Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing. For no reason, you accept the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and electing a world where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder that a steady center is holding all else. If you listen, that sound will tell you where it is and you can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters always bar the path—but that’s when you get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is here on earth, again and again. ~William Stafford “Cutting Loose” from Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems
Before my fever broke, And the pains lessened, I could actually see Myself, in the exact center of that square. How still it had become in my absence, & how Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree, See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than I had seen anything before in my whole life: Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk, The leaves were becoming only what they had to be— Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing More—& frankly they were nothing in themselves, Nothing except their little reassurance Of persisting for a few more days, or returning The year after, & the year after that, & every Year following—estranged from us by now—& clear, So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed And always coming back—steadfast, orderly, Taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time. ~Larry Levis from The Widening Spell of the Leaves
I did not sleep well last night — my mind would not stop turning over and over, my blankets twisted in turmoil, my muscles too tense and tight.
The worries of the day needed serious wrestling in the dark rather than settling forgotten under my pillow.
Yet this morning dawns anew.
I’m comforted by the rhythm of hours starting fresh, like leaves on the trees steadfast, orderly, taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time…
So today, I’ll get my hands dirty digging a hole deep enough to hold my worries; tomorrow I’ll forget where exactly I buried them.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” John 8:31-47
I threatened to observe the strict decree Of my deare God with all my power & might. But I was told by one, it could not be; Yet I might trust in God to be my light. Then will I trust, said I, in him alone. Nay, ev’n to trust in him, was also his: We must confesse that nothing is our own. Then I confesse that he my succour is: But to have nought is ours, not to confesse That we have nought. I stood amaz’d at this, Much troubled, till I heard a friend expresse, That all things were more ours by being his. What Adam had, and forfeited for all, Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall. ~George Herbert “The Holdfast”
…if nature abhors a vacuum, Christ abhors a vagueness. If God is love, Christ is love for this one person, this one place, this one time-bound and time-ravaged self. ~Christian Wiman from My Bright Abyss
We do not recognize how being free to act as we wish enslaves us, preventing the joy of communion with our Father.
We must hold on to the truth of Christ the Son’s divinity in order to be set free from sin.
We own nothing separate from what is always His, but in believing, we gain all He offers.
Rooted in truth, attached to the Son, nourished by the Spirit; with one Holy Breath, we are freed to dwell with Him forever.
There are dandelions on fire everywhere I look. Like its pappus seed released when jostled or simply blown aloft at the moment of ripeness, may I be the unquiet spirit carrying His Word on fragile wings to far corners and hidden places; settling softly, taking root wherever His breath takes me.
the “holdfasts” of a Virginia Creeper vine
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
Light and wind are running over the headed grass as though the hill had melted and now flowed. ~Wendell Berry “June Wind” from New Collected Poems
Cut grass lies frail: Brief is the breath Mown stalks exhale. Long, long the death
It dies in the white hours Of young-leafed June With chestnut flowers, With hedges snowlike strewn,
White lilac bowed, Lost lanes of Queen Anne’s lace, And that high-builded cloud Moving at summer’s pace. ~Philip Larkin “Cut Grass” from The Complete Poems
June is the month when grass grows exponentially, taking over all open spaces and every nook and cranny
Light and wind work magic on a field of flowing tall grass. The blades of the mower lay it to the ground in green streams that course up and down the slopes. It lies orderly in stoneless cemetery rows.
Farmer’s fields are lined with rows of mown grass, a precious commodity to be harvested for the livestock to eat the rest of the year. Some of the green is bagged up like big marshmallows for easy storage and some put in silos for later in the winter.
The shorn grass is critical to the life of the animals we raise.
What was once waving and bowing to the wind is cut and crushed: no longer bending but bent, no longer flowing but flown, no longer growing but mown.
At summer’s pace, while the clouds saunter overhead, grasses are stored as fodder for the beasts of the farm on those cold nights when the wind beats at the doors.
It will melt in their mouths. As we watch them chew, we’ll remember overflowing abundance of those summer days in June.
…you mustn’t be frightened … if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? ~Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet
We were made for difficult times such as these: we feel things deeply, our joys and awe and fears ~ so much so we can feel swept away.
Feelings are not the final say yet they both motivate and immobilize us.
God has told us to be His Light in the shadows; we will find Him if we long for Him.
Though we may feel lost, wandering, uncertain, hopeless He takes us by the hand and leads us through.
The evening comes slowly over us, over the cardinal and the wren still feeding, over the swallows suddenly swooping to snatch up mosquitoes
over the marsh where the green sedge lately has a tawny tinge over two yearlings bending long necks to nibble hillock bushes
finally separate from their doe mother. A late hawk is circling against the sky streaked lavender. The breeze has quieted, vanished
into leaves that still stir a bit like a cat turning round before sleep. Distantly a car passes and is gone. Night gradually
unrolls from the east where the ocean slides up and down the sand leaving seaweed tassels: a perfect world for moments. ~Marge Piercy “June 15th, 8pm”from Made in Detroit
So many fleeting moments pass by me, a shower of raindrops disappearing into a stream — I can’t capture and hold them. They run through my fingers like water, leaving behind a damp residue of remembrance.
Yet each a moment of perfection, even as I lose my grasp on it. Perhaps a written word or recorded photo, elusive as the relentless flow of time itself.
A moment gifted by God, a moment breathed, a moment observed, a moment vanished, lived fully, yet never to come again.
My heart is like a little bird That sits and sings for very gladness. Sorrow is some forgotten word, And so, except in rhyme, is sadness.
The world is very fair to me— Such azure skies, such golden weather, I’m like a long caged bird set free, My heart is lighter than a feather.
I rise rejoicing in my life; I live with love for God and neighbor; My days flow on unmarred by strife, And sweetened by my pleasant labor.
Oh youth! oh spring! oh happy days, Ye are so passing sweet, and tender, And while the fleeting season stays, I’ll revel care-free, in its splendor. ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox “Joy”
Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. ~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. ~C.S. Lewis from “Is Theology Poetry?” in The Weight of Glory
Tomorrow we’ll discover What our God in Heaven has in store One more dawn One more day One day more… ~from Les Miserable
I wasn’t the only one watching the light emerging over the foothills this morning. A bird sitting atop our barn’s weathervane greeted this morning’s dawn, a silent witness, along with me.
I thought we might face the new day together, both preparing ourselves for whatever might come our way.
Yet he flew away, leaving me behind to face it on my own.
Morning without you is a dwindled dawn. ~Emily Dickinsonin a letter to a friend April 1885
All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Beyond Mágdalen and by the Bridge, on a place called there the Plain, In Summer, in a burst of summertime Following falls and falls of rain, When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime; . . . . . . . . The motion of that man’s heart is fine Whom want could not make píne, píne That struggling should not sear him, a gift should cheer him Like that poor pocket of pence, poor pence of mine. . . . . . . . . ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Cheery Beggar”
Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late…
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world’s contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that’s done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere. ~John Donne from “The Sun Rising”
My father, when he was surprised or suddenly impressed, would blurt “Great day in the morning,” as though a revelation had struck him. The figure of his speech would seem to claim some large event appeared at hand, if not already here; a mighty day or luminous age was flinging wide its doors as world on world revealed their wonders in the rapturous morning, always new, beginning as the now took hold. ~Robert Morgan “Great Day in the Morning” from Terroir
Every time I open my eyes as dawn streams through the window, as I listen for the voice of yet another morning while the sun rises to warm the world –
I am reminded how precious is this moment ~this “great day in the morning” ~ how intensely grateful I am for each breath and each heartbeat gifted to me, a cheery beggar
We are created to experience this realization: we are, everyone of us, beloved.
We are meant to wonder breathless at this burst of summer, to keep watch for each new dawn, waiting to see what will happen next.
Today I’m sharing some poems I’ve collected recently about parenting, as I realize, looking back at my life, being a parent (and now a grandparent) has been my greatest joy.
In the early afternoon my mother was doing the dishes. I climbed onto the kitchen table, I suppose to play, and fell asleep there. I was drowsy and awake, though, as she lifted me up, carried me on her arms into the living room, and placed me on the davenport, but I pretended to be asleep the whole time, enjoying the luxury— I was too big for such a privilege and just old enough to form my only memory of her carrying me. She’s still moving me to a softer place. ~Leo Dangel “In Memoriam” from Saving Singletrees.
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store and the gas station and the green market and Hurry up honey, I say, hurry, as she runs along two or three steps behind me her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave? To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown? Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her, Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry – you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says, hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands. ~Marie Howe “Hurry”
It wouldn’t even matter if I could sleep as in was capable since soon as I tuck in my son calls from his bad dream and I’m upstairs wiping his brow and saying how it’s okay so I trudge back down and arrange the pillow just right and my breath steadies till my daughter coughs and needs water downstairs to get it creak back up and I tell her it’s okay and I flop downstairs again and find my bed after and in it the baby upset by all this walking and creaking and I hear her and I pat her on the back and make wave sounds with my mouth telling her she’s okay and I don’t know if I am really I’m tired but I also feel guilty like I’ve won something huge, opulent and undeserved. ~Mischa Willett “Price”
All day the stars watch from long ago my mother said I am going now when you are alone you will be all right whether or not you know you will know look at the old house in the dawn rain all the flowers are forms of water the sun reminds them through a white cloud touches the patchwork spread on the hill the washed colors of the afterlife that lived there long before you were born see how they wake without a question even though the whole world is burning ~ W.S. Merwin, “Rain Light” from The Shadow of Sirius
The best thing I did for my mother was to outlive her
for which I deserve no credit
though it makes me glad that she didn’t have to see me die
Like most people (I suppose) I feel I should have done more for her
Like what? I wasn’t such a bad son
I would have wanted to have loved her as much as she loved me but I couldn’t I had a life a son of my own
a wife and my youth that kept going on maybe too long
And now I love her more and more
so that perhaps when I die our love will be the same
When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs to her the whole forty-five minute drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty- five minutes back from physical therapy. She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang, because I thought she liked it. I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore. Today, at her age, I was driving myself home from yet another spine appointment, singing along to some maudlin but solid song on the radio, and I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet. ~Ada Limón “The Raincoat”
In the spelling bee my daughter wore a good brown dress and kept her hands folded. There were twelve children speaking
into a microphone that was taller than they were. Each time it was her turn I could barely look. It wasn’t that I wanted
her to win but I hoped she would be happy with herself. The words were too hard for me; I would have missed chemical,
thermos, and dessert. Each time she spelled one correctly my heart became a bird. She once fluttered so restlessly beneath
my skin and, on the morning of her arrival, her little red hands held nothing. Her life since has been a surprise: she can
sew; she can draw; she can read. She hates raisins but loves science. All the parents must feel this, watching from the cheap
folding chairs. Somewhere inside them love took shape and now it stands at the microphone, spelling. ~Faith Shearin “Spelling Bee” from Moving the Piano.
Each carried a balloon from a special event for kids and their families.
It had been a morning of our family being together, just because. Being a grandparent needs no other reason other than “just because.”
Big sister was saying how she planned to take her balloon to school on Monday to show her friends. She was enjoying the balloon’s bobbing and weaving in the air … until suddenly it popped, causing her to jump and then she had nothing left but tatters in her hand.
Her face crumpled and the tears began to flow.
Little brother gripped his balloon more tightly, looking at his sister’s tears and worrying the same thing might happen to his balloon. His face contorted, ready to cry right along with her.
Then there was a moment of clarity and insight in his eyes.
He handed his balloon to her. He said, “here, you can have mine.” And though he was clearly sad at the thought of having no balloon himself, his eyes were shining with proud tears.
He had discovered what it meant to sacrifice, to comfort and care for someone he loved.
She was speechless. She held his balloon gently, struggling to know how to respond. If it was even possible, she loved him so much more in that moment.
So their parents said to her brother, “we think that gift deserves stopping for a hot chocolate on the way home.”
Big sister looked at her parents, looked again at her little brother, and handed the balloon back to him, saying “why don’t we share?”
Hot chocolate makes all things wonderful and cozy and better, when shared with children we would give up anything so they can flourish.
So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”
So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”
He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.”
They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
As he was saying these things, many believed in him. John 8:21-30
My Father God, in Heaven great, We remembrance keep Of fathers You have given us; Today, though, many weep.
Countless tears right now are shed For fathers in the grave. Some the dirt atop still fresh When life this week upgave.
Others in mind of fathers whom Abandoned years ago. Children who are missing them; Their longing won’t let go.
Some have fathers who have failed And brought unmeasured pain. But their children love them still, And love is ne’er in vain.
Then I think of men whose child Left the fold of sheep. These fathers’ hearts afflicted yet; With prayer, they vigil keep.
What about the man who wants To loving father be, And share his overflowing heart With one upon his knee?
Fatherhood has broken been And touched on earth by curse; But God His work continues still; All will in time reverse.
On this day of joy and pain, Hope is not all lost. God in heaven holds the tears Of those in suffering tossed.
Saints who ache for father love Have One who fills their cup; A Father faithful, kind and wise, With love that won’t give up.
My Father God, in Heaven great, Who His children keep Hold tightly those today who mourn, For Lord, so many weep. ~Gigi Ryan from “Many Weep”
There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in— the wild with the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. ~Danna Faulds “Allow” From Go In and In
On this Sunday solstice, on this day to honor Fathers: we hear the Son tell the truth about our heavenly Father, who made us in His image, to know and love us.
We have struggled to trust our belief as the Son indeed rose up, our doubts and sin taken upon Him, so we would never be alone.
This is our Father who loves us from the beginning. This is His Son who bears our darkness into the Light. This is the Spirit embedded within us.
They are true, so we can believe.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
Every child should know a hill, And the clean joy of running down its long slope With the wind in his hair. He should know a tree— The comfort of its cool lap of shade, And the supple strength of its arms Balancing him between earth and sky So he is a creature of both. He should know bits of singing water— The strange mysteries of its depths, And the long sweet grasses that border it. Every child should know some scrap Of uninterrupted sky, to shout against; And have one star, dependable and bright, For wishing on. ~Edna Casler Joll“Every Child Should Know a Hill”
photo of a windy day at Manna Farm by Danyale Tamminga
When I was younger the world was full of wonder. Forests were kingdoms. Following the wind was freedom. Children wielded branches like sharpened swords
There was no separation between dream and reality no border to defend, Blanket forts were impenetrable. The monsters in the closets could not reach us there.
We ruled from treetop towers. We danced in the rain. We needed no permission to believe in the sacred. It was simply everywhere. It was simply everything.
In those days we were of the living. ~Logan Holder“Of the Living”
How brief are our childhood days, when we can touch both earth and sky without knowing any limits, how we can fly downhill and climb impossible obstacles, how the ocean stretches to infinity as our imagination sails away.
I now watch these treasured young friends I’ve watched grow, held as babies, taught new songs and games, helped their faith grow, now getting married, ready to grow up children of their own.
This, the unending turn of the years, a stretching tether connecting one generation to another.
Everything sacred, held so close until one day it is time to let go – and once again run, climb, fly, touching the earth and sky at once.
Lyrics by Keane: I walked across an empty land I knew the pathway like the back of my hand I felt the earth beneath my feet Sat by the river and it made me complete
Chorus: Oh, simple thing, where have you gone? I’m getting old, and I need something to rely on So, tell me when you’re gonna let me in I’m getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin
I came across a fallen tree I felt the branches of it looking at me Is this the place we used to love? Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?
And if you have a minute, why don’t we go Talk about it somewhere only we know? This could be the end of everything So, why don’t we go somewhere only we know? Somewhere only we know
And if you have a minute, why don’t we go Talk about it somewhere only we know? This could be the end of everything So, why don’t we go? So, why don’t we go?
This could be the end of everything So, why don’t we go somewhere only we know? Somewhere only we know Somewhere only we know
