Category: spirit

What Wondrous Love: Something Way Down Deep

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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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To God and to the Lamb: We Would See Him

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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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What Wondrous Love: A Handful of Dust

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I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T.S. Eliot in “Burial of the Dead” from “The Wasteland”

On this Valentine’s and Ash Wednesday,
I begin the dusty journey
into the ash heap
of my soul, confronting
my limitations,
my temptations,
my inability to think of myself second,
my acknowledgement that salvation
comes from no effort of my own.

This shadowland I live in is not all there is nor will ever be.

I am so tangible — dust arising and settling back when the soil reclaims me. I do not want to think of myself as a mere handful of dust. I feel alive and solid, casting a shadow before or behind me, depending on the time of day and time of life. Although today I have substance, my shadow remains an ephemeral reflection of who I am.

The dust I am is a humbling, fearful thing – until God lifted me up in the palm of His hand and blew life into me.

I am His; a reflection of Him.
I breathe and pulse and weep and bleed.

This is His wondrous love on this Valentine’s Day and every day: we each are more than a handful of dust or an incorporeal shadow.

So much more.

By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.
Genesis 3:19

This Lenten season will reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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I Must Go In…

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I must go in; the fog is rising…
~Emily Dickinson, her last words

photo by Nate Gibson

I have watched the dying
in their last hours:
often they see what I cannot,
listen to what is beyond my hearing,
stretch their arms overhead
as fingers touch what is beyond my reach.

I watch and wonder what it will be like
to reverse the steps that brought me here
from the fog of amnion.

The mist of living lifts
as we enter a place
unsurpassed in brilliance and clarity;
the mystery of what lies beyond solved
only by going in to it,
welcomed back to that unapproachable Light,
where we started.

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A Trace of Peace

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I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.
~Mary Oliver “I Happened to be Standing” from A Thousand Mornings

For all
the pain

passed down
the genes

or latent
in the very grain

of being;
for the lordless

mornings,
the smear

of spirit
words intuit

and inter;
for all

the nightfall
neverness

inking
into me

even now,
my prayer

is that a mind
blurred

by anxiety
or despair

might find
here

a trace
of peace.

~Christian Wiman “Prayer” from Once in the West: Poems 

Each morning, I say a prayer that I might find something of value to share here.

Maybe what I offer is a bit of glue to help heal a broken heart, or a balm to soothe a worried mind, or it touches a place of pain so it might hurt less. 

Maybe a song becomes a poignant reminder, or an image might capture the eye.

What might the beauty in the world and in words be but a kind of prayer offered to our Creator? Why not listen, even for a moment, to the purring cat and the singing wren to hear a prayer of thanks and joy they offer in their own way?

Prayer is breath combined with need.

We are capable of just such a silent dialogue with God, breathed out in thanksgiving and breathed in deep during desperate times.

I too know about worry, and hurting, and the need for glue. Within prayer is a trace of peace. So I listen, waiting.

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Whatever This Day May Bring

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O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Amen
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Prayer”

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry “To Know the Dark” from Soul Food – Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver “The Uses of Sorrow”

In the beginning, God did not banish the darkness. He balanced it with His illuminating Light. Fallen as we are, we search blindly for Him in the dark, where we need Him most. And He is there.

We are promised this: “and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light…
Revelation 22:5.

Darkness is not yet banished. But it is overcome.
Whatever this day may bring, we have a lit pathway leading us home.

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Living in the Changing Light

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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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A Faint Whispering

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Low clouds hang on the mountain.
The forest is filled with fog.
A short distance away the
Giant trees recede and grow
Dim. Two hundred paces and
They are invisible. All
Day the fog curdles and drifts.
The cries of the birds are loud.
They sound frightened and cold. Hour
By hour it grows colder.
Just before sunset the clouds
Drop down the mountainside. Long
Shreds and tatters of fog flow
Swiftly away between the
Trees. Now the valley below
Is filled with clouds like clotted
Cream and over them the sun
Sets, yellow in a sky full
Of purple feathers. After dark
A wind rises and breaks branches
From the trees and howls in the
Treetops and then suddenly
Is still. Late at night I wake
And look out of the tent. The
Clouds are rushing across the
Sky and through them is tumbling
The thin waning moon. Later
All is quiet except for
A faint whispering. I look
Out. Great flakes of wet snow are
Falling. Snowflakes are falling
Into the dark flames of the
Dying fire. In the morning the
Pine boughs are sagging with snow,
And the dogwood blossoms are
Frozen, and the tender young
Purple and citron oak leaves.
~Kenneth Rexroth “Snow” from The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth

Snow and then freezing rain fell for hours yesterday
so we remain cloaked and iced and drifted this morning

~we appear more pristine than we are_

Underneath this chilly blanket
we’re barely presentable,
sleep-deprived,
wrinkled and worn,
all mud and mildew beneath.

~yet a thaw is coming~

Spring will rise from its snowy bed,
lit from an inner fire
that never burns out.

Through clouds like ashes from a burning bush,
we turn aside to see God’s glory;
our eyes carefully covered
from the bright glaze of snow and ice.

We feel His flash of life as He passes by.

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My Heart in Hiding Stirred…

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To Christ Our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “The Windhover”

photos of kestrel falcons by Kate Steensma of Steensma Dairy
photo by Kate Steensma of Steensma Dairy
photo by Kate Steensma of Steensma Dairy
photo by Kate Steensma of Steensma Dairy

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross
Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
~Mary Oliver from “The Swan”

I hold my heart in hiding, trying to protect that tender core of who I am from being pierced and shredded by the slings and arrows of every day life. It can be a bruising and bumpy ride.

Yet to live fully, as I am created to live, I must fling myself into the open, wimpling wings spread, the wind holding me up, hovering and ready to soar. 

To stay aloft, I must change as the wind changes around me.

I take my chances, knowing the fall will come. My wounds shall be healed, even as they bleed.

There is no lack of wonder. 
So stirred.
So much beauty to behold.
So much heart to take out of hiding and share freely,
no matter the buffeting.

Ah…  Ah, my dear.

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A Prayer for Being Here

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Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first

through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.
~David Budbill “Winter: Tonight: Sunset”

I strive to remember, each day,
no matter how things feel,
no matter how tired or distracted I am,
no matter how worried, or fearful or heartsick
over the state of the world or the state of my soul:

it is up to me to distill my gratitude
down to this one moment of beauty
that will never come again.

One breath,
one blink,
one pause,
one whispered word:
wow.

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