Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. ~Mary Oliver “Sometimes” from Red Bird
Getting older:
The first surprise: I like it. Whatever happens now, some things that used to terrify have not:
I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose my only love. My three children never had to run away from anyone. Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent. We all approach the edge of the same blackness which for me is silent.
Knowing as much sharpens my delight in January freesia, hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say
as we lie close on some gentle occasion: every day won from such darkness is a celebration. ~ Elaine Feinstein, “Getting Older” from The Clinic, Memory
Maybe it’s time for me to practice growing old… I only borrowed this dust. ~Stanley Kunitz from “Passing Through”from Collected Poems
To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life. ― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
I am astonished at living over seven decades, despite my faltering dust.
Amazed by joys and sometimes by sorrows, I hope to see much more before I’m done, trying in my own way to tell about it.
I am grateful, so very grateful to still be here, living out the time left to me learning: how love can heal, how tears are dried, and most astonishing of all, how God came here to loan us His dust – until the day He carries us, all dusty, back home.
photo by Tomomi Gibson
Lyrics from Carrie Newcomer: I’ve been looking for beauty In these broken times By making some beauty In the world that I find Some say it′s too late It′s too much to brave But I believe there’s so much Worth being saved
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Who loves the rain And loves his home, And looks on life with quiet eyes, Him will I follow through the storm; And at his hearth-fire keep me warm; Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise, Who loves the rain, And loves his home, And looks on life with quiet eyes. ~Frances Shaw, “Who loves the rain” from Look To the Rainbow of Grace
Now more than ever you can be generous toward each day that comes, young, to disappear forever, and yet remain unaging in the mind. Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away. ~Wendell Berry from “There is no going back”
What a wonder I was when I was young, as I learn by the stern privilege of being old: how regardlessly I stepped the rough pathways of the hillside woods, treaded hardly thinking the tumbled stairways of the steep streams, and worked unaching hard days thoughtful only of the work, the passing light, the heat, the cool water I gladly drank. ~Wendell Berry “VII” 2015 from Another Day
Love is a universe beyond The daylight spending zone: As one we more abound Than two alone. ~Wendell Berry “VIII” 2015 from Another Day
Thinking out loud on this day you were born, I thank God each day for bringing you to earth so we could meet, raise three amazing children, now six wonderful grandchildren, and walk this journey together with pulse and breath and dreams.
The boy you were became the man you are: so blessed by God, so needed by your family, church and community.
You give yourself away every day with such grace.
It was your quiet brown eyes I trusted first and just knew I’d follow you anywhere and I have.
In this journey together, we inhabit each other, however long may be the road we travel; you have become the air I breathe, refreshing, renewing, restoring~~ you are that necessary to me, and that beloved.
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In the grey summer garden I shall find you With day-break and the morning hills behind you. There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings; And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings. Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep: And I shall know the sense of life re-born From dreams into the mystery of morn Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there Till that calm song is done, at last we’ll share The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn’s one star. ~Siegfried Sassoon“Idyll”
Seventy-one years ago today was a difficult day for both my mother and me.
She remembered it was a particularly hot July 4 with the garden coming on gangbusters and she having quite a time keeping up with summer farm chores. With three weeks to go in her pregnancy, her puffy legs were aching and she wasn’t sleeping well.
She was almost done gestating, with the planned C-section scheduled a few days before my due date of August 1.
She and my dad and my sister had waited eight long years for this pregnancy, having given up hope, having already chosen an infant boy to adopt, the papers signed and waiting on the court for the final approval. They were ready to bring him home when she discovered she was pregnant and the adoption agency gave him to another family.
I’ve always wondered where that little boy ended up, his life trajectory suddenly changed by my unexpected conception. I feel responsible, hoping and praying his life was blessed in another adoptive home.
Every subsequent July 4, my mother would tell me about July 4, 1954 when I was curled upside down inside her impatiently kicking her ribs in my attempts to stretch, hiccuping when she tried to nap, and dozing as she cooked the picnic meal they took to eat while waiting for the local fireworks show to start.
As I grew up, she would remind me as I cringed and covered my ears as fireworks shells boomed overhead, that in 1954 I leapt, startled, inside her with each explosion. She wondered if I might jump right out of her, so she held onto her belly tight, trying to calm and reassure me. Perhaps I was justifiably fearful about what chaos was booming on the outside, as I remained securely inside until the doctor opened Mom up three weeks later.
Now I know I am meant for quieter things, greeting the mystery of each morning with as much calm as I can muster. I still cringe and jump at fireworks and recognize I was blessed to be born to a family who wanted me and waited for me, in a country that had just fought a terrible war. Each child born in those post-war years was a testament to the survival of the American spirit and hope for the future.
Our country now has lost its way in caring first and foremost for the poor, the ill, the hungry, the helpless, the homeless, not only within our borders, but as an outreach beyond our shores to those countries where our help has saved millions of lives.
Will there ever come a day when a baby born in this world will not be threatened with starvation, potentially fatal yet preventable pathogens, or the devastation of war?
Where gloom and brightness meet: defining the drawn lines and borders around and within our country right now…
partial lyrics: And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered I don’t have a friend who feels at ease I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered Or driven to its knees
But it’s alright, it’s alright For we lived so well so long Still, when I think of the Road we’re traveling on I wonder what’s gone wrong I can’t help it, I wonder what has gone wrong
Text: Where charity and love are, God is there.
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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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Jesus comes near and he beholds the city And looks on us with tears in his eyes, And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity Flow from the fountain whence all things arise. He loved us into life and longs to gather And meet with his beloved face to face How often has he called, a careful mother, And wept for our refusals of his grace, Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping, Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way, Fatigued compassion is already sleeping Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day. But we might waken yet, and face those fears, If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears. ~Malcolm Guite “Jesus Weeps”
When Jesus wept, the falling tear in mercy flowed beyond all bound; when Jesus groaned, a trembling fear seized all the guilty world around. ~William Billings
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ~Luke 19:41-42
Commencing this holy week of remembrance, knowing how our world is in a terrible disarray, too many sleeping in the street, some in graves, many grieving losses, all wondering what comes next.
On this journey, we face our own fears of vulnerability and mortality, these days when thorns overwhelm emerging blossoms~~
To remember what He did this week long ago, and still does today to conquer the shroud and the stone, to defy death, makes all the difference to me.
Indeed Jesus wept and groaned for us.
To be known for who we are by a God who weeps for us and moans with pain we caused: we can know no greater love.
This week ends our living for self, only to die, and begins our dying to self, in order to live.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green. The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us At rest in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas. ~Rudyard Kipling “Seal Lullaby”
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139: 13-18
The call came in the middle of a busy night as we worked on a floppy baby with high fever, a croupy toddler whose breathing squeezed and squeaked, a pale adolescent transfusing due to leukemia bleeding.
It was an anencephalic baby just born, unexpected, unwanted in a hospital across town, and she needed a place to die.
Our team of three puzzled how to manage a baby without a brain– simply put her in a room, swaddled, kept warm but alone? Hydrate her with a dropper of water to moisten her mouth? Offer her a taste of milk?
She arrived by ambulance, the somber attendants leaving quickly, unnerved by her mewing cries.
I took the wrapped bundle and peeled away the layers to find a plump full term baby, her hands gripping, arms waving once freed; just another newborn until I pulled off her stocking cap and looked into an empty crater — only a brainstem lumped at the base.
No textbook pictures had prepared me for the wholeness, the holiness of this living, breathing child.
Her forehead quit above the eyebrows with the entire skull missing, tufts of soft brown hair fringed her perfect ears, around the back of her neck. Her eyelids puffy, squinting tight, seemingly too big above a button nose and rosebud pink lips.
She squirmed under my fingers, her muscles strong, breaths coming steady despite no awareness of light or touch or noise.
Yet she cried in little whimpers, mouth working, seeking, lips tentatively gripping my fingertip. A bottle warmed, nipple offered, a tentative suck allowing tiny flow, then, amazing, a gurgling swallow.
Returning every two hours, more for me than for her, I picked her up to smell the salty sweet scent of amnion still on her skin as she grew dusky.
Her breathing weakened, her muscles loosened, giving up her grip on a world she would never see or hear or feel to behold something far more glorious, as I gazed into her emptiness, waiting to be filled.
Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature— have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20
All creatures are doing their best to help God in His birth of Himself.
You and I weren’t conceived by random happenstance, nor are those unwelcome souls who are wished or washed away before ever taking a breath.
We are here because we are earnestly needed and wanted, by a Power and Divinity beyond our comprehension, Who has capacity for love and compassion unmatched by anything in our earthly experience.
We aren’t a cosmic joke or mistake. We aren’t pawns in the universe’s chess game.
Though we may loll about in the smelly stuff of this life, thinking what we say or do doesn’t matter a hill of beans, we are created by God as a witness to who He is, in whose image we are made.
He won’t be ignored; we have no excuses.
We were blind but now we see…
God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. Psalm 53:2
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. ~C. S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory
photo of San Juan Islands by Joel DeWaard
We are united by our joint creation as the Image of God. Not one of us reflects God more than another but together form His body and His kingdom on earth.
Dr. King’s words and wisdom continue to inform us of our shortcomings sixty years later. We flounder in our flaws and brokenness; so many question not only the validity of equality of all people of all shades, but even doubt the existence of a God who would create a world that includes the crippled body, the troubled mind, the questioned gender, the genetically challenged, those never allowed to draw a breath.
Yet we are all one, a composition made up of white and black keys too often discordant, sometimes dancing to different tempos, on rare occasions a symphony.
The potential is there for harmony, and Dr. King would see and hear that in his time on earth.
Perhaps today we unite only in our shared tears, shed for continued strife and disagreements, shed for injustice that results in senseless killings, shed for our inability to hold up one another as holy in God’s eyes as His intended creation, no matter our color, our origin, our defects, our differences and similarities.
There are no gradations in God nor in His intended harmonious creation. We can weep together, anticipating the day when the Lord God wipes all tears away.
…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4: 4-5
You, who are beyond our understanding, have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ. You, who are the uncreated God, have made yourself a creature for us. You, who are the untouchable One, have made yourself touchable to us. You, who are most high, make us capable of understanding your amazing love and the wonderful things you have done for us. Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation, the mystery of your life, example and doctrine, the mystery of your cross and passion, the mystery of your resurrection and ascension. ~Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)– prayer
There is nothing I can give you Which you have not; But there is much that, While I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us Unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future Which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. Take joy.
And so, at this Christmastime, I greet you with the prayer that for you, Now and forever, The day breaks and the shadows flee away. – Fra Giovanni Giocondo letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi, Christmas Eve 1513
To each one of you who come to this page each day to read words, hear music, immerse in pictures: take heart!
The shadows flee away with day break.
May you be encouraged to explore the mystery of Who has been born within us, in the fullness of time.
Merry Christmas Day to one and all from our hilltop farm –
May all be well for you and yours.
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Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel, “In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,” I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. ~Thomas Hardy “The Oxen”
Says a country legend told every year: Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see what the creatures do as that long night tips over. Down on their knees they will go, the fire of an old memory whistling through their minds!
So I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold I creaked back the barn door and peered in. From town the church bells spilled their midnight music, and the beasts listened – yet they lay in their stalls like stone.
Oh the heretics! Not to remember Bethlehem, or the star as bright as a sun, or the child born on a bed of straw! To know only of the dissolving Now!
Still they drowsed on – citizens of the pure, the physical world, they loomed in the dark: powerful of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas! And you are no heretics, but a miracle, immaculate still as when you thundered forth on the morning of creation! As for Bethlehem, that blazing star still sailed the dark, but only looked for me. Caught in its light, listening again to its story, I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me the best it could all night. ~Mary Oliver“Christmas Poem” from Goodness and Light
Growing up on my childhood farm, remembering the magic of Christmas eve night, I bundled myself up to stay warm in our barn, to witness an unbelievable sight.
At midnight we knew the animals knelt down, speaking words we could all understand, to worship a Child born in Bethlehem town, in a barn, long ago in a far away land.
They were there that night, to see and to hear, the blessings that came from the sky. They patiently stood watch at the manger near, in a barn, while shepherds and kings stopped by.
My trips to the barn were always too late, our cows would be chewing, our chickens asleep, our horses breathing softly, cats climbing the gate, in our barn, there was never a neigh, moo or peep.
But I knew they had done it, I just missed it again! They were plainly so calm, well-fed and at peace in the sweet smelling straw, all snug in their pens, in a barn, a mystery, once more, took place.
Even now, I still bundle to go out Christmas eve, in the hope I’ll catch them just once more this time. Though I’m older and grayer, I still firmly believe in the barn, a Birth happened amid cobwebs and grime.
Our horses sigh low as they hear me come near, that tells me the time I hope for is now, they will drop to their knees without any fear in our barn, as worship, all living things bow.
I wonder anew at God’s immense trust for His creatures so sheltered that darkening night – the mystery of why of all places, His Son must begin life in a barn: a welcoming most holy and right. ~ “In the Barn” (written Christmas Eve 1999)
I walk to the barn tonight as I do each year, Counting my blessings, knowing my flaws, Praying for family and friends so dear, And for each precious creature with hooves or paws.
Each horse is content and a witness to peace, And I wish every person could know, Sadness and worry for a moment can cease, While patting noses down a stall row.
For once I see the sky is clear And stars are shining bright The northeast wind is coming near And briskly chills this special night.
For weeks stars hid behind a cloud Of doubt, of fear, of weeping rain, Explosions at once so horrid and loud The whole world instantly felt the pain.
Like stars that glow through blackest dark Good overwhelms bad with barely left trace All owed to a Child who left His mark By giving Himself in infinite grace.
(written Christmas Eve 2001)
O magnum mysterium Et admirabile sacramentum Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum Jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera Meruerunt portare Dominum Christum Alleluia
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
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