Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Carrion Comfort”
Once again, the mounting deaths by one’s own hand make grim headlines announcing solemn statistics.
I heard it over and over during decades in my clinic; patient after patient said the same thing: I can no more...
this agonizing struggle with despair makes one frantic to avoid the fight and flee, to feel no more bruising and bleed no more, to become nothing but chaff and ashes.
suicide seems a solution when one can not feel the love of a God who, in reality, cares enough to wrestle with us relentlessly– who heaven-handling flung us here by breathing life into our nostrils –
and continues to breathe with us…
perhaps we can’t possibly imagine a God caring enough to be killed for us (He Himself created us who doubt, us who are so sore afraid)
because He loves us, no one is ever now, nor ever will be,
~nothing~
My God! such darkness is now done forever.
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Dearly. How was it used? Dearly beloved. Dearly beloved, we are gathered. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in this forgotten photo album I came upon recently.
Dearly beloved, gathered here together in this closed drawer, fading now, I miss you. I miss the missing, those who left earlier. I miss even those who are still here. I miss you all dearly. Dearly do I sorrow for you.
Sorrow: that’s another word you don’t hear much anymore. I sorrow dearly. ~Margaret Atwood from “Dearly”
All day we packed boxes. We read birth and death certificates. The yellowed telegrams that announced our births, the cards of congratulations and condolences, the deeds and debts, love letters, valentines with a heart ripped out, the obituaries. We opened the divorce decree, a terrible document of division and subtraction. We leafed through scrapbooks: corsages, matchbooks, programs to the ballet, racetrack, theater—joy and frivolity parceled in one volume— painstakingly arranged, preserved and pasted with crusted glue. We sat in the room in which the beloved had departed. We remembered her yellow hair and her mind free of paradox. We sat together side by side on the empty floor and did not speak. There were no words between us other than the essence of the words from the correspondences, our inheritance—plain speak, bereft of poetry. ~Jill Bialosky “The Guardians” from The Players.
This time of year, huge flocks of migrating birds pass noisily overhead, striving together in their united effort to reach home. I envy their shared instinct to gather together with purpose.
Human families can be far more scattered and far less harmonious, yet still plenty noisy.
Through these holiday weeks, I take time to remember those who left this life long ago. It is bittersweet to be all together only in a photo album, with youth and smiles preserved indefinitely.
In a flash of time, three generations have passed: children have had children who now have children. Newlyweds have become grandparents, trying valiantly to fit the shoes of those who came before.
In our own eventual leave-taking, we will become the missing to be missed. There will come along new generations – those we will never meet – who will turn the pages of photograph albums and writings and wonder aloud about these unknown people from whom they descend.
Dearly beloved, we who are missing are right here, waiting in a drawer or a file or a book on the shelf, ready to share, in plain words bereft of poetry, all our love and hopes and sorrows for you, the future generations to come.
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At times, particularly at night, I’m keenly aware of all the unknowable and uncountable lives happening behind closed doors and curtained windows, each one living their own sacred moment in time.
So many meals being eaten, baths taken, tears shed, stories told, prayers recited, kisses shared.
These moments are the blessings of a quotidian predictability that we try to pass on to our children. In our routines, we may become oblivious to the mysteries happening all around us: innumerable stars shining, fragile moths fluttering and sweetening apples hanging heavy — yet there is mystery within each of us as well.
In the dark of night, despite our weariness: We are remarkably loved and loving. We try our best in difficult times and circumstances. We grieve losses while struggling to survive sorrows. We seek purpose and meaning, despite feeling unworthy.
Each passing moment becomes one to cherish. Each moment mysteriously holy and sweet.
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I wanted a horse. This was long after we sold the work horses, and I was feeling
restless on the farm. I got up early to help my father milk the cows, talking
a blue streak about TV cowboys he never had time to see and trying to
convince him that a horse wouldn’t cost so much and that I’d do all the work.
He listened while he leaned his head against the flank of a Holstein, pulling
the last line of warm milk into the stainless bucket. He kept listening
while the milk-machine pumped like an engine, and the black and silver cups fell off and
dangled down, clanging like bells when he stepped away, balancing the heavy milker
against the vacuum hose and the leather belt. I knew he didn’t want the trouble
of a horse, but I also knew there was nothing else I wanted the way I wanted a horse—
another way of saying I wanted to ride into the sunset and (maybe)
never come back—I think he knew that too. We’ll see, he said, we’ll see what we can do. ~Joyce Sutphen “What Every Girl Wants”
I once was a skinny freckled eleven year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have her own horse. Every inch of my bedroom wall had posters of horses, all my shelves were filled with horse books and horse figurines and my bed was piled with stuffed horses. I suffered an extremely serious case of horse fever.
I had learned to ride my big sister’s horse while my sister was off to college, but the little mare had pushed down a hot wire to get into a field of spring oats which resulted in a terrible case of colic and had to be put down. I was inconsolable until I set my mind to buy another horse. We had only a small shed, not a real barn, and no actual fences other than the electric hot wire. Though I was earning money as best I could picking berries and babysitting, I was a long way away from the $150 it would take to buy a trained horse back in 1965.
I pestered my father about my dreams of another horse, and since he was the one to dig the hole for my sister’s horse to be buried, he was not enthusiastic. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do.”
So I dreamed my horsey dreams, mostly about golden horses with long white manes, hoping one day those dreams might come true.
In fall 1965, the local radio station KGY’s Saturday morning horse news program announced their “Win a Horse” contest. I knew I had to try. The prize was a weanling bay colt, part Appaloosa, part Thoroughbred, and the contest was only open to youth ages 9 to 16 years old. All I had to do was write a 250 word or less essay on “Why I Should Have a Horse”. I worked and worked on my essay, crafting the right words and putting all my heart into it, hoping the judges would see me as a worthy potential owner. My parents took me to visit the five month old colt named “Prankster”, a fuzzy engaging little fellow who was getting plenty of attention from all the children coming to visit him, and that visit made me even more determined.
When I read these words now, I realize there is nothing quite like the passion of an eleven year old girl:
“Why I Should Have a Horse”
When God created the horse, He made one of the best creatures in the world. Horses are a part of me. I love them and want to win Prankster for the reasons which follow:
To begin with, I’m young enough to have the time to spend with the colt. My older sister had a horse when she was in high school and her school activities kept her too busy to really enjoy the horse. I’ll have time to give Prankster the love and training needed.
Another reason is that I’m shy. When I was younger I found it hard to talk to anybody except my family. When my sister got the horse I soon became a more friendly person. When her horse recently died (about when Prankster was born), I became very sad. If I could win that colt, I couldn’t begin to describe my happiness.
Also I believe I should have a horse because it would be a good experience to learn how to be patient and responsible while teaching Prankster the same thing.
When we went to see Prankster, I was invited into the stall to brush him. I was never so thrilled in my life! The way he stood there so majestically, it told me he would be a wonderful horse.
If I should win him, I would be the happiest girl alive. I would work hard to train him with love and understanding. If I could only get the wonderful smell and joy of horses back in our barn!
I mailed in my essay and waited.
Fifty-eight years ago on this day, November 27, 1965, my mother and I listened to the local horse program always featured on the radio at 8 AM on Saturday mornings. They said they had over 300 essays to choose from, and it was very difficult for them to decide who the colt should go to. I knew then I didn’t have a chance. They had several consolation prizes for 2nd through 4th place, so they read several clever poems and heartfelt essays, all written by teenagers. My heart was sinking by the minute.
The winning essay was next. The first sentence sounded very familiar to me, but it wasn’t until several sentences later that we realized they were reading my essay, not someone else’s. My mom was speechless, trying to absorb the hazards of her little girl owning a young untrained horse. I woke up my dad, who was sick in bed with an early season flu. He opened one eye, looked at me, and said, “I guess I better get a fence up today, right?” Somehow, fueled by the excitement of a daughter whose one wish had just come true, he pulled himself together and put up a wood corral that afternoon, despite feeling so miserable.
That little bay colt came home to live with me the next day. Over the next few months he and I did learn together, as I checked out horse training books from the library, and joined a 4H group with helpful leaders to guide me. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, learning from each one, including those that left behind scars I still bear. Prankster was a typical adolescent gelding who lived up to his name — full of mischief with a sense of humor and a penchant for finding trouble, but he was mine and that was all that mattered.
That and a dad who saw what he needed to do for his passionate kid. I’ll never forget.
riding Prankster when I was 20at age 32, my husband and I began our Haflinger horse herd
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A life should leave deep tracks: ruts where she went out and back to get the mail or move the hose around the yard; where she used to stand before the sink, a worn-out place; beneath her hand the china knobs rubbed down to white pastilles; the switch she used to feel for in the dark almost erased. Her things should keep her marks. The passage of a life should show; it should abrade. And when life stops, a certain space— however small— should be left scarred by the grand and damaging parade. Things shouldn’t be so hard. ~Kay Ryan “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” from The Niagra River
“The passage of a life should show…”
Since losing my friend Sara unexpectedly a month ago, I’ve thought a lot about the deep tracks she left behind. Traces of her life will forever mark her husband and children and grandchildren. They follow her pathways in her large farmhouse kitchen from sink to stove to cupboard to table. Her garden and orchard display her obvious affection for things that bloom and fruit while her wrap-around porch mirrors her love of sitting and witnessing it all.
Most of all her tracks are showing up on so many broken hearts, where we still feel her presence. Although I realize she is truly gone from this world, it is as if the season suddenly changed in response to her leaving. The misty mornings seem weary, the trees are now bare, the frost has been thick and a north wind has started to blow. Before too long, we’ll be remembering her boot steps in the barnyard snow.
No one Sara touched has been left abraded or scarred from her use. She was far too gentle in her touch; she worked hard not to leave traces of where she had been, as determined as she was to avoid attention. Her intention was to always remain in the background so others could shine. Now that she is gone, the background itself has been changed. The passage of her life will not dim the light she focused on her family and friends and the patients who loved her.
She wouldn’t want it to be this hard without her here. But it is.
The work, not of men, but of angels. —Gerald of Wales
With quills and ink of iron gall on folded vellum, monks in their cells labored in hives of stone, producing pages that glistened like honey, sweetening the word of God. On this page, the chi commands the eye, its arm swooping to the left in an elegant scrawl, the smaller rho and iota nestled to the right. Knotwork fills each letter to the brim. Three angels fly from the crossed arms, heaven and earth intertwined, coiled spirals connected by curves. Despite the gleam, no gold is used, just layers of color built up like enamel. In the interstices, creatures of air: birds and moths; creatures of sea: fish and otters; creatures of land: cats and mice. For the whole world was holy, not just parts of it. The world was the Book of God. The alphabet shimmered and buzzed with beauty. ~Barbara Crooker “Book of Kells: Chi Rho”
In the summer of 2013, Dan and I wrapped up our 3 week Ireland trip with one day in Dublin before flying home. I wasn’t sure I could take in one more thing into my super-saturated brain but am grateful Dan gently led me to the exhibit of the Book of Kells at Trinity College along with the incredible library right above it.
I needed to see the amazing things of which man is capable. My weariness was paltry compared to the immense effort of these dedicated writers and artists.
The Book of Kells is an intricately illustrated ninth century version of the four Gospels on the Isle of Iona, meticulously decorated by young Irish monks with quill pens and the finest of brushes and artistic flourish. Two original pages are on display at the library, changed every eight weeks – the brief look one is allowed scarcely does justice to the painstaking detail contained in every shimmering letter and design. No photography is allowed of the book itself.
Upstairs, is the “Long Room” of 200,000 antiquarian books dating back centuries, lined by busts of writers and philosophers. It is inspiring to think of the millions of hours of illuminated thought contained within those leather bindings.
The written word is precious but so transient on earth; it takes preservationist specialists to keep these ancient books from crumbling to dust, a slowly disintegrating alphabet of letters potentially lost forever to future generations.
The original Word is even more precious, abiding forever in the hearts and minds of men, and exists everlasting sitting at the right hand of God, never to turn to dust. He is the inspiration for the intricate beauty of the illustrated Gospels we saw that day.
God is the ultimate source of wisdom for civilization’s greatest writers and poets. He alone has turned darkness into light even in man’s most desperate hours. Our weariness dissipates along with the shadows.
God is no stranger to us – He meets us in His Word and our reading is our ladder up to Him. In that meeting, we are forever His.
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Walk noisily to declare your presence. The rabbits and deer will leave as soon as they hear you coming, but the snakes need time to process your intentions.
Take a moment to be certain of what you’re cutting. Many stems look alike down close to the ground, especially when they’re young. Look up occasionally.
Don’t begrudge the wild roses for whipping thorns across your face and arms, or the honeysuckle for tangling your feet and pulling the pruners from your hands. You’d do the same in their place. Honor them with a clean cut.
Never begin when you’re angry or you might not stop until there’s nothing left to hold the soil.
My father never quite adapted to his administrative desk job mid-career, working in a state job as a supervisor. He was a man of action, a former Marine and before that, a teenager whose young muscles were needed to tame the brush that grew out of control on his parents’ failing farm land. He learned young to swing a brush hook and later in life found it helped manage his desk-bound frustration to slash away at the vines and thorns and branches that stood between him and a sense of order on the land.
He would have been bemused, but impressed, that not just one, but two modern U.S. Presidents, Reagan and George W., found brush clearing to be therapeutic physical activity. Perhaps it helped them manage their anger impulses as well.
As soon as my dad got home from work, I remember him changing into denim overhauls and heavy duty gloves and boots. As long as there was daylight, he would head to our field and woods to battle back the brush thickets. He would swing his trusty brush hook, bringing down all manner of thick obstructing and unwanted plant life, then create numerous “brush piles” which he would let dry out and then burn in huge bonfires down to ashes in autumn until nothing was left but dust.
It was no small irony that he sometimes had to return in a few years to the same spot to clear it once again. It was a Sisyphean task, but yet somehow necessary for his general well-being.
I should have known there was something amiss when one year when I returned from college on a break, I found he had stopped clearing brush and chose instead to exercise on a stationary bicycle. Something in him had given up trying to make our fields and woods more habitable and useable. I figured he simply grew weary of perpetually ridding the land of thorn-bearing vines, thistles and weeds which had impeded his personal vision of the perfect park-like farmland.
Instead, he gave up and walked away from his marriage and his brush hook which he left hanging up in the barn. With nothing left to hold him there, he left, in search of something he felt was missing in his life.
We, my mom and his grown children, were left sifting through the ashes of what was left behind. It didn’t take long for the woods to become impenetrable in his absence.
We could not have known he would return a decade later, arising forgiven from the ashes he had left behind.
After all, there was more brush to clear and he was back to take care of it.
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Thanksgiving starts with thanks for mere survival, Just to have made it through another year With everyone still breathing. But we share So much beyond the outer roads we travel; Our interweavings on a deeper level, The modes of life embodied souls can share, The unguessed blessings of our being here, The warp and weft that no one can unravel.
So I give thanks for our deep coinherence Inwoven in the web of God’s own grace, Pulling us through the grave and gate of death. I thank him for the truth behind appearance, I thank him for his light in every face, I thank him for you all, with every breath. ~Malcolm Guite “Thanksgiving: A Sonnet”
Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God in the details,
the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love, and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice,
I started writing over twenty years ago as a way to explain who I am for descendants I will never know. I am beyond grateful for those of you who have shown an interest in what I share, whether photography, poetry or prose.
What you find here is my voice of thankfulness for the way God somehow finds His way into the details of my days – especially into the dustiest corners.
I try to preserve what challenges, shapes and molds me: the beauty I witness in sunrises and sunsets, this farm that blooms and often bears unexpected fruit, the animals, those who live here and those passing through, my mistakes and missteps, buoyed by a loving God, my family and good folks surrounding me.
I want to say thank you on this Thanksgiving Day to each one of you who take a few minutes from your day to follow my stories. Some of you have become precious friends despite our never having met.
I am honored to hear from you whenever you have a moment. Your details matter to me, and especially to God.
So when will I hear you tell your story?
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You are our portal to those hidden havens Whence we return to bless our being here. Scribe of the Kingdom, keeper of the door Which opens on to all we might have lost, Ward of a word-hoard in the deep hearts core Telling the tale of Love from first to last.
Generous, capacious, open, free, Your wardrobe-mind has furnished us with worlds Through which to travel, whence we learn to see Along the beam, and hear at last the heralds, Sounding their summons, through the stars that sing, Whose call at sunrise brings us to our King. ~Malcolm Guite from “C.S. Lewis: a sonnet”
The wardrobe from C.S. Lewis’ family home in Belfast, made by his grandfather. It is now at the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton College, Illinois.
She did not shut it properly because she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if it is not a magic one. ~C.S.Lewis from The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe
This is the 60th anniversary of C.S Lewis’s death in 1963, overshadowed that day by the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
this wardrobe stood in Lewis’ home “The Kilns” at Oxford as he wrote the Narnia books.
Sign on the wardrobeat the Marion Wade Center: “We do not take responsibility for people disappearing.”
This is no mere piece of furniture; Enchantment hangs within Among the furs and cloaks Smelling faintly of mothballs.
Touch the ornately carved wood, Open the doors a crack to Feel a faint cool breeze~ Essence of snowy woods and adventure.
Reach inside to feel smooth soft furs, Moved aside to allow dark passage Through to another world, a pathway of Cherished imagination of the soul.
Seek a destination for mind and heart, Journey through the wardrobe, Navigate the night lane and Reach a lit lone lamp post in the wood.
Beaming light shines undimmed, A beacon calling us home through the open door, Stepping out transformed, no longer lost or longing… Immersed in the Glory of Everlasting Spring.
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I’m scrambling an egg for my daughter. “Why are you always whistling?” she asks. “Because I’m happy.” And it’s true, Though it stuns me to say it aloud; There was a time when I wouldn’t Have seen it as my future. It’s partly a matter Of who is there to eat the egg: The self fallen out of love with itself Through the tedium of familiarity, Or this little self, So curious, so hungry, Who emerged from the woman I love, A woman who loves me in a way I’ve come to think I deserve, Now that it arrives from outside me. Everything changes, we’re told, And now the changes are everywhere: The house with its morning light That fills me like a revelation, The yard with its trees That cast a bit more shade each summer, The love of a woman That both is and isn’t confounding, And the love Of this clamor of questions at my waist. Clamor of questions, You clamor of answers, Here’s your egg. ~C.G. Hanzlicek “Egg” from Against Dreaming.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind — ~Emily Dickinson
When a grandchild asks a question, it is like a smooth and perfect egg safely in the nest, awaiting the exact moment to open up to breathe deeply of the world.
Sometimes my answer, try as I might, results in broken shell fragments, the insides all scrambled and released too soon.
I’m confounded by my love for childrens’ innocence in a harsh and painful world – I don’t always know the best thing to say when the truth has bits of hard shell in it. I end up telling the truth a bit slant so it might dazzle them gradually.
So I encourage them to keep asking their clamor of questions, and I do my best to answer in a way so they stay hungry for more, filled with truths without being blinded.
So many questions in their minds and mine. So many eggs to open gently so the truth remains whole.
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