2020 Epilogue

 Epilogue

’Tis true that a good play needs no epilogue...

In the spirit of Rosalind’s final speech in “As You Like It,” we’ll keep this  short. I wrote most of chapter 2014 in the following year 2015, so one has the feeling of Gloria and my return to Ohio that year. One could write a whole chapter on what we’ve learned from our neighborhood here on Fredericksburg Road near Wooster. If I leave my house and travel south on Fredericksburg Road, I end up in Berlin, Ohio, where I was born. We have rejoined our extended family gatherings with greater regularity, engaged with old friends and met new ones. Among these gatherings in September of 2018 our children honored us with a 50th wedding anniversary reception at the Miller Pavilion of the Secrest Arboretum. 

We have traveled to various parts of the world; on the Danube and among the Scandinavian countries in 2017, the American Northwest and Alaska in 2018, the Rhine River and Berlin in 2019, finally Australia in 2020. Elizabeth, Gloria and I did various photo album records of these experiences. 

Meanwhile, I took on a rewarding research and writing assignment for our local church’s bicentennial which resulted in the brief Sketches of God’s Faithfulness, Oak Grove Mennonite Church, 1818-2018 (Smithville, 2018). This takes me to writing and editing where I started recalling a final testimony which my great-grandfather Jacob A. Miller (Preface) wrote a century ago. Jacob (often called Andy Jake) and Mary Schrock (1947, that’s right, my father’s Native American heritage) raised many descendants of entrepreneurs, writers and singers. 

I’m among them, having dealt with writing and making books all my life, of which the Ecclesiastes wisdom says “there is no end”  and “a weariness of the flesh,” perhaps especially long-winded memoirs!  As a youth, I was fascinated with the Ecclesiastes’ wisdom, and our 1960s folk singers sang anthems from the second chapter: “For everything there is a season, and a time and a purpose under heaven.” I memorized the final chapter, Ecclesiastes 12, about remembering our creator in our youth with it’s enigmatic imagery of golden bowls and broken pitchers. Overall, I suppose, the ancient Hebrew was in a fairly pessimistic mood regarding life’s vanity, but I will end with the Scriptures final hopeful admonition of which I think my ancestors would approve: 

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

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The Shakespeare quote comes from “As You Like It,” Act V, Scene iv, Epilogue. The Ecclesiastes quotes and references are from chapter 2 and 12, with the ending verse is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NRSV.