In a daring and beautiful creative reversal, God takes the worse we can do to Him and turns it into the very best He can do for us. ~Malcolm Guite from The Word in the Wilderness
Samwise, one of our two Cardigan Corgis who recently passed away in his sleep at a ripe old corgi age, always did twice daily barn chores with me.
He would run up and down the aisles as I fill buckets, throw hay, and he’d explore the manure pile out back and the compost pile and check out the dove house and have stand offs with the barn cats (which he always lost).
We had our routine. When I got done with chores, I whistled for him and we headed to the house.
We always returned home together.
Except this particular morning. I whistled when I was done and his furry little fox face didn’t appear as usual. I walked back through both barns calling his name, whistling, no signs of Sam. I walked to the fields, I walked back to the dog yard, I walked the road (where he never ever goes), I scanned the pond where he once fell in as a pup (yikes), I went back to the barn and glanced inside every stall, I went in the hay barn where he likes to jump up and down on stacked bales, looking for a bale avalanche he might be trapped under, or a hole he couldn’t climb out of. Nothing.
I’m really anxious about him at this point, fearing the worst. He was nowhere to be found, utterly lost.
Passing through the barn again, I heard a little faint scratching inside one Haflinger’s stall, which I had just glanced in 10 minutes before. The mare was peacefully eating hay. Sure enough, there was Sam standing with his feet up against the door as if asking what took me so long. He must have scooted in when I filled up her water bucket, and I closed the door not knowing he was inside, and it was dark enough that I didn’t see him when I checked. He and his good horse friend kept it their secret.
Making not a whimper or a bark when I called out his name, passing that stall at least 10 times looking for him, he just patiently waited for me to open the door and set him free.
It’s a Good Friday.
The lost was found even when he never felt lost to begin with.
Yet he was lost to me. And that is all that matters. We have no idea how lost we are until someone comes looking for us, doing whatever it takes to bring us home.
Sam was just waiting for a closed door to be opened. And today, of all days, that door is thrown wide open.
photo by Nate Gibson
Though you are homeless Though you’re alone I will be your home Whatever’s the matter Whatever’s been done I will be your home I will be your home I will be your home In this fearful fallen place I will be your home When time reaches fullness When I move my hand I will bring you home Home to your own place In a beautiful land I will bring you home I will bring you home I will bring you home From this fearful fallen place I will bring you home I will bring you home ~Michael Card
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Like a storm of hornets, the little white planets layer and relayer as they whip around in their high orbits, getting more and more dense before they crash against our crust. A maelstrom of ferocious little fists and punches, so hard to believe once it’s past. ~Kay Ryan “Hailstorm”
Several years ago, a brief and unexpected Palm Sunday storm blew through with gusts of southerly winds, thunder, horizontal rain and noisy hale. I had left the north/south center aisle doors wide open after morning chores, so the storm also blew through the barn. Hay, empty buckets, horse halters and cat food were strewn about. The Haflinger horses stood wide-eyed and fretful in their stalls as the hail on the metal roof hammered away.
Once I got the doors closed and secured, all was soon made right. The horses relaxed and got back to their meals and things felt normal again.
Today, Holy Monday morning, all seems calm but nevertheless, somewhat beaten up. The barn is still there, the roof still on, the horses where they belong and all seems to be as it was before the barnstorming wind. Or so it might appear.
This wind heralds another storm beginning this week that hits with such force that I’m knocked off my feet, blown away, and left bruised and breathless. No latches, locks, or barricades are strong enough to protect me from what will come over the next few days.
Yesterday he rode in on a donkey softly, humbly, and wept at what he knew must come.
Today, he overturns the tables in his fury.
Tomorrow he describes the destruction that is to happen, yet no one understands.
Wednesday, a woman boldly anoints him with precious oil, as preparation, ignoring his disciples’ rebukes.
On Thursday, he kneels before his friends, pours water over their dusty feet, presides over a simple meal, and later, abandoned, sweats blood in agonized prayer.
By Friday, all culminates in a most perfect storm, transforming everything in its path, leaving nothing untouched, the curtain torn, the veil removed.
The silence on Saturday is deafening.
Next Sunday, the Son rises, sheds his shroud and neatly folds what is no longer needed. He is nearly unrecognizable in his glory.
He calls my name, my heart burns within me at his words and I can never be the same again.
I am, once again and always, barnstormed to the depths of my soul. Doors flung open wide, my roof pulled off, everything of no consequence blown away and now replaced, renewed and reconciled.
May it be done this week as he has said, again and yet again, year after year, life after life.
another barnstorming
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
1. Courage, my soul, and let us journey on, Tho’ the night is dark, it won’t be very long. Thanks be to God, the morning light appears, And the storm is passing over, Hallelujah!
Chorus: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The storm is passing over, Hallelujah!
2. Billows rolling high, and thunder shakes the ground, Lightnings flash, and tempest all around, Jesus walks the sea and calms the angry waves, And the storm is passing over, Hallelujah! [Chorus]
3. The stars have disappeared, and distant lights are dim, My soul is filled with fears, the seas are breaking in. I hear the Master cry, “Be not afraid, ’tis I,” And the storm is passing over, Hallelujah! [Chorus]
4. Soon we shall reach the distant shining shore, Free from all the storms, we’ll rest forevermore. Safe within the veil, we’ll furl the riven sail, And the storm will all be over, Hallelujah! [Chorus]
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The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go.
The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left To bear forsaken the place’s name.
No more it opened with all one end For teams that came by the stony road To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs And brush the mow with the summer load.
The birds that came to it through the air At broken windows flew out and in, Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh From too much dwelling on what has been.
Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf, And the aged elm, though touched with fire; And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm: And the fence post carried a strand of wire.
For them there was really nothing sad. But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, One had to be versed in country things Not to believe the phoebes wept. ~Robert Frost “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things”
Photo of Aaron Janicki haying with his Oberlander team in Skagit County – courtesy of Tayler RaeThe field of my childhood farm (1954-59) with the red barn visible on the right. The house was destroyed by fire in the mid-60s but the barn was sparedphoto by Harry Rodenberger
My family sold our first farm in East Stanwood, Washington, when my father took a job working for the state in Olympia, moving to supervising high school agriculture teachers rather than being an ag teacher himself.
It was a difficult transition for us all: we moved to a smaller home and a few acres, selling the large two story house, a huge hay barn and chicken coop as well as fields and a woods where our dairy cows had grazed.
Only a few years later, that old farmhouse burned down but the rest of the buildings were spared. It passed through a few hands and when we had occasion to drive by, we were dismayed to see how nature was taking over the place. The barn still stood but unused it was weathering and withering. Windows were broken, birds flew in and out, the former flower garden had grown wild and unruly.
This was the place I was conceived, where I learned to walk and talk, developing a love for wandering in the fields among the farm animals we depended upon. I remember as a child of four sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window at the sunrise rising over the woods and making the misty fields turn golden.
This land returned to its essence before the ground was ever plowed or buildings were constructed. It no longer belonged to our family (as if it ever did) but it forever belongs to our memories.
I am overly prone to nostalgia, dwelling more on what has been than what is now or what I hope is to come. It is easy to weep over the losses when time and circumstances reap something unrecognizable.
I may weep, but nature does not. The sun continues to rise over the fields, the birds continue to build nests, the lilacs grow taller with outrageous blooms, and each day ends with a promise of another to come.
So I must dwell on what lies ahead, not what has perished in the ashes.
photo by Harry Rodenberger
Tell me, where is the road I can call my own That I left, that I lost So long ago? All these years I have wandered Oh, when will I know There’s a way, there’s a road That will lead me home After wind, after rain When the dark is done As I wake from a dream In the gold of day Through the air there’s a calling From far away There’s a voice I can hear That will lead me home Rise up, follow me Come away, is the call With the love in your heart As the only song There is no such beauty As where you belong Rise up, follow me I will lead you home
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The thing is to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again. ~Ellen Bass, “The Thing Is” from Mules of Love
...everything here seems to need us —Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little. Does the breeze need us? If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple. ~Ellen Bass from “The World Has Need of You” from Like a Beggar
Fallen leaves will climb back into trees. Shards of the shattered vase will rise and reassemble on the table. Plastic raincoats will refold into their flat envelopes. The egg, bald yolk and its transparent halo, slide back in the thin, calcium shell. Curses will pour back into mouths, letters un-write themselves, words siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair will darken and become the feathers of a black swan. Bullets will snap back into their chambers, the powder tamped tight in brass casings. Borders will disappear from maps. Rust revert to oxygen and time. The fire return to the log, the log to the tree, the white root curled up in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly into the lark’s lungs, answers become questions again. When you return, sweaters will unravel and wool grow on the sheep. Rock will go home to mountain, gold to vein. Wine crushed into the grape, oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in to the spider’s belly. Night moths tucked close into cocoons, ink drained from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds will be returned to coal, coal to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light to stars sucked back and back into one timeless point, the way it was before the world was born, that fresh, that whole, nothing broken, nothing torn apart. ~Ellen Bass “When You Return” from Like a Beggar
There is so much grief these days so much anger, so much loss of life, so much weeping.
How can we withstand this? How can we know, now, when we are barely able to breathe that we might know – at some point – we might have the stomach to love life again?
This time of year, no matter which way I turn, autumn’s kaleidoscope displays new patterns, new colors, new empty spaces as I watch the world die into itself once again.
Some dying is flashy, brilliant, blazing – a calling out for attention. Then there is the hidden dying that happens without anyone taking notice: just a plain, tired, rusting away letting go.
I spent this morning adjusting to the change in season by occupying myself with the familiar task of moving manure. Cleaning barn is a comforting chore, allowing me to transform tangible benefit from something objectionable and just plain stinky to the nurturing fertilizer of the future.
It feels like I’ve actually accomplished something.
As I scoop and push the wheelbarrow, I recalled another barn cleaning 24 years ago, just days before the world changed on 9/11/01.
I was one of three or four friends left cleaning over ninety stalls after a Haflinger horse event that I had organized at our local fairgrounds. Some people had brought their horses from over 1000 miles away to participate for several days, including a Haflinger parade through our town on a quiet Sunday morning.
There had been personality clashes and harsh words among some participants along with criticism directed at me as the organizer that I had taken very personally. As I struggled with the umpteenth wheelbarrow load of manure, tears stung my eyes and my heart.
I was miserable with regret, feeling my work had been futile and unappreciated.
One friend had stayed behind with her young family to help clean up the large facility and she could see I was struggling to keep my composure. Jenny put herself right in front of my wheelbarrow and looked me in the eye, insisting I stop for a moment and listen:
“You know, none of these troubles and conflicts will amount to a hill of beans years from now. People will remember a fun event in a beautiful part of the country, a wonderful time with their Haflingers, their friends and family, and they’ll be all nostalgic about it, not giving a thought to the infighting or the sour attitudes or who said what to whom. So don’t make this about you and whether you did or didn’t make everyone happy. You loved us all enough to make it possible to meet here and the rest was up to us. So quit being upset about what you can’t change. There’s too much you can still do for us.”
Jenny had no idea how wise her words were, even two days later, on 9/11.
During tough times since (and there have been plenty), Jenny’s advice replays, reminding me to cease seeking appreciation from others or feeling hurt when harsh words come my way.
She was right about the balm found in the tincture of time. She was right about giving up the upset in order to die to self and self absorption, and instead to focus outward.
I have remembered.
Jenny herself did not know that day she would subsequently spend six years dying while still loving life every day, fighting a relentless cancer that was only slowed in the face of her faith and intense drive to live.
She became a rusting leaf gone holy, fading imperceptibly over time, crumbling at the edges until she finally had to let go. Her dying did not flash brilliance, nor draw attention at the end. Her intense focus during the years of her illness had always been outward to others, to her family and friends, to the healers she spent so much time with in medical offices, to her firm belief in the plan God had written for her and those who loved her.
So Jenny let go her hold on life here. And we reluctantly let her go. Brilliance cloaks her as her focus is now on things eternal.
You were so right, Jenny. The hard feelings from a quarter century ago don’t amount to a hill of beans now. The words you spoke to me that day taught me to love life even when I have no stomach for it.
All of us did have a great time together a few days before the world changed. And manure transforms over time to rich, nurturing compost.
I promise I am no longer upset that I can’t change what is past nor the fact that you and so many others have now left us.
But we’ll catch up later.
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How much better it is to carry wood to the fire than to moan about your life. How much better to throw the garbage onto the compost, or to pin the clean sheet on the line, With a gray-brown wooden clothes pin. ~Jane Kenyon “The Clothespin”
Queen of my tub, I merrily sing, While the white foam rises high, And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring, And fasten the clothes to dry; Then out in the free fresh air they swing, Under the sunny sky.
I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls The stains of the week away, And let water and air by their magic make Ourselves as pure as they; Then on the earth there would be indeed A glorious washing-day!
Along the path of a useful life Will heart’s-ease ever bloom; The busy mind has no time to think Of sorrow, or care, or gloom; And anxious thoughts may be swept away As we busily wield a broom.
I am glad a task to me is given To labor at day by day; For it brings me health, and strength, and hope, And I cheerfully learn to say,— “Head, you may think; heart, you may feel; But hand, you shall work alway!” ~Louisa May Alcott “A Song from the Suds”
Silken web undulates, a lady’s private wash upon the wind. ~L.L. Barkat
All day the blanket snapped and swelled on the line, roused by a hot spring wind…. From there it witnessed the first sparrow, early flies lifting their sticky feet, and a green haze on the south-sloping hills. Clouds rose over the mountain….At dusk I took the blanket in, and we slept, restless, under its fragrant weight. ~Jane Kenyon “Wash”
We have a clothesline that I use several times a week to take advantage of sunlight, breezes, fresh air fragrance – all at no cost but the time it takes to carry laundry outside, hang it up with my ancient clothespins, and then pull it back down at the end of the day.
It is well worth the effort; I have been fortunate to always live where there is a line and clothespins.
This morning, I found someone had been very busy during the night, securing the clothespins to the line to make sure the pins could not escape. Each pin and hinge were laced to the line with silken threads clinging tightly, just in case a pin might consider escaping.
I looked for this industrious spider, as it had trekked down a long line, working its webby magic through numerous clothespins, yet it had descended and snuck away on this foggy Labor Day, not even waiting to see what might happen to all its work.
The old and weathered clothespins patiently wait for their next job, to pinch together what I give them to hold on to tomorrow while blowing in the wind. In the meantime, they cling to fresh life, gaily festooned with gossamer silk.
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The cousins are coming! Cousins, cousins. Here come the boys. Bedlam, mayhem, noise, noise, noise. Blow up the air mattresses, hide the breakable toys. Cousins, cousins. Here come the boys. ~John Forster and Tom Chapin“Cousins”
photo of a windy day — photo by Danyale Tammingaphoto of a windy day — photo by Nate Lovegren
When I was growing up, I got to see my cousins maybe once a year but never lived near extended family. It was always an exciting day when the cousins were coming for a visit, or we went to see them. Now as adults, I have sadly lost touch with several of them.
I’m particularly envious of the close relationships between ten cousins growing up on the same farm just down the road from us- essentially they live interchangeably between one house or the other. What a great way to grow up, with two families who will take you in whenever you want a change in scenery or siblings. If you are fighting with a brother or sister, you can hopefully find compatible cousins a few hundred yards away.
Now we have six grandchildren living far from one another. This week they are able to play altogether in the same room in our ordinarily quiet and boring home —-at times it is mayhem and noise noise noise, but wonderful happy giggles and games abound.
It is a perfect time to treasure these family ties between our grandchildren creating as much bedlam and mayhem as possible!
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My grandparents owned the land, worked the land, bound to the earth by seasons of planting and harvest.
They watched the sky, the habits of birds, hues of sunset, the moods of moon and clouds, the disposition of air. They inhaled the coming season, let it brighten their blood for the work ahead.
My husband and I met in the late 70’s while we were both in graduate school in Seattle, living over 100 miles away from our grandparents’ farms farther north in Washington. We lived farther still from my other grandparents’ wheat farm in Eastern Washington and his grandparents’ hog farm in Minnesota.
One of our first conversations together – the one that told me I needed to get to know this man better – was about wanting to move back to work on the land. We were descended from peasant immigrants from the British Isles, Holland and Germany – farming was in our DNA, the land remained under our fingernails even as we sat for endless hours studying in law school and medical school classes.
When we married and moved north after buying a small farm, we continued to work full time at desks in town. We’ve never had to depend on this farm for our livelihood, but we have fed our family from the land, bred and raised livestock, and harvested and preserved from a large garden and orchard. It has been a good balance thanks to career opportunities made possible by our education, something our grandparents would have marveled was even possible.
Like our grandparents, we watch in wonder at what the Creator brings to the rhythm of the land each day – the light of the dawn over the fields, the activity of the wild birds and animals in the woods, the life cycles of the farm critters we care for, the glow of the evening sun as night enfolds us. We are blessed by the land’s generosity when it is well cared for.
Now 46 years after that first conversation together about returning to farming, my husband and I hope to never leave the land. It brought us together, fed our family, remains imbedded under our fingernails and in our souls.
Each in our own time, we will settle even deeper.
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It can be a gift or a private kind of distress, depending on if you’ve found your purpose. My friend, a physician and farmer, blends her two passions into a life of caring.
Leaving her surgical gloves in the treatment room, she dons leather work gloves when she returns to the farm. This evening the old work gloves are nestled together on a bench by the back door
as if one couldn’t function without the other. They hold the form of her hands. The gloves are dirty, the leather wrinkled, a hole worn through the tip of the index finger, right hand.
Over years of service, gloves have protected her hands as she treated deep wounds in the clinic and in the barn. This gift! Dare I say, her work fits her like a glove? ~Lois Edstrom “Gift of Work” from A Fragile Light
Nothing much to look at lying on the shelf, one on top of the other, an old man resting his hands on a cane. Dried-out yellow cowhide, lines cut deep into the palms from stones, weeds pulled. Fingers crumpled, swollen like grub worms shoveled up in planting. An extra pair of hands helping with lawn work, flower beds, shrubs, whatever else comes along. A grief pulled on to bury the old cat some kid in a speeding pickup knocked out of the street like he’d kick a can. Or kneeling last fall to unearth the blooming rose suddenly plucked by an ice storm, then shaking rich compost loose from its twisted fingers still clenched, holding on for dear life. ~Ron Stottlemyer “Work Gloves”
My farm work gloves tend to look ragged at the end of a year of service. I always depend on being gifted a new pair at Christmas to start afresh. It can take awhile to break them in to the point where they feel like a “second skin.”
These gloves keep me from blistering while forking innumerable loads of smelly manure into wheelbarrows, but also help me unkink frozen hoses, tear away blackberry vines from fencing, pull thistle from the field and heavy hay bales from the haymow.
Over the years, I’ve gone through a few dozen work gloves which have protected my hands as I’ve cleaned and bandaged deep wounds on legs and hooves, pulled on foals during the hard contractions of difficult births, held the head of dying animals as they fall asleep one final time.
Without wearing my protective farm gloves over the years, my hands would be looking very much scarred up like my tired gloves do, full of rips and holes from the thorns and barbs of the world, sustaining scratches, callouses and blisters from the hard work of life.
But they don’t.
Thanks to these gloves, before I retired, I was presentable for my “day” work as a doctor where I would don a different set of gloves many times a day as I tended to my patients’ wounds and worry.
But my work gloves don’t tell my whole story of gratitude.
I’m thankful to a Creator God who doesn’t wear gloves when He goes to work in our world: -He gathers us up even when we are dirty, smelly, and unworthy. -He eases us into this life when we are vulnerable and weak, and carries us gently home as we leave this world, weak and vulnerable. -He holds us as we bleed from self and other-inflicted wounds. -He won’t let us go, even when we fight back, or try not to pay attention, or care who He is.
He hangs on to us for dear life.
And this God came to live beside us with hands just like ours~ tender, beautiful, easy-to-wound hands that bled because He didn’t need or want to wear gloves for what He came to do~
His hands bear evidence of His love…
photo of a plowman teamster’s hand by Joel De WaardAI image created for this post
contains these lyrics by Kim Andre Arnesen: Moving like the rise and fall of wings Hands that shape our calling voice On the edge of answers You’ve heard our cry, you’ve known our cry…
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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.
AI image created for this post
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