Every valley drinks, Every dell and hollow: Where the kind rain sinks and sinks, Green of Spring will follow.
Yet a lapse of weeks Buds will burst their edges, Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks, In the woods and hedges;
But for fattening rain We should have no flowers, Never a bud or leaf again But for soaking showers;
We should find no moss In the shadiest places, Find no waving meadow grass Pied with broad-eyed daisies:
But miles of barren sand, With never a son or daughter, Not a lily on the land, Or lily on the water. ~Christina Georgina Rossetti from “Winter Rain” from Poems of Christina Rossetti (1904)
Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us. ~ Brian Jacques from Taggerung
It has been too cold to rain for weeks, a chilly dry spell with unmelted snow still piled in drifts along the roads.
Today is warm enough for bulbs to breathe more freely as they break through the crust, given permission to bloom and grow.
The world weeps when no longer frozen in place. A drizzle decorates with mist to welcome forth the fattening rain.
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The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing; as Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow began remembering all down her thick length, from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect loveliness of sow. ~Galway Kinnell “Saint Francis and the Sow”
None of us trust our own loveliness; we who are concerned with a blemish or an unusual shape of toe or nose.
Yet we are made as we are as an image of our Maker.
If we consider the purpose for which we’re created, then we are just as we should be – blessed with exact shape and size and spirit with which we serve and bring joy to others.
Our loveliness must be retold so we believe it thoroughly – as a bud is all about blossoming, a mother pours her love into the empty, a father leads and guides the lost.
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If God is adding to our spiritual stature, unfolding the new nature within us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at the petals with our coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative Hand alone. ~Henry Drummond from Beautiful Thoughts
The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. Psalm 119:130
…they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold. In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test. Psalm 106:13-14
I look for the forms things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility, how a thing will unfold:
not the shape on paper, though that, too, but the uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape as being available to any shape that may be summoning itself through me from the self not mine but ours. ~A. R. Ammons, from “Poetics” from A Coast of Trees
In the infinite wisdom of the Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper place in the unfolding of His divine plan. Nothing, however small, however strange, occurs without His ordering, or without its particular fitness for its place in the working out of His purpose; and the end of all shall be the manifestation of His glory, and the accumulation of His praise. B.B. Warfield
What is revealed by the unfolding of our faith is the depth and width and height and completeness inside.
Unfolding means no longer staying hidden and unknown, but opening ourselves up for all to see.
We become the page upon which God writes, the palette upon which God paints, the instrument that God plays, the song that God composes.
We become beautiful unfolding, each one of us, slowly, surely, gently, in the Hands of our Creator God.
He knows how each of us began as He was there from the beginning. He remains the center of our unfolding forever.
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This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
Alleluia! Alleluia!
A spotless rose is blowing, Sprung from a tender root, Of ancient seers foreshowing, Of Jesse promised fruit; Its fairest bud unfolds to light Amid the cold, cold winder, And in the dark midnight.
The rose which I am singing, Whereof Isaiah said, Is from its sweet root springing In Mary purest maid; For through our God’s great love and might,| The Blessed Babe she bare us In a cold, cold winter’s night. Alleluia!
How do I grieve what I can’t let go? It’s got a hold, it’s got a hold on me How do I mourn what I cannot know? It’s got a hold, it’s got a hold on me Jesus Christ, I don’t know what I am Am I a lost little lamb or a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Oh, my God, I don’t know what this was Am I the child of Your love or just chaos unfolding? How do I keep what I cannot find? I’m letting go, I’m letting go of You I’m letting go How do I love what I left behind? I’m letting go, I’m letting go of You I’m letting go Am I just chaos unfolding? Am I just chaos unfolding? Unknowing!
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She skimmed the yellow water like a moth, Trailing her feet across the shallow stream; She saw the berries, paused and sampled them Where a slight spider cleaned his narrow tooth. Light in the air, she fluttered up the path, So delicate to shun the leaves and damp, Like some young wife, holding a slender lamp To find her stray child, or the moon, or both. Even before she reached the empty house, She beat her wings ever so lightly, rose, Followed a bee where apples blew like snow; And then, forgetting what she wanted there, Too full of blossom and green light to care, She hurried to the ground, and slipped below. ~James Wright “My Grandmother’s Ghost” from Above the River: The Complete Poems
…now you have taught me (but how late) my lack. I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains. ~C.S. Lewis from “As the Ruin Falls”
Early one morning, we heard a sound, someone carefully pushing a door open, but both doors were closed. The air stirred. A whirring echoed through the room. That night we had left a small lamp on. In front of it, each time it orbited, the dark shape of a bird. ~Tina Barry from “Another Haunting” from I Tell Henrietta
when my father had been dead a week I woke with his voice in my ear I sat up in bed and held my breath and stared at the pale closed door
white apples and the taste of stone
if he called again I would put on my coat and galoshes ~Donald Hall “White Apples”
I saw my grandma’s ghost once.
She was the only grandparent I actually knew and who actually knew me — the others were lost before I was born or I was too young to realize what I had lost.
She had lived a hard life after her mother’s death when she was only 12, taking over the household duties for her father and younger brother while leaving school forever. She married too young to an abusive alcoholic, lost her first child to lymphoma at age 8 and took her three remaining children to safety away from their father. For a year, they lived above a seedy restaurant where she cooked seven days a week to make ends meet.
But there was grace too. The marriage somehow got patched together after Grandpa found God and sobriety – after his sudden death while sitting in church, Grandma’s faith never wavered. Her garden soil yielded beautiful flowers she planted and nurtured and picked to sell. Her children and grandchildren welcomed her many open armed visits and hugs.
She was busy planning her first overseas trip of a lifetime at age 72 when we noticed her eyes looked yellow. Only two weeks later she was bed-bound in unrelenting pain due to pancreatic cancer, gazing heaven-ward instead of Europe-bound. Her dreams had been dashed so quickly, she barely realized her itinerary and ultimate destination had unalterably changed.
I was nearly 16 at the time, too absorbed in my own teenage cares and concerns to really notice how quickly she was fading and failing like a wilted flower. Instead I was picking fights with my stressed parents, obsessing about taking my driver’s license driving test, distracted by all the typical social pressures of high school life.
Her funeral was unbearable for me as I had never really said goodbye – only one brief hospital visit when she was hardly recognizable in her anguish and jaundice. She looked so different, I hung back from her bedside. Regrettably, I didn’t even try to hold her hand.
Mere weeks after she had been lowered into the ground next to her husband and young daughter, she came back to me in a dream.
I was sleeping when the door opened into my dark bedroom, waking me as the bright hallway light pushed its way via a shimmering beam to my bed. My Grandma Kittie stood in my bedroom doorway, a fully recognizable silhouette backlit by the illumination. She silently stood there, looking at me.
Startled, I sat up in my bed and said to her, “Grandma, why are you here? You died. We buried you.”
She lifted her hands toward me in a gesture of reassurance and said:
“I want you to know I’m okay and always will be. You will be too.”
She then gave a little wave, turned and left, closing the door behind her. I woke suddenly with a gasp in my darkened bedroom and knew I had just been visited.
She hadn’t come to say goodbye or to tell me she loved me — I knew that already.
She had come to me, with the transient fragility of something with wings, floating gently back into the world to be my bridge. She blossomed in the light she brought with her.
Grandma came to mend my broken heart and plant it with peace.
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You’re in a better place I’ve heard a thousand times And at least a thousand times I’ve rejoiced for you
But the reason why I’m broken The reason why I cry Is how long must I wait to be with you
I close my eyes and I see your face If home’s where my heart is then I’m out of place Lord, won’t you give me strength To make it through somehow I’ve never been more homesick than now
Help me Lord cause I don’t understand your ways The reason why I wonder if I’ll ever know But, even if you showed me The hurt would be the same Cause I’m still here so far away from home
In Christ, there are no goodbyes And in Christ, there is no end
So I’ll hold onto Jesus With all that I have To see you again To see you again
And I close my eyes and I see your face If home’s where my heart is then I’m out of place Lord, won’t you give me strength To make it through somehow
Won’t you give me strength To make it through somehow Won’t you give me strength To make it through somehow I’ve never been more homesick than now ~Millard Bart Marshall
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Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. ~George Herbert “The Flower”
Our small church has several gracious and kind gardeners who share the produce from their yards each week to provide a fresh bouquet to sit on the table in front of our humble wooden pulpit.
It is a treat to walk into church and see what has been brought to the altar on Sunday morning. I have started to keep a photo album of these very special Sunday “pulpit posies.”
Why are these special? After all, almost every church displays a floral arrangement every Sunday.
These are special as most of these flowers are seeded, watered, fertilized and nurtured by one of our own, grown with love and caring, just as God cares for each of His children.
These are special as some are considered simple weeds, and are picked from ditches and hedges. They are still part of God’s creation and have a wild beauty that can be as breathtaking as a hothouse orchid.
These are special because they often go home with a congregant or visitor who will enjoy their loveliness for many more days, as if they represent the manifestation of God’s Word itself.
Some of us are dahlias, zinnias and roses. Some of us are rare gardenias and orchids. Most of us are dandelions, sagebrush, fireweed, burdock, and daisies populating the ditches.
No matter which roots we sprout from, or where, we are the wonders of this gardening God of love.
As we age, we bud afresh for Him.
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…the golden hour of the clock of the year. Everything that can run to fruit has already done so: round apples, oval plums, bottom-heavy pears, black walnuts and hickory nuts annealed in their shells, the woodchuck with his overcoat of fat. Flowers that were once bright as a box of crayons are now seed heads and thistle down. All the feathery grasses shine in the slanted light. It’s time to bring in the lawn chairs and wind chimes, time to draw the drapes against the wind, time to hunker down. Summer’s fruits are preserved in syrup, but nothing can stopper time. No way to seal it in wax or amber; it slides though our hands like a rope of silk. At night, the moon’s restless searchlight sweeps across the sky. ~Barbara Crooker “And Now it’s October” from Small Rain.
I do try to stopper time.
I try every day on this page, not to suspend time or render it frozen, but like flowers and fruit that wither, I want to preserve these moments – a few harvested words and pictures to sample some chilly day.
I offer it up to you now, a bit of fragrance, to sip of its sweetness as it glows, luminous in the bottle.
Let’s share. Leave it unstoppered. The passage of time is meant to be preserved this way.
Morning glories, pale as a mist drying, fade from the heat of the day, but already hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg hooks have found and are boarding them.
This could do for the sack of the imaginary fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they one by one vanish and leave still real only what has been snatched out of the spell.
I’ve never seen bees more purposeful except when the hive is threatened. They know the good of it must be grabbed and hauled before the whole feast wisps off.
They swarm in light and, fast, dive in, then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy with gold and sunlight. The line of them, like thin smoke, wafts over the hedge.
And back again to find the fleet gone. Well, they got this day’s good of it. Off they cruise to what stays open longer. Nothing green gives honey. And by now
Happiness is like a morning glory: yesterday’s won’t bloom again; tomorrow’s hasn’t opened yet. Only today’s flower can be enjoyed today. Be happy this very moment, and you’ll learn how to be happy always. ~ Goswami Kriyananda
I am alive — I guess — The Branches on my Hand Are full of Morning Glory — ~Emily Dickinson
Now I’m at seventy, no longer defined by ambition or career, I open up misty every morning with a new bloom, aware what I’ve left undone before wilting away.
A daily unfurling is a chance to: Start afresh. Welcome visitors. Hold hearts gently. Hum as I walk. Sometimes just sit in awed silence. Watch out the window. Feed those who look hungry.
Each new opening, each new day, so to leave a little less left undone.
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What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in your hand Ah, what then? ~Samuel Coleridge “What if you slept”
What do our dreams tell us of heaven?
Perhaps our dreams are lush with exotic flowers never imagined growing in earthly soil.
We hold tightly to a vision of divinely strange and beautiful, to remind us of heaven in our waking hours.
My dream of heaven blooms plain and simple, strangely beautiful in its familiarity, held firmly in my hand each day.
The dreams welcome me home, asleep or awake.
Ah, what then? What if heaven is the divine brought home in our hand?
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One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies On water; it glides So from the walker, it turns Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it; As a mantis, arranged On a green leaf, grows Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says They are not only yours; the beautiful changes In such kind ways, Wishing ever to sunder Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose For a moment all that it touches back to wonder. ~Richard Wilbur “The Beautiful Changes”
I am changed again, as I blend into autumn.
We can’t help but be transformed by everything around us, you know.
Beautiful is the dying meadow, the shedding of dry reddened leaves, the tidal wave of wildflowers nodding goodbye until next summer.
Beauty is beheld with wonder and then lost to the ages. We cannot change what we see, but treasure its transience, as we cherish our own brief moments here.
We hold on lightly, ready to let go when the time comes. What comes next is beautiful beyond imagining.
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sphere of pillowed sky one faceless gathering of blue...
… I’m tethered, and devoted to your raw and lonely bloom
my lavish need to drink your world of crowded cups to fill. ~Tara Bray “hydrangea” from Image Journal
Like in old cans of paint the last green hue, these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected behind the blossom clusters in which blue is not so much displayed as it’s reflected;
They do reflect it imprecise and teary, as though they’d rather have it go away, and just like faded, once blue stationery, they’re tinged with yellow, violet and gray;
As in an often laundered children’s smock, cast off, its usefulness now all but over, one senses running down a small life’s clock.
Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems, and in among these clusters one discovers a tender blue rejoicing in the green. ~Rainer Maria Rilke “Blue Hydrangea” Translation by Bernhard Frank
Dwelling within a mosaic of dying colors, these petals fold and collapse under the weight of the sky’s tears.
This hydrangea bears a rainbow of hues, once-vibrant promises of blue now fading to rusts and grays.
I know what this is like: the running out of the clock, feeling the limits of vitality.
Withering and drying, I’m drawn, thirsty for the beauty, to this waning artist’s palette.
To quench my thirst: from an open cup, an invitation, an everlasting visual sacrament.
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