Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east. ~Gerard Manley Hopkin
photo by Joel De Waard
There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody’s voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die? God himself does not give answers. He gives himself. ~Frederick Buechner from Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale
Traditionally, Lent does not include the five Sundays before Easter, as every Sabbath, year round, becomes a celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
Let Him Easter in us every week.
This year, spring is slow in making an appearance, seeming in no hurry whatsoever. Snow remains in residual piles from the flurries of a week ago, the foothills are still white and the greening of the fields has yet to begin. The flowering plum and cherry trees remain dormant in the continued chill.
Like Narnia, winter still has its terrible grip on us.
We wait, frozen in a darkened world, for a sun that shines and actually warms us from our dormancy.
This is exactly what eastering is. It is awakening out of a restless sleep, opening a door to let in fresh air, and the stone that locked us in the dark is rolled back.
Overnight all will be changed, changed utterly.
He is not only risen. He is given indeed.
Why do you look for the living among the dead?He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you… Luke 24:5-6
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
Join us on our farm in three weeks, Sunday, March 31, at 7 AM for a traditional outdoor Easter Sunrise Service
Rain. An excuse to stand at the window And listen, watch, wait. Listen: to the hush Of the house as still as a dark burrow Where an animal hides. Listen: the rush Of occasional gusts, then the stillness.
Watch: the wrens hopping from stem to wet stem Their happy bearing in contrast to titmice Who always seem afraid. Watch: the mayhem That strikes when the grumpy bluejay, twice As big as the rest, frumps onto a branch.
Wait: for what? For the steady rain to cease. Wait: for the fair sunlight to avalanche Down from space and remake the world again. Then let my steps be fearless, like the wren. ~Andrew Peterson “Lenten Sonnet”
I’m the child of rainy Sundays. I watched time crawl Like an injured fly Over the wet windowpane. Or waited for a branch On a tree to stop shaking, While Grandmother knitted Making a ball of yarn Roll over like a kitten at her feet. I knew every clock in the house Had stopped ticking And that this day will last forever. ~Charles Simic “To Boredom”
I’m never bored on a quiet rainy Sunday.
My list of to-do’s and want-to-do’s and hope-to-do’s and someday-maybe-if-I’m-lucky-to-do’s is longer than the days still left to me.
I cherish these Sabbaths when the clock stops, and “to-do’s” will wait. Time suspends itself above me, ~dangling~ and the day lasts forever.
Sunday evening scaries in anticipation of Monday are prayed away.
On a drizzly day of rest and gratitude, the world is remade, eternity moves a little closer, my steps become more fearless and the new week is yet another part of the journey.
Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? Job 38:28
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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Suddenly I knew, when we stood in a circle holding hands; suddenly I knew, that because of the circle, because of friendship, because of love— yes, and because of the brokenness, and the need— I have been in heaven all my life. ~Carol Bialock “I Used to Think Heaven was Future” from Coral Castles
The church, I think, is God’s way of saying, “What I have in the pot is yours, and what I have is a group of misfits whom you need more than you know and who need you more than they know.”
“Take, and eat,” he says, “and take, and eat, until the day, and it is coming, that you knock on my door. I will open it, and you will see me face to face.”
He is preparing a table. He will welcome us in. Jesus will be there, smiling and holy, holding out a green bean casserole. And at that moment, what we say, what we think, and what we believe will be the same: “I didn’t know how badly I needed this.” ~Jeremy Clive Huggins from “The Church Potluck”
…when I experienced the warm, unpretentious reception of those who have nothing to boast about, and experienced a loving embrace from people who didn’t ask any questions, I began to discover that a true spiritual homecoming means a return to the poor in spirit to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs. ~Henri Nouwen from The Return of the Prodigal Son
The journey begins when Christians leave their homes and beds. They leave, indeed, their life in this present and concrete world, and whether they have to drive 15 miles or walk a few blocks, a sacramental act is already taking place…
For they are now on their way to constitute the Church, or to be more exact, to be transformed into the Church of God. They have been individuals, some white, some black, some poor, some rich, they have been the ‘natural’ world and a natural community. And now they have been called to “come together in one place,” to bring their lives, their very world with them and to be more than what they were: a new community with a new life.
We are already far beyond the categories of common worship and prayer. The purpose of this ‘coming together’ is not simply to add a religious dimension to the natural community, to make it ‘better’ – more responsible, more Christian. The purpose is to fulfill the Church, and that means to make present the One in whom all things are at their end, and all things are at their beginning. ~ Father Alexander Schmemann from For the Life of the World
We’ve been through fire, we’ve been through pain We’ve been refined by the power of Your name We’ve fallen deeper in love with You You’ve burned the truth on our lips
Rise up church with broken wings Fill this place with songs again Of our God who reigns on high By his grace again we’ll fly ~Robin Mark from “Shout to the North and the South”
photo by Barb Hoelle
There is so much wrong with the modern church, comprised as it is of fallen people with broken wings determined to find flaws in each other in doctrine, tradition, beliefs.
What is right with the church today, is when it offers a taste of heaven for hopeful people who come together in sanctuary, barn and field, eucharist table and potluck, to hold each other up in prayer and to sing in worship to the Three in One, who is why we sing, whose body we are part of and who, in our need, loves and forgives us despite our motley messiness: Our Lord of Heaven and Earth.
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 1 Corinthians 1:9-10
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. ~Thornton Wilder, from “Our Town”
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat. ~George Herbert “Love III”
Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. ~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”
I began to write regularly after September 11, 2001 because more than on any previous day, it became obvious to me I was dying, though more slowly than the thousands who vanished that day in fire and ash, their voices obliterated with their bodies into eternity.
Nearly each day since, while I still have voice and a new dawn to greet, I speak through my fingers to others dying with and around me.
We are, after all, terminal patients — some of us more prepared than others to move on — as if our readiness had anything to do with the timing.
Each day I get a little closer to the eternal, but I write in order to feel a little more ready. Each day I want to detach just a little bit, leaving a trace of my voice behind. Eventually, through unmerited grace, so much of me will be left on the page there won’t be anything or anyone left to do the typing.
There is no time or word to waste.
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. 1 Corinthians 15: 51-52
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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The sacred moments, the moments of miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only… a gardener, a stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all our being and imagination.. what we may see is Jesus himself. ~Frederick Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat
Farmer with a pitchfork by Winslow Homer
We can be blinded by the everyday-ness of it: A simple loaf of bread is a meal we take for granted. A gardener looks up and smiles as he hoes a row of weeds, trying to restore order in chaos. A wanderer along the road catches up to engage in conversation.
Every day contains millions of everyday moments lost and forgotten, seemingly meaningless.
Perhaps we would see Jesus if only we opened our eyes and listened with our ears. At the table, on the road, in the garden at sunrise.
With the new vision we have been given, we discover: there is nothing everyday about the miracle of Him abiding with us – always in plain sight.
“Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” John 12: 21
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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It was like a church to me. I entered it on soft foot, Breath held like a cap in the hand. It was quiet. What God was there made himself felt, Not listened to, in clean colours That brought a moistening of the eye, In movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness Of the heart’s passions — that was praise Enough; and the mind’s cession Of its kingdom. I walked on, Simple and poor, while the air crumbled And broke on me generously as bread. ~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”
A strange empty day. I did not feel well, lay around…. I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. I am still pursued by a neurosis about work inherited from my father. A day where one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever. Tonight I do feel in a state of grace, limbered up, less strained. ~May Sarton from Journal of a Solitude (January 18, 1971 entry)
Once in your life you pass Through a place so pure It becomes tainted even By your regard, a space Of trees and air where Dusk comes as perfect ripeness. Here the only sounds are Sighs of rain and snow, Small rustlings of plants As they unwrap in twilight. This is where you will go At last when coldness comes. It is something you realize When you first see it, But instantly forget. At the end of your life You remember and dwell in Its faultless light forever. ~Paul Zimmer “The Place” from Crossing to Sunlight Revisited
My family members and I have had weeks of feeling just on the verge of conquering the latest viral upper respiratory illness, but then would find ourselves welcoming the next cold as if it were a long lost friend.
I’m discouraged by ongoing fatigue and need for isolation that has accompanied these illnesses, due to our persistent sneezes and coughs.
All this has forced me to rest, take a breath and feel lucky to be alive, even if feeling unwell. I know too many folks who are dealing with much greater burdens.
Indeed, this morning brought a moment of grace for me. I witnessed manna falling from the sky.
Often times a sunrise is as plain and gray as I am, but at times, it is fire lit from above and beneath, igniting and transforming the sky, completely overwhelming me.
I was swept away, transfixed by colors and swirls and shadows, forever grateful to be fed by such heavenly bread broken over my head.
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To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. ~Karl Barth
Ah — a resting place, where we come to understand it is not required of us to wrestle constantly and passionately with our God — nor pursue relentlessly all God’s decrees as we understand them, but only that we listen and wonder and hope and pray, that we might, perhaps, make just a little difference, one quiet grey day. ~Edwina Gateley “Just a Little Difference”
There is much shouting and gnashing of teeth going on in our country in the midst of a bitter “rerun” election battle ahead. Some of the noise is coming from political rallies, some from computer keyboards and TV screens, and some from the hallowed halls of courthouses and legislative buildings.
If only the nastiness could cease. Instead, it is time to clasp hands together in prayer.
Prayer is always easier for the youngest among us. It is amazingly spontaneous for kids — an outright exclamation of joy, a crying plea for help, a word of unprompted gratitude. As a child I can remember making up my own songs and monologues to God as I wandered alone in our farm’s woods, enjoying His company in my semi-solitude. I’m not sure when I began to silence myself out of self-conscious embarrassment, but I stayed silent for many years, unwilling to put voice to the prayers that rattled in my head. In my childhood, prayer in public schools had been hushed into a mere and meaningless moment of silence, and intuitively I knew silence never changed anything. The world became more and more disorderly in the 60’s and 70’s and in my increasingly indoctrinated mind, there was no prayer I could say that could possibly make a difference.
How wrong could I and my education be? Nothing can right the world until we are right with God through talking to Him from our depth of need and fear. Nothing can right the world until we submit ourselves wholly, bowed low, hands clasped, eyes closed, articulating the joy, the thanks, and the petitions weighing on our hearts.
An uprising is only possible when our voices come alive, unashamed, unselfconscious, rising up from within us, uttering words that beseech and thank and praise. To rise up with hands clasped together calls upon a power that claims no political party affiliation ~ only the Word ~ to overcome and overwhelm the shambles left of our world.
Nothing can be more victorious than the Amen, our Amen, at the end.
So be it and so shall it be.
Amen, and Amen again.
Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that. ~Galway Kinnell “Prayer”
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O lovely apple! beautifully and completely rotten hardly a contour marred–
perhaps a little shrivelled at the top but that aside perfect in every detail! O lovely
apple! what a deep and suffusing brown mantles that unspoiled surface! No one
has moved you since I placed you on the porch rail a month ago to ripen.
No one. No one! ~William Carlos Williams “Perfection”
When a newspaper posed the question, “What’s Wrong with the World?” the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response:
“Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.“
That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus. ~Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God
I am what’s wrong with the world and so are you.
Not one of us escapes the rottenness that lies not-so-deep beneath our shiny surface. We are full of wormholes, inviting the worms of the world to eat us alive.
One look at the news headlines of the day is enough mar the most perfect surface. No one moves to save us from our over-ripening fate; we sit untouched, withering and shriveling.
We are the problem and the problem is us.
We need rescue by a Savior who is the one good apple among a barrel of contagiously bad apples. We are so tainted, it takes Someone who truly is Perfect to transform us from the inside out, from worm-holes back to wholeness and on to holiness.
May we fall to our knees, grateful, that Christ, who is the Leader of all in His Kingdom, will grant us a grace and sanctuary and perfection we emphatically don’t deserve.
May He retrieve us before the worms (or the hornets) do. We are in this together.
We have met the enemy and he is us. ~Walt Kelly (in the words of Pogo)
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torrent rain driven aslant against the barn’s side
swollen Yamhill Creek furious with water
another V of geese over the farm this morning
the plowed field soggy underfoot fixed on distant May
a hawk hung in chill October air like a narrow-winged thought. ~Ed Higgins, “Anticipating Winter” from Near Truth Only
Field with Plowing Farmers by Vincent Van Gogh
Bleak winter weather is predicted to arrive nearly everywhere this week, with subzero temperatures, wind chills and blizzards.
I’m really not mentally ready for this coming cold, but an Arctic outflow waits for no one and certainly not for me.
The gulls, geese and swans somehow endure the chill, gleaning our neighbors’ muddy corn stalk fields, while overhead, eagles and hawks float on the wind currents, scanning for prey.
As I warm up in the house after barn chores, I turn the calendar pages, looking ahead to March. I know better than to try to rush time when each freezing day is precious and fleeting. I still try.
Like the birds sticking it out through winter here, the snowdrops are sprouting from under the leaf cover, as they do each January. They, like me, trust that spring is only around the corner.
So we endure what we must now with the knowledge of what comes next.
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Writer Luci Shaw turned 95 yesterday. A life-long poet and essayist in addition to being a wife, mother, publisher, gardener and outdoor enthusiast, Luci is a child of God who is continually living out and articulating the questions of faith, grace, and belief.
It is my privilege to know her as a neighbor in nearby Bellingham. Her books grace my shelves and I cherish her personal words of encouragement and mentoring.
Luci has gifted the world for decades with beauty and honesty, composing enriching poetic observations with heavenly anticipation.
Below is only a small sample of her work, some published as recently as two weeks ago – more of her writing and many books can be found at www.lucishaw.com.
Happy Birthday, Luci! You are beloved and blessed!
Luci Shaw -virtual presentation for Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing 2022
Last night I lay awake and practiced getting old. Not difficult,
but I needed to teach myself to love my destination before I arrive.
I feel the earth shifting under me. My writing hand shakes—its rubbery nudges clumsy,
my mind going slack, the way a day will lose its light and give itself to darkness,
and that long, nocturnal pause of inquiry— What next? And how long before light
reopens her blue eye? And will I need to learn a new language to converse with my Creator?
So, I am a questioner, one who waits, still, to arrive somewhere, some bright nest where
a new language breeds that I can learn to speak, unhindered, into heaven’s air,
somewhere I can live a long time, and never have to look back. ~Luci Shaw “December the 95th Year”
Luci Shaw at a Bellingham reading at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church -2017
In time of drought, let us be thankful for this very gentle rain, a gift not to be disdained though it is little and brief, reaching no great depth, barely kissing the leaves’ lips. Think of it as mercy. Other minor blessings may show up—tweezers for splinters, change for the parking meter, a green light at the intersection, a cool wind that lifts away summer’s suffocating heat. An apology after a harsh comment. A word that opens an unfinished poem like a key in a lock. ~Luci Shaw “Signs” from Eye of the Beholder.
Luci at a Bellingham reading of her poetry at Village Books in 2016
These still December mornings… Outside everything’s tinted rose, grape, turquoise, silver–the stones by the path, the skin of the sun
on the pond ice, at the night the aureola of a pregnant moon, like me, iridescent, almost full term with light. ~Luci Shaw from “Advent Visitation“in Accompanied by Angels
Today, in Bellingham, even the sidewalks gleam. Small change glints from the creases in the lady’s mantle and the hostas after the rain that falls, like grace, unmerited. My pockets are full, spilling over. ~Luci Shaw from “Small Change”
I love driving in Bellingham in the spring. In spite of the chilly weather, all the fruit trees are ‘springing,’ singing themselves into being in magnificent displays of pink and white–apricot, plum, apple, peach, cherry–undiscouraged by the darkly looming clouds today. Soon each twig will display its bridal bouquet grown for this spring wedding. I know this from years of observation! Next, they’ll grow so full and heavy with blossoms they’ll be ready to throw their bouquets to the crowd, and I’ll be watching for the petals to drop like wedding confetti, filling the gutters and swirling over sidewalks with their largesse. ~Luci Shaw
Out of the shame of spittle, the scratch of dirt, he made an anointing.
Oh, it was an agony-the gravel in the eye, the rude slime, the brittle clay caked on the lid.
But with the hurt light came leaping; in the shock and shine, abstracts took flesh and flew;
winged words like view and space, shape and shade and green and sky, bird and horizon and sun,
What next, she wonders, with the angel disappearing, and her room suddenly gone dark.
The loneliness of her news possesses her. She ponders how to tell her mother.
Still, the secret at her heart burns like a sun rising. How to hold it in— that which cannot be contained.
She nestles into herself, half-convinced it was some kind of good dream, she its visionary.
But then, part dazzled, part prescient— she hugs her body, a pod with a seed that will split her. ~Luci Shaw “Mary Considers Her Situation”
because we are all betrayers, taking silver and eating body and blood and asking (guilty) is it I and hearing him say yes it would be simple for us all to rush out and hang ourselves but if we find grace to weep and wait after the voice of morning has crowed in our ears clearly enough to break our hearts he will be there to ask us each again do you love me ~Luci Shaw “Judas, Peter” from Polishing the Petoskey Stone
Down he came from up, and in from out, and here from there. A long leap, an incandescent fall from magnificent to naked, frail, small, through space, between stars, into our chill night air, shrunk, in infant grace, to our damp, cramped earthy place among all the shivering sheep.
And now, after all, there he lies, fast asleep. ~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast keep warm this small hot naked star fallen to my arms. (Rest … you who have had so far to come.) Now nearness satisfies the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps whose eyelids have not closed before. His breath (so slight it seems no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps to sprout a world. Charmed by doves’ voices, the whisper of straw, he dreams, hearing no music from his other spheres. Breath, mouth, ears, eyes he is curtailed who overflowed all skies, all years. Older than eternity, now he is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet, caught that I might be free, blind in my womb to know my darkness ended, brought to this birth for me to be new-born, and for him to see me mended I must see him torn. ~Luci Shaw “Mary’s Song”
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