Category: truth

Another Way Home

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I do remember darkness, how it snaked
through the alders, their ashen flanks
in our high-beams the color of stone.
That hollow slap as floodwater hit
the sides of the car. Was the radio on?
Had I been asleep?
Sometimes you have to tell a story
your entire life to get it right.

Twenty-two and terrified, I had married you
but barely knew you. And for forty years
I’ve told this story wrong. In my memory
you drove right through it, the river
already rising on the road behind us,
no turning around.
But since your illness I recall it
differently. Now that I know it’s possible
to lose you, I’m finally remembering
it right. That night,
you threw that car in reverse,
and gunned it. You found us
another way home.
~Emily Ransdell, “Everywhere a River,” from New Letters

When life gets scary, we long for rescue as the world threatens to overwhelm us. And eventually it is true, this world will overwhelm us, and we’ll wonder how we will escape.

Where does our help come from?

It doesn’t always come from the direction we expect. Most often, we keep staring ahead, hoping somehow salvation lies just around the corner.

But salvation has been behind us all the while. We were created saved but need to believe it, live it out, share it with anyone open to listen.

We all need to trust in the Rescuer when we are stuck and flooded with life. It takes courage, faith and grace to be led home, either straight ahead or back the way we came.

Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 1:

Q.What is your only comfort in life and death?
A.That I am not my own, 1
but belong with body and soul,
both in life and in death, 
2to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. 
3He has fully paid for all my sins
with his precious blood, 
4and has set me free
from all the power of the devil. 
5He also preserves me in such a way 
6that without the will of my heavenly Father
not a hair can fall from my head; 
7indeed, all things must work together
for my salvation. 
8Therefore, by his Holy Spirit
he also assures me
of eternal life 
9and makes me heartily willing and ready
from now on to live for him

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In My Hunger

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I made for grief a leaden bowl
and drank it, every drop.
And though I thought I’d downed it all
the hurting didn’t stop.

I made of hope a golden sieve
to drain my world of pain.
Though I was sure I’d bled it dry
the void filled up again.

I made of words a silver fork
and stabbed love in the heart,
and when I found the sweetness gone
I chewed it into art.
~Luci Shaw “What I Needed to Do”

How can I stow away our hurt and grief
when it keeps refilling, leaking everywhere?
Where can hope be found when all feels hopeless?
When I have been loved beyond all measure,
with bleeding hands and feet and side;
why not turn to the Word,
its sweetness never exhausted
no matter how often I chew through it
in my hunger.

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Eavesdropping on Private Voices

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When I opened the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.
                   My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversation had ended
just before you arrived.
                                               I liked
the glimpse I had, though,
of their obscure
gestures. I liked the sound
of such private voices. Next time
I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open
the door by fractions, eavesdrop
peacefully.
~Denise Levertov, “Aware” from This Great Unknowing.

I need to be cautious or I also would be swallowed up inch by inch by a variety of vines surrounding our home and farm buildings. Between the ivy, Virginia creeper and our opportunistic ubiquitous blackberry vines, I’m mere audience to their varied plans of expansive world domination.

As part of generations of human creep, I can’t indict the vines as aggressive interlopers for going where no vine has gone before. Much human migration has been out of necessity due to inadequate food sources or inhospitable circumstances. Some is due to a spirit of adventure and desire for new places to explore. Nevertheless, we human vines end up dominating places where we may not be really welcome.

So we human vines whisper together conspiratorially about where to send out our tendrils next, never asking permission, only sometimes asking for forgiveness later.

I can’t help but listen to those private voices – one of which is my own – who feel discontented with the “here and now” — we suspect somewhere else may be better. Rather than choose to stay and flourish in place, we keep creeping and overwhelming our surroundings.

Dear human vines: creep gently with sensitivity for the ground you occupy. Don’t block the sun from others or quench yourself while others thirst. Be kind and make the spot you cover more beautiful than it was before.https://barnstorming.blog/new-book-available-almanac-of-quiet-days/

A book of beauty in words and photography

Nothing To Hold On To

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They were smooth ovals,   
and some the shade of potatoes—   
some had been moth-eaten   
or spotted, the maples   
were starched, and crackled   
like campfire.   

We put them under tracing paper   
and rubbed our crayons   
over them, X-raying   
the spread of their bones   
and black, veined catacombs.   

We colored them green and brown   
and orange, and   
cut them out along the edges,   
labeling them deciduous   
or evergreen.   

All day, in the stuffy air of the classroom,   
with its cockeyed globe,   
and nautical maps of ocean floors,   
I watched those leaves   

lost in their own worlds   
flap on the pins of the bulletin boards:   
without branches or roots,   
or even a sky to hold on to.
~Judith Harris “Gathering Leaves in Grade School”

They are more like us than we care to admit:
veined and ribbed,
some wide, some thin,
lots with sharp edges, others rounded,
a variety of colors and shapes,
twisting this way and that with the breeze,
over-eager to let go,
explore wide open spaces
yet finding themselves blown and broken
thrown far from home and roots
with nothing left to hold on to,
destined to dust,
longing to return to branch and connection.

Even so-
even so, when we are let go,
we are thinking:
oh, what a life!

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Unanswerable Questions

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Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~Carl Sandburg, “Under the Harvest Moon”

As we enter the season
of all that is lush and lovely
which starts to wither and decay before our eyes,
we know the flowers and trees aren’t alone.
Death, whispering within its gray night’s cloak,
has been stealing the young and old since time began,
but never as boldly as during a pandemic.
Millions of family members are left
with nothing but bittersweet memories
of their loved ones now buried deep.

The harvest moon – not nearly bright enough,
as a poor reflection of the sun –
mocks us who covet light
during a rampage of contagious illness and death.

As we endure the searing beauty of yet another dying season,
let us treasure those we protect through our care and concern.
Let us cherish the memories of those we’ve lost.
There can be only one answer to the unanswerable questions:
Love itself died to become Salvation,
an ever-sufficient Light that leads us home.

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We’ve Seen Nothing Yet
	


	
					

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Enter autumn as you would 
a closing door. Quickly, 
cautiously. Look for something inside 
that promises color, but be wary 
of its cast — a desolate reflection, 
an indelible tint.
~Pamela Steed Hill  “September Pitch”






























Summer begins to have the look
Peruser of enchanting Book
Reluctantly but sure perceives–
A gain upon the backward leaves





Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.





The eye begins its avarice
A meditation chastens speech
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.





Conclusion is the course of All
Almost to be perennial
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality.
~Emily Dickinson, Poem 65



































This hot summer now wanes, wistful;
it has the look of packing up,
and moving on
without bidding adieu
or looking back over its shoulder.





I wave goodbye without regret; it leaves behind a hot mess
of burned landscape and drought. 





Blustery winds have carried in darkening clouds
spread green leaves, chestnuts and walnuts everywhere,
loosened before their time.
Long overdue rain
gave us a good drenching
worth celebrating.





Overhead skies are heavily burdened
with clues of what more is coming:
earlier dusk,
the cool feel of moisture,
the deepening graying purplish hues,
the briskness of breezes.





There is no negotiation possible.
I steel myself and get ready,
wrapping myself in my perennial soft shawl of inevitability.





So autumn advances forth with its clouds,
taking up residence as summer moves out, 
bringing its own unique plans for redecorating
using an array of hues and textures.





The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.



































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The Impeded Stream
	


	
					

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It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.The world, the truth, is more abounding, more delightful, more demanding than we thought. What appeared for a time perhaps to be mere dutifulness … suddenly breaks open in sweetness — and we are not where we thought we were, nowhere that we could have expected to be. 
~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms,” in Standing By Words

























Who among us knows with certainty each morning
what we are meant to do that day
or where we are to go?

Or do we make our best guess by
putting one foot ahead of the other as we were taught
until the day is done and it is time to rest?





For me, over four decades, 
I woke baffled each day
that I was allowed
to eavesdrop on heartbeats,
touch tender bellies,
sew up broken skin,
set fractured bones,
listen to and through tears.





I woke humbled with commitment and duty
to keep going even when too tired,
to offer care even when rejected.
to keep striving even if impeded.





Doing that work, I learned that
obstacles will slow but cannot stop
the cascade of love and hope over the rocks of life.

My days overflow with the uncertainty
of what comes next:
finding my real work 
is to wade in deep, 
tumbling over the barriers
and still keep singing.  

Simply keep singing.










photo by Josh Scholten

























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Full of Mystery
	


	
					

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It’s strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you. 
~John O’Donohue from Anam Cara






























We must learn to acknowledge 
that the creation is full of mystery; 
we will never entirely understand it. 
We must abandon arrogance 
and stand in awe. 
We must recover the sense 
of the majesty of creation, 
and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. 
For I do not doubt that it is only 
on the condition of humility and reverence before the world 
that our species will be able to remain in it.
~Wendell Berry from  The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays






























How did we come here and how is it we remain?  





Even when the wind blows mightily, 
the waters rise, 
the earth shakes, 
the fires rage, 
the pandemic persists…





~we are here, granted another day to get it right. And will we?





It is strange to be here, 
marveling at the mystery around us – 
recognizing we are the ultimate mystery of creation, 
placed here as its witnesses, 
worshiping in humility, with reverence and obedience.





We don’t own what we see; 
we only own our awe.


































































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Generous Indefatigable Love
	


	
					

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And what if I never get it right,
this loving, this giving of the self
to the other? And what if I die

before learning how to offer
my everything? What if, though
I say I want this generous,

indefatigable love, what if
I forever find a way to hold
some corner back? I don’t want

to find out the answer
to that. I want to be the sun
that gives and gives until it burns out,

the sea that kisses the shore
and only moves away so that
it might rush up to kiss it again.
~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “And Again” from Hush




















The beach at Tohoku, Japan where the tsunami hit in 2011















What is it about us 
that always holds something back 
when loving others, 
keeping in reserve 
some little piece of ourselves 
that we can’t quite let go? 





Even so, we ourselves want to be loved 
wholly, fully, completely, unconditionally 
yet something in us doesn’t trust 
it could be true – 
we know how undeserving we are. 

When we are offered such
generous indefatigable love, 
we hold back part of ourselves 
because we are afraid
we’ll be left desolate, never to be filled again – 
a sun burned out and darkened, 
a shore left high and dry.





Once we experience our Creator’s love 
as wholly generous, 
completely tireless and persistent, 
unconditionally grace-filled,
we can stop fearing our emptiness.

He pours more than enough love into us
without holding back,
filling us so full that we might spill over to others,
again and again and again,
with our light and heart and spirit unbound.






































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The Soul’s Sap Quivers
	


	
					

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To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose,
Scentless, colourless, this!
Will it ever be thus (who knows?)
Thus with our bliss,
If we wait till the close?

Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:





An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.
~Christina Rossetti “Summer is Ended”

























The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?





We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
~T.S. Eliot – lines taken from “Little Gidding”






























As a grade school child in November 1963, I learned the import of the U.S. flag being lowered to half mast in response to the shocking and violent death of our President. The lowering of the flag was so rare when I was growing up, it had dramatic effect on all who passed by — our soul’s sap quivers — something very sad had happened to our country, something or someone had tragically ended, warranting our silence and our stillness.





For twenty years since 9/11/01, our flag has spent significant time at half mast, so much so that I’m befuddled instead of contemplative, puzzling over what the latest loss might be as there are so many, sometimes all happening in the same time frame.  We no longer are silenced by this gesture of honor and respect and we certainly are not stilled, personally and corporately instigating and suffering the same mistakes against humanity over and over again. 

We are so bent. Will we ever be mended again?





Eliot wrote the prescient words of the Four Quartets in the midst of the WWII German bombing raids that destroyed people and neighborhoods. Perhaps he sensed the destruction he witnessed would not be the last time in history that evil visits the innocent, leaving them in ashes. There would be so many more losses to come, not least being the horror of 9/11/01.





There remains so much more sadness to be borne, such abundance of grief that our world has become overwhelmed and stricken. Yet Eliot was right: we have yet to live in a Zero summer of endless hope and fruitfulness, of spiritual awakening and understanding.  Where is it indeed? When will rise again the summer Rose of beauty and fragrance?





We must return, as people of faith to Eliot’s still point to which we are called on a day such as today.  We must be stilled; we must be silenced. We must grieve the losses of this turning world and pray for release from the suffering we cause and we endure.  Only in the asking, only in the kneeling down and pleading, are we surrounded by God’s unbounded grace and His Rose may bloom recognizable again.   

































“There Are No Words” written on 9/11/2001
by Kitty Donohoe





there are no words there is no song
is there a balm that can heal these wounds that will last a lifetime long
and when the stars have burned to dust
hand in hand we still will stand because we must





in one single hour in one single day
we were changed forever something taken away
and there is no fire that can melt this heavy stone
that can bring back the voices and the spirits of our own





all the brothers, sisters and lovers all the friends that are gone
all the chairs that will be empty in the lives that will go on
can we ever forgive though we never will forget
can we believe in the milk of human goodness yet





we were forged in freedom we were born in liberty
we came here to stop the twisted arrows cast by tyranny
and we won’t bow down we are strong of heart
we are a chain together that won’t be pulled apart










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