Category: aging

Where You Go, I Will Go: Leave the Rest to God

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I think there is no suffering greater than
what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. 
I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, 
in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. 
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. 
They think faith is a big electric blanket, 
when of course it is the cross. 
It is much harder to believe than not to believe. 
If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: 
keep an open mind. 
Keep it open toward faith, 
keep wanting it, 
keep asking for it, 
and leave the rest to God.
~Flannery O’Connor from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

And those are called blessed
who make the effort to remain open-hearted. 
Nothing that comes from God,
even the greatest miracle,
can be proven like 2 x 2 = 4.
It touches one; it is only seen and grasped
when the heart is open
and the spirit purged of self.
Then it awakens faith. 

… the heart is not overcome by faith,
there is no force or violence there,
compelling belief by rigid certitudes. 
What comes from God touches gently, comes quietly;
does not disturb freedom;
leads to quiet, profound, peaceful resolve within the heart.
~Romano Guardini from The Living God

On my doubting days, days too frequent and tormenting,
I remember the risen Christ
reaching out to place Thomas’s hand in His wounds,
gently guiding Thomas to His reality,
so it then becomes Thomas’s reality.
His open wounds called
to Thomas’s mind and heart,
and to mine,
His flesh and blood
awakening a hidden faith
by a simple touch.

Leave it to God to know how to reach the unreachable.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: I Never Got Wet

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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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Where You Go, I Will Go: Solitudes of Peace

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Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim
Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,
And the kind, simple country shines revealed
In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.
The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,
Then stretches down his head to crop the green.
All things that he has loved are in his sight;
The places where his happiness has been
Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.
~Siegfried Sassoon from “Break of Day”

Stay away from reading 24 hour headlines.
Avoid being crushed by disturbing news.
Try facing the sun as it rises and sets,
knowing it will continue to do so, no matter what.

Do not forget
the eternal source of peace was
sent to earth
directly from God:
one Man walked among us, became sacrifice,
and He will return.

A new day breaks fresh each morning
and folds into itself gently each evening.

Be glad for another day
when all things you love are within reach.

Breathe deeply in gratitude for the remembrance
of infinite blessings.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Going Once, Going Twice

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’Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while,
To waste his time on the old violin.
But he held it up with a smile,
“What am I bid, good friends,” he cried.
“Who’ll start the bidding for me?”
“A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two?
Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?”

“Three dollars once. And three dollars twice.
And going, and going, . . . ” But no,
From the back of the room a gray-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow.
And wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening the loose strings
He played a melody pure and sweet
As caroling angels sing.

The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What am I bid for the old violin?”
As he held it up with the bow.
“One thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two?
Two thousand dollars, and three!
Three thousand, once, and three thousand twice,
And going, and going, and gone!” said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried,
“We don’t quite understand
What changed its worth.” Swift came the reply.
“’Twas the touch of the master’s hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd,
Much like the old violin.

A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game, and he travels on.
He’s going once, and going twice,
And going, and almost gone.
But the Master comes and the thoughtless crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul, and the change that is wrought,
By the touch of the Master’s hand.
~Myra Brooks Welch “The Touch of the Master’s Hand”

Strange shape, who moulded first thy dainty shell?
Who carved these melting curves? Who first did bring
Across thy latticed bridge the slender string?
Who formed this magic wand, to weave the spell,
And lending thee his own soul, bade thee tell,
When o’er the quiv’ring strings, he drew the bow,
Life’s history of happiness and woe,
Or sing a paean, or a fun’ral knell?

Oh come, beloved, responsive instrument,
Across thy slender throat with gentle care
I’ll stretch my heart-strings; and be quite content
To lose them, if with man I can but share
The springs of song, that in my soul are pent,
To quench his thirst, and help his load to bear.
~Bertha Gordon “To a Violin”

My maternal grandfather, a Palouse wheat farmer starting in the late 1800s, was a self-taught fiddle player. My mother, born in 1920, remembered him pulling the violin out of its case at the end of a long day working in the fields, enjoying playing jigs and ditties for his family.

The history of how he acquired this violin has been lost three generations later. The fiddle itself became a veteran of many sad and joyous tunes over the years.

Now scratched and tarnished and stringless, it is hardly a thing of beauty. My research suggests it is one of many mass-produced factory-made violins sold through Sears Roebuck back in the early 1900’s. It was made to “appear” like a rare hand-crafted German Stradivarius, but affordable for the common man.

Still, its value isn’t in how it was made, or who actually glued it together and stamped a brand on it. Its value is found in the hands that cradled it, holding it carefully under the chin, drawing heart-felt sounds from its strings.

Just like this old violin, aged and out of tune, I’m looking a bit scratched up and battered from years of use.

God has picked me up, blowing away my dustiness. He has tightened and tuned my strings to coax a song from me.

Restored, I can resonate in joy and tears.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: My Heart Caught Off Guard

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And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
~Seamus Heaney “Postscript” from The Spirit Level

…they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.

Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
~James Wright from “The Blessing”

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,   
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,   
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,   
Trod with a lighter tread.
~William Butler Yeats from “The Wild Swans at Coole”

‘Tis strange that death
should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
~William Shakespeare from “King John”

Walking outside before the sun was up on a recent rainy morning,  I heard overhead the swishing hush of wings in flight and the trumpeter swans’ doleful call as dozens passed above me in a long meandering line against the early dawn grayness.

The swan flocks predictably arrive here in late autumn to eat their fill, feasting in the harvested cornfields surrounding our farm, their bright white plumage a stark contrast to the dulling muddy soil. Usually, they stick around until spring, as they lift their long graceful necks and fan out their wings to be picked up the wind, leaving us behind and beneath, moving on to their next feeding and breeding grounds.

These incredible creatures bring such joy with their annual arrival, while their leave-taking reminds me, once again, nothing on earth can last.

My heart recently caught off guard still beats. God’s love heals our earthly hearts.

“‘Tis strange that death should sing…”

I give myself over to their beauty, and walk with lighter tread, singing a new song: I am grateful my heart someday will soar beyond this soil.

 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: We Need More Cow Bell

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We come across a ridge and hear
a cowbell in the cove beyond,
a tinkle sweetening the air
with vague rubato as the breeze
erases tones and then the notes
resume like echoes from the past
or from a cave inside the cliff,
a still, calm voice in dialect
and keeping its own company,
both out of time and long as time,
both here and from a higher sphere,
as if the voice of history
were intimate as memory.
~Robert Morgan “Cowbell”

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,   
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.   
Down the ravine behind the empty house,   
The cowbells follow one another   
Into the distances of the afternoon.   
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,   
The droppings of last year’s horses   
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.   
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
~James Wright “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”

photo by Kate Steensma from Steensma Creamery

One of the lullabies I remember hearing as a youngster were cowbells in the pasture outside my bedroom window on our small family farm. Each of our three milking Guernsey cows wore a bell on her neck so my dad could tell where they were in our wooded field. He’d whistle and call “Come Bossy!” and they would walk single file into the barn, ringing and tinkling with each step, for their twice daily grain and hand-milking.

When I was old enough, I liked to perch on top of their bony backs while my dad leaned his head into their flank, whistling a tune while he milked them, the steaming stream of milk hitting the metal bucket with a high-pitched whine. The bells on their necks still chimed as the cows chewed, moving their heads up and down to finish their meal.

This was divine music that soothed and reassured me and I felt I could follow it anywhere. All was right with the world, thanks to the cows and their intrinsic tunes created by their movements, as if they were created to charm their keepers.

There are moments when I believe we are hearing what heaven must sound like.

Now, seven decades later, the soft harmony of cowbells is replaced by the random chords of wind chimes hanging outside our house.

The memory of cowbell music remains a reminder: I have not wasted my life if I can taste heaven through such simple things and magical moments.

But I still need more cowbell…

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

and because there is always a need for more cowbell…

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Desiring Dawn and Dew

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Overcome us that, so overcome,
we may be ourselves:
we desire the beginning of your reign
as we desire dawn and dew,
wetness at the birth of light.
~C.S. Lewis from The Great Divorce

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people.
Zechariah 8:12

I have had opportunity to fly over a vast ocean to three different continents in my life. Each time, I adjusted my internal clock due to disorientation about what day and time it was.

But my reassurance came from the consistency of the sun rising and setting, washing the world with a refreshing dew the next morning.

Overcome that I could witness dawn wherever I awoke,
I felt the familiarity of home, even in far off lands.

I am reminded the Son rises over a vast Kingdom without borders, without corruption, without alienation, without end.

No matter where I sleep, I am covered by His cleansing dew.

Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Latin lyrics:
Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Even in the Wilderness

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To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness ,
is like being commanded to be well when we are sick,
to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst,
to run when our legs are broken.
But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless.
Even in the wilderness-
especially in the wilderness –
you shall love him.   
~Frederick Buechner from A Room Called Remember

The wilderness might be a distant peak far removed from anything or anyone, where there is bleak darkness.

The wilderness might be the darkest corner of the human heart we keep far away from anything and anyone. 

From my kitchen window on a clear day, I sometimes see a distant mountain wilderness, when the cloud cover moves away. 

During decades of perching on a round stool in clinic exam rooms,  I was given access to hearts lost in the wilderness many times every day.

Sometimes the commandment to love God seems impossible. We are too self-sufficient, too broken, too frightened, too wary to trust God with our love and devotion. 

Recognizing a diagnosis of wilderness of the heart is straight forward: despair, discouragement,disappointment, lack of gratitude, lack of hope. 

The treatment is to allow the healing power of the Father who sent His own Son to navigate the wilderness in our place.

He reaches for our bitter, wary, and broken hearts that beat within our bodies, to bring us home from the dark wilderness of our souls.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Unfinished Business

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Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch—
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured; not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.
~Jane Hirshfield “Not Yet” from The Lives of the Heart.

To wait for the “not yet” is a hard sweet tension.

There is tension in knowing that something profound is happening –
today’s vernal equinox,
a brilliant sunrise,
a fading sunset,
new life growing,
but the transformation is not yet complete,
and I’m unsure when it will be.

I am still unfinished business and so is everyone else.

Soon, I will be reminded of what is yet to come.

I will know the shock of the empty tomb.
My heart will burn within me as more is revealed,
through the simple act of bread breaking.

Waiting is never easy;
it is painful to be patient,
to be unfinished,
staying open to possibility and hope.

Others don’t understand why I wait,
nor do they comprehend what I could possibly be waiting for.

I’m all-ready, not-yet-finished, but sometime soon.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: A Constant Who Never Changes

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When the moon scrapes past obscuring clouds,
there is the startle of pale-yellow light
escaping the sky onto the pasture, where
I walk my two young whippets in early spring
listening to chorus frogs shamelessly seeking
mates in the marsh-ponds spring rain has become
in my back pasture. And then coyotes too on the
far hill startling the dogs with their turbulent yips
joining the necessary summoning for more
of this tipping into spring, night-ascending prayers to
the moon and watching stars. But the moonlight’s
caught sounds of fecundity are deceiving—cold north wind
needles my cheeks, embraces my earlobes despite the
upturned hood on my too-thin jacket. A light frost
on pasture-grass licks against my winter chore boots. Despite the
whetted signs and sounds of approaching spring, there is
yet to be early crocus, daffodils filling the yard, or leaves
on the maple trees that will later shade the pigs in summer
now shivering in the night’s transition in the barnyard.
~Ed Higgins, “Transitions” from  Near Truth Only

Only another day until the spring equinox.

I confess to being impatient to transition away from winter, although we had snow and hail only a few days ago, our mornings are chilly with cold north breezes and our nights leave frosty icing on the barn roofs.

Even so, all the signs are there: the marsh frogs have been chorusing for nearly a month, coyotes are yipping it up, the pastures show a hint of green, early plum trees have broken open their tiny blossoms, crocus and daffodils have erupted in cheer and hope.

Some seasonal and life transitions are welcome.
Some not at all.
Some take my breath away.
One won’t give my breath back.

Whatever we face in this life, we will face it together,
knowing the arms of God surround us
when we’re weary,
when we’re ill,
when we’re discouraged.

His love is a sentinel beacon welcoming us home.

He is the constant when all else is in transition.

photo by Bob Tjoelker of our sentinel tree

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth in nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.
– St. Teresa of Avila “Prayer”

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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