It appears now that there is only one age and it knows nothing of age as the flying birds know nothing of the air they are flying through or of the day that bears them up through themselves and I am a child before there are words arms are holding me up in a shadow voices murmur in a shadow as I watch one patch of sunlight moving across the green carpet in a building gone long ago and all the voices silent and each word they said in that time silent now while I go on seeing that patch of sunlight ~W.S. Merwin, “Still Morning” from The Shadow of Sirius
photo by Barbara Hoelle
Our memories can play tricks.
Just a whiff of a fragrance can trigger an experience of another time and place, a song can transport us to a decade long ago, a momentary sensation will remind us of a past experience long forgotten.
We dwell inside a different age as the years go by, in a body that no longer looks or feels exactly the same, yet our memories take us powerfully back to a special moment that happened before.
For those who struggle with post-trauma recollections, this is a curse to be overcome. For those whose memories bring joy and comfort, they seek to nurture and cherish what has been as if it is still here and now.
Let us remember the Light, just as the poet W.S. Merwin in this poem “Still Morning” remembers the moment of his baptism in a church long gone and whose voices are long since stilled. The Light of that day remains, as fresh today as it was when it moved toward him.
Our memories aren’t tricks, and neither is the Light that shone on us. They sustain us in the here and now.
Our Savior: an ever-moving patch of Light in our lives – forever radiant.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
TEXT O nata lux de lumine, Jesu redemptor saeculi, Dignare clemens supplicum Laudes precesque sumere.
Qui carne quondam contegi Dignatus es pro perditis, Nos membra confer effici Tui beati corporis.
TRANSLATION O Light born of Light, Jesus, redeemer of the world, Mercifully deign to accept The praises and prayers of your suppliants.
O you who once deigned to be hidden in flesh For the sake of the lost, Grant us to be made members Of your blessed body.
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Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. John 5: 1-18
I am overcome by ordinary contentment. What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment? How I love the small, swiftly beating heart of the bird singing in the great maples; its bright, unequivocal eye. ~Jane Kenyon from “Having it out with Melancholy”
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?
…birds build—but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Thou art indeed just, Lord”
It seems so obvious: someone lying on a mat near a healing pool for 38 years – an Old Testament reference to Israel’s wilderness journey and inability to enter the promised land – wants to get well.
Jesus knows this man’s heart is troubled.
Yet Jesus asks this paralyzed man whether he wants to be healed. Not if he is ready to be healed, but whether he wants to be well. It doesn’t seem like a hard question to answer, but at times in our own lives, we too may not feel ready for a transformation to wholeness?
Maybe we really aren’t sure what “well” and being healed will mean to our lives. We wander in the wilderness of weak, struggling bodies and minds, hoping and praying to be led into a promised land of no illness or limitations. But often we aren’t sure. We only know there are many compelling reasons – no help, no hope, isolation from family and friends – to explain why we are stuck where we are.
We can’t imagine it being any other way.
Some are born with disabilities determining what they can and can’t do, knowing no other existence than to be dependent on others for help and care. Others develop illness or experience injury that changes everything for them, creating overwhelming needs leading to profound discouragement.
Some try anything and everything, proven or unproven, to find relief from their symptoms, to find their way out of their wilderness — sometimes with lasting results, often with no improvement.
Jesus is asking this man and asking us: are you ready to live a full life that takes you beyond your current limits? If so, we are transformed from who we have been, to someone we and others may no longer recognize.
It is a scary prospect to pick up our mat, carry our own baggage and walk. But when Jesus enters our life and asks us, point blank, if we want to get well, to become whole, to leave our wilderness behind and join Him – we should not hesitate – wasting precious time explaining all the reasons it hasn’t worked so far.
Jesus is ready, willing and able. And we will be transformed.
…our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9: …to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
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I saw that a yellow crocus bud had pierced a dead oak leaf, then opened wide. How strong its appetite for the luxury of the sun! ~Jane Kenyon from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems
This is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on.
Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.
…To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that.
Because we know what is coming behind the crocus.
The spring comes slowly down the way, but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not.
We can.
We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on…to which He is calling us.
It remains with us whether to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer. ~C. S. Lewis from “God in the Dock”
I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. ~Jane Kenyon from “Otherwise”
A year ago today, I was shocked (thankfully, not literally!) to learn my coronary arteries were significantly occluded with plaque, despite years of daily barn chores, and blood pressure/lipid level management.
Stents were placed emergently to open the two critical blockages. I began more powerful medications with a new awareness as I go about the mundane routines of my day – someday – maybe soon, perhaps a decade or more – it would be otherwise.
I celebrate my year of opening my heart each day to the Son.
My appetite is strong for light and warmth, to leave discouragement behind. My desire is to delay death, piercing through the decay to flourish among the living, to open wide my face to the luxury of a luminous grace freely given.
A year ago today I turned a corner out of darkness, being given more time to choose Light. Grateful, I still follow the pathway of the Son.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
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Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention… And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng’s clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, O Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it. ~Denise Levertov from “Primary Wonder” from Sands of the Well
Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw upon itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom. ~N.T. Wright from The Crown and The Fire
Inundated by the inevitable bad news of the world, I must cling to the mystery of His magnetism for my own weaknesses, flaws and bitterness.
I am frozen in the ice of sin, waiting to be thawed.
He willingly pulls evil onto Himself, out of me. Hatred and pain and shame and anger disappear into the vortex of His love and beauty, the mucky corners of my heart vacuumed spotless.
We are let in on a secret: He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.
Created in His image, sustained and loved, thus a reflection of Him, it is no mystery we are washed forever clean.
photo of Mt. Baker reflected in Wiser Lake by Joel DeWaard
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
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You came from dust and dust would be Without the Great Son’s victory. The gift is free yet must be claimed By goodness lived and evil tamed.
Prepared to walk this Lenten trail They face death’s dark and shadowed vale. Rememb’ring Christ who led the way They bravely march beneath his sway. ~Ash Wednesday’s Early Morn
And so the light runs laughing from the town, Pulling the sun with him along the roads That shed their muddy rivers as he goads Each blade of grass the ice had flattened down. At every empty bush he stops to fling Handfuls of birds with green and yellow throats; While even the hens, uncertain of their notes, Stir rusty vowels in attempts to sing.
He daubs the chestnut-tips with sudden reds And throws an olive blush on naked hills That hoped, somehow, to keep themselves in white. Who calls for sackcloth now? He leaps and spreads A carnival of color, gladly spills His blood: the resurrection—and the light. ~Louis Untermeyer from “Ash Wednesday”
This is the time of tension between dying and birth... The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the centre of the silent Word. O my people, what have I done unto thee. ~T.S. Eliot from “Ash Wednesday”
My people, what have I done to you? Micah 6:3
May the light shine on my dusty darkness. May I be stilled, stunned to silence by the knowledge of the Lord, who sees me as I am, knows me, and loves me anyway.
O people, what have I done?
We who are His loved children, who too often turn away from Him so only our ashes remain.
His touch ignites us to light again, His blood has been spilled across the sky.
Barnstorming’s Lenten theme this year is Ephesians 3:9: “…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…“
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I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities.
In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from The Cost of Discipleship
In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? ~John Stott from “Cross”
With all that is happening daily in this disordered and confused world, we fall back on what we are told, each and every day, in 365 different verses in God’s Word itself:
Fear not.
Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.
And so – we must overcome — despite the evil happening within our own country, despite our fear of one another and what might happen next.
As demonstrated by the anointing of Jesus’ feet by Mary of Bethany on Wednesday of Holy Week, we do what we can to sacrifice for the good of others, to live in such a way that death can never erase the meaning and significance of a life.
We are called to give up our own self-aggrandizing agendas to consider the dignity and well-being of others.
It is crystal clear from Christ’s example as we follow His journey to the cross this week: we are to cherish life – all lives – born and unborn, the stranger and the refugee. If Christ Himself forgave those who hated and murdered Him, He will forgive us for not understanding the damage we cause by our actions and inactions.
Our only defense against the evil we witness is God’s victory through His Love. Only God who knows pain can lead us to Tolkien’s “where everything sad will come untrue”, where we shall live in peace, walk hand in hand, no longer alone, no longer afraid, no longer shedding tears of grief and sorrow, but tears of relief and joy.
No longer overcome by evil but overcome with the goodness of a God who makes all things right.
All to God’s glory.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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It is at the edge of a petal that love waits. ― William Carlos Williams
All the field’s a hymn! All trilliums unfold white flames above their trinities of leaves…
now make of our hearts a field to raise your praise ~Luci Shaw from “Spring song, very early morning”from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation
The flaw is no more noticeable, even to me, than a new moth-hole in my sweater, or a very bald spot on the fabric of my velvet vest.
Yet when I hold the cloth up to the window the sunlight bleeds through. ~Luci Shaw “Defect”
The trillium only thrives where death has been. The mulch of hundreds of autumns fluffs the bed where trillium bulbs sleep, quietly content through most of the year.
When the frost is giving way to dew, the trillium leaves peek out, curious, testing the air. A few stray rays of sun filtering through the overgrowth and canopy encourage the shoots to rise, spread and unfurl.
In the middle, a white bud appears in humility, almost embarrassed to be seen at all.
In a matter of days, the petals spread wide and bold so briefly, curl purplish, wilt and return aground. Leaves wither and fall unnoticed, becoming dust once again.
Then, beauty will rise from decay. Death gives way to pure triune perfection.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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I wanted to treat feelings that are not recognized as afflictions and are never diagnosed by doctors. All those little feelings and emotions no therapist is interested in, because they are apparently too minor and intangible. The feeling that washes over you when another summer nears its end. Or when you recognize that you haven’t got your whole life left to find out where you belong. Or the slight sense of grief when a friendship doesn’t develop as you thought, and you have to continue your search for a lifelong companion. Or those birthday morning blues. Nostalgia for the air of your childhood. Things like that. ~Nina George from The Little Paris Bookshop
Are you so weary? Come to the window; Lean, and look at this — Something swift runs under the grass With a little hiss . . .
Now you see it ripping off, Reckless, under the fence. Are you so tired? Unfasten your mind, And follow it hence. ~Mark Van Doren “Wind in the Grass”
A white vase holds a kaleidoscope of wilting sweet peas captive in the sunlight on the kitchen table while
wafting morning scent of pancakes with sticky maple syrup swirls on the plate,
down the hall a dirty diaper left too long in the pail, spills over tempera paint pots with brushes rinsed in jars after
stroking bright pastel butterflies fluttering on an easel while wearing dad’s oversized shirt buttoned backwards
as he gently guides a hand beneath the downy underside of the muttering hen reaching a warm egg hiding in the nest
broken into fragments like a heart while reading the last stanza of “Dover Beach” in freshman English
Just down the hall of clanging lockers To orchestra where strains of “Clair de Lune” accompany
the yearning midnight nipple tug of a baby’s hungry suck hiccups gulping in rhythm to the rocking rocking
waiting for a last gasp for breath through gaping mouth, mottled cooling skin
lies still between bleached sheets illuminated by curtain filtered moonlight just visible
through the treetops while whoosh of owl wings are felt not heard, sensed not seen.
Waking to bright lights and whirring machines the hushed voice of the surgeon asking
what do you see now, what can you hear, what odor, what flavor, what sensation on your skin
with each probe of temporal lobe, of fornix and amygdala hidden deep in gray matter
of neurons and synaptic holding bins of chemical transmitters storing the mixed bag of the past and present
to find and remove the offending lesion that seizes up all remembrance, all awareness
and be set free again to live, to love, to swoon at the perfume of spring sweet peas climbing dew fresh at dawn,
tendril wrapping over tendril, the peeling wall of the garden shed
no more regrets, no more grief no more sorrow.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro His father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and He led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and He looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.
So Moses said, “I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” Then God said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ~Exodus 3: 1-5
Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes — the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning from “Aurora Leigh”
It is difficult to undo our own damage… It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. ~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk
I need to turn aside and look, to see, as if for the first and last time, the kindled fire that illuminates even the darkest day and never dies away.
I can not douse the burning bush.
I am invited, by no less than God Himself, to shed my shoes, to walk barefoot and vulnerable, to approach His bright and burning dawn.
Only then, only then can I say: “Here I am! Consume me!”
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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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”
When I was 13, I grew too quickly. My spine developed a thoracic scoliosis (curvature) — after inspecting my back as I bent over to touch my toes, my pediatrician referred me to a pediatric orthopedic specialist an hour away from my home town.
The question was whether I would need to have a metal rod surgically placed along my spine to prevent it from more misalignment or whether I would need to wear a back brace like a turtle. The least intervention would be physical therapy to try to keep my back and abdominal muscles as strong as possible to limit the curvature.
Since my father didn’t have much flexibility in his work schedule, my mother had to drive me to the “big city” for my appointments – as a nervous driver, she did it only because she knew it was necessary to get the medical opinion needed. She asked me to read aloud to her from whatever book I was reading at the time – I don’t think she listened closely but I think she knew it would keep me occupied while she navigated traffic.
At first, we went every three months for new xrays. The orthopedist would draw on my bare back and on my spine xrays with a black marker, calculating my curves and angles with his protractor, watching for a trend of worsening as I grew taller. He reassured us that I hadn’t yet reached a critical level of deviation requiring more aggressive treatment.
Eventually my growth rate slowed down and the specialist dismissed me from further visits, wishing me well. He told me I would certainly be somewhat “crooked” for the rest of my life, and it would inevitably worsen in my later years. I continued to visit PT for regular visits; my mom would patiently wait in the car as I sweated my way through the regimen.
The orthopedist was right about the curvature of my aging spine. I am not only a couple inches shorter now, but my rib cage and chest wall is asymmetric affecting my ability to stand up totally straight. An xray shows the wear and tear of arthritis changes in my somewhat twisted chest wall and spine.
I consider crookedness a small price to pay for avoiding a serious surgery or a miserable brace as a teenager.
What I didn’t understand at the time was the commitment my mother made to make sure I got the medical monitoring I needed, even if it meant great inconvenience in her life, even if she was awake at night worried about the outcome of the appointments, even if the financial burden was significant for my family. She, like so many parents with children with significant medical or psychological challenges, gave up her wants and wishes to make sure I received what I needed.
As a kid, I just assumed that’s what a mom does. Later, as a mom myself, I realized it IS what moms and dads do, but often at significant personal cost. As a physician, I saw many young people whose parents couldn’t make the commitment to see they got the care they needed, and it showed.
I was blessed by parents who did what their kids needed to thrive.
Without my realizing it, my mom constantly offered me her raincoat so I wouldn’t get wet. Meanwhile she was getting drenched. I never really understood.
Some of you walk this road, now and in the past, sometimes long miles with a family member, handing over your own raincoat when the storms of life overwhelm.
Your sacrifice and compassion are Jesus’ hands and feet made tangible. He walks along where we go, keeping us safe and dry for as long as it takes.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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