Seven Stars Cemetery, and a Red Barn

My husband wanted to take one of the cars out for an afternoon spin, and I decided to ride along. We ended up on the backroads on the way to Warriors Mark, and I was able to fit in a quick cemetery stomp in a lovely place called Seven Stars Cemetery.

And I mean it was QUICK. He didn't even turn the car off. Four minutes, by the time stamps. And so I add to my three-minute diner photography challenge, one four-minute cemetery photography challenge! Visit a graveyard. Take four minutes. What all can you see from there?

In this case, I was surrounded by open space: big, rolling farmlands through the rich valleys of central Pennsylvania. The fields are loaded with good corn, and everything is green. Except for the barns, which are red, and gorgeous. The animals are fat and sassy. We are living in the land of plenty.

A thing happened recently that I have not talked about. I guess here is as good a place as any to tell it. A friend named Drew, somebody I used to work with, died suddenly while on vacation; he fell and hit his head, and passed a few days later. I learned the news from Facebook. I read it. Thought: What? WHAT? WHAT???? I could not make sense of it.

Our offices were just a few doors apart, back in the Outreach Building, where we worked. I was the one thing that wasn't like the others, the apple or banana among oranges: the lone accessibility person, crammed in with the faculty development crew. 

We shared a fridge, so we all interacted on a daily basis. Drew was always doing healthy stuff: eating healthy foods, working out, running, trying to make good choices. He was easy to talk to, and we discussed everything from work, to music, to theology; always, with a dash of sly humor, a twisted grin.

One day, I was driving my husband's car to work, and I accidentally tried to break into another car in the parking lot that I thought was ours. My key would not fit in the lock, but I kept trying! That car turned out to be Drew's. 

You should have seen BOTH of our faces as he walked out into the parking lot and found me trying to commit grand theft auto! What a laugh we had about that over the years! Me, the car thief! (It's always the innocent looking ones you need to look out for!)

Drew wrote some of his thoughts down on assorted blogs. The first one is based on religious themes; the second, more general stuff. I'll put links to both of them below so you can check them out, but this link goes here: Being Great Is Miserable. Read it yourself; insight mixed with self-deprecatory humor, that was Drew. I'll miss him.

I need a soundtrack song for this posting, and I'm picking this one to go along with Seven Stars Cemetery. I should probably have picked something Drew would like, but to be honest, his taste in music was quite different than mine. Anyway, here is Enya, with Paint the Sky With Stars.

Place a name upon the night
One to set your heart alight
And to make the darkness bright
Paint the sky with stars

P.S. I've come back to add a song that I am pretty sure Drew WOULD like. So here is Rush, with Freewill.

Drew's blogs:
Emerging Into Orthodoxy
Mind Squirrels