Month: November 2012

While We Sleep

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Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.
~Wendell Berry

Every day this time of year I scramble to the top of the hay pile in the barn to push down two bales to feed to our horses, now that the pastures are resting and “left to grace” for the winter.  My husband has been busy spreading our composted manure out on the fields to give them an extra fertilizer boost for next spring’s growth, only a little more than four months away.

As farmers, we have to always be thinking one or two seasons ahead:  the hay brought into the barn in June or July does not leave the barn until late-autumn.  The manure piled up in winter gets spread on pastures the following fall.  The tilled cornfields surrounding us are seeded in May and not harvested until October after several months of rain and sun and rain again.

More than practicing forethought, as farmers we know our meager efforts, as tangible as they are, are dependent solely on grace: that there will be enough rain, that there will not be too much rain, that there will be enough days of sunlight, that the seed will sprout, that the machinery will work when needed, that there will be no blight or pests, and that the hay crew will materialize when needed for harvest.   So much of this is not due to the labor of our hands, no matter how much we sweat and ache, but due to the great work of the Creator in His Creation.

Every hay bale I open spills forth His mercy, a reminder of how grateful I am for seed and sun and rain and a barn full of promises.

BriarCroft in Autumn

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“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.”
– Emily Dickinson

“Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet’s day of pain?
– Helen Hunt Jackson, Autumn Sonnet “O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being.
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead,
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley

“How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.
At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.”
 –   Elsie N. Brady, Leaves

“I saw the lovely arch
Of rainbow span the sky,
The gold sun burning
As the rain swept by.”
– Elizabeth Coatsworth, November

“Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:
There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy of silence or of sound
Some spirits begotten of a summer dream.”
– Laman Blanchard

“The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words.”
– Tao Yuan Ming

“A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn.  The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains – a melancholy nature.  The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief.  Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.”
– Henri Frederic Amiel

“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”
– Elizabeth Lawrence

BriarCroft in Spring

BriarCroft in Summer

BriarCroft in Winter

BriarCroft at Year’s End

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Something I wrote two years ago for the veterans past and present…

Hankerings

My father was one of the lucky ones who came home after three years serving in the Marines Corp from 1942 to 1945 on Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian.  Hundreds of thousands of his colleagues didn’t come home, dying on beaches and battlefields.  Thousands more came home forever marked, through physical or psychological injury, by the experience of war.

No matter how one views WWII, or the subsequent wars that our nation has fought and currently is fighting, we must support and care for the men and women who have made the commitment to be on the front line for freedom’s sake and for our sake.

To our U.S. veterans–with deep appreciation and gratitude–for the freedoms you have defended on behalf of us all.

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Wafting Him Out of It

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photo of dappled-with-damson west courtesy R.V. Schoder Loyola University Archives

I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west;
Since, though he is under the world’s splendor and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins

I greet Him when I meet Him
as the color of the evening sky
spills as tipped paint
far fleeting across the horizon,
cleaned up and gone before grasped,
I kiss my hand
to the drama played out before sun set.

I greet Him when I meet Him
as starlight speckles
the overhead ceiling,
each touching infinity
where it begins
and never ends.

I greet Him when I meet Him
in glowing cloud mountains
sparking lightning
and clapping thunder,
applause for His
resplendent magnificence.

I greet Him when
He is hidden
mysterious
unknown
and unknowable,
waiting for the blessing
of understanding
wafting from Him
in color, in speckle,
in glow, in spark,
in appreciative applause
for His splendor
wrapped in wonder.

photo by Josh Scholten of the damson-without-dappled west
thunderheads in South Dakota
photo by Josh Scholten

Gentle Shepherds

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Pastor Bert and Jane Hitchcock

Gentle Shepherds
of this wayward flock
each of us wanting to go
his or her own way

We know your voice
and listen intently
to follow you
where you know we should be

You lead us
to the green pastures
of The Word
to fill up full.

Alongside the still waters
we quench our thirst,
we are comforted
that you point the way.

If one has gone astray
we know you will come looking
until we are searched out
in our hiding place.

We rejoice together
in celebration
of the lost
now found.

You know your sheep
through a generation
of us thriving
in your love and care.

We know our shepherds.
We know your voice.
We know you were brought to us
through the loving grace of God Himself.

Amen and Amen again.

 

(written for the twentieth anniversary of Pastor Bert and Jane Hitchcock coming to minister to Wiser Lake Chapel, Lynden, Washington

 

If There Were No God

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photo by Josh Scholten

“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”
—G.K. Chesterton

I heard the same message
from several patients:
they would
commit suicide,
but not believing
in God
would mean
jumping from
the pain of living
into

…nothing at all…

 

I thought
feeling nothing
was the
point
of ceasing
to be

 

Perhaps they can’t imagine
a God
who created
doubters
sore afraid
of His caring

enough to die
so no one
becomes
nothing.

Last Sweet Exhalations

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photo by Josh Scholten

These things happen…the soul’s bliss
and suffering are bound together
like the grasses….

The last, sweet exhalations
of timothy and vetch
go out with the song of the bird;
the ravaged field
grows wet with dew.
~Jane Kenyon from Twilight–After Haying

 

So bound together–the sweetness and the suffering.
I have seen it in others and known it myself.

Renewal and rebirth come from ravage.

Already I am emptying out, not yet filling full from the lungs of eternity.
Breathing will be easy one day, so fresh, so cleansing, so infinite.

Until then,
I’m holding my breath tightly,
blessed by that last, sweet gasp.

photo by Josh Scholten

Half Fledged

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photo by Emily Gibson, just outside our front door

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray–
For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.
Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest
May fall, flit, fly, perch–crouch in the bowery breast
Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;–
Moveless there sit through all the burning day,
And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.
~George MacDonald from Diary of an Old Soul

There can be no response but to bow in earnest prayer, waiting for the hatch of a healing peace among the diverse peoples and opinions of our nation.   Our lives are half-fledged, not yet fully delivered nor understood, doubt burning into our flesh like thorns on fire.  We have become an angry and hurting nation– those who won and those who lost.  The gloating bloats who we are, beyond recognition.

May our prayers rise like a dove from hearts in turmoil,  once again to soar on the wings of eagles.

Peace, come quickly.
Be no longer moveless.
Move us to higher ground.
Plow deep our hearts.

photo of “firethorn” bush (pyracanthus) by Emily Gibson

A Faded Leaf

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photo by Josh Scholten
HAVE no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
 
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall–the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me…
by Christina Rossetti from A Better Resurrection

 

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

 

Shaking the Tree

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First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.
~Martin Luther

Any election day in a free country can seem like a free-for-all, with the loudest citizens shouting their personal opinions far and wide.  Yet today every individual, even the smallest and meekest, has the opportunity to have their say, quietly and alone– a pas de deux between their ballot and them.

This particular free-for-all has lasted for months.  There is now nearly universal desire to just get it done, shaking the electoral apple tree so hard that ripe and bitter and green fall to the ground.  We then settle in and cope with whatever harvest we have reaped with our votes.  Sometimes we get near perfect fruit; other times we get rotten to the core.

Some citizens vote down party lines only; the quality of the candidate matters not as long as they have the right party affiliation.  Other citizens turn over every leaf in detailed scrutiny of each candidate’s history and qualifications.

I truly had to cover my eyes as I voted for some candidates.  Neither felt like a worthy choice to represent a country founded on the principles of religious freedom and escape from the tyranny of government in the lives of citizens.   We are indeed a confused and too angry people, divided and divisive, all shaking the tree for all its worth to see what’s in it for us, threatening the life of the tree itself.

May tomorrow be a day when we set the differences aside, working together to make applesauce, blending it together for the ultimate good of all.

That will be the day.