A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and…. hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself.
There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.
The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot, and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. ~C.S. Lewis from The Magician’s Nephew
And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. ~Raymond Carver “Late Fragment”
Beautiful things and varied shapes appeal to [the eyes], vivid and well-matched colors attract; but let not these captivate my soul. Rather let God ravish it; he made these things exceedingly good, to be sure, but he is my good, not they. ~St. Augustine
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
Every time I open my eyes and listen for the voices of the morning, I am reminded how precious is this moment, how intense is each breath and each heartbeat.
We are created for this. We are, everyone of us, beloved. We are meant to wonder breathless at this, without ceasing.
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Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?”
Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. John 8:12-20
I see your world in light that shines behind me, Lit by a sun whose rays I cannot see, The smallest gleam of light still seems to find me Or find the child who’s hiding deep inside me.
I see your light reflected in the water, Or kindled suddenly in someone’s eyes, It shimmers through the living leaves of summer, Or spills from silver veins in leaden skies,
It gathers in the candles at our vespers It concentrates in tiny drops of dew At times it sings for joy, at times it whispers, But all the time it calls me back to you.
I follow you upstream through this dark night My saviour, source, and spring, my life and light. ~Malcolm Guite “I am the Light of the World”
Those who do not yet share our faith can share our wonder at the beauty and comfort of light in the darkness, from the stars in the heavens to the candlelight at a service or over a shared meal. ~Malcolm Guite “The Light of the World is For Everyone”
Darkness is not where we will dwell forever. We are hushed in fear and hungry for Light. Jesus promises to feed us from Himself.
We are promised this in the Word: and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light… Revelation 22:5.
Somewhere between the Word in the beginning and the Word that becomes flesh and the Word thriving as Spirit in our hearts and hands, there is the sacred silent Light of God come to earth
a threshold of quiet stillness as we stand poised to cross into the Light brought by His Word; He is a flint struck to our wick in our eagerness to abolish the Darkness with the eternal glow of His illuminating Word.
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.
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What shall I say, because talk I must? That I have found a cure for the sick? I have found no cure for the sick but this crooked flower which only to look upon all men are cured. This is that flower for which all men sing secretly their hymns of praise! This is that sacred flower! ~William Carlos Williams from “The Yellow Flower”
The nail of each big toe was the horn of a goat. Thick as a thumb and curved, it projected down over the tip of the toe to the underside. With each step, the nail would scrape painfully against the ground and be pressed into his flesh. There was dried blood on each big toe.
It took an hour to do each big toe. The nails were too thick even for my nail cutters. They had to be chewed away little by little, then flattened out with the rasp, washed each toe, dried him off, and put his shoes and socks back on. He stood up and took a few steps, like someone who is testing the fit of a new pair of shoes.
“How is it?” “It don’t hurt,” he said, and gave me a smile that I shall keep in my safety deposit box at the bank until the day I die.
I never go to the library on Wednesday afternoon without my nail clippers in my briefcase. You just never know. ~Richard Selzer from “Toenails” from Letters to a Young Doctor
I know for a while again the health of self-forgetfulness, looking out at the sky through a notch in the valleyside, the black woods wintry on the hills, small clouds at sunset passing across. And I know that this is one of the thresholds between Earth and Heaven, from which even I may step forth and be free. – Wendell Berry from “Sabbath Poems”
Whenever I lose perspective about what I was trained to do and who I am meant to serve, when I wallow in the mud of self-importance rather than in the health of self-forgetfulness~
On those clinic days when I would wash out a plug of wax from a deaf ear and miraculously restore hearing or remove a painful thorn in a festering thumb or clip someone’s crippling toenails so they can step forth in freedom or I simply sit still as someone cries out their heart’s pain
I would cling to that crooked flower of healing and forgiveness I was handed over fifty years ago, sharing its sacred sweetness with another.
I was given these tools for a reason, and try to still use them.
You just never know.
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The mare roamed soft about the slope, Her rump was like a dancing girl’s. Gentle beneath the apple trees She pulled the grass and shook the flies, Her forelocks hung in tawny curls, She had a woman’s limpid eyes, A woman’s patient stare that grieves. And when she moved among the trees, The dappled trees, her look was shy, She hid her nakedness in leaves. A delicate though weighted dance She stepped while flocks of finches flew From tree to tree and shot the leaves With songs of golden twittering; How admirable her tender stance. And then the apple trees were new, And she was new, and we were new, And in the barns the stallions stamped And shook the hills with trumpeting. ~Ruth Stone, “The Orchard” from What Love Comes To
Only one retired Haflinger mare remains on our farm now, her small herd diminishing one at a time as they passed from old age. She now is thirty herself, living her remaining days with two geldings in their twenties.
Over four decades, we have kept over a dozen mares born on this land, where they served us well, birthing us their foals and working when asked. In their retirement, they deserved this easy life on pasture for as long as their legs and feet could carry them up and down the slopes of our hilly farm – they more and more resembled our ancient crooked crippled orchard trees, some of which have toppled in the winter winds..
We are close to the end of our horse-keeping days; hard decisions must be made at some point and I don’t feel quite prepared to determine when they are no longer enjoying their time under the sun and I am too frail to care for them as they deserve.
I don’t want them or me to topple over like an old hollow tree in the wind.
I listen for their nickers as I come into the barn each morning and gauge their eagerness to be set free to the fields. The other day, as the sky was gray with a passing rain shower, the geldings went outside happily. As I let our mare out to pasture, she stopped on her way through the gate and turned around, poised to head back to the barn rather than get wet.
I looked her in the eyes and understood exactly how she was feeling.
Perhaps I have identified a bit too much with the stiffness as my aging mares move, their need for frequent napping times in the field, swishing at flies while they dream of younger days of flirting with stallions, nursing babies, having suppler joints and the occasional wild gallop at twilight.
I sing a sad lullaby to myself as I work about the barn with slow deliberation, knowing there is a somber sorrow to life change. The years pass, never to return, leaving those limpid eyes, flowing manes and tails in their wake.
Ah, yes, I have had all the pretty little horses…
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repeated the way a sunset plays every night in the fade to twilight the same scene over and over but never once lost in its sameness ~Juniper Klatt “some words need to be” from I was raised in a house of water
Out of the deep and the dark, A sparkling mystery, a shape, Something perfect, Comes like the stir of day: One whose breath is a fragrance, One whose eyes reveal the road to stars, The wind in his countenance, The glory of heaven upon his back. He steps like a vision hung in air, Diffusing the passion of eternity; His abode is the sunlight of morn, The music of eve his speech: In his sight, One shall turn from the dust of the grave, And move upward to the woodland. ~Yone Noguchi“The Poet”
Once in your life you pass Through a place so pure It becomes tainted even By your regard, a space Of trees and air where Dusk comes as perfect ripeness. Here the only sounds are Sighs of rain and snow, Small rustlings of plants As they unwrap in twilight. This is where you will go At last when coldness comes. It is something you realize When you first see it, But instantly forget. At the end of your life You remember and dwell in Its faultless light forever. ~Paul Zimmer “The Place” from Crossing to Sunlight Revisited.
I like the slants of light; I’m a collector. That’s a good one, I say… ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I won’t forget the glow on the hill as the sun drops, centering behind our sentinel tree. I won’t forget the rays coming through the branches, glistening on a tattered web and an evening primrose unwrapping. I won’t forget the way the air itself changes as the color spreads, like a fragrant scent carried on the wind.
The light is faultless but I am not. My collection of slants of light and words to describe them may fade with time.
Even so, it was – maybe just once – so perfect, so pure, so ripe. And I’ll remember I was there to witness it.
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I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life.’ I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou
…think of all the things you’ve learned over the years— the hard and the holy, the mysteries that will always remain mysterious, the clean edges of truth, the soft edges of every kindness given or received, the way trouble and wonder will continue to show up, sometimes leaving us beached and breathless with uncontainable joy or unutterable sorrow. I think of all the times I was knocked to my knees by a beautiful and brilliant flash of the completely obvious. ~Carrie Newcomer from A Gathering of Spirits
I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point. I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came. I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch. ~Julie Kasdorf– “What I Learned from my Mother”
Five years ago today, I wrapped up 45 years of uninterrupted medical training and doctoring.
Even while bearing three children and going through a few surgeries myself, I was not away from patient care for more than twenty consecutive days at any one time. This was primarily out of my concern that, even after a few weeks, I would forget all that I’d ever known.
Indeed, half of what I learned in medical school and residency nearly fifty years ago has evolved, thanks to new discoveries and clarifying research. I worried if I actually stepped away from doctoring for an extended time, then return to see patients again, I would be masquerading as a physician rather than be the real thing.
I couldn’t fathom a day when I could actually investigate a medical dilemma by typing a few words in a search engine on a computer screen. Instead, I researched through opening my encyclopedic collection of reference textbooks along with huge notebooks of “Scientific American Updates,” a monthly process of throwing out old articles to be replaced by newly discovered data. That is how I kept learning before the computer replaced books and pen and paper…
If being truly honest, even now, those who spend their professional lives providing medical care to others always share this concern: if a patient only knew how much we don’t know and will never know, despite everything we DO know, there would really be no trust left for us at all.
With so much rapidly changing medical information at everyone’s fingertips and computer screens, who needs a trained physician when there are so many other resources – many sketchy and opportunistic – for seeking health care advice?
Yet, I am convinced most patients really do want doctors to share the best information they have available at any point in time rather than rely on the latest internet algorithm and so-called “experts.”
I know over forty years of clinical experience gave me an eye and an ear for the subtle signs and symptoms that no googled website or AI app or virtual doc-in-the-box can discern: the avoidance of eye contact, the tremble of the lip as they spoke, the barely palpable rash, the hardly discernible extra heart sound, the fullness over an ovary, the slight squeak in a lung base. These are things I was privileged to see and hear, about which I made decisions together with my patients.
The work I did over four decades was a reflection of a continual learning process; out of my natural caution, I was honest when I didn’t know what the diagnosis was, nor the best treatment, but committed to doing my best to find out.
Continual learning – what I was trained to do for thousands of days and many more thousands of patients during my professional life, while passing a comprehensive certification examination every few years to prove my study and changing fund of knowledge.
Since retiring, the help I offer no longer means writing a prescription for a medication, or performing a minor surgery. I have to simply offer up me for what it’s worth, without a stethoscope.
Now I aim to be the best mom and grandma and friend I can be. I can press my hand into another’s, hug when needed, smile and listen and nod and sometimes weep when someone has something they need to say. No advanced degree or certification required.
Someday, hopefully not too soon, I will die happy knowing I chose this with my life: still learning and still caring.
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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”
Well-away and be it so, To the stranger let them go. Even cheerfully I yield Pasture, orchard, mowing-field, Yea and wish him all the gain I required of them in vain. Yea and I can yield him house, Barn, and shed, with rat and mouse To dispute possession of. These I can unlearn to love. Since I cannot help it? Good! Only be it understood, It shall be no trespassing If I come again some spring In the grey disguise of years, Seeking ache of memory here. ~Robert Frost from “On the Sale of My Farm”
the farm where I grew up in east Stanwoodthe Stanwood farm from the road
From the road, each of the two small farms where I grew up in western Washington state (Stanwood and Olympia) look nothing like they did in my childhood. When I drive past now, whether on Google Earth virtually or for real, the outbuildings have changed and are unfamiliar, fences pulled down, the trees exponentially taller or gone altogether, the fields no longer well-tended. Instead the familiarity is in the road to get there, the lean into the curves, the acceleration in and out of dips, the landscape which triggers a simultaneous comfort and disquiet deep in my DNA.
Though my brother once stopped and got permission to look around our long-ago childhood home, and sent me pictures that looked barely recognizable, I myself have never stopped to knock; instead I have driven slowly past to sense if I feel what I used to feel in these places. My memories are indeed triggered but feel a bit as if they must have happened to someone else.
I have the same feeling when driving past my parents’ childhood farms on Similk Bay on Fidalgo Island and in the Palouse wheat fields. Part of me belongs to these places even though they have never been truly “mine” – only part of sweet memories from my own childhood.
barn on Olympia farmOlympia housethe driveway to my mother’s Palouse farm where she grew upmy mother’s childhood home in Spring Valley, the Palouse
One clinic day years ago, I glanced at the home address of a young man I was about to see for a medical issue and I realized he now lived in my childhood home located over 100 miles away. When I greeted him I told him we had something in common: we had grown up under the same roof, inside the same walls, though children of two different generations.
He was curious but seemed skeptical — how could this gray-haired middle aged woman know anything about his home? He told me a bit about the house, the barn, the fields, the garden and how he experienced it felt altogether strange to me. He and I had shared nothing but a patch of real estate — our recollections were so completely disparate.
The two daughters of the family who sold our current farm to us over thirty years ago have been back to visit a time or two, and have driven by whenever they are in the area. Many things remain familiar to them but also too much has changed – it is not quite the same farm they remember from their childhood. I know it aches to visit here but they do let me know when a photo I post has a particular sweet memory for them.
I worry for the fearsome ache if someday, due to age or finances, we must sell this farm we cherish ~ this beloved place our children were raised, animals bred and cared for, fruit picked from an ancient orchard, plants tended and soil turned over. It will remain on the map surely as the other two farms of my past, visible as we pass by slowly on the road, but primarily preserved in the words and photos I harvest here.
Only be it understood, It shall be no trespassing If I come again some spring In the grey disguise of years, Seeking ache of memory here.
There will always be hoping something will still remain familiar on the map of my memory. After all, there is no such beauty as the place where I belonged – now and forever ago.
Tell me, where is the road I can call my own That I left, that I lost So long ago? All these years I have wandered Oh, when will I know There’s a way, there’s a road That will lead me home
After wind, after rain When the dark is done As I wake from a dream In the gold of day Through the air there’s a calling From far away There’s a voice I can hear That will lead me home
Rise up, follow me Come away, is the call With the love in your heart As the only song There is no such beauty As where you belong Rise up, follow me I will lead you home ~Michael Dennis Browne
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And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear, Myself I stood in the storm of the bird–cherry tree. It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self–shattering power, And it was all aimed at me.
What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth? What is being? What is truth?
Blossoms rupture and rapture the air, All hover and hammer, Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot. It is now. It is not. ~Osip Mandelstam “And I Was Alive” (translated by Christian Wiman) from Stolen Air
Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me. One Calvinist notion deeply implanted in me is that there are two sides to your encounter with the world. You don’t simply perceive something that is statically present, but in fact there is a visionary quality to all experience. It means something because it is addressed to YOU. ~Marilynne Robinson from The Paris Review 2008
We mostly live through routine and ordinary days, unconscious of many treasures and abundance laid before us.
In fact, these are addressed to us as pure gift – postmarked to our address, fully paid, no postage due.
Daily I search the soil of my life, this farm, this faith to find what in me still yearns to grow, to blossom, to fruit, in order to be harvested to share with others.
Such sweetness undoes our inevitable decay.
I am so grateful for the tie that binds me to those who visit this page, hoping what I share makes a difference in your ordinary, but still so precious, day.
The gift of ordinary time is now. Its numinosity is aimed at each one of us.
Poem by Dana Gioia
Echo of the clocktower, footstep in the alleyway, sweep of the wind sifting the leaves. Jeweller of the spiderweb, connoisseur of autumn’s opulence, blade of lightning harvesting the sky.
Keeper of the small gate, choreographer of entrances and exits, midnight whisper traveling the wires. Seducer, healer, deity or thief, I will see you soon enough— in the shadow of the rainfall, in the brief violet darkening a sunset—
but until then I pray watch over him as a mountain guards its covert ore and the harsh falcon its flightless young.
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They went each to their own house but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midstthey said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” John 7:53 – John 8:11
[The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53.]
The adulterous woman is brought alone by the Jewish authorities for judgement, to be humiliated by serving as a test case for Jesus. This incident was not so much about justice as it was about seeing how Jesus would react to her situation.
His response is not what they expected.
He stoops to the ground, taking his time, avoiding their gaze, writing something (inscrutable to the reader) in the dirt. He then stands to look them in the eye to state what is necessary before acting out the law’s justice: only those who have not sinned will be first to cast the stone at a sinner.
Then he kneels again to trace His finger through the dirt — outlining each person’s sin? naming names? buying time for things to calm down? keeping them guessing? just doodling?
The authorities, knowing their own burden of sin, the oldest of them initially, turn to leave one by one. Soon only the accused woman and Jesus remain.
As St. Augustine writes about this powerful gospel story: “relicti sunt duo, misera et misericordia” which translates to “two were left: misery and mercy.” She, standing in the misery of her sin; He, standing in the glory of His mercy.
No longer condemned while He takes it all on Himself. No stones to throw; free to go; sin no more.
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.
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…The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and change our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end. ~Lisel Mueller from “Monet Refuses the Operation” from Second Language
Monet’s corner of a lily pond (1918-1919)
“Heaven pulls earth into its arms…”
We all see things differently, don’t we? What seems ordinary to one is extraordinarily memorable to another.
How might I help others to see the world as I do? How might I learn to adjust my focus to see things as you do?
The world is in flux; my delight and dismay flows from moment to moment, from object to absence, from light to darkness, from color to muted.
Perhaps the blur from Monet’s cataracts also impedes my vision, creating a deeper understanding, as I use my imagination to fill in what I can’t quite discern.
My heart and mind expands exponentially to claim this world and all that beauty has to offer, while heaven – all this while – pulls me into its arms.
In heaven, my focus will be clear. All will be extraordinarily ordinary.
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