Category: submission

Where You Go, I Will Go: Even in the Wilderness

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To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness ,
is like being commanded to be well when we are sick,
to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst,
to run when our legs are broken.
But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless.
Even in the wilderness-
especially in the wilderness –
you shall love him.   
~Frederick Buechner from A Room Called Remember

The wilderness might be a distant peak far removed from anything or anyone, where there is bleak darkness.

The wilderness might be the darkest corner of the human heart we keep far away from anything and anyone. 

From my kitchen window on a clear day, I sometimes see a distant mountain wilderness, when the cloud cover moves away. 

During decades of perching on a round stool in clinic exam rooms,  I was given access to hearts lost in the wilderness many times every day.

Sometimes the commandment to love God seems impossible. We are too self-sufficient, too broken, too frightened, too wary to trust God with our love and devotion. 

Recognizing a diagnosis of wilderness of the heart is straight forward: despair, discouragement,disappointment, lack of gratitude, lack of hope. 

The treatment is to allow the healing power of the Father who sent His own Son to navigate the wilderness in our place.

He reaches for our bitter, wary, and broken hearts that beat within our bodies, to bring us home from the dark wilderness of our souls.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Unfinished Business

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Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch—
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured; not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.
~Jane Hirshfield “Not Yet” from The Lives of the Heart.

To wait for the “not yet” is a hard sweet tension.

There is tension in knowing that something profound is happening –
today’s vernal equinox,
a brilliant sunrise,
a fading sunset,
new life growing,
but the transformation is not yet complete,
and I’m unsure when it will be.

I am still unfinished business and so is everyone else.

Soon, I will be reminded of what is yet to come.

I will know the shock of the empty tomb.
My heart will burn within me as more is revealed,
through the simple act of bread breaking.

Waiting is never easy;
it is painful to be patient,
to be unfinished,
staying open to possibility and hope.

Others don’t understand why I wait,
nor do they comprehend what I could possibly be waiting for.

I’m all-ready, not-yet-finished, but sometime soon.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Thrown Back In

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I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. 
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
– It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
– if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels- until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! 
And I let the fish go. 
~Elizabeth Bishop from “The Fish”

...the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 
Matthew 13: 47-48

All my life, I’ve taken care of a variety of fish in tanks.  As a child, I would watch, mesmerized, as our tropical fish glided around, happily exploring their little ten gallon world. I willingly cleaned away the algae, rinsed the gravel and changed the filter. As a teenager, I boasted at least three different tanks aerating away in my bedroom, my own little aquacultural world.

During college and medical school, I chose to share my room with goldfish and bettas, thriving on their contentment within a clear glass bowl. I didn’t think of them as emotional support animals, but there was a joy obvious in their albeit limited existence: they still thrived when I was away, not missing me, but were always thrilled when I fed them, and tolerated my messing with their home maintenance.

My current aquarium is over thirty years old and boasts a dozen fish and plenty of furry algae and plants. Some of my watery friends have lived a decade or more and when they pass, I miss them. Even the koi and goldfish in our farm pond have expressive faces and individual personalities that I’ve gotten to know well. They come when I call.

I’m not a fisherman so can’t imagine sorting my finned friends good from bad as the parable suggests will happen in the kingdom of God. 

I know the heart of compassion I feel for these animals I’m responsible for, as I know and have experienced the compassion of our Creator when He sorts out His creatures.

I would hope when I end up in His net, He’ll look at my blemishes and wounds and the number of hooks in my mouth from the times I’ve been caught and escaped. If He’s not yet ready to take me home, or deems me not yet ready to leave this troubled world, He’ll throw me back in the water to keep trying to get it right.

I believe that happened last month when I had a bit of a heart emergency – He let me go, throwing me back in to keep on swimming, giving what I’ve still got to give.

Rainbows, rainbows, rainbows.

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This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Be Still and Know

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Be still, and know that I am God…
Psalm 46:10

Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.

patrickscathedral
Down Cathedral, Downpatrick, Ireland
stpatrickgrave
St. Patrick’s grave marker

I rise today
in the power’s strength, invoking the Trinity
believing in threeness,
confessing the oneness,
of creation’s Creator.

I rise today
in heaven’s might,
in sun’s brightness,
in moon’s radiance,
in fire’s glory,
in lightning’s quickness,
in wind’s swiftness,
in sea’s depth,
in earth’s stability,
in rock’s fixity.

I rise today
with the power of God to pilot me,
God’s strength to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look ahead for me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to protect me,
God’s way before me,
God’s shield to defend me,
God’s host to deliver me,
from snares of devils,
from evil temptations,
from nature’s failings,
from all who wish to harm me,
far or near,
alone and in a crowd.

Around me I gather today all these powers
against every cruel and merciless force
to attack my body and soul.

May Christ protect me today
against poison and burning,
against drowning and wounding,
so that I may have abundant reward;
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me;
Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me;
Christ in my lying, Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising;
Christ in the heart of all who think of me,
Christ on the tongue of all who speak to me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.

For to the Lord belongs salvation,
and to the Lord belongs salvation
and to Christ belongs salvation.
May your salvation, Lord, be with us always.

—”Saint Patrick’s Breastplate,”
Old Irish, eighth-century prayer.

Six years a slave, and then you slipped the yoke,
Till Christ recalled you, through your captors cries!
Patrick, you had the courage to turn back,
With open love to your old enemies,
Serving them now in Christ, not in their chains,
Bringing the freedom He gave you to share.
You heard the voice of Ireland, in your veins
Her passion and compassion burned like fire.

Now you rejoice amidst the three-in-one,
Refreshed in love and blessing all you knew,
Look back on us and bless us, Ireland’s son,
And plant the staff of prayer in all we do:
A gospel seed that flowers in belief,
A greening glory, coming into leaf.
~Malcolm Guite  — A St. Patrick Sonnet

Every year on March 17, St. Patrick is little remembered for his selfless missionary work in Ireland in the fifth century. We visited his grave in Downpatrick, Ireland some years ago. It is a humble stone fixed upon on a hilltop next to Down Cathedral overlooking the sea.

I wondered what he would make of how this day, dubbed with his name, is celebrated now in the United States.

Perhaps Patrick would observe we have lost sight of our commitment to faith and purpose in our rush to be the first, greatest, wealthiest, and most dominant.

Patrick, in his prayer, urges us instead to know only God as the power of protection in our lives, knowing our human weakness and need for salvation.

He would advise us to be still and know.
Be still.
Be

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This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Someplace We Never Dreamed of Going

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I came to your door
with soup and bread.
I didn’t know you
but you were a neighbor
in pain: and a little soup and bread,
I reasoned, never hurt anyone.

I shouldn’t reason.
I appeared the day
your divorce was final:
a woman, flushed with cooking
and talk, and you watched,
fascinated,
coiled like a spring.

You seemed so brave and lonely
I wanted to comfort you like a child.
I couldn’t of course.
You wanted to ask me too far in.

It was then I knew
it had to be like prayer.
We can’t ask
for what we know we want:
we have to ask to be led
someplace we never dreamed of going,
a place we don’t want to be.

We’ll find ourselves there
one morning,
opened like leaves,
and it will be all right.
~Kathleen Norris “Answered Prayer”

When I struggle with how to pray,
I fall back to asking for strength
to cope with whatever is to come,
rather than pray for what I hope won’t happen –
my prayer as someone terrified,
worried and weak.

How is it with God, in whom all things are possible,
even He asked for the cup to be taken,
knowing it would remain in His Hands.
His will
would be done,
even when terrified,
worried, and weary.

So instead of closing off,
as I would have done,
not wanting to go somewhere
I don’t want to be,
He opened up Himself
like a unfolding leaf,
the earth becoming His flesh,
His flesh one with the tree.

And it was all right.
It will always be
all right.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Restless in Winter’s Grip

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This morning’s sun is not the honey light
of summer, thick with golden dust and slow
as syrup pouring from a jug. It’s bright,
but thin and cold, and slanted steep and low
across the hillsides. Frost is blooming white,
these flowers forced by icy winds that blow
as hard this morning as they blew all night.
Too cold for rain, but far too dry for snow.

And I am restless, pacing to and fro
enduring winter’s grip that holds us tight.
But my camellias, which somehow know
what weather to expect—they’re always right—
have broken bud. Now scarlet petals glow
outside the window where I sit and write.
~Tiel Aisha Ansari “Camellias” from Dervish Lions

Near a shrine in Japan he’d swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or — we had no way of knowing — he’d swept the path
between fallen camellias.
~Carol Snow “Tour”

Camellias are hardy enough to withstand winter’s low temperatures, defying freezing winds and hard frosts with their resilience.

On windy days, full and ripe camellia blooms plop to the ground without warning, scattering about like a nubby floral throw rug. They are too bulky to step on, so the tendency is to pick a path around them, allowing them the dignity of a few more days before being swept off sidewalks.

In one sense, these fallen winter blossoms are holy messengers, gracing the paths the living must navigate. They are grounding for the passersby, a reminder our own time to let go will soon come. As we restlessly pursue our days and measure our steps, we respectfully make our way around their fading beauty.

An unexpected blessing is bestowed in the camellia’s restlessness:
in their budding,
in their breaking open,
in their full blooming,
in their falling to earth,
in their ebbing away.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.
Isaiah 40:7-8

Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.
They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
Do you fix your eye on them?
Job 14: 1-3

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Savor the Bitterness of Earth and Ashes

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This is a litany to earth and ashes,
to the dust of roads and vacant rooms,
to the fine silt circling in a shaft of sun,
settling indifferently on books and beds.
This is a prayer to praise what we become,
“Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.”
Savor its taste—the bitterness of earth and ashes.
~Dana Gioia from “The Litany”

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T.S. Eliot from “The Wasteland”

…let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
~Jan Richardson from “Blessing the Dust” in Circle of Grace

God’s people are reminded today, through dust and ashes,
that our stay here is temporary.

This reality recently became very clear to me.
So I follow Christ where He goes,
He paused to gather me in – one more lost sheep.

This earth quakes and floods and burns and shatters,
as does my frail human heart in all its dustiness.

His light splinters, spilling into colors and hues through that misty veil -God’s people are smudged with no longer bitter ash,
no longer opaque, but shining luminous and eternal and glorious.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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A Kind and Familiar Path

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I slip, grabbing twigs as I fall,
assaulting an innocent hemlock—
skinning my palms, arms, legs,
landing muddy-bruised and sore,
taken down by a path I thought kind—
a familiar wooded walk hiding its ice
beneath a sheath of old, dried leaves.
~Laura Foley, “Spring Treachery” from It’s This

“Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”
….I met his gaze and I did not blink.
“Words of comfort,” I said.
~Abraham Verghese from Cutting for Stone

I was walking a kind and familiar path, part of my usual daily walk, not paying much attention when I stepped on what appeared a solid and trustworthy surface.

The danger was hidden from my eyes; I had no idea it would take me down, put me on my knees, render me helpless.

I believed I couldn’t be rendered helpless by something I trusted like the back of my hand … or the interior of my heart vessels.

But treacherous surfaces are almost anywhere we are least expecting. And so are the helpers, ready and able and willing.

When I lost my grip, I felt hands and voices lifting and supporting me, pulling me to safety, encouraging me with hope and refuge.

And so I’m here to share this, richly blessed by those coming along side me – still walking this path I love, despite its hidden and sometimes deadly, dangers.

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Talk Softly to Your Heart

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The main thing is this– 
when you get up in the morning 
you must take your heart in your two hands. 
You must do this every morning. 
Then talk softly to your heart, don’t yell. 
Say anything but be respectful. 
Say–maybe say, Heart, little heart, 
beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. 
You can whisper also, Remember, remember. 
~Grace Paley from “The Art of Growing Older” in  Just As I Thought

Approaching seventy, she learns to live,
at last. She realizes she has not
accomplished half of what she struggled for,
that she surrendered too many battles
and seldom celebrated those she won.
Approaching seventy, she learns to live
without ambition: a calm lake face, not
a train bound for success and glory. For
the first time, she relaxes her hands on the
controls, leans back to watch the coming end.
Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of
the things she didn’t do, as much as the
things she did do. Did she sing a love song?
Approaching seventy, she learns to live
without wanting much more than the light in
the catbird window seat where, watching the
voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along.
~Marilyn Nelson “Bird Feeder” 

I’ve been learning in retirement to let go by relaxing my grip on the controls on the runaway train of ambition. This is a change for someone driven for decades to succeed in various professional and personal roles. 

I’m aware who I am is defined both by what I haven’t gotten done and what I managed to do. And now, at seventy years old, I hope I still have some time to explore some of those things I left undone.

Except I haven’t been as robust and healthy as I wish to be. For the past month, during very chilly weather and after a prolonged bout of bronchitis, I found I couldn’t tolerate the cold air outside or in the barn while I did daily chores. My chest strangely hurt.

I finally took myself to a cardiologist who was concerned with a number of risk factors in my family and my own history and arranged testing, which I flunked yesterday.

I ended up with two stents to open blockages in my main coronary artery, plus a night in the hospital. I spent the night thinking about blessings and what needs to happen in my life now:

Reflecting with gratitude on being alive by the grace of our Lord.
Holding my heart gently and treating it well.
Humming as I go. 
Just sitting when I wish but walking when I must.
Watching out the window for the real twitters and tweeters in this crazy noisy world.
Loving up those around me.

It’s sweet to remember why I’m here. I’ve been given a new chance to enjoy every moment.

So after a lifetime of getting mostly A’s, flunking isn’t always bad.

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Things to Be Done

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There are many things to be done today
and it’s a lovely day to do them in

Each thing a joy to do
and a joy to have done

I can tell because of the calm I feel
when I think about doing them

I can almost hear them say to me
Thank you for doing us

And when evening comes
I’ll remove my shoes and place them on the floor

And think how good they look
sitting?… standing?… there

Not doing anything
~ Ron Padgett “Inaction of Shoes” from Collected Poems.

Every day after work he’d sit in his armchair
with its antimacassar and its plush burgundy velour
and she’d kneel on the floor to unfasten the laces,
loosen the tongues, and lift out his feet.
When I was ten I stayed for a week
and did it for her. He thought I did it 
for him.
~Andrea Hollander Budy “My Grandmother Taking Off My Grandfather’s Shoes” from When She Named Fire

I did not grow up in a household that took time off.  Time was redeemed by work, and work was noble and honorable and proved we had a right to exist.

Vacation road trips were rare and almost always associated with my father’s work.  When he came home from his desk job in town, he would immediately change into his farm clothes and put in several hours of work outside, summer or winter, rain or shine, light or dark.

My mother did not work in town while we were children, but worked throughout her day inside and outside the house doing what farm wives and mothers need to do: growing, hoeing, harvesting, preserving, washing, cleaning, sewing, and most of all, being there for us.

As kids, we had our share of chores that were simply part of our day as our work was never done on a farm. When we turned ten, we began working for others: babysitting, weeding, barn and house cleaning, berry picking.  I figure I put in over 60 years of gainful employment – there were times I worked four part-time jobs at once because that was what I could put together to keep things together.

I know I’ve missed out on much of life being a “nose to the grindstone” person.

Now retired, I try a different way to redeem my time: to notice, to record, to observe, to appreciate beauty that still exists in the midst of chaos and cataclysm..

Life isn’t all about non-stop labor, yet we get on with our work because work is about showing up when and where we are needed.

And we are always needed, by someone, somewhere, somehow. That’s the reason why we’re here.

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