Category: meekness

Come and See: Sir, We Would See Jesus

September 20, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”

Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
John 12: 20-26

There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.

But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.
~Blaise Pascal from Pensees

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
~Augustine of Hippo from Confessions

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

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”

I thought our old church pulpit was the only one to have a plaque with John 12:21 attached to it — a clear reminder to anyone standing there, preparing to speak. I learned this verse has traditionally graced pulpits through the generations, encouraging preachers and listeners to work together to clear the obscuring fog to find the Messiah.

Jesus is not hidden from us; indeed, we are heart-blind most of the time, so wrapped in our own worries and troubles that we do not know where to look or who to ask to help us see Him.

It is through the preaching and sharing of God’s Word that the heart veil is lifted. To those Gentiles who wanted to see the man they had heard about, Jesus tells them what must come next: He must die, like a seed in the ground, in order to be glorified. We see Him in ways and places we could never have imagined, especially hanging on the cross in our place.

As we restlessly seek to clear the fog and fill what is empty within us, we must keep our eyes open wide, listening with all our being, our hearts at the ready, every moment.

He is already here, right where we are, always beside us.

We would see Jesus, for the shadows lengthen
Across this wanting visage of our life;
We would see Jesus, our weak faith to strengthen
For the last weariness, the final strife.

We would see Jesus, the great rock foundation
Whereon our feet were set by sov’reign grace;
Nor life nor death, with all their agitation,
Can thence remove us, if we see His face.

We would see Jesus: this is all we’re needing;
Strength, joy, and willingness come with the sight;
We would see Jesus, dying, risen, pleading;
Then welcome day, and farewell mortal night.
~Anna Bartlett Warner “We Would See Jesus”

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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Pale Applesauce Clouds

September 18, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The kitchen is sweet with the smell of apples,
big yellow pie apples, light in the hand,
their skins freckled, the stems knobby
and thick with bark, as if the tree
could not bear to let the apple go.
Baskets of apples circle the back door,
fill the porch, cover the kitchen table.

My mother and my grandmother are
running the apple brigade. My mother,
always better with machines, is standing
at the apple peeler; my grandmother,
more at home with a paring knife,
faces her across the breadboard.
My mother takes an apple in her hand,

She pushes it neatly onto the sharp
prong and turns the handle that turns
the apple that swivels the blade pressed
tight against the apple’s side and peels
the skin away in long curling strips that
twist and fall to a bucket on the floor.
The apples, coming off the peeler,

Are winding staircases, little accordions,
slinky toys, jack-in-the-box fruit, until
my grandmother’s paring knife goes slicing
through the rings and they become apple
pies, apple cakes, apple crisp. Soon
they will be married to butter and live with
cinnamon and sugar, happily ever after.
~Joyce Sutphen, “Apple Season” from Coming Back to the Body.

I liked how the starry blue lid
of that saucepan lifted and puffed,
then settled back on a thin
hotpad of steam, and the way
her kitchen filled with the warm,
wet breath of apples, as if all
the apples were talking at once,
as if they’d come cold and sour
from chores in the orchard,
and were trying to shoulder in
close to the fire. She was too busy
to put in her two cents’ worth
talking to apples. Squeezing
her dentures with wrinkly lips,
she had to jingle and stack
the bright brass coins of the lids
and thoughtfully count out
the red rubber rings, then hold
each jar, to see if it was clean,
to a window that looked out
through her back yard into Iowa.
And with every third or fourth jar
she wiped steam from her glasses,
using the hem of her apron,
printed with tiny red sailboats
that dipped along with leaf-green
banners snapping, under puffs
of pale applesauce clouds
scented with cinnamon and cloves,
the only boats under sail
for at least two thousand miles.
~Ted Kooser “Applesauce” from Delights and Shadow

Through the night
the apples
outside my window
one by one let go
their branches and
drop to the lawn.
I can’t see, but hear
the stem-snap, the plummet
through leaves, then
the final thump against the ground.

Sometimes two
at once, or one
right after another.
During long moments of silence
I wait
and wonder about the bruised bodies,
the terror of diving through air, and
think I’ll go tomorrow
to find the newly fallen, but they
all look alike lying there
dewsoaked, disappearing before me.

I lie beneath my window listening
to the sound of apples dropping in

the yard, a syncopated code I long to know,
which continues even as I sleep, and dream I know

the meaning of what I hear, each dull
thud of unseen apple-

body, the earth
falling to earth

once and forever, over
and over.
~ Li-Young Lee “Falling: The Code” from Rose

I tell you, folks, all politics is like applesauce.
~Will Rogers

Once again, it’s applesauce season on our farm. The number of windfall apples lying on the ground is exponentially increasing, so I can put off the task no longer.

The old apple trees in our orchard are primarily antique varieties rarely grown any longer. I have the choice of a number of varieties: a Baldwin or two, some Pippins, a few Kings, and some Dutch Mignons, a russet apple undistinguished in appearance, not at all pretty, and easy to pass by for something more showy.

It takes no time at all to fill several large boxes. Sadly, some apples are already beyond hope; they lay rotting, half consumed by hornets, slugs, deer, possum, raccoons and other critters — so I let them be.

The task of washing, peeling and coring organic apples is time consuming. They require a fair amount of preparation: the bruised spots must be cut out, as well as the worm holes and tracks. The apples are cut to the core and sliced into the simmering pot to be stirred and slowly cooked down to sauce. Before long, before my eyes, together they become a pale yellow mash, blending their varied flavors together.

However the smooth sweetness of this wonderful sauce is owed to the Dutch Mignon. It is a sublime sauce apple despite its humble unassuming appearance. Used alone, it would lack the “stand out” flavors of the other apple varieties, but as it cooks down, it becomes a foundation allowing the other apples to blend their unique qualities.

If I’m feeling really homespun, I marry the sublime with cinnamon and sugar, to create something happily ever after.

So it should be with the fellowship of diverse people and so should it be during a painful political season.

We are bruised, wormy, but salvageable. We are far better together than we are separate. And through the process, with perhaps a sprinkle of cinnamon and sweetness, we are transformed into something far better than how we began.

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To Rise Again

September 16, 2026 barnstormingblog1 Comment

—Jesus explains

Not just the first crocus bulb poking
from the ground, but its pollen
shining saffronly on the legs of a bee.

The reverberations of a hammered
dulcimer or the puff of sweetness escaping
between peel and pith of a ripe tangelo.

It’s riding the elevator after the doctor
tells you, we can’t say why the scans
are suddenly clear, or, if you’re exhausted
from trying, time to surround yourself
with people you love. It’s waking

in the middle of the night, looking out
at the silhouettes of trees and realizing
there is nothing lonely about silence.
It’s cruising a wide-open Montana highway

or swinging your hips to the rhythm
of a street-corner bucket drummer
and daring the stares. It’s not the cicada
blooming from its shell as much

as the shell itself, balanced
on the finger of a little girl, then
tumbling along the grass tips
among the unkillable dandelions.
~Tania Runyan from “What It’s Like to Rise Again”

We’re each given a fresh start each day;
even when it was a fitful sleep,
and we’re fearful about what comes next,
or if there will even be a “next”…

Jesus explains what it is like to rise above the darkness;
bold, unafraid, leaving behind, neatly folded, the vestiges of death.

He gives us each reason to get up every morning,
surrounded by those who love us.

Even when crushed and broken,
He rose up so we can follow.

Everything’s going to be all right…

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Come and See: Palms and a Donkey

September 13, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,

“Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.

So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”
John 12: 12-19

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
~Mary Oliver “The Poet thinks about the donkey” from her book Thirst.

As the Book of John now enters the week of Jesus’ passion, we learn of palms and a donkey.

Palm Sunday is a day of dissonance and dichotomy in the church year, very much like the donkey who figured as a central character that day.

Sadly, a donkey gets no respect, then or now – for his plain and awkward hairy looks, for his loud and inharmonious voice, for his apparent lack of strength — yet he was the chosen mode of transportation for an unlikely King riding to His death.

There was a motley parade to Jerusalem:
cloaks and palms at the feet of the donkey bearing the Son of God, disorderly shouts of adoration and blessings,
the rebuke of the Pharisees to quiet the people.

Jesus’ response was “even the stones will cry out” about what is to come.

But the welcoming crowd waving palm branches, shouting sweet hosannas and laying down their cloaks did not understand the fierce transformation to come, did not know within days they would be a mob shouting words of derision and rejection and condemnation.

The donkey knew because he had been derided, rejected and condemned himself, yet still kept serving. Just as he was given voice and understanding centuries before to protect Balaam from going the wrong way, he could have opened his mouth to tell them, suffering beatings for his effort.

Instead, just as he bore the unborn Jesus to Bethlehem,
stood over Him sleeping in the manger,
bore a mother and child all the way to Egypt to hide from Herod,
the donkey keeps his secret well.

Who, after all, would ever listen to a mere donkey?

Even so, we would do well to pay attention to this braying wisdom.

The donkey knows – he’s a believer.

He bears the burden we have shirked. He treads with heavy heart over the palms and cloaks we lay down as meaningless symbols of honor. He is the ultimate servant to the Servant who laid aside His crown.

A day of dichotomy —
of honor and glory laid underfoot only to be stepped on,
of blessings and praise turning to curses,
of the beginning of the end becoming a new beginning for us all.

And so Jesus wept, knowing all this.
I suspect the donkey bearing Him wept as well, in his own simple, plain, and honest way, and I’m quite sure he kept it as his special secret.

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Watching the Rain Happen

September 8, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Immense, entirely itself,
it wore that yard like a dress,

with limbs low enough for me to enter it
and climb the crooked ladder to where

I could lean against the trunk and practice being alone.

One day, I heard the sound before I saw it, rain fell
darkening the sidewalk.

Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches,
I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy,

watching it happen without it happening to me.
~Marie Howe “The Copper Beech” from What the Living Do

I will wait here in the fields
to see how well the rain
brings on the grass.
In the labor of the fields
longer than a man’s life
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.

I will be standing in the woods
where the old trees
move only with the wind
then with the gravity.
In the stillness of the trees
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.
~Wendell Berry “Stay Home” from Collected Poems

A steady silver rain pours out
over the gray world on an ordinary
morning. Drenching for hours
the field, wild flowers, soil
and all the birds off somewhere dry
in hidden nests, keeping quiet.

And you, too: keep quiet for a few hours,
let your thoughts fizz like that silver sheen,
shushshushshushshush, ceaseless sheet
of velvet, of plenty. Enough to hear, to drink,
to soak in, though you hadn’t known
how dry you were.
~Joanne Esser “What You Need: (It Doesn’t Have to Be Lightning)” from Nothing is Stationary

Yesterday morning, our county was awakened shortly after 6AM with several thunder crashes after lightning bolts flashed and illuminated our dark bedroom.

Thunder storms are unusual in the Pacific Northwest; even more unusual is an early morning storm with so much drama and subsequent dumping rain.

I was fortunate to be sheltering inside a comfortable home with a good roof — not sitting in a tree.

I was happy, watching it happen without it happening to me.

Then I looked out my kitchen window, where a drenched pine siskin sat trembling on our bird feeder, her breakfast interrupted by the downpour. No doubt she would much rather have been at home quietly sitting in her favorite tree, but as she was unable to fly so soaked by the heavy torrent, she huddled under the little cover of the feeder, trying to ride it out.

Watching her cope with her wet plumage from an unplanned bird bath, I realized I hadn’t known how dry I was.

After twenty minutes, the storm was all over as the sun began peeking out from behind roiling clouds. She shook off the excess drops from her feathers, picked out a few more seeds before launching on her way to parts unknown.

I sat and finished my toast, musing at our brief breakfast alongside one another, each safe under temporary shelter.
In her own way, she let me know:
In the stillness of the trees
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.

And so I shall…

Lyrics:
We all need love and shelter
A place where we let go and rest
To live secure with one another
To be ourselves, not somebody else

Everybody needs respect and dignity
Everybody needs love, real love

We all need to know we’re worthy
That we are treasure to our core
We can tell the truth about our trauma
To be believed so we can be restored

Everybody needs love; everybody knows love
Is what it takes to make a life
So everybody breathe love; everyone receive love
It’s how we heal and make things right

We all need confirmation
To know that we are seen and heard
To live our lives out in freedom
Then all our flags of hope can be unfurled

We all need a place to shelter

Lyrics:
Whisper truth over me
I’m loved eternally
Never am I alone, you’re here with me
I don’t have to be afraid
Faithfulness doesn’t change
Unshakable terra firm underneath my need

I wanna know this love
A love that never dies
For when I trust I find
Your love sustains my life

Whisper grace over me
I don’t need to earn your peace
Help me surrender now as you carry me
When shadows are lengthening
I’m sheltered beneath your wings
Compassionate arms of love are still underneath

I wanna know this love
A love that never dies
For when I trust I find
Your love sustains my life

I wanna know this love
A love that never dies
For when I trust I’ll find
Your love sustains my life

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Each is Nothing Without the Others

September 2, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Theirs is a perfection of pure form.
Nobody but has his proper place and knows it.
Everything they do is functional.
Each foray in a zigzag line
Each prodigious lifting
Of thirty-two times their own weight
Each excavation into the earth’s core
Each erection
Of a crumbly parapetted tower —

None of these feats is a private pleasure,
None of them done
For the sake of the skill alone —

They’ve got a going concern down there,
A full egg-hatchery
A wet-nursery of aphids
A trained troop of maintenance engineers
Sanitation experts
A corps of hunters
And butchers
An army

A queen
Each
Is nothing without the others, each being a part
Of something greater than all of them put together
A purpose which none of them knows
Since each is only
The one thing that he does. There is
A true consistency
Toward which their actions tend.
The ants have bred and inbred to perfection.
The strains of their genes that survive survive.
Every possible contingency
Has been foreseen and written into the plan.

Nothing they do will be wrong.
~Daniel Hoffman “Ants” from Beyond Silence

The ant in the shadow of this blade of grass
Is indifferent to my presence, to the action
Of the day, to the creaking of the limbs
Of the sycamore, to the sun lowering itself
Slowly from the scaffolding of the sky…

The ant has not moved. It is deep in meditation.

…Ants understand
The principle of undefiled silence. My ant glows
Like charcoal now in the lengthening rays of the sun.
I kneel and whisper, “Look up at me. I’m here.”
~John Gilgun from “The Ant in the Shadow of This Blade of Grass”

Today, when I could do nothing,
I saved an ant...

Small black ant, alone,
crossing a navy cushion,
moving steadily because that is what it could do.

Set outside in the sun,
it could not have found again its nest.
What then did I save?

It did not move as if it was frightened,
even while walking my hand,
which moved it through swiftness and air.

Ant, alone, without companions,
whose ant-heart I could not fathom—
how is your life, I wanted to ask.

I lifted it, took it outside.

This first day when I could do nothing,
contribute nothing…

…I did this.
~Jane Hirshfield from “Today When I Could Do Nothing”

The other day, as I sat down in the grass to take pictures, I felt a tickle at the nape of my neck. I reached up, felt something, and when I looked to see what it was, I found a tiny ant crushed in my fingers.

Suddenly it felt like things were crawling everywhere on me, especially my scalp. I shook out my hair and clothes and found there weren’t any more ants. It was only one unfortunate, defenseless victim who chose the wrong place and time to inhabit me.

As a child, I was fascinated by the ant hills in the woods and fields of our small farm. I would track yards and yards of ant trails from the busy mounded colonies to tree trunks and other sources of food, watching the single-file, single-minded insects heading through all sorts of terrain to sustain their community. Having ants crawling on me wasn’t a problem then – they were part of my exploration of creation … sometimes they explored me. So I’m sympathetic to a solitary ant’s curiosity.

When we share the same few square inches of landscape, we want to ask one another: How is your life? hoping to fathom each other’s heart. We are each of us a part of something greater than all of us put together.

In this small corner of the internet, I share words or pictures I hope might bring a smile, a nod of recognition, or a moistened eye, wanting to find common ground with people I likely will never meet in the chaos of existence.

So I ask you every now and again
because I want to know:
how is your life?

Though I may do nothing else of import
in this scatter-mess of life’s anthill, I can do this:
I’m here, exploring and caring,
listening for your comments, feedback and messages.
Nothing you say will be wrong…

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One Hundred Ten Years Old

August 27, 2026August 27, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The Old Church leans nearby a well worn road
upon a hill that has no grass or tree
The winds from off the prairie now unload
the dust they bring around it fitfully
The path that leads up to the open door
is worn and grayed by many toiling feet
of us who listen to the Bible lore
and once again the old time hymns repeat.
And every Sabbath Morning we are still
returning to the altar standing there;
a hush, a prayer, a pause, and voices
fill the Master’s House with a triumphant air.
The old church leans awry and looks quite odd,
But it is beautiful to us, and God.
~Della Vik “The Old Church”
(adapted in song by Stephen Paulus, linked below

…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

Today is the 110th anniversary of Wiser Lake Chapel‘s building dedication ceremony and picnic.

Back in the early days of Whatcom County, the little church on Wiser Lake had been constructed through “contributions of the people” in a rural neighborhood only a few miles from where we now live. $600 in lumber was provided by a local farmer whose trees were cut and milled and brought by horse drawn wagon to a building site adjacent to a one room school house along a corrugated plank road. The total property was “valued at $1800, but of even more value to the community.”

The dedication ceremony was held on Sunday, August 27, 1916 followed by “a basket dinner—come with well filled baskets for a common table, under the direction of the Ladies Aid”. This was to be followed by a “Fellowship Meeting, special music and fraternal addresses” and the day ended at 8 PM with a Young People’s Meeting.

So began the long history of the “Wiser Lake Church”.

For reasons unrecorded in the history of the church, the original denomination closed the doors thirty years later, and for a while the building was empty and in need of a congregation.

By the fifties, it became a mission church of the local Christian Reformed Churches and launched a Sunday School program for migrant farm and Native American children in the surrounding rural neighborhood. No formal church services started until the 60s. By the time the building was sixty years old, so many children were arriving for Sunday School, there was not enough room so the building was hoisted up on jacks to allow a hole to be dug underneath for a basement full of classrooms. Over the course of a summer, the floor space doubled, and the church settled back into place, allowed to rest again on its foundation.

Over seventy years after its dedication ceremony, our family drove past the boxy building countless times hurrying on our way to other places, barely giving it a second glance. It had a classic design, but showed its age with peeling paint, a few missing shingles, an old fashioned square flat roofed belfry, and arched windows. The hand lettered sign spelling out “Wiser Lake Chapel” by the road constituted a humble invitation of sorts, simply by listing the time of the service.

On a blustery December Sunday evening, we had no place else to be for a change. Instead of driving past, we stopped, welcomed by the yellow glow pouring from the windows and an almost full parking lot. Our young family climbed the steps to the big double doors, and inside were immediately greeted by a large balding man with a huge grin and encompassing handshake. He pointed us to one of the few open spots still available in the old wooden pews.

The sanctuary was a warm and open space with a high lofted ceiling, dark wood trim accents matching the ancient pews, and a plain wooden cross above the pulpit in front. There was a pungent smell from fir bough garlands strung along high wainscoting, and a circle of candles standing lit on a small altar table. Apple pie was baking in the kitchen oven, blending with the aroma of good coffee and hot cocoa.

The service was a Sunday School Christmas program, with thirty some children of all ages and skin colors standing up front in bathrobes and white sheet angel gowns, wearing gold foil halos, tinfoil crowns and dish towels wrapped with string around their heads. They were prompted by their teachers through carols and readings of the Christmas story. The final song was Silent Night, sung by candle light, with each child and member of the congregation holding a lit candle. There was a moment of excitement when one girl’s long hair briefly caught fire, but after that was extinguished by a quick-thinking mom in the pastor’s pulpit glass of water, the evening ended in darkness, with the soft glow of candlelight illuminating faces of the young and old, some in tears streaming over their smiles.

It felt like home. We had found our church.

We’ve never left, now well into our fourth decade here.

Over the past one hundred years this old building has seen a few thousand people come and go, has had peeling paint and missing shingles, a basement that floods when the rain comes down hard, toilets that don’t always flush very well, and though it smells heavenly every Sunday potluck after evening worship and teaching, there are times when it can be just a bit out of sorts and musty. It really isn’t anything to boast about.

It is humble and unpretentious yet envelops its people in its loving and imperfect embrace, with warmth, character and a uniqueness that is unforgettable.

It really is not so different from the folks who have gathered there over the years.

Like our pastors over the decades – Bruce Hemple, Stephen Tamminga, Albert Hitchcock and now Nathan Chambers – our chapel is humble and unpretentious, enveloping its people in a loving embrace of God’s Word, with warmth, character, grace and a uniqueness that is unforgettable.

We know we belong,
such as we are,
just as we are,
blessed by God in a wonderful old building to join together.

Perhaps you belong at this old church too…

Peacing Each One Beautiful

August 22, 2026 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only
this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers

And cuddle
near
~Nikki Giovanni “Quilts”

“I make them warm to keep my family from freezing;
I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking.”
–From the journal of a prairie woman, 1870

To keep a husband and five children warm,
she quilts them covers thick as drifts against
the door. Through every fleshy square white threads
needle their almost invisible tracks; her hours
count each small suture that holds together
the raw-cut, uncolored edges of her life.
She pieces each one beautiful, and summer bright
to thaw her frozen soul. Under her fingers
the scraps grow to green birds and purple
improbable leaves; deeper than calico, her mid-winter
mind bursts into flowers. She watches them unfold
between the double stars, the wedding rings.
~Luci Shaw “Quiltmaker” from Polishing the Petoskey Stone: New and Selected Poems.

Perhaps the world was made this way:
piecemeal, the parts fitting together exactly
as if made for one another~
the unique, disparate and separate
coming together in a glorious harmony.

The point of its creation is
forever functional and full of love –
a blanket of warmth and security
for generations to come.

Our legacy is to preserve this
beauty arising from scraps,
this broken stitched to broken
in a tapestry holy and whole.

When I no longer have strength
or the usefulness to perform my daily tasks,
piece me up and sew me into a greater whole
along with pieces of others who are fading.

We are so much better together,
so much more colorful and bold,
becoming art and function in our fraying state.

Full of warmth and comfort
covering all who are sick
and sleep and love and cuddle,
and drift off to heaven as the last breath is breathed.

all quilts above are on display this week at the Northwest Washington Fair – to see previous year’s artwork:
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023 , 2024

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No Furrow on the Glow

August 21, 2026August 21, 2026 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.

Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify

Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now
~Emily Dickinson

“…one of the great poems of American literature. The statement of the poem is profound; it remarks the absolute separation between man and nature at a precise moment in time. The poet looks as far as she can into the natural world, but what she sees at last is her isolation from that world. She perceives, that is, the limits of her own perception. But that, we reason, is enough. This poem of just more than sixty words comprehends the human condition in relation to the universe:

So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.

But this is a divine loneliness, the loneliness of a species evolved far beyond all others. The poem bespeaks a state of grace. In its precision, perception and eloquence it establishes the place of words within that state. Words are indivisible with the highest realization of human being.”
~N. Scott Momaday from The Man Made of Words

On the first day I took his class on Native American Mythology and Lore in 1974 at Stanford, N.Scott Momaday strolled to the front, wrote the 60 words of this Dickinson poem on the blackboard. He told us we would spend at least a week working out the meaning of what he considered the greatest poem written — this in a class devoted to Native American writing and oral tradition. In his resonant bass, he read the poem to us many times, rolling the words around his mouth as if to extract their sweetness. This man of the plains, a member of the Kiowa tribe, loved this poem put together by a New England recluse poet — someone as culturally distant from him and his people as possible.

But grace works to unite us, no matter our differences, and Scott knew this as he led us, mostly white students, through this poem. What on the surface appears a paean to late summer cricket song doomed to extinction by oncoming winter, is a statement of the transcendence of man beyond our understanding of nature and the world in which we, its creatures, find ourselves.

As summer begins its descent into the dark death of winter, we, unlike the crickets, become all too aware we too are descending, particularly when the skies are filled with smoke from uncontrolled wildfires in the north, the east and the south. There is no one as lonely as an individual facing their mortality and no one as lonely as a poet facing the empty page, in search of words to describe the sacrament of sacrifice and perishing.

Yet the Word brings Grace unlike any other, even when the cricket song, pathetic and transient as it is, is gone. The Word brings Grace, like no other, to pathetic and transient man who will emerge transformed.

There is no furrow on the glow. There is no need to plow and seed our salvaged souls, already lovingly planted and nurtured by our Creator God, yielding a fruited plain.

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