Category: roots

The Sunrise Shall Visit Us: Like a Root Not Ready

barnstormingblog1 Comment

In the dark I rest,
unready for the light which dawns
day after day,
eager to be shared…
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.
~Denise Levertov from “Eye Mask”

photo by Joel DeWaard

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
~Isaiah 9:2

photo by Joel DeWaard

Take heart…
There is a power here in the bowels of the earth,
a “deeper magic,” as C.S. Lewis called it. 
Death is not given the final word.
Christ doesn’t need to turn east to greet the sunrise:
he is himself the Dawn by whose light we see light (Psalm 36:9). 
The sun will not set again. 
That was our last night.
Ever.
~Sarah Arthur from Introduction to Between Midnight and Dawn

Over this past week of gray rainy days that begin and end in an all-encompassing and, in some ways, comforting darkness, I am feeling quite “hunkered down.” 

I’m seeking shelter right now, surrounded like a root yet to sprout, needing time to ready myself for the power of the Light soon to come.

In the fullness of time, I’ll be called forth to merge with the Dawn.

Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love.
~George Herbert “The Call”

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily ad-free Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Flawless Grace

barnstormingblog1 Comment

The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”
~Wendell Berry “Grace”

If I’m confused (as I often am)
about where I’ve been,
where I am, where I’m going,
I look to the cycles of the seasons to be reminded
all things (and I) come round

what is barren will warm to the sun and bud,
what buds will open up in blossom,
what blossoms will grow lush and fruit,
what flourishes will feed, fade and fall,
come to rest and be still.

All things come round,
making the way clear.
Grace forges a path
my bones must follow.

To shine in His stillness.
How flawless His grace.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Timeless Sense of Time

barnstormingblog3 Comments

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall—
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life’s span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.
~May Sarton “The Work of Happiness”

Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea, 1947
Andrew Wyeth -Her Room

Some are eager to travel and roam, experiencing new places and unfamiliar scenery.

I leave home reluctantly now. Having settled in during the COVID years, I find happiness forming concentric rings around the core of this farm with my roots growing deeper in this fertile soil. It is where I belong.

Certainly, I have belonged to other places during my life. Each built a new ring in my history, growing me taller and stronger over the years. As I have moved, I have carried along furniture from my grandparents’ homes – a rocking chair, a round top antique trunk. My great aunt’s baby grand piano followed me through three moves. My parents’ things are scattered throughout this house, storing their memories in the wood and polish and fabric.

There is peace to be found in this inwardness. When I open our windows, I sense in every way how the air is charged with blessing. There is kindness here. There is happiness woven out of time and memory and love.

No matter where I shall roam, I will always find the road home.

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 wondered,
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.
~Michael Dennis Browne

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

¤10.00
¤25.00
¤50.00
¤5.00
¤15.00
¤100.00
¤5.00
¤15.00
¤100.00

Or enter a custom amount

¤

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Welcome Back, Trees

barnstormingblog1 Comment

I go by a field where once
I cultivated a few poor crops.
It is now covered with young trees,
for the forest that belongs here
has come back and reclaimed its own.
And I think of all the effort
I have wasted and all the time,
and of how much joy I took
in that failed work and how much
it taught me. For in so failing
I learned something of my place,
something of myself, and now
I welcome back the trees.
~Wendell Berry, “IX” from Leavings.

As we both grow older, we watch our some of our farm’s fields slowly fill in with young trees, despite our efforts over the years to keep pulling out saplings to preserve pasture. Yet the trees are more determined to fill in the gaps than we are to remove them. The cottonwoods, alders and maples are returning to what once was their soil.

After all, this land was forested over a century ago and yielded to determined loggers and farmers as the old growth firs and cedars fell to the axe and the deciduous trees became firewood and furniture. We now find ourselves yielding back what we can, acknowledging what this land and these patient trees have to teach us about our transience. A few decades are a short stay to those who send roots and branches deep and wide in their effort to stay put.

Welcome back, trees. You have kindly waited for your turn to own the ground again.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

¤5.00
¤10.00
¤20.00
¤5.00
¤15.00
¤100.00
¤5.00
¤15.00
¤100.00

Or enter a custom amount

¤

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

The Stones Themselves Will Start to Sing: I Will Rise

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Underground is where life begins
My heart will rejoice in the hiddenness
Beyond the burial there’s a resurrection
~Kristene DiMarco

 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption…
Galatians 4: 4-5

“In the fullness of time” is one of my favorite expressions to remind myself that God’s timing is not linear so much as it is spherical – we find ourselves in the midst of His plans, surrounded by Him rather than journeying from point A to point B.

The sowing of the seed,
its hidden growth underground,
its taking root and sprouting,
its dependency on the soil and water and sun to rise up,
its development and maturation and fruition,
its harvest and completion
to feed and become seed yet again.

It is a circle, not a line.

I must rise boldly when He calls me forth from the darkness.

This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.

If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).

In His name, may we sing…

In the quiet of the morning
When no one knows and no one needs to know
You speak to me, You give me strength
There’s nothing like the secret place

Underground is where life begins
My heart will rejoice in the hiddenness
Beyond the burial there’s a resurrection
Your will be done in me In the stillness all around
You are working all the details out
What’s in me will grow someday
I trust Your timing and Your ways

Underground is where life begins
My heart will rejoice in the hiddenness
Beyond the burial there’s a resurrection

Your will be done in me
Oh let my roots go deep
I will rise, I will rise
He holds the time that I will rise
I will rise, I will rise
He holds the time that I will rise I will rise,
I will rise God through my life be lifted high I will rise,
I will rise God through my life be lifted high
Let Jesus rise,
Jesus rise God through my life be glorified

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

¤5.00
¤10.00
¤20.00
¤5.00
¤15.00
¤100.00
¤5.00
¤15.00
¤100.00

Or enter a custom amount

¤

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

At Home with Us

barnstormingblog2 Comments

The birds do not sing in these mornings. The skies
are white all day. The Canadian geese fly over
high up in the moonlight with the lonely sound
of their discontent. Going south. Now the rains
and soon the snow. The black trees are leafless,
the flowers gone. Only cabbages are left
in the bedraggled garden. Truth becomes visible,
the architecture of the soul begins to show through.
God has put off his panoply and is at home with us.
We are returned to what lay beneath the beauty.
We have resumed our lives. There is no hurry now.
We make love without rushing and find ourselves
afterward with someone we know well. Time to be
what we are getting ready to be next. This loving,
this relishing, our gladness, this being puts down
roots and comes back again year after year. 
~Jack Gilbert “Half the Truth”

Time to be
what we are getting ready to be next.

Once again comes
a slowing of days and lengthening of nights;
some may be on the move but
I am being prepared for months of stillness and silence
without the rush and hurry
of madding lives.

I relish this time
peering past the vanishing beauty
to discern the Truth of
Who is at home with us.

He put down roots here.
Though He flew away,
He will return.

A book of beauty in words and photography available to order here:

Searching a Blossom as a Loved One’s Face

barnstormingblog5 Comments

Outrageous flowers as big as human
heads! They’re staggered
by their own luxuriance: I had
to prop them up with stakes and twine.

In the darkening June evening
I draw a blossom near, and bending close
search it as a woman searches
a loved one’s face.
~Jane Kenyon from “Peonies at Dusk”

There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick,
There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away !
~Rudyard Kipling from “The Glory of the Garden”

There is no better place to be than in a garden down on my knees. Humans were created for this: the naming, the turning over of the soil, the planting and nurturing, the weeding and thinning, the harvest and gratitude, and then a time of lying fallow to rest.

The garden is a place for prayer and praise.

When I meet a truly great gardener, like my friend Jean who has grown and hybridized dahlias for decades, what I see growing in the soil is a tapestry of artwork made from petals, leaves and roots. She has passionately cared for these plants and they reflect that love in every spiral and swirl, hue and gradient of color, showing stark symmetry and delightful variegation.

Arising from the plainest of homely and knobby look-alike tubers grow these luxurious beauties of infinite variety. I kneel stunned before each one, captivated, realizing that same Creator makes sure I too bloom from mere dust and then set me to work in His garden.

Greeting the Air

barnstormingblog6 Comments

… how do the roots know
they must climb toward the light?
And then greet the air
with so many flowers and colors?

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

But do you know from where
death comes, from above or from below?
From microbes or walls,
from wars or winter?

Where is the child I was,
still inside me or gone?
~Pablo Neruda from “The Book of Questions”

Here I am, on the eve of my 66th birthday, with more questions than answers, the child still inside me puzzling over the mundane and profound.

The “why’s” of life are the reason to keep getting up every day, if only to greet the air, feel the sun, smell the flowers and recognize that from hidden roots come beautiful growth.

I’m still growing by asking the questions that need to be asked.
I’m still growing while my roots reach deeper by the day.
I’m still growing because I know I need to reach out to the Light.

The Power To Break Rocks

barnstormingblog3 Comments

pansy3

 

pavementpansies

 

“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”
~Tennessee Williams in “Camino Real”
(These words became his epitaph)

 

pansy2

 

Some beginnings in this life commence on inhospitable ground:
no soil, no protection, no nurture, barely enough water.

Here lies a drive to thrive and transcend: forcing through a crack in the pavement while exposed to relentless heat.

Such delicate beauty comes from nothing but a seed packed with the potential to transform its circumstances through perseverance.  We all are created with the potential power to break through rocks and change the world.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

 

pansy1

 

wwupansyface

 

 

Root and All in All

barnstormingblog3 Comments

antazalea

 

iris519182

 

whiteclover2

 

irispotential

 

Little flower,
but if I could understand what you are,
root and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
~  Tennyson

 

heart1

 

redredrose

 

fuschiaevening

 

Am I root, or am I bud?
Am I stem or am I leaf?
All in all, I am
but the merest image
of God’s fruiting glory,
the tears shed
as He broke
into blossom.

 

fuschiaeveningbud

 

whiteclover3

 

raindropsonroses3

 

fuschia1