Category: Community

The Fire and Rose Are One

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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 – from “Little Gidding” from the Four Quartets

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”

As a 3rd grader 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, our stillness, and our grief.

For the twenty-two years since 9/11/01, our flag has spent significant time at half mast, most often due to our own home-grown mass shooting terrorism. When I see it flying low, 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; we certainly are not stilled when 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 these prescient words of the Four Quartets in the midst of the WWII German bombing raids that destroyed so many 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. 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 the summer Rose of beauty and fragrance rise again?

We must return, as people of faith to Eliot’s still point to which we are called on a remembrance 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.

Only then will His Rose bloom, once again recognizable.  

“Zero Summer” imagines the unimaginable horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yet points to epiphanic awakening that transcend human imagination at the same time. T.S. Eliot, who coined this term in his “Four Quartets,” longed for that eternal summer, birthed out of the “still point,” where imagination is met with grace and truth.
~Makoto Fujimura

“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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Heading Toward Whatever is Beyond

barnstormingblog4 Comments

The fern fronds glow with a clean, green light,
and I lift one and point out the spores, curled
like sleep on the back, the rows so straight,
so even, that I might be convinced of Providence
at this moment. My daughter is seven.
She looks at the spores, at the leaf, at the plant,
at this wise, wide forest we are in, and sighs
at my pointing out yet another Nature Fact.
But look, I say, each one is a baby ready
to grow. Each one can become its own fern.
But she is already moving down the path
toward the bridge and whatever’s beyond.
~Gillian Wegener “Nature Walk” from This Sweet Haphazard

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
~Robert Frost “For Once, Then, Something”

I took many nature walks by myself as a kid living on 7 acres of woods and pasture. There wasn’t much that I didn’t scrutinize carefully throughout the seasons, keeping track of how things changed, died, reappeared and thrived.

I knew the woods of my childhood would not be my forever home as that home was sold after my parents’ divorce. I dwelled for nearly a decade in the city before settling in with my husband on this rural road over thirty years ago. We want to remain here for as long as we are able to manage it.

What I see on my work around our farm is what I share here. Some of you like the nature walks I offer. Others have moved on ahead of me, heading to the bridge to a destination beyond.

I understand that need to move on. I’ve done it as well.

Those of you who stick with me on my walk, day in and day out – you are very special to me. I hear from some of you (thank you!) every day, when you see your reflection in the waterwell of these photos and words.

Most of you are too shy or busy or don’t think it matters that I know you have seen and read and listened what I post here. In fact, I love to know you have visited. If you haven’t connected with me for awhile or never at all, I appreciate knowing if:
for once, then, something touched you here.

That indeed is the truth – our walk together, for now, is a blessing. The bridge to whatever is beyond will be waiting when we’re ready.

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Becoming a Skeleton of Its Summer Self

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Toward the end of August I begin to dream about fall, how
this place will empty of people, the air will get cold and
leaves begin to turn. Everything will quiet down, everything
will become a skeleton of its summer self. Toward

the end of August I get nostalgic for what’s to come, for
that quiet time, time alone, peace and stillness, calm, all
those things the summer doesn’t have. The woodshed is
already full, the kindling’s in, the last of the garden soon

will be harvested, and then there will be nothing left to do
but watch fall play itself out, the earth freeze, winter come.
~David Budbill, “Toward the End of August” from Tumbling Toward the End.

As the calendar page flipped to September this past week, I felt nostalgic for what is coming, especially for our grandchildren who are starting new classes tomorrow.

Summer is filled with so much overwhelming activity due to ~18 hours of daylight accompanying weeks of unending sunny weather resulting in never-enough-sleep.  Waking on a summer morning feels so brim full with possibilities: there are places to go, people to see, new things to explore and of course, a garden and orchard always bearing and fruiting out of control.

As early September days usher us toward autumn, we long for the more predictable routine of school days, so ripe with new learning opportunities. One early September a few years ago, my teacher friend Bonnie orchestrated an innovative introduction to fifth grade by asking her students, with some parental assistance, to make (from scratch) their own personalized school desks that went home with them at the end of the year. These students created their own learning center with their brains and hands, with wood-burned and painted designs, pictures and quotes for daily encouragement.

For those students, their desks will always represent a solid reminder of what has been and what is to come.

So too, I welcome September’s quieting times ushering in a new cool freshness in the air as breezes pluck and toss a few drying leaves from the trees.  I will watch the days play themselves out rather than feeling I must direct each moment.  I can be a sponge, ready to take in what the world is trying to teach me.

And so I am whispering hush … to myself.

Goodnight August, goodnight summer, goodnight leaves,
goodnight garden, goodnight moon, goodnight air,
goodnight noises everywhere.

Bonnie’s student-made desks

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Ant Trudges While Grasshopper Sings

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‘Ant, look at me!’ a young Grasshopper said,
As nimbly he sprang from his green, summer bed,
‘See how I’m going to skip over your head,
And could o’er a thousand like you!
Ant, by your motion alone, I should judge
That Nature ordained you a slave and a drudge,
For ever and ever to keep on the trudge,
And always find something to do.

‘Oh! there is nothing like having our day,
Taking our pleasure and ease while we may,
Bathing ourselves in the bright, mellow ray
That comes from the warm, golden sun!
While I am up in the light and the air,
You, a sad picture of labor and care!
Still have some hard, heavy burden to bear,
And work that you never get done.

‘I have an exercise healthful, and good,
For timing the nerves and digesting the food—
Graceful gymnastics for stirring the blood
Without the gross purpose of use.
Ant, let me tell you ‘t is not a la mode,
To plod like a pilgrim and carry a load,
Perverting the limbs that for grace were bestowed,
By such a plebeian abuse.

‘While the whole world with provisions is filled,
Who would keep toiling and toiling to build
And lay in a store for himself, till he ‘s killed
With work that another might do?
Come! drop your budget and just give a spring.
Jump on a grass-blade and balance and swing.
Soon you’ll be light as a gnat on the wing,
Gay as a grasshopper, too!’

Ant trudged along while the grasshopper sung,
Minding her business and holding her tongue,
Until she got home her own people among;
But these were her thoughts on the road.
‘What will become of that poor, idle one
When the light sports of the summer are done?
And, where is the covert to which he may run
To find a safe winter abode?

‘Oh! if I only could tell him how sweet
Toil makes my rest and the morsel I eat,
While hope gives a spur to my little black feet,
He’d never pity my lot!
He’d never ask me my burden to drop
To join in his folly—to spring, and to hop;
And thus make the ant and her labor to stop,
When time, I am certain, would not.

‘When the cold frost all the herbage has nipped,
When the bare branches with ice-drops are tipped,
Where will the grasshopper then be, that skipped,
So careless and lightly to-day?
Frozen to-death! ‘a sad picture’ indeed,
Of reckless indulgence and what must succeed,
That all his gymnastics ca ‘nt shelter or feed,
Or quicken his pulse into play.

‘I must prepare for a winter to come.
I shall be glad of a home and a crumb,
When my frail form out of doors would be numb,
And I in the snow-storm should die.
Summer is lovely, but soon will be past.
Summer has plenty not always to last.
Summer’s the time for the ant to make fast
Her stores for a future supply!’
~Hannah Flagg Gould “The Grasshopper and the Ant”

I did not grow up in a household that took time off. We were trudgers.

When my dad 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 twelve, we began working for others: babysitting, weeding, barn and house cleaning, berry picking.  I have now done over 56 years of gainful employment – at times holding part-time jobs at once because that was what I could put together to keep things together.

An absolutely dedicated trudger.

Now in retirement, my work is about showing up to do what is needed where I am needed. There is a sweetness to trudging that I’ve not known before.

Perhaps it is finding the blend of trudger ant and celebrant grasshopper in the form of the peaceful, gentle and colorful ladybug – doing its job of protecting the garden from harmful intruders.

Truly we should strive to emulate a creature who is welcome wherever it may be found.

Ladybugs are possibly the only non-controversial subject left in the world. You can start a ladybug conversation with a total stranger without getting hit in the mouth.
~Charles Harper

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An Awe-filled Quiet

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A dark mist lay over the Black Hills, and the land was like iron. At the top of ridge I caught sight of Devil’s Tower upthrust against the gray sky as if in the birth of time the core of the earth had broken through its crust and the motion of the world was begun. There are things in nature that engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; Devil’s Tower is one of them.
~N.Scott Momaday in The Way to Rainy Mountain

Over the years we have made many cross-country road trips, passing by the turn-off to Devil’s Tower in eastern Wyoming because there was urgency to get where we needed to go. Occasionally we would see it hazy in the far distance, so I could say I had “seen it” but I really had not seen it, according to my Stanford professor N. Scott Momaday.

Scott is from the Kiowa tribe. In his language, this rock formation is named Tso-i-e or “standing on a rock.” For him and his people, it is sacred ground. The Cheyenne, Crow, Lakota, Shoshone, and Arapahoe all revere this rock monolith although most tribal members did not live near enough to see it themselves, but the legends traveled many miles through the generations through oral tradition.

Scott taught an unforgettable class on Native American Mythology and Lore I took 50 years ago as a 19 year old sophomore. He has a commanding presence, a booming resonant voice for story telling, a predilection for the poetry of Emily Dickinson and a hankering since childhood to be a character in the stories of Billy the Kid. The first day of class, he introduced us to Tso-i-e first and foremost. He told us his grandmother’s story passed to her from her grandparents:

“Eight children were there at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified.; they ran and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper.”

A few years ago, we finally made time to see the Tower up close. For me, this “close encounter” was meant to connect the dots from my class and to understand more fully the spiritual background of the Plains people as our son had lived and taught on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for two years.

The Tower surely is holy ground for us all – we are diminished in its presence. It disquiets the heart with its awful grandeur and sheer other-worldliness. In its own way, it is as resonant as Scott’s captivating stories about its origins, yet remains a reminder of the ever-changing impermanence of geologic formations.

We need more holy places in our lives even as they (and we) change with the sands and winds of time. We need more awe-filled awful quiet in our hearts.

So we continue to tell the sacred stories, generation to generation, never forgetting Who set the world in motion.

Making for the Light

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Let us go forward quietly,
forever making for the light,
and lifting up our hearts in the knowledge
that we are as others are
and that others are as we are,
and that it is right to love one another
in the best possible way –
believing all things,
hoping for all things,
and enduring all things…
~Vincent Van Gogh in Letter to Theo Van Gogh – 3 April 1878

Yet another racially motivated killing appeared in the headlines today. So much collective societal energy is spent emphasizing, elaborating, indeed celebrating our diverse differences. If anything, this separates us rather than unites us, whether it be issues of race, culture, religion, political leanings or sexuality.

Yet we are alike far more than we are different. Despite the variety inherent in all living creatures, we share remarkable similarities deep in our cellular functions – mirror images of each other, intentionally created in the image of God.

“…we are as others are
and that others are as we are,
and that it is right to love one another
in the best possible way –“

Each of us are born from the womb of our mother and each of us will die to dust someday. Those bookends to our lives bind the pages of our lives together, rather than tear us apart.

For some, similarities are not welcome – many hesitate to admit it is true, desiring to maintain distance and disagreement.

Can we make for the Light, enduring this painful journey together? Can we be bound by striving for unity? Can we agree to agree rather than disagree – it is right and true and worthy to love one another just as we are loved by our Creator?

A Purple Blemish

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Her body is not so white as
anemone petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.

Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness.  Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish.  Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over —
or nothing.
~William Carlos Williams — “Queen Anne’s Lace” (1919)

We all arise from a single stem, branching off in countless directions, a thousand million hues and shapes and types.

We reflect the sun’s light and the Light of the Son.

There can be no question of whiteness nor a pious wish for purity – we are all purple-blemished right at the heart.

We bleed together, my friends, as He did for us.

We bleed together.

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Sliding to Safety

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I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou

Years ago, our small church, Wiser Lake Chapel,  once belonged to a summer co-ed softball league, along with 8 other churches and a few local businesses. This was a traditional Thursday evening summer activity for a generation or longer. Couples met for the first time on the ball fields and eventually married. Babies attended games in back packs and strollers and eventually were catching at home plate.  Relatives going to different churches found themselves on opposing teams yelling good-natured insults. During our years of participation in the league, there were a few bopped heads, abrasions, sprained fingers and one broken leg as part of the deal. Hot dog roasts and ice cream sundaes were the after-game rewards.

Nothing was quite as wonderful as how a team recreated itself year after year. It was thrown together by our coach Brenda in a mere two weeks prior to the season starting, with the youngest members needing to be at least age 14 with no upper age limit; we’ve had our share of 70+ year olds on the team over the years. Some ball players were raw beginners having never played catch or swung a bat outside of school PE class. A few others had extensive history of varsity fastpitch in school or other community league play so meant business when they strolled out on the diamond. During a few years, we were a force to be reckoned with when we had over a dozen local university students join our church who were incredible players and power hitters.

It was the ultimate diverse talent pool.

A different dynamic exists in church league softball compared to Little League, Pony League, minors or majors when you watch or play. Sure, there still are slow pitch teams that stock their ranks with “invitation-only” players, reserving the best and most athletic so there is a real chance at the trophy at the end of the summer. Churches like ours, a mere 150 people average weekly Sunday attendance, had a “come one, come all” attitude, just to make sure we avoided forfeiting by not having enough players week after week. We always did have enough.  In fact we had more players than we could find positions for. And we had a whole bleacher full of fans, dedicated to cheering and clapping for anything and everything our players did, whether it was a pop-up foul ball, a strike out swing, a missed catch, or an actual hit. We loved it all and wanted our players to know they were loved too, no matter what they did or what happened.

I think that was why the players and fans came back to play week after week, though we hadn’t won a game in years. We rooted and hollered for each other, got great teaching and encouragement from our fantastic coach, and the players’ skills did improve year to year despite months of inactivity. We had a whole line up of pre-14 year olds eager to grow old enough to play, just so they could be a part of the action.

Why did it not matter that we didn’t win games? We were winning hearts, not runs. We were showing our youngsters that the spirit of play is what it is all about, not about the trophy at the end. We were teaching encouragement in the face of errors, smiles despite failure, joy in the fellowship of people who love each other–spending an evening together week after week.

We are family; family picks you up and dusts you off when you’ve fallen flat on your face during your slide to base while still being called “out.”

Most of all, I see this as a small piece of God’s kingdom in action.  Although we no longer gather for church league baseball — the competition got too fierce (and hazardous to our health), the rules too tight — we still gather for a pick-up game now and then, just to remind ourselves of who we are and what we are about.

Our coach models Jesus’ acceptance of all at the table, and embodies the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.

Our players are the eager, the ambivalent, the accurate, the flawed, the strong, the weak, the fast, the slow: chosen for the game even if they were completely inadequate to the task at hand, volunteering to be part of each moment as painful as it can sometimes be.

The cheering from the bleachers comes as if from heaven itself:
Do not be afraid. Good will to all. We are well pleased. Amen!

We’re sliding to home plate, running as hard as we can, diving for safety, covered in the dust and mire and blood of living/dying and will never, ever be called “out”.

Let’s play ball.

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Put Me in a Quilt

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Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only
this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers

And cuddle
near
~Nikki Giovanni “Quilts”

I make them warm to keep my family from freezing;
I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking.
–From the journal of a prairie woman, 1870



To keep a husband and five children warm,
she quilts them covers thick as drifts against
the door. Through every fleshy square white threads
needle their almost invisible tracks; her hours
count each small suture that holds together
the raw-cut, uncolored edges of her life.
She pieces each one beautiful, and summer bright
to thaw her frozen soul. Under her fingers
the scraps grow to green birds and purple
improbable leaves; deeper than calico, her mid-winter
mind bursts into flowers. She watches them unfold
between the double stars, the wedding rings.
~Luci Shaw “Quiltmaker”

When I no longer have strength
or the usefulness to perform my daily tasks,
piece me up and sew me into a greater whole
along with pieces of others who are also fading.

We are so much better together,
so much more colorful and bold,
becoming art and function in our fraying state.

Full of warmth and beauty and fun
covering all who sleep and love and cuddle,
or in their frailty may drift off to heaven on a quilt-cloud
as their last breath is breathed.

~~click each quilt to enlarge and admire the handiwork~~

thank you again to the talented quilters displaying their art at the NW Washington Fair in Lynden
(see previous years’ work here, here, here, here, here, and here )

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Help Along the Road

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I dreamed that heaven
was a long road

populated by people
we didn’t necessarily
know, or like, or
agree with

and who
we didn’t expect
any help from.

… But we did.

We all helped
each other
along that road.
~Sara Barkat “Heaven” from The Sadbook Collections

This is the country road we live on. I know where it ends to the east: at the very edge of the Cascade foothills, right in the middle of a small tribal nation trying to survive challenging economic times on their reservation land.

Heading west from here, there is another tribal nation trying to survive.

In between are farmers who are having to sell their dairy herds because milk prices aren’t keeping up with the cost of maintaining their business. There are families now without sustainable wage employment because large industries have pulled up stakes and closed their doors. There is land that is overpriced as people flee the chaos and lawlessness of the cities, hoping to find peace and quiet.

There is much sadness along the road we travel that leads to heaven, but as a diverse people who struggle together on this journey, we take turns carrying one another when one has what another does not. We still have the sun and the rain and the soil, the turning of the seasons and the rhythm of a sun that rises up and comes down.

On our way to there, why not share?

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