It is not enough to offer a silent thank you, looking down at dark mums and the garden’s final offerings of autumn—late-planted greens, their small leaves fragile and pale. And bright orange peppers, the odd liveliness of their color signaling an end. To see the dense clouds drop into its depths and know who placed them there. It is not enough to welcome God into every small fold of the day’s passing. To call upon some unknown force to let the meat be fresh, the house not burn, the evening to find us all here again. Yet, we are here again. And we have witnessed the miracle of nothing. A slight turning of empty time, bare of grief and illness and pain. We have lived nondescript this season, this day, these sixty-minutes. But it is not enough. To bow our heads in silence. To close our eyes and see in each moment of each second the uneventful wonder of none. ~Pamela Steed Hill “The Miracle of Nothing”
Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life. ~Marilynne Robinson from Gilead
I am covered with Sabbath rest quiet and deep~ planted, grown, and now harvested in soil still warm and dry from a too long summer, now readying for sleep again.
I know there is nothing ordinary in this uneventful wonder of none.
I am called by such Light to push out against darkness, to be witness to the miracle of nothing and everything.
Can there be nothing more eventful than the wonder of an ordinary Sunday?
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I went out to cut a last batch of zinnias this morning from the back fencerow and got my shanks chilled for sure: furrowy dark gray clouds with separating fringes of blue sky-grass: and the dew
beaded up heavier than the left-overs of the rain: in the zinnias, in each of two, a bumblebee stirring in slow motion. Trying to unwind the webbed drug of cold, buzzing occasionally but
with a dry rattle: bees die with the burnt honey at their mouths, at least: the fact’s established: it is not summer now and the simmering buzz is out of heat: the zucchini blossoms falling show squash
overgreen with stunted growth: the snapdragons have suckered down into a blossom or so: we passed into dark last week the even mark of day and night and what we hoped would stay we yield to change. ~A.R. Ammons “Equinox” from Complete Poems
I yield now to the heaviness of transition from summer to autumn, with slowing of my walk and darkening of my days.
It is time; day and night now compete for my attention and both will win.
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Summer begins to have the look Peruser of enchanting Book Reluctantly but sure perceives A gain upon the backward leaves —
Autumn begins to be inferred By millinery of the cloud, Or deeper color in the shawl That wraps the everlasting hill. ~Emily Dickinson in “Summer Begins to Have the Look”
Summer is waning and wistful; it has the look of packing up, and moving on without bidding adieu or looking back over its shoulder.
I’m just not ready to wave goodbye to sun-soaked clear skies.
Cooling winds have carried in darkening clouds spread green leaves everywhere, loosened before their time. Rain is many weeks overdue yet there is temptation to bargain for a little more time. Though we are in need of a good drenching there are still onions and potatoes to pull from the ground, berries to pick before they mold on the vine, overwhelming buckets of tomatoes, and the remaining corn cobs bulging.
The overhead overcast is heavily burdened with clues of what is coming: earlier dusk, the feel of moisture, the deepening graying hues, the briskness of breezes.
There is no negotiation possible. I need to steel myself and get ready, wrapping myself in the soft shawl of inevitability.
So autumn advances with the clouds, taking up residence where summer has left off. Though there is still clean up of the overabundance left behind, autumn will bring its own unique plans for display of a delicious palette of hues.
The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.
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while I grew smaller in the spreading shadow of the peonies,
grew larger by my absence to another, grew older among the ants, ancient
under the opening heads of the flowers, new to myself, and stranger.
When I heard my name again, it sounded far, like the name of the child next door, or a favorite cousin visiting for the summer,
while the quiet seemed my true name, a near and inaudible singing born of hidden ground.
Quiet to quiet, I called back. And the birds declared my whereabouts all morning. ~Li-Young Lee “Out of Hiding”
The spider, dropping down from twig, Unfolds a plan of her devising, A thin premeditated rig To use in rising.
And all that journey down through space, In cool descent and loyal hearted, She spins a ladder to the place From where she started.
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken thread to you For my returning. ~E.B. White “Natural History”
I seek out the hidden web artist who rebuilds this remarkable funnel in an open pipe attached to a gate I open and close daily without a thought.
As I approach, I see the weaver’s legs scurrying hurriedly down into the safety of its chosen darkness.
This spider needs temerity, not timidity, to find its meal.
How else might it issue a dinner invitation, luring me down into a sticky funnel vortex, as a cherished guest meant never to return?
If I go astray and wander into temptation, lose my way and plunge into the hole, a silken thread remains: hearing Him call out my name from the garden, urging me to return to Whom I belong.
Indeed my soul hangs by this single gossamer thread~ this silken connection calls me back home, back to eternity.
There’s more that rises in the morning Than the sun And more that shines in the night Than just the moon It’s more than just this fire here That keeps me warm In a shelter that is larger Than this room
And there’s a loyalty that’s deeper Than mere sentiments And a music higher than the songs That I can sing The stuff of Earth competes For the allegiance I owe only to the Giver Of all good things
So if I stand let me stand on the promise That you will pull me through And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace That first brought me to You And if I sing let me sing for the joy That has born in me these songs And if I weep let it be as a man Who is longing for his home
There’s more that dances on the prairies Than the wind More that pulses in the ocean Than the tide There’s a love that is fiercer Than the love between friends More gentle than a mother’s When her baby’s at her side ~Rich Mullins
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I
A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter—winged, horned, and spined—
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands...
II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
—My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.~Thomas Hardy "An August Midnight"
There are so many more of them than us. Yes, insects appear where we don’t expect them, they sting and bite and crawl and fly in our mouths and are generally annoying. But without God’s humblest knowing the secrets of the inner workings of the soil, the pollinator and the blossom, we’d have no fruit, no seeds, no earth as we know it.
Even more humble are our microscopic live-in neighbors — the biome of our skin and gut affecting, managing and raising havoc with our internal chemistry and physiology in ways we are only beginning to understand.
God created us all, each and every one, from the turning and cycles of smallest of atoms and microbes to the expanding swirl of galaxies far beyond us.
Perhaps the humblest of all, found smack-dab in the middle of this astounding creation, would be us: the intended Imago Dei.
Two legs not six or eight, two eyes not many, no wings with which we might fly away, no antennae, no stinger.
Just us with our one fragile and loving heart.
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Whence comes Solace?—Not from seeing What is doing, suffering, being, Not from noting Life’s conditions, Nor from heeding Time’s monitions; But in cleaving to the Dream, And in gazing at the gleam Whereby gray things golden seem.
II
Thus do I this heyday, holding Shadows but as lights unfolding, As no specious show this moment With its irised embowment; But as nothing other than Part of a benignant plan; Proof that earth was made for man. ~Thomas Hardy “On a Fine Morning”
“Earth was made for man”
We tend to forget our original task of caring for the Garden we were placed within. Soiling our own nest, we can’t abandon this place for another greener, brighter, happier planet. Of all the planetary options in this infinite universe, we were placed right here and here we remain.
Our solace is that all that ordinarily seems gray gleams golden in the Light that shines down on our shadows. Even when the news is dismal, and the pain is great, and history seems to keep repeating itself despite our best efforts, our Creation is purposeful and preserved through divine sacrifice.
The solace of gray shadows turns to gold.
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Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning…
Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world...
After the kingfisher’s wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still At the still point of the turning world. ~T.S. Eliot – excerpts from Burnt Norton, first of the Four Quartets
Their song reminds me of a child’s neighborhood rallying cry—ee-ock-ee—with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The towhee has the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, “tweet”. I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting. ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
A hundred thousand birds salute the day:– One solitary bird salutes the night: Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away, And tunes our weary watches to delight; It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say, To know and sing them, and to set them right; Until we feel once more that May is May, And hope some buds may bloom without a blight. This solitary bird outweighs, outvies, The hundred thousand merry-making birds Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise Would we but follow when they bid us rise, Would we but set their notes of praise to words And launch our hearts up with them to the skies. ~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”
Eliot didn’t have in mind future tweets on 21st century Twitter when he wrote Burnt Norton in 1935. He was far more concerned about the concept of Time and redeeming our distraction from connecting to God Himself, the “still point” source of the natural and creative order of all things. He uses the analogies of a garden of flowers and singing birds, a graveyard, and most disturbingly, a subway train of empty-souled people traveling in the Tube under London in the dark.
Eliot was predicting an unknowable future. Great Britain was facing a second war with Germany, but nearly a century later, we live 24/7 in a “twittering world” war of empty words and darkness through devices we carry with us at all times. Eliot, critical of the dehumanizing technology of his time, was prescient enough to foresee how modern technology might facilitate our continued fall from grace and distract us from the source of our redemption.
Perhaps Rossetti understands best. When birdsong begins on our farm in June at 4 AM in the apple, cherry, chestnut, and walnut trees outside our bedroom windows, I am swept away from my dreams by the distraction of wakening to music of the created order among the branches surrounding me, immersed in the beauty of dew-laden blooms and cool morning air.
Once a hundred thousand birds settle into routine conversation after twenty minutes of their loudly tweeted greetings of the day, I settle too, sitting bleary-eyed at my computer to navigate the twittering world of technology which is too often filled with fancies, or meanness, or, most often, completely empty of meaning altogether.
Yet, each morning as my heart is launched by the warbling songs outside my window, I’m determined to dismiss the distraction of the tweets and twitters on my screen.
Not here will darkness be found on this page, if I can keep it at bay. I want to answer light to light and light with light.
No darkness here.
I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I see the river flowing water running by I’d like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything
I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins
I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light I know the silence as the world begins to wake I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks
He does-n’t know the world at all Who stays in his nest and does-n’t go out. He does-n’t know what birds know best Nor what I sing a-bout, Nor what I sing a-bout, Nor what sing a-bout: That the world is full of love-li-ness.
When dew-drops spar-kle in the grass And earth is a-flood with mor-ning light. light A black-bird sings up-on a bush To greet the dawn-ing af-ter night, the dawn-ing af-ter night, the dawn-ing af-ter night. Then I know how fine it is to live.
Hey, try to o-pen your heart to beau-ty; Go to the woods some-day And weave a wreath of me-mory there. Then if tears ob-scure your way You’ll know how won-der-ful it is To be a-live.
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“Vixi duellis nuper idoneus Et militavi non sine glori” (translation) Recently I lived suitable for warfare, and I soldiered not without glory.
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday, We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning, We shall have what to do after firing. But today, Today we have naming of parts. Japonica Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens, And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got. The branches Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures, Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easily If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers: They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt, And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance, Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards, For today we have naming of parts. ~Henry Reed “Naming of Parts”(1942)
“Naming of Parts” was a well-known British anti-war poem I memorized for debate class in high school in 1970, reciting it for interpretive reading competitions.
Below is a portion of a 1944 letter sent home to my mother from my father as he served as a Marine company officer in the South Pacific from January 1943 – fall 1945. After he returned home, physically uninjured, I had never seen him with a gun in his hands, and wasn’t aware he even had kept a gun after leaving the Marines. One day, in the early 1970’s, one of our farm’s beef animals was injured so my father, for the first time in thirty years, pulled out a gun from its hiding place to put down the suffering animal. I never saw the gun again and believe my father disposed of it soon after – firing that gun after so many years was too much for him.
“You mentioned a story of Navy landing craft taking the Marines into Tarawa. It reminded me of something which impressed me a great deal and something I’m sure I’ll never forget.
So you’ll understand what I mean I’ll try to start with an explanation. In training – close order drill- etc. there is a command that is given always when the men form in the morning – various times during the day– after firing– and always before a formation is dismissed. The command is INSPECTION – ARMS. On the command of EXECUTION- ARMS each man opens the bolt of his rifle. It is supposed to be done in unison so you hear just one sound as the bolts are opened. Usually it is pretty good and sounds O.K.
Just to show you how the morale of the men going to the <Tarawa> beach was – and how much it impressed me — we were on our way in – I was forward, watching the beach thru a little slit in the ramp – the men were crouched in the bottom of the boat, just waiting. You see- we enter the landing boats with unloaded rifles and wait till it’s advisable before loading. When we got about to the right distance in my estimation I turned around and said – LOAD and LOCK – I didn’t realize it, but every man had been crouching with his hand on the operating handle and when I said that — SLAM! — every bolt was open at once – I’ve never heard it done better – and those men meant business when they loaded those rifles.
A man couldn’t be afraid with men like that behind him. ~ Marine Captain Henry Polis(age 22)in a 1944 letter home about the Battle of Tarawa (November 1943)
Henry Polis 1943
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There’s always an iris amusing and amazing. Today, wildly purple stretching to search dark colors, open and about to reach. Reach.
Even the vase holds on, shows courage for both who touch the beautiful, alive and color to color, evoking how one can love another. Longer to live, shorter to die. ~Eloise Klein Healy “Iris”
What word informs the world, and moves the worm along in his blind tunnel?
What secret purple wisdom tells the iris edges to unfold in frills? What juiced and emerald thrill
urges the sap until the bud resolves its tight riddle? What irresistible command
unfurls this cloud above this greening hill, or one more wave — its spreading foam and foil —
across the flats of sand? What minor thrust of energy issues up from humus in a froth
of ferns? Delicate as a laser, it filigrees the snow, the stars. Listen close — What silver sound
thaws winter into spring? Speaks clamor into singing? Gives love for loneliness? It is this
un-terrestrial pulse, deep as heaven, that folds you in its tingling embrace, gongs in your echo heart. ~Luci Shaw “What Secret Purple Wisdom” The Green Earth: Poems of Creation
He gave Himself to us to wrest joy from our misery-
A mystery is too much to accept such sacrifice is possible.
We are blind-hearted to the possibility: He who cannot be measured unfolds before us to reach us, overwhelming our darkness.
I prefer remaining closed in my bud, hidden in the little room of my heart rather than risk opening by loving another in full blossom and fruitfulness.
Lord, give me grace to open my tight fist of a bud.
Prepare me for embracing your mystery. Prepare me to unfurl, to reach out beyond myself. Prepare me to bloom wildly purple.
What is the crying at Jordan? Who hears, O God, the prophecy? Dark is the season, dark our hearts and shut to mystery.
Who then shall stir in this darkness prepare for joy in the winter night? Mortal in darkness we lie down, blind-hearted, seeing no light.
Lord, give us grace to awake us, to see the branch that begins to bloom; in great humility is hid all heaven in a little room.
Now comes the day of salvation, in joy and terror the Word is born! God gives himself into our lives; Oh, let salvation dawn! ~Carol Christopher Drake
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Everything in the garden is dead, killed by a sudden hard freeze, the beans, the tomatoes, fruit still clinging to the branches. It’s all heaped up ready to go to the compost pile: rhubarb leaves, nasturtiums, pea vines, even the geraniums. It’s too bad. The garden was so beautiful, green and fresh, but then we were all beautiful once. Everything dies, we understand. But the mind of the observer, which cannot imagine not imagining, goes on. The dynasties are cut down like the generations of grass, the bodies blacken and turn into coal. The waters rise and cover the earth and the mind broods on the face of the deep, and learns nothing. ~Louis Jenkins, “Freeze” from Where Your House is Near: New and Selected Poems
This week was our first hard freeze of autumn, following on the heels of the worst flooding in a half century in our county. The land and all that grows here experienced a one-two punch – when the waters pulled back into the streams and rivers, what was left behind looked frozen, soaked and miserable. The people whose homes were devastated are so much more than miserable; they are mudding out by removing everything down to the studs to try to begin again. With hundreds of volunteers and disaster teams helping, there are piles of kitchen appliances, dry wall, carpet and every household item along the main streets of nearby towns, waiting to be hauled off.
Surveying our dying garden is small potatoes in comparison to a flooded town only a few miles away. The memories of how beautiful our garden was a 2-3 months ago is nothing in contrast to the families who lost their stored heirlooms and cherished memories to the muck and mire of deep waters.
But we are a resilient community. We are people of persistence and creativity and there will eventually be beauty again here. Driving on a newly opened road beside the still-surging river where a few days ago several feet of water covered a cornfield, I spotted a trumpeter swan, standing in glorious spotless white, picking her way through the mud-stained cornstalks, hoping to find something of value left behind in the devastation.
There is still hope; it did not wash away. We only need to use our imagination to find it.
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