Thursday, April 18, 2013

Peter In Detroit Cover


Peter and Detroit



Peter and Detroit

Peter sits by the Giving Tree, preparing stone soup while remembering the “Big O”, who’d rolled by this very spot on this very street that leads to the city.
Our city is Detroit at the river.  A place that pronounces liberty, yet a community with many, many of the challenges and opportunities present in cities all over the world.   It has its own flavor though, and tastes like a caramel-chocolate ice cream cone.
Peter is here to make Detroit the star of the show, while it waits to find and discover its new name.  In the legend of the white stone, the new name and the hidden bread or seed, the name will be found in the stone and the bread of life will be revealed to the hungry. 
So Peter sits by his pot of boiling water, by the roadside.  The white stone rests at the bottom of the soup to be.  And it is about to be made.  Just then, his good friend named The Dawn comes skipping up the road from the garlic patch.  She loves Peter.  He makes such wonderful soup and she has known him for one third of her life.
“Peter,” she calls out.  “What have you named your soup today?”
He and smiles and announces, “No name.”  For this soup waits for its new name, just as Detroit waits for its new name.  It knows it is not a fort anymore; there is nothing to protect.  Old Detroit still sleeps in its dreams of darkness and entanglements.  Or so it seems.
“I have brought you a special flower, Peter, to put in your lovely mixture.  I will be back for a taste at dawn.”  She had named herself The Dawn many years ago.  Now she leaves a pretty budding flower, along with her pleasant scent of garlic that she spreads around the worlds she walks in and this town along the way.
Peter watches her run off down the road.  When he looks into this city of the future, he sees fun – not mobs of people.  He sees transportation, not just vehicles; parks in place of sidewalks; gardens where asphalt parking lots use to lie.  Peter is seeing rivers of life and vitality flowing from everywhere and nowhere to this city by the river.  People are coming to these clean and cleansed waters with laughter in their voices and happiness in their hearts.


Visitor #2




Visitor #2
As Peter stirs and looks into the soup, it is always like his first day, his first time…
And now, here comes a stranger.  He seems to be focused and appears to know of the soup.  He does not speak or seem to notice Peter, but begins to deposit facts and figures into the boiling kettle of water – adding a fine fragrance that fills the air.  He seems satisfied to leave his facts and figures to what seems now to be a brighter and lighter day for him.
Peter knows he only has a few more hours of daylight left, and this evening will descend upon the soup and the city.  Darkness often brings out the best in folks. 
Detroit is its own best-kept secret.


Visitor #3



Visitor #3
Peter’s next roadside visitor asks him what he is doing with a budding flower in a boiling kettle of water while facts and figures float about.
Peter simply replies, “It is white stone soup that waits for its new name is being brewed for the people of the dawn and new Detroit.”
The traveler stands silent and still, while he takes this all in.  He sighs in a happy pleasant way, while removing a fine carrot from his coat.  He begins shaving it into the pot with a long, sharp knife he produced from the same coat… in a flash, it was. 
“I have been to your city,” he said.  “But I was told to come and write songs of right for its future.  And its new quiet fame and fortune.”





“Come back at dawn,” Peter shared with him as their eyes met for the first time.  Both know that when their eyes meet for that first time, that they will be bonded forever.  They know among themselves that this world is a garden of opportunity and free-flow. 
For a moment afterwards, Peter drifts into a deep sleep, where he return to his hub – the center of all things.  But there will be more talk of this later as our story unfolds.  When he awakens, someone has placed a fine log on the fire and several delightful elements have been added to the soup.  It is now filling the air with sounds and colors of tastes and smells not known before.  Spicy juices have been added to its broth that sing a mellow gurgle to the night.  If you listen, that is.


Visitor #4



Visitor #4
Let’s remember that Detroit got trapped between its pride and frustrations many years ago and has walked the razor’s edge for quite a while and quite a spell.
Night is now hiding behind a blazing sunset to the west. 
Detroit does not have a border, but rather a bridge; a gate to the north country.  Peter knows now that if this were a drama, fears and worries have played their parts well thus far.  But they have served their roles and may now exit the stage.
It must have been a simple whisper of the dark to the light where trust was set aside and went to sleep until the time of awakening.  Peter knows the role of the soup.  It serves as a contrast and a comparison to various distinctions and flavors.  It is both sugar and spice and can show the highlights and the values of mutual dependency.  The soup is a perfect demonstration of cooperation.  It shows us, in its end result, a wonderful full-bodied experience for taste, sight, sound and smell.  The soup also teaches us the virtue that fame and fortune can dance together with love and compassion. 
We co-exist.




Visitor #5



Visitor #5
While Detroit is becoming alive, it does allow one to come to its city and be whomever he is in whatever setting she chooses. 
Next comes a hummingbird of joy down the road, who hovers eye to eye with Peter.  The little hummingbird asks if she may contribute herself to the soup.  Peter thinks excitedly about the nectar being offered from this tiny, fleeting, flitting bird.  But the hummingbird means to offer her body to be burned and boiled.  Peter does not hesitate to say no to his gracious visitor, whose ancestors have been gathering nectar for thousands of years.
The little bird does not know of the Great Creator’s gift and sacrifice.  It was Creativity’s one last sacrifice for all the good of life, for Detroit, for the soup and the world as we know it.  So the hummingbird shares, happily, her gathered nectar of the day with Peter and his soup. 
He watches her fly off under the white wings of doves and geese, heading in a southerly direction.