still and watches the bears, or the shadows of bears, moving along the few open streams. He says all you have to do is really look for them, and you'll see bears everywhere. They are all over the place.
Also, we've been hearing the locally famous almost-slain-by-a-fierce-wild-beast story, about the bear that mauled Forrest Young. It happened so long ago now that Forrest and his rescuers have died, but their tale was recorded and played back on the radio part of one morning a week for 12 weeks.
I won't recount the whole thing, since we don't have that much time.
In a nutshell: Forrest was attacked by a bear while moose hunting, was hurt too badly to move, so his buddy wrapped him up in a sleeping bag for the night, gave him a lantern and promised to return the next day. It was a long night. The bear kept coming back and attacking Forrest, who lived to tell the story with remarkable calm.
Listening to him share all the flesh-tearing, bone-munching, skin-flapping details, one of the radio folks commented that God doesn't give you more than you can handle. Well, with all due respect, what else could she say after that?
It reminded me of a discussion about church with an ex-church-going friend. He wondered why I go to church if I believe all that stuff anyway. I said that some days it is easier to have faith than others, and my hope is that by spending an hour or so in church one morning a week I'm gaining faith through, at the very least, osmosis.
Also, I get to sing some great hymns. Every now and then, when I say a prayer, or read a psalm, or listen to the gospel, I understand why the Chinese use the same symbol for heart and head.
When even that is not enough, breathing in deeply and exhaling on the count of 10 helps. Try it three times the next time someone you love says or does something so awful that just about stops your heart. Do it again when a well-meaning friend reminds you that God doesn't give you more than you can take.
Running works too. But if you are not a runner, walking fast is just as good. While you move, sing loudly. Sing anything -- from "Row, Row, Row, Your Boat" to "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" -- and of course, if you know it, sing that hymn about the saints.
Then, make a list in your head of the saints you've met recently. Not the obvious ones. No Coast Guard rescue swimmers or Nobel Peace Prize winners. I'm talking about the lesser saints, the hundreds of thousands that will never get their own day and may not even get their Andy Warhol 15 minutes. You may not even know their name. In that case, just sing, "Nice ticket guy at the Alaska Airlines counter in Juneau."
You may know them, but not too well, like the crooked faced man that is not, and has never been, all there, but who smiles broadly and calls your name every time he sees you; and all you have to do to make his whole day terrific is to say, "It's good to see you too." His beatific miracle is that he makes you feel as good as you make him feel.
It may be someone you love who doesn't know you anymore. Like your elderly aunt, the one with dementia, the one who can't talk on the phone anymore. So you have to visit. And every time you do it seems she sees less of you. Then, in the middle of a long afternoon at the nursing home, a Frank Sinatra song comes on the radio and for four and a half minutes your aunt is back, smiling, relaxed, clear-eyed and happy, tapping her rice paper hands to "My Way." When you share that news with your old uncle later, he thanks you and says he always knew you were a good egg. That is your aunt's miracle moment.
But the real miracle is the more you look for minor saints, the more you see. They are like bears out in the darkness. They're all over the place.
Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com.
HEATHER LENDE
AROUND ALASKA