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The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for,
among old parchments, or musty records.
They are written, as with a sun beam,
in the whole volume of human nature,
by the hand of the divinity itself;
and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
~Alexander Hamilton, from “The Farmer Refuted”
What sparkling flashes of God’s wit and brilliance—
His coruscations—
have caused your mind today to
run back up the sunbeam to the sun and given you cause
to give thanks and to worship the Lord?
~C.S. Lewis from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
God illuminates through His Word,
not once but twice.
In the beginning, He created
the sun and the moon to shine
upon bodies, hearts, and souls.
Then, He came to light the world
from below as well as from above
so we could be saved from darkness.
By His descent to us,
because He leaves heaven’s light
to be in our arms and by our sides-
He illuminates us
so we reflect the light He brings:
loved
saved
despite all our efforts
to remain in the dark.
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It can be a gift or a private kind of distress,
depending on if you’ve found your purpose.
My friend, a physician and farmer, blends
her two passions into a life of caring.
Leaving her surgical gloves in the treatment room,
she dons leather work gloves when she returns
to the farm. This evening the old work gloves
are nestled together on a bench by the back door
as if one couldn’t function without the other.
They hold the form of her hands. The gloves
are dirty, the leather wrinkled, a hole worn
through the tip of the index finger, right hand.
Over years of service, gloves have protected
her hands as she treated deep wounds
in the clinic and in the barn. This gift!
Dare I say, her work fits her like a glove?
~Lois Edstrom “Gift of Work” from A Fragile Light
Nothing much to look at
lying on the shelf, one on
top of the other, an old man
resting his hands on a cane.
Dried-out yellow cowhide,
lines cut deep into the palms
from stones, weeds pulled.
Fingers crumpled, swollen
like grub worms shoveled
up in planting. An extra pair
of hands helping with lawn
work, flower beds, shrubs,
whatever else comes along.
A grief pulled on to bury
the old cat some kid in a
speeding pickup knocked
out of the street like he’d
kick a can. Or kneeling last
fall to unearth the blooming
rose suddenly plucked by
an ice storm, then shaking
rich compost loose from its
twisted fingers still clenched,
holding on for dear life.
~Ron Stottlemyer “Work Gloves”
My farm work gloves tend to look ragged at the end of a year of service. I always depend on being gifted a new pair at Christmas to start afresh. It can take awhile to break them in to the point where they feel like a “second skin.”
These gloves keep me from blistering while forking innumerable loads of smelly manure into wheelbarrows, but also help me unkink frozen hoses, tear away blackberry vines from fencing, pull thistle from the field and heavy hay bales from the haymow.
Over the years, I’ve gone through a few dozen work gloves which have protected my hands as I’ve cleaned and bandaged deep wounds on legs and hooves, pulled on foals during the hard contractions of difficult births, held the head of dying animals as they fall asleep one final time.
Without wearing my protective farm gloves over the years, my hands would be looking very much scarred up like my tired gloves do, full of rips and holes from the thorns and barbs of the world, sustaining scratches, callouses and blisters from the hard work of life.
But they don’t.
Thanks to these gloves, before I retired, I was presentable for my “day” work as a doctor where I would don a different set of gloves many times a day as I tended to my patients’ wounds and worry.
But my work gloves don’t tell my whole story of gratitude.
I’m thankful to a Creator God who doesn’t wear gloves when He goes to work in our world:
-He gathers us up even when we are dirty, smelly, and unworthy.
-He eases us into this life when we are vulnerable and weak,
and carries us gently home as we leave this world, weak and vulnerable.
-He holds us as we bleed from self and other-inflicted wounds.
-He won’t let us go, even when we fight back, or try not to pay attention, or care who He is.
He hangs on to us for dear life.
And this God came to live beside us
with hands just like ours~
tender, beautiful, easy-to-wound hands
that bled
because He didn’t need or want to wear gloves
for what He came to do~
His hands bear evidence of His love…
contains these lyrics by Kim Andre Arnesen:
Moving like the rise and fall of wings
Hands that shape our calling voice
On the edge of answers
You’ve heard our cry, you’ve known our cry…
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Light comes softly through the morning mist,
splinters as it settles on dewdrops that dangle
from the web. Pulled taut and lovely, the web
stretches above a mass of leaves-
green, amethyst, and pale rose.
silken lines hold fast to spindly branches,
all anchored to the center, geometric
rings of connection, so delicate, so strong
like this catch-all we call life,
how we gather what we think we need
for sustenance, how prisms of light flash
and fade on the fragile structures we create,
how we tremble through storms
holding on, stronger than seems possible.
~Lois Edstrom “A Fragile Light” from MoonPath Press 2025
I too am feeling stretched, trying to connect between post and branch and leaf and ground.
I move between them, sometimes not sure where I’ll land or what I’ll leave behind. Connection is a hard and heavy work of strength and aspiration, not knowing what stands firm in a world where wind and rain and storms or an oblivious creature can tear things all asunder.
Sometimes what I weave is both beautifully delicate and strong.
Sometimes it is easily shredded, full of holes, and ultimately useless.
The center doesn’t always hold.
The tethers loosen.
The periphery sags, frays and tears.
It is a matrix of fragile light, yet holding on…
…something created with purpose and intention.
Simply that effort makes it all worthwhile.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
(Lois Edstrom is my poet friend who lives on nearby Whidbey Island; my web photo at the top of this post is the cover for her new book of poems: A Fragile Light)
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Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.
Still ’round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
~J.R.R. Tolkien “Bilbo’s Walking Song”
It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off too.
~J.R.R. Tolkien – Bilbo to Frodo in Fellowship of the Rings
I love these country roads in June, at dawn or dusk,
the light and shadow playing over the path,
promising summer breezes and simple joys.
When we walk these roads,
we pass by deep ditches,
hop the potholes and avoid the bumps.
Still it’s a dangerous business,
walking out the front door into life,
not knowing just where we may be swept off to.
Passing by secret gates and overgrown paths,
I take the familiar route that leads me home,
following the Master Guide so I don’t lose my way.
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The cold remote islands
And the blue estuaries
Where what breathes, breathes
The restless wind of the inlets,
And what drinks, drinks
The incoming tide;
Where shell and weed
Wait upon the salt wash of the sea,
And the clear nights of stars
Swing their lights westward
To set behind the land;
Where the pulse clinging to the rocks
Renews itself forever;
Where, again on cloudless nights,
The water reflects
The firmament’s partial setting;
—O remember
In your narrowing dark hours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart.
Louise Bogan “Night” from The Blue Estuaries
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “Ebb”
My mother was 58 when my father left her for a younger woman.
For months, she withered,
her heart broken, her pulse erratic,
crying until there were no more tears left.
She began drying inward from her edges
despite the ebbing and flowing
of her heartbeat.
It took ten years,
but he came back like an overdue high tide.
She was sure her love had died
but that tepid pool refilled
with water cool to the touch,
yet overflowing.
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Evening, and all the birds
In a chorus of shimmering sound
Are easing their hearts of joy
For miles around.
The air is blue and sweet,
The few first stars are white,–
Oh let me like the birds
Sing before night.
~Sara Teasdale “Dusk in June”
I am half agony, half hope…
~Jane Austen from Persuasion
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder
wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
~James Agee “Sure on this Shining Night”
This time of uncertainty holds the earth captive;
our hearts fearful of war in a shimmering summer dusk.
I weep for wonder in hope for a healing peace,
at this time, at this place, singing under these stars.
May we rest assured, on another shining night,
sometime, we know not when, we know not how,
we will lay down arms and live without threat of war.
Amen and Amen.
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Green was the silence, wet was the light
the month of June trembled like a butterfly
~Pablo Neruda from “Sonnet XL”
Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,
then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?
This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—
maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,
dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,
and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.
~Billy Collins “Morning”
We are now four days into summer but aside from the date on the calendar, it would be difficult to prove otherwise. After a dry stretch of warm late spring weather, it is now unseasonably cool, the skies stony gray, the rivers running full and fast, the ground peppered with puddles. Rain has fallen at night, hiding behind the cover of darkness as if ashamed of itself.
As it should be.
What all this moisture will yield is acres and acres of towering grass growth, more grass than imaginable, more grass than we can keep mowed, burying the horses up to their backs as they dive head long into the pasture. The Haflingers don’t need to lower their necks to graze, choosing instead to simply strip off the ripe tops of the grasses as they forge paths through five foot forage. It is like children at a birthday party swiping the frosting off cupcake after cupcake, licking their fingers as they go. Instead of icing, the horses’ muzzles are smeared with dandelion fluff, grass seed and buttercup petals.
In the northwest, June can tend to shroud its promise of longer days under clouds. Outdoor weddings brace for rain and wind with a supply of umbrellas, graduation potlucks are served in the garage and Fourth of July picnics stay safely under cover. There is a wary anticipation of solstice as it signals the slow inexorable return of darkness from which we have barely recovered.
So I tremble as I too splash through the squishiness of late June, quivering like a wet butterfly emerging from its cocoon ready to unfurl its wings to dry, but unsure how to fly and uncertain of the new world that awaits. In fact the dark empty cocoon can look mighty inviting on a rainy June night. If I could manage to squeeze myself back in, it might be worth a try.
After all, there is no place like home.
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…And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
~Audre Lorde from “A Litany for Survival”
We are all here so briefly, just trying to survive.
Although designed to live forever,
we are fallen,
running the clock out as long as we can.
Just one day more, we say. Give us just one more.
From the first, there has been struggle –
the pain of our birth, the cry of our laboring mother,
then feeding and protection of our children,
keeping them safe from the bombs of war
and the ravages of disease,
followed by weakening of our frail aging bodies.
If there is a reason for all this (and there is):
life’s struggles redeem us.
Heaven knows,
each life means something to God,
each death echoes His sorrow.
We fear we fail to make a difference
in such a short time.
So we speak.
Hear our voices.
Just one day more, Lord.
Please – one day more.
Tomorrow we’ll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn
One more day
One day more…
~from Les Miserable
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In science we have been reading only the notes to a poem:
in Christianity we find the poem itself.
~C.S. Lewis from Miracles
Science itself fails
to love us when we’re alone,
to feed us when we’re starving,
to lead us to water when we’re thirsty,
to grasp the hand of the dying,
to give hope to the weak and afraid,
to become sacrifice for our sin,
to offer us everlasting forgiveness and grace.
Science is only one of God’s footnotes within His poetic Word,
a well-timed fermata allowing His creation to pause and listen,
reflecting for a moment on the symphony of His redeeming Work.
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Barnstorming 