Category: submission

We Are No Longer Alone: Visited

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The Visitation by Mariotto Albertinelli
Annunciation by Bartolome Esteban Perez Murillo

…we should not try to escape a sense of awe, almost a sense of fright, at what God has done. Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet…
We shall be celebrating no beautiful myth, no lovely piece of traditional folklore, but a solemn fact.
God has been here once historically, but he will come again with the same silence and same devastating humility into any human heart ready to receive him.
J.B. Phillips from Watch for the Light

Angels Announcing the Birth of Christ by Govert Flinck

I want to be like the visited Mary in her daily routine, awed yet accepting, as the angel interrupts her with an incredible announcement.

I want to be like the visited Elizabeth, overjoyed, along with the leaping baby in her womb, seeing her cousin Mary pregnant with her Lord.

I want to be like the visited shepherds, silenced and aghast, flattened with so much fear that they need the reassurance “do not be afraid” and immediately go to find the baby in a manger.

I want to be like the visited Joseph whose life would never be the same again, as my own self-sufficiency and sense of “how things should be” is shot through and leaking dry.

I too need interruption – to be overjoyed, aghast, my expectations upended, eager to find this new gift of life.

Only then is my heart ready to receive and welcome this visitor. 
Only then.

The Dream of Saint Joseph by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1773

This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.

God comes.

He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons

1. This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love;
Therefore don’t turn me from your door,
But hearken all both rich and poor.

2. The first thing which I do relate,
Is That God did man create
The next thing which to you I tell,
Woman was made with man to dwell.

3. Then after this was God’s own choice
To place them both in Paradise,
There to remain from evil free
Except they eat of such a tree.

4. But they did eat, which was a sin,
And thus their ruin did begin —
Ruin’d themselves, both you and me,
And all of their posterity.

5. Thus we were as heirs to endless woes,
Till God the Lord did interpose
And so a promise soon did run
That He would redeem us by His Son.
~the Herefordshire Carol
Collected by E. M. Williams from Mr. W. Jenkins, Kings Pyon, Herefordshire, July, 1909. Music Noted by R. Vaughan William

and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
John 8:32

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An Increasing Enigma

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A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.
~ Gilbert K. Chesterton from All Things Considered

There is something about looking into a turkey’s eye that makes you think twice about them being the focus of millions of dinners later this week. We’re raised chickens, ducks and geese on our farm over the years, but we never did raise our own turkey for Thanksgiving. Perhaps they look much wiser and dignified than they actually are, but I’m told they too, can become quite bonded with their farmer caretakers.

I am grateful for many things this week, including professionals who have skill in working on rural wells and well pumps and filtration systems, as well as plumbers working on plugged pipes and drainage issues, and the fact our entire family is arriving this week when our water supply and drainage are on the fritz.

But most of all, I’m grateful I’m not a turkey.

I’m glad God keeps turkeys more of an enigma than the angels who assist us when we need it most, even during a holiday week.

I think God’s angelic world will be the primary focus for us this week.

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A World of Hurt

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The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.
~C.S. Lewis from A Grief Observed

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. 
~James A. Baldwin

We pay for hate with our lives, and that’s too big a price to pay.
~Brené Brown from Braving the Wilderness

We live in a world of hurt. We are consumed with hatred for all that is unjust and unfair because we are people who are in fear and in pain.

We get angry at what we don’t like or don’t understand and that includes the mystery of the ways of God.

We are a people struggling with profound irritability of the spirit.
We give no one the benefit of the doubt any more,
and that includes God.

We ask God why He doesn’t do something about the suffering we see everywhere, or the terrible hurt we feel ourselves. We want answers, and that includes answers from God.

Instead He asks us the same question right back:
What are we doing about the suffering of others?
What are we doing to understand our own misery?
Where are we seeking answers if not from His own Words?

God knows suffering and hurt.
He knows fear.
He knows what it is to be hated, far more than we do.
He took it all on Himself,
loving us so much because His pain was
part of the deal He made with us to rescue us.

With that realization,
we trade our pain for hope in Him,
our fear for trust in His promises,
and our hatred gives way to His sacrificial love.

Only then are we ready to respond to His call,
wrap ourselves within and around Him,
cling to His Word,
and feel His comfort for His people.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear..
1 John 4:18a

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For a Little While…

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Flee for a while from your tasks;
hide yourself for a little space from the turmoil of your thoughts.
Come, cast aside your burdensome cares,
and put aside your laborious pursuits.
For a little while give your time to God,
and rest in him for a little while.
Enter into the inner chamber of your mind,
shut out all things save God
and whatever may aid you in seeking God;
and having barred the door of your chamber, seek him.
~Anselm of Canterbury from Major Works

There were clinic days when I needed to leave early:
near tears, physically spent, too fried
to keep listening, problem solving, comforting.

These were times I needed to feel anything
other than being needed.
I was the picture of neediness myself — 
a sorry place to be.

Feeling overwhelmed had happened before:
middle of the night mothering a feverish vomiting child,
middle of the night mothering my frail dying mother,
middle of the night mothering a troubled world.

Yet morning still comes, after a little while,
shining and wondrous because God never left.

In my need, if I gently close the door to all worries
that are not God,
I find Him looking for me
and waiting to hear what I have to say.

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Worthy of a Hot Bath

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You can change the world with a hot bath,
if you sink into it from a place of knowing
you are worth profound care,
even when you are dirty and rattled.
Who knew?
~Anne Lamott from Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace

As a farmer, I spend at least a part of every day muddy and up to my knees and elbows in muck, especially now that the fall rains have arrived, turning beast and barnyard to mush. 

I call my barn life “the real stuff” as the rest of the hours of the day are spent dealing with “virtual stuff ” which nonetheless leaves me dirty and rattled.  Frankly, I prefer the real over virtual muck even though it smells worse, leaves my fingernails hopelessly grimy and is obvious to everyone where I’ve been.

The stains of the rest of my day are largely invisible to all but me and far harder to scrub away. But even virtual grime can become overwhelming.

It is so much easier for me to deal with what is produced in the barnyard over the mess of political lack of integrity and moral standing. What soils me can be washed off and I’m restored for another day of wallowing in my muck boots. There is true grace in drawing up clean warm water, soaping with the suds that truly cleanse by sinking down into a deep tub of renewal.

God knows how badly we all could use a good scrubbing right now.

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Richly Spiced Residue

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Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows…

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
~Mary Oliver from Fall Song

To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.
And however sharply
you are tested –
this sorrow, that great love –
it too will leave on that clean knife.
~Jane Hirshfield from “Ripeness” from “The October Palace”

What is left in the trees in November
is crumbling away:
bright while fading,
dimpling and softening,
composted in the rain.

Perhaps this describes me too.

More than just spicy residue dangling by a stem,
let me still feed whoever is hungry,
to thrive on what little I have left to offer.

Might I ripen a bit at harvest
before the inevitable drop,
to sleep enveloped by the ground.

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It Will Not Stay

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It will not stay.

But this morning we wake to pale muslin
stretched across the grass.
The pumpkins, still in the fields, are planets
shrouded by clouds.
The Weber wears a dunce cap
and sits in the corner by the garage
where asters wrap scarves
around their necks to warm their blooms.
The leaves, still soldered to their branches
by a frozen drop of dew, splash
apple and pear paint along the roadsides.
It seems we have glanced out a window
into the near future, mid-December, say,
the black and white photo of winter
carefully laid over the present autumn,
like a morning we pause at the mirror
inspecting the single strand of hair
that overnight has turned to snow.
~Robert Haight “Early October Snow”

No snow here in the northwest yet this fall, but when we visited family in Denver last year during the last week of October, heavy snow had fallen overnight, then gone within a day.

It did not stay. But it did return.

I can catch a glimpse of the future if I pay attention. Sometimes it is too painful to acknowledge, so I quickly look away. That one thick white hair discovered at age 28 is now a full head of thin white at 70.

I need to be courageous about looking straight ahead through the veil of snow at how change takes place, whether it is the melting piles on the pumpkins, or the mop of white in the mirror topping my wrinkles.

And so it goes and so it goes…

It is as it is meant to be. It is as it must be.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.

those white hairs…
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Let the Evening Come

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Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us 
comfortless, so let evening come.
~Jane Kenyon “Let Evening Come”

photo by Josh Scholten

We resist nightfall in our lives. We fear the dark.

I wish I could remain forever sunshiny, vital and irreplaceable, living each moment with the energy I feel with the dawn. But I know that the forward momentum of time inevitably will wind me down to twilight.

I thought of this poem today as many of us struggle with newly elected leadership, uncertain what it means for us short-term and long-term.

We are not alone in our need to catch our breath and be still.
Each of us is created in the image of God, no matter how we disagree. 

So let evening come, as it will – there is no stopping it –
our lungs filled with the breath of God, our Creator.

We will not be left comfortless.

Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be be.
~Robert Frost from “Acceptance”

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I Kept My Word…

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‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
~Walter de la Mare “The Listeners”

At times it seems I knock on a door that remains closed.
My inquiries go unanswered. Is anybody there?
All is silence and darkness.

When I get spooked by the deep dark surrounding this world,
I want to turn around and flee,
the only sound are footsteps echoing away into the night.

Yet I know there are listeners who hear my words.
I know my long travels are not in vain.

We must not be discouraged.
I promised I would come, no matter what.
I have kept my word.

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The Way is Clear

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The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”
~Wendell Berry “Grace”

If I’m unsure, as I often am,
about where I’ve been,
where I am, where I’m going,
I look to the cycles of the seasons
to be reminded all things must come round

what is barren will bud
what buds will grow lush and fruit
what flourishes will fade and fall,
and come to rest and stillness

All things come round,
making the way to Him clear.
Grace forges a path
my bones and I follow.

Shining as the smallest bud,
shining in fruitfulness,
shining when fallen,
shining in His glory.

I’ll be still. Will be still.

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