Category: scripture

Strong Arms

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In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants
and hold the world
in arms grown strong with love.
And there may be many things we forget
in the days to come,
but this will not be one of them.
~Brian Andreas from Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind

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No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
Hebrews 12:11-12

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She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
~Proverbs 31:17

help

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
~Philippians 4: 12-13

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Some of us think holding on makes us strong;
but sometimes it is letting go.
~Hermann Hesse

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The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
~Jane Hirshfield from “The Weighing” from The Beauty

A few years ago, I dislocated and broke my elbow in a clumsy fall while doing barn chores.

After a trip to the ER to have it set and put in a restrictive brace for three months, I learned letting go takes far more strength than holding on and pushing through.

I had to figure out how to “be flexible” when in reality, I felt immobilized.

I discovered how to ask for help when I’m in need which is tough for someone who has always been the helper – there was unity in our mutual need for one another.

Others watched me carefully to see if I’d quietly go stir-crazy with my new temporary limitations. Instead, I began seeing the world in a different light: what could I do on my own and what was impossible without assistance.

I needed to rely on others. For a stubborn person who thrives on self-sufficiency, this is a humbling reminder of my brokenness and frailty.

May the Lord have mercy on all those with broken wings who still endeavor to lift up the weight of the world and fly as high as ever.

Instead, may we find our strength is in Him, not in our feeble (and very breakable) arms.

IMG_0904

photos of “Feats of Strength” by Tom Otterness at Western Washington University

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Unharvested

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A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what had made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.
~Robert Frost “Unharvested” from The Collected Poems

Our trees are heavy-laden until the wind comes — the dropping fruit thuds to the ground with such finality, it wakes me in the night and reminds me how far I too have fallen.

“Fall” is just that: nothing remains as it was.

Autumn replays our desire for an apple which
smells so sweet,
tempts with shiny sheen
lures with such color –
we fell hard and fast for just one taste.

We ignored the worm hole.

And ended up in a hole ourselves, unharvested,
hoping one day for sweetness to return.

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Where Spirit Meets the Bone

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The mail truck goes down the coast
Carrying a single letter.
At the end of a long pier
The bored seagull lifts a leg now and then
And forgets to put it down.

There is a menace in the air
Of tragedies in the making.
Last night you thought you heard television
In the house next door.
You were sure it was some new
Horror they were reporting,
So you went out to find out.
Barefoot, wearing just shorts.
It was only the sea sounding weary
After so many lifetimes
Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere
And never getting anywhere.

This morning, it felt like Sunday.
The heavens did their part
By casting no shadow along the boardwalk
Or the row of vacant cottages,
Among them a small church
With a dozen gray tombstones huddled close
As if they, too, had the shivers.
~Charles Simic “Late September” from The Voice at 3:00 a.m.: Selected Late and New Poems 

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, 
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign 
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.
~Miller Williams “Compassion” from The Ways We Touch: Poems. 

Christians are called by God to be living
so sacrificially and beautifully that the people around us, 
who don’t believe what we believe,
will soon be unable to imagine the world without us.
~Pastor Tim Keller

As we walk this life of trouble and suffering,
this Jericho Road together,
we cannot pass by the brother, the sister, the child
who lies dying in the ditch.

We must stop and help.
We cannot turn away from others’ suffering.

By mere circumstances of our place of birth,
it could be you or me there
bleeding, beaten, abandoned
until Someone, journeying along that road,
comes looking for us.

He was sent to take our place,
as Substitution
so we can get up,
cared for, loved,
made whole again,
and walk Home.

Maranatha.

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Extravagant Sky

barnstormingblog1 Comment

You were the one for skylights. I opposed
Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove
Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed,
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof
Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling,
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling.
Under there, it was all hutch and hatch.
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.

But when the slates came off, extravagant
Sky entered and held surprise wide open.
For days I felt like an inhabitant
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven,
Was healed, took up his bed and walked away.
~Seamus Heaney “The Skylight” from Opened Ground.

The last moments of summer are revealed
as if the roof has been ripped open
to let the sky be lowered in ~
the veil torn down,
the dark corners lit in extravagant morning glow~

suddenly sky enters into unexpected spaces
we preferred to keep hidden.
The miraculous happens
when we are bold enough to
accept the invitation
and take a chance on the Light.

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The Commonwealth of Joy

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The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words.
We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving,
for in joining ourselves to one another
we join ourselves to the unknown.
~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage” in Standing By Words

Our vows to one another forty-four years ago today:

Before God and this gathering, I vow from my heart and spirit that I will be your wife/husband for as long as we both shall live.

I will love you with faithfulness, knowing its importance in sustaining us through good times and bad.

I will love you with respect, serving your greatest good and supporting your continued growth.

I will love you with compassion, knowing the strength and power of forgiveness.

I will love you with hope, remembering our shared belief in the grace of God and His guidance of our marriage.

“And at home, by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be–and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

(our wedding vows for our September 19, 1981 wedding at First Seattle Christian Reformed Church — the last line adapted from Thomas Hardy’s  “Far From the Madding Crowd”)

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

We enter, willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.
~Wendell Berry from “A Country of Marriage”

…Marriage… joins two living souls as closely as, in this world, they can be joined. This joining of two who know, love, and trust one another brings them in the same breath into the freedom of sexual consent and into the fullest earthly realization of the image of God.  From their joining, other living souls come into being, and with them great responsibilities that are unending, fearful, and joyful. The marriage of two lovers joins them to one another, to forebears, to descendants, to the community, to heaven and earth. It is the fundamental connection without which nothing holds, and trust is its necessity.
~Wendell Berry from Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

We married forty-four years ago today in our Seattle church with Pastor Peter Holwerda officiating, with a small group of family and friends as witnesses.

It was a wedding of two frugal people with little to spend – I sewed my dress and Dan’s shirt from muslin, we grew our own flowers, our families helped potluck the lunch afterward and our tiered carrot cake was made by a friend.

Yet our vows to one another were not frugal and held nothing back.
They were extravagant and comprehensive, coming from our hearts and spirits. The music we asked our amazing organist to play (versions below) inspired us by its simplicity and complexity – very much like the families that raised us and the God we worship.

Our vows have taken us from the city to the countryside, to the raising and rejoicing in three amazing children and now six grandchildren. We both served more than forty years as a public-employed attorney and physician. We have laid down those responsibilities, and picked up the tools of farm and garden along with church and community service for as long as we are able.

We treasure each day of living together in faithfulness, respect, compassion and hope – knowing that how we love and find joy in one another mirrors how God loves and revels in His people.

We pray for many more days to fill us with what endures.

A pot of red lentils
simmers on the kitchen stove.
All afternoon dense kernels
surrender to the fertile
juices, their tender bellies
swelling with delight.

In the yard we plant
rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes,
cupping wet earth over tubers,
our labor the germ
of later sustenance and renewal.

Across the field the sound of a baby crying
as we carry in the last carrots,
whorls of butter lettuce,
a basket of red potatoes.

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.
~Peter Pereira from “A Pot of Red Lentils”

Here are versions of the organ music we selected for prelude, processional, recessional and postlude

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The Work of Your Hand

barnstormingblog2 Comments

Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64:8

From dust to purpose,
beauty spins as planned.
Love is crafted by surrender
when clay trusts the Potter’s hands.
~Jamie Trunnel from “The Potter’s Hands”

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10

The best pottery is never completely perfect, becoming an original, unique piece. It is infused with the potter’s eye and energy, the expert pressure of fingers and palm, with a design and vision coming from the heart and imagination of the potter.

Last night, during our evening church worship, two artists in our congregation, one using words of scripture and the other at a pottery wheel, demonstrated how creating and sculpting a work of pottery is key to understanding how God shapes each one of us, from our beginnings, preparing us in advance for the work we are to do.

Each one is a unique and original individual, formed by the hands of the Artist to become something with a purpose and plan. Even with imperfections, we are created as both beautiful and functional.

His Hands remain around us, holding and molding us to His plan.

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Lest I Forget…

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Let me remember you, voices of little insects, 
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters, 
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us, 
Snow-hushed and heavy. 

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction, 
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest, 
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to, 
Lest they forget them.
~Sara Teasdale from “September Midnight”

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
~Rudyard Kipling from “Recessional”

If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again:
Men have forgotten God.
~Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn from his 1983 acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize

Lest I forget…

I look long in the eyes I lean to…

whether a loved one, or the mountains, or summer-weary fields,
or the face of God Himself.

I cannot risk forgetting Who must be remembered —
He is encased in my heart
like a treasured photograph,
like a precious gem,
like a benediction soothing me quiet when anxious.

It is His ultimate promise:
Neither will He forget me –
looking long in my eyes that lean in to Him.

[And the Lord answered] Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Isaiah 49:15

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Long for the Longing

barnstormingblog1 Comment

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing —
to reach the Mountain,
to find the place where all the beauty came from —
my country,
the place where I ought to have been born.
Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing?
The longing for home?
For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.
~ C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

The soul must long for God
in order to be set aflame by God’s love.
But if the soul cannot yet feel this longing,
then it must long for the longing.
To long for the longing is also from God.
~Meister Eckhart from Freedom from Sinful Thoughts

I tend to get distracted,
losing my sense of purpose and the reason I’m here;
I become too absorbed by the troubles of the moment,
or dwelling on the troubles of the past,
or anticipating the troubles of tomorrow.

My feelings end up overwhelming all else –
am I uncomfortable? restless? discouraged? peevish? worried? empty?

When my spirit grows cold, I need igniting. I long for the spark of God to set me aflame again, even at the risk of getting singed.

We’re all His kindling ready to be lit.
I long for longing at the beginning and ending of every day.

Lyrics:
From the love of my own comfort
From the fear of having nothing
From a life of worldly passions
Deliver me O God

From the need to be understood
From the need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Deliver me O God Deliver me O God

And I shall not want,
I shall not want when I taste Your goodness
I shall not want when I taste Your goodness
I shall not want

From the fear of serving others
From the fear of death or trial
From the fear of humility
Deliver me O God Deliver me O God

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Striking a Balance

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hungup
giantcedarsboardwalk

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness
makes for pride.
Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God
makes for despair.
Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance
because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.
~Blaise Pascal from Pensées

dandyglow3

We yearn for perfection,
to be flawless and faultless,
unblemished,
aiming for symmetry,
remaining straight and smooth.

Life serves up something
far different
and our eye searches
for what is broken like us:
to find the cracks,
scratches and damage,
whether it is in
a master’s still life portrait
replete with crawling flying insects
and broken blossoms,
or in the not so still life
of what is around us.

Somehow Christ bridges
Himself between God and us,
becoming a walkway for the wretched.

In the beginning we were created
unblemished,
image bearers of perfection.

No longer.

We bear witness to brokenness
with our shattered lives,
fragile minds and weakening bodies.
It is our leaks and warts
that stand out now.

To restore
our lost relationship with Him,
Christ strikes the balance
and bridges the gap;
He hung broken to mend us,
to lift and carry us over the chasm,
binding us to Him
forever.

huysum
Still Life With Flowers–Jan Huysum
sunrise826161
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An Evening Stroll

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You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
~ Dr. Seuss

You give the appearance of listening
To my thoughts, O trees,
Bent over the road I am walking
On a late summer evening
When every one of you is a steep staircase
The night is slowly descending.

The high leaves like my mother’s lips
Forever trembling, unable to decide,
For there’s a bit of wind,
And it’s like hearing voices,
Or a mouth full of muffled laughter,
A huge dark mouth we can all fit in
Suddenly covered by a hand.

Everything quiet.

The sky at the road’s end cloudless and blue.
The night birds like children
Who won’t come to dinner.
Lost children in the darkening woods.
~Charles Simic from “Evening Walk” in The Voice at 3 A.M.”

I wonder about the trees.

My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
~Robert Frost from “The Sound of Trees”

The voice of the trees urges me to move my feet
while they stay rooted in place.

I am propelled forward by winds that
strip away leaves, bend branches.

Tempted to simply stand and watch their motion,
instead I walk among the rooted ones, grateful for my legs.

They clap their hands and wave as I pass by.

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