Category: submission

This Momentous Giving

barnstormingblog9 Comments

To be amazed by love is not to be blinded but
to let the flare of wonder fill you
like air filling a sail.

Isn’t this the voice of God at work?

Even his silence breathes life into you, a golden sigh as fresh
as Eden. To love someone is not to lose anything,
but to gain it in giving it all away.
~Luci Shaw from “Amazed by Love” in Water Lines

Lovers must not live for themselves alone. 
They must finally turn their gaze at one another
back toward the community. 
If they had only themselves to consider,
lovers would not need to marry,
but they must think of others and of other things. 
They say their vows to the community as much as to one another,
and the community gathers around them
to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and on its own. 

It gathers around them because it understands how necessary,
how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. 
These lovers, pledging themselves to one another “until death,”
are giving themselves away… 
Lovers, then, “die” into their union with one another
as a soul “dies” into its union with God. 

And so, here, at the very heart of community life,
we find … this momentous giving. 
If the community cannot protect this giving,
it can protect nothing—and our time is proving that this is so.
~Wendell Berry from Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community

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”)

A World of Crowded Cups to Fill

barnstormingblog5 Comments

sphere of pillowed sky
one faceless gathering of blue...

… I’m tethered, and devoted
to your raw and lonely bloom

my lavish need to drink
your world of crowded cups to fill.
~Tara Bray “hydrangea” from Image Journal

Like in old cans of paint the last green hue,
these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected
behind the blossom clusters in which blue
is not so much displayed as it’s reflected;

They do reflect it imprecise and teary,
as though they’d rather have it go away,
and just like faded, once blue stationery,
they’re tinged with yellow, violet and gray;

As in an often laundered children’s smock,
cast off, its usefulness now all but over,
one senses running down a small life’s clock.

Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems,
and in among these clusters one discovers
a tender blue rejoicing in the green.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Blue Hydrangea” Translation by Bernhard Frank

Dwelling within a mosaic of dying colors,
these petals fold and collapse
under the weight of the sky’s tears.

This hydrangea bears a rainbow of hues,
once-vibrant promises of blue
now fading to rusts and grays.

I know what this is like:
the running out of the clock,
feeling the limits of vitality.

Withering and drying,
I’m drawn, thirsty for the beauty,
to this waning artist’s palette.

To quench my thirst:
from an open cup, an invitation,
an everlasting visual sacrament.

I Lean Toward Darkness

barnstormingblog3 Comments

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.   
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon’s young, trying
Their wings.

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
~James Wright from “Beginning”

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning—
whatever it was I said
I would be doing—
I was standing
at the edge of the field—
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors—
I was leaning out;
I was listening.
— Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems, Volume 2

I am leaning back further into darkness.

Sun rays through the window blinds no longer rouse me awake. The farm animals are eager for their evening tucking in rather than lingering long in the fields. The leaves blink away their green.

I ready myself for bed early, glad for respite and stillness.

Summer isn’t over yet but its fatigue is evident.
We’re leaning back, eyes closed, ready for rest.

Something Finished

barnstormingblog6 Comments

Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds, crying
down on the north wind in September, acres of birds spotting
the air going south?

Is there something finished? And some new beginning on the
way?

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
~Carl Sandburg from “Fall Time” and “Autumn Movement”

My summer of “no doctoring” finishes today. I return to part-time clinical work tomorrow; a new beginning is on the way.

I am readying myself.

I consider how it will feel to put the stethoscope back on and return to spending most of my daylight hours in window-less rooms. Several months of freedom to wander and wonder will be tough to give up.

However, when I meet my first patient of the day, I’m “all in.” Someone is needing my help more than I need time off. The wind has shifted, it is time to migrate back to the work I was called to do over forty years ago.

Still I will look for beautiful things where I can find them, knowing that even though they don’t last, they will always be well worth the weeping.

To Long for Longing

barnstormingblog3 Comments

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

Every day I tend to get distracted from the reason I’m here; I become too absorbed by the troubles of the moment, or anticipating the troubles of tomorrow.

It ends up all about the feelings which can overwhelm all else – am I
comfortable? restless? discouraged? peevish? worried? empty?

When my soul grows cold, I need igniting. I long for the spark of God to set me aflame again at the risk of getting singed. We’re all kindling ready to be lit.

To long for longing: I will pray for this at the beginning and ending of every day.

The Importance of Each Tree

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Our universe is not made up only of beautiful trees,
but also of stunted ones.
Yet each tree is important.

Television shows us movie stars,
men and women with beautiful bodies and extravagant clothes.
But that is not the reality of the majority of people!

The beauty of human beings lies in their capacity
to accept who they are, just as they are;
not to live in a world of dreams or illusions,
in anger or despair,
wanting to be other than they are,
or trying to run away from reality.
~Jean Vanier from Seeing Beyond Depression

Long ago I gave up striving
for perfect symmetry,
strong shapely limbs,
the straightest trunk,
the most luscious foliage and colorful blooms.

Instead, my life is as fruitful as possible,
even if I bend more in winter storms,
my roots not anchored as deep,
despite bare and broken branches,
falling leaves,
crooked trunk,
and increasing lumpiness.

I try to provide the best of which I’m capable,
with a minimum of scab, rot and hidden worms.

The promise of breathtaking beauty enriches and enlivens.
It makes getting up in the morning worth the effort
when we would rather hide our homeliness under the covers.

Yet nothing is as beautiful as the reality of
broken people giving their all
for other broken people.

It is for this we are created;
our imperfections on display,
continually pruned and refined
to produce needed fruit,
abundantly filling and ever so sweet.

A Feeble Reed

barnstormingblog4 Comments

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
~Blaise Pascal

I’m not sure which is getting flabbier faster–my biceps or my brain. As I advance in age I tend to just get by with only occasional heavy lifting: a hay bale here, a challenging abstract philosophical commentary there. Hard work, whether physical or mental, is getting harder. As a naturally lazy person, I have to be forced into manual and central nervous system labor out of necessity. Necessity happens less and less often unless I go looking for it.

Given the choice between a physical task and a thinking task, I’ll opt for thinking over lifting any day. Even so, I find my mental strengths are ebbing. My brain is less flexible, I can tend to be stiff headed when trying something new and it starts to feel strained if I push it too fast. There are times when it feels like it just goes into spasm and I need to sit down and rub it for awhile. Feeble suddenly doesn’t sound like it just belongs to the aged and infirm.

The only remedy is to use it or lose it, whether muscles or gray matter. So I dig a little deeper each day, even when it hurts to do so. I purposely stretch beyond the point of comfort, just so I know it can still be done. I lift a little higher, heft a little heavier, push a little harder. Being the most feeble thing in nature may mean being easily broken by the smallest effort, but at least I’ll have thought through my reedy limitations thoroughly, chewed on it until there was nothing left and digested what I could.

Eventually I’ll come to accept that my greatest strength is to know what I don’t know.