I love color. I love flaming reds, And vivid greens, And royal flaunting purples. I love the startled rose of the sun at dawning, And the blazing orange of it at twilight.
I love color. I love the drowsy blue of the fringed gentian, And the yellow of the goldenrod, And the rich russet of the leaves That turn at autumn-time…. I love rainbows, And prisms, And the tinsel glitter Of every shop-window.
I love color. And yet today, I saw a brown little bird Perched on the dull-gray fence Of a weed-filled city yard. And as I watched him The little bird Threw back his head Defiantly, almost, And sang a song That was full of gay ripples, And poignant sweetness, And half-hidden melody.
I love color…. I love crimson, and azure, And the glowing purity of white. And yet today, I saw a living bit of brown, A vague oasis on a streak of gray, That brought heaven Very near to me. ~Margaret E. Sangster “Colors”
photo by Harry Rodenberger
My eye always seeks out color because there is so much gray as background and foreground.
My ear listens for the singing of sweet melodies in the midst of mourning and sorrow.
My heart longs for hints of heaven in the daily ordinary because this sad world wants to believe in the promises.
photo by Harry Rodenberger
Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea, 1947AI image created for this post
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I stop the car along the pasture edge, gather up bags of corncobs from the back, and get out. Two whistles, one for each, and familiar sounds draw close in darkness— cadence of hoof on hardened bottomland, twinned blowing of air through nostrils curious, flared. They come deepened and muscular movements conjured out of sleep: each small noise and scent heavy with earth, simple beyond communion, beyond the stretched-out hand from which they calmly take corncobs, pulling away as I hold until the mid-points snap. They are careful of my fingers, offering that animal-knowledge, the respect which is due to strangers; and in the night, their mares’ eyes shine, reflecting stars, the entire, outer light of the world here. ~Jane Hirshfield “After Work” from Of Gravity and Angels
photo by Emily VanderHaak
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom. ~James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems
Horses have been a daily part of my life for over fifty years, though while I attended school and worked in the city, I was forced to limit myself to goldfish.
Eventually living on a farm in the country was my goal, rather than a seeking out a prestigious career in the city. Raising horses (and cattle and goats and chickens and geese and ducks and dogs and cats…) was always my hope and dream.
And dreams sometimes come true.
As I get older, I realize how much easier goldfish are in comparison. Horses are so much bigger and stronger than I am; I’m far more aware of where I am and where they are so I don’t have an unscheduled landing.
As they get older (in their second and third decades of life), the horses have plenty of opinions, deeply trusting they belong here on this farm. They know the routine, the lay of the land, they know each other and they know me.
As the person who does their daily feeding and watering and brushing and bed cleaning, I expect them to be respectful and polite and they expect the same of me. Sometimes we mutually bump into senior citizen stubbornness.
Even so, for as long as we all shall live, I find it a pure blessing to look into their shining eyes.
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When I was with the green hummingbird, it became the company I didn’t know I needed. We spent our mornings together, and after it went its way, I read and wrote.
…a hummingbird, essential company in the endless journey through dead-ends, restarts, and new beginnings – as well as a reminder of the beauty of the world, the power of the sun, the rain, love, and life, all packed inside the body of a creature that weighs less than an ounce. A sign that within the smallest detail, the whole world is present, and just as the gravity and magnificence of life is present in the mountains, oceans, stars, and everything larger than life, it is also brilliantly present in its smallest bird. ~Zito Madu from “Hummingbirds are Wondrous” in Plough
Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn’t room for any other thought? ~ Sophie Scholl from At the Heart of the White Rose
Little flower, but if I could understand what you are, root and all in all, I should know what God and man is. ~ Tennyson
There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. ~Li-Young Lee from “From Blossoms”
Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape… ~Harper Lee from “To Kill a Mockingbird”
I seek relief anywhere it can be found: this parched political landscape so filled with anger and lashing out, division and distrust, discouragement and disparity.
I want to be otherwise preoccupied with the medley of beauty around me, so there can be no room for other thoughts.
How is it? — for thousands of years and in thousands of ways, God still loves man even when we turn from Him.
I want to revel in the impossible possible, in the variegated mosaic of grace prepared to bloom so bountifully in an overwhelming tapestry of unity, between man and man, and man and God.
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At the edge of the city, at the edge of the world, at the edge between the earth and endless sky, the moonshining place, the place where we hung our long summer legs over the edge and fought the urge to drop a shoe or sneak a real first kiss, the place where we played hide-and-go-seek and Tag, you’re it! until we couldn’t breathe or the sun went down, the place where we came on the quietest nights to feel the moon kiss the edge between our skin and endless sky. ~Sarah Kobrinsky, from Nighttime on the Otherside of Everything
photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger
The truth of it is: we’re always on the edge of something. Often we’re not aware of it but that’s where some of the best things happen.
Summer itself can lead us right to edge of ourselves, a bright and bold tease to imagine something even more beautiful beyond our reach. It is an invitation to follow the lingering light of the horizon to wherever it may take us.
I can’t help but cling just a while longer before I tumble off the edge of the world.
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And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return, we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game… ~Joni Mitchell “The Circle Game”
those lovely horses, that galloped me, moving the world, piston push and pull, into the past—dream to where? there, when the clouds swayed by then trees, as a tire swing swung me under—rope groan. now, the brass beam, holds my bent face, calliope cadence—O where have I been? ~Rick Maxson “Carousel at Seventy”
On thin golden poles gliding up, sliding down, a kingdom of horses goes spinning around.
Jumper, Brown Beauty, Dark Thunder, Sir Snow, a medley of ponies parade in a row.
Settled in saddles, their riders hold on to reins of soft leather while circling along
on chestnut or charcoal, on sleek Arctic white, on silver they gallop in place day and night.
Such spinning is magic, (to dream as you sail) with lavender saddle and ebony tail,
whirling to music in moonlight, spellbound, galloping, galloping, merrily go round. ~Rebecca Kai Dotlich “Carousel”
Under its canopy, in the shade it casts, turns a world with painted horses, all from a land that lingers a while before it disappears. Some, it’s true, are harnessed to a wagon, but all have valor in their eyes. A fierce red lion leaps among them, and here comes ’round a snow-white elephant.
Even a stag appears, straight from the forest, except for the saddle he wears, and, buckled on it, a small boy in blue.
And a boy in white rides the lion, gripping it with small clenched hands, while the lion flashes teeth and tongue.
And here comes ’round a snow-white elephant.
And riding past on charging horses come girls, bright-eyed, almost too old now for this children’s play. With the horses rising under them, they are looking up and off to what awaits. ~Rainer Maria Rilke from “Jardin de Luxembourg”
A fewJuly memories:
Sixty-five years ago, I was a five year old having her first ride on the historic carousel at Woodland Park Zoo before we moved from Stanwood to Olympia. Fifty-four years ago — a teenager working in a nursing home as a nurses’ aide after three days of training. Forty-nine years ago – returned home early from my studies in Tanzania after four chimpanzee researcher friends were held hostage for ransom and eventually released Forty-three years ago — deep in the guts of a hospital working forty hour long shifts, thinking about the man I was soon to marry Thirty-four years ago — my husband and I picking up bales of hay in our own farm field, two young children in tow after accepting a new position doctoring at the local university Twenty-seven years ago — raising three children and completed farm house remodel, supporting three parents with health issues, raising Haflinger horses, helping design a new clinic building at work, playing piano and teaching Sunday School at church Twenty-whatever years ago – life spinning faster, blurring with work at home, on the farm, at clinic, at church. I begin writing to grab and hang on to what I can. Sixteen years ago — one son about to move to Japan to teach and the other son to teach at Pine Ridge in South Dakota, daughter at home with a new driver’s license working with migrant children, a mother slowly bidding goodbye to life at a local care center, farming less about horse raising and more about gardening, maintaining and preserving. Ten years ago — two sons married, daughter working as a camp counselor so our first summer without children at home. Perfect time to raise a new puppy! Five years ago – A two year old granddaughter and two new grandsons! Daughter teaching, engaged to be married. Two years ago – completed forty-two years of non-stop doctoring so I bid it goodbye. Now – Three more grandsons! Two retired grandparents! Big garden on the farm but we’re slowing down.
The puppy’s face and our hair are turning white…
O where have I been? We can only look behind from where we came and await what is ahead.
The decades pass, round and round – there is comfort knowing that through the ups and downs of daily life, we still hang on. If we slip and fall, there is Someone ready to catch us.
Looking behind you, where have you been? What awaits you where you are heading?
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He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. Mark 5:41-43
Little girl. Old girl. Old boy. Old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis, and young boys and girls with tattoos and body piercing.
You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if only you could.
You happy ones and you who can hardly remember what it was like once to be happy. You who know where you’re going and how to get there and you who much of the time aren’t sure you’re getting anywhere.
“Get up,” he says, all of you – all of you! – and the power that is in him is the power to give life not just to the dead like the child, but to those who are only partly alive, which is to say to people like you and me who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and miracle of things, including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves. ~Frederick Buechner from Secrets in the Dark
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And I gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang. ~Mary Oliver “I Worried” from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
Christ said to the dead girl, “Get up.” And she did.
He also tells us to get up, get moving – despite everything that holds us back.
I know there are times when I feel immobilized from tiredness, worry, hopelessness, fear. I hear His reminder: get up and go anyway.
God has given us a world of wild beauty and miraculous things; time to get up and take our place in it.
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Caught out in daylight, a rabbit’s transparent pallor, the moon is paired with a cloud of equal weight: the heavenly congruence startles.
For what is the moon, that it haunts us, this impudent companion immigrated from the system’s less fortunate margins, the realm of dust collected in orbs?
We grow up as children with it, a nursemaid of a bonneted sort, round-faced and kind, not burning too close like parents, or too far to spare even a glance, like movie stars.
No star but in the zodiac of stars, a stranger there, too big, it begs for love (the man in it) and yet is diaphanous, its thereness as mysterious as ours. ~John Updike “Half Moon, Small Cloud”
Children in a Garden with Nanny by Mary Cassatt
Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing.
I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside. ~Flannery O’Connor from her journals
photo by Bob Tjoelkera full moon in Ireland
Like a vigilant nanny watching from the skies, the moon keeps its pale eye on me, no matter where I am on the globe. There is comfort in seeing its illumination from various vantage points in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Yet, through no fault of its own, the moon is constantly inconstant in its “thereness”, phasing from full bright orb to missing-in-action.
I know my own inconstant “thereness” gets in my way all the time — casting a shadow of darkness on the light and beauty around me. With human “blinders” on, I can’t see beyond where I stand, where I move, what I feel, what I fear, what I see and hear.
And I certainly get in the way of my knowing God in His divine and overpowering radiance.
It’s all about my blindness when I declare God “missing-in-action.”
He’s there, though partially hidden by my push to be front and center. He’s there, His glory and truth manifest over me, if I look to see. He’s there, gently instructing me to get out of His way. He’s there, fully Light and fully Love.
I step back, in awe.
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…perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. ~G.K. Chestertonfrom Orthodoxy
Over the shoulders and slopes of the dune I saw the white daisies go down to the sea, A host in the sunshine, an army in June, The people God sends us to set our hearts free. ~Bliss William Carman from “Daisies”
As I get older, my daily routine can seem mundane and repetitive to the point of being boring. When our grown children call us to see how we’re doing, I don’t have much new to report (which is just fine with me). It must seem like we’re in a rut. I’m tempted to make stuff up, just to make my day sound more interesting…
Yet, I’ve discovered, if I don’t keep to a steadfast routine, I truly flounder in an unpredictable wilderness of my own making. The sun rises every morning, even if I’m not awake to witness it. It sets every evening without my standing on the hill to watch it go down.
But there is something very comforting about making an effort to be there, my eyes open, treasuring the passage of another day.
Surely God celebrates the predictability of His design and enjoys repetition, whether it is another sunrise or sunset or the reappearance every June of an infinite number of identical daisies?
He remains consistent, persistent and insistent. We need His steadfast reliability to lead us out of our personal chaotic wilderness.
Do it again, God. Please — please do it again.
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Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil… ~Isaiah 64:1-2
I was your rebellious son, do you remember? Sometimes I wonder if you do remember, so complete has your forgiveness been.
So complete has your forgiveness been I wonder sometimes if it did not precede my wrong, and I erred, safe found, within your love,
prepared ahead of me, the way home, or my bed at night, so that almost I should forgive you, who perhaps foresaw the worst that I might do,
and forgave before I could act, causing me to smile now, looking back, to see how paltry was my worst, compared to your forgiveness of it
already given. And this, then, is the vision of that Heaven of which we have heard, where those who love each other have forgiven each other,
where, for that, the leaves are green, the light a music in the air, and all is unentangled, and all is undismayed. -Wendell Berry “To My Mother” from Entries
It was a summer morning six years ago, beginning much like this one: something woke me early at 4:45 AM.
Perhaps it was the orange glow bathing my face through the curtains. Never one to miss a light show, I heeded the call and got up and dressed.
Once outside, I was amazed to see storm clouds boiling – shifting and swirling in unrest as if something or someone may emerge momentarily.
No trumpets though. The music in the air was the usual early morning bird song, and sherbet-orange leaves normalized to green.
Within a minute, the heavens settled. Unentangled from my dismay, so did I.
Yet for a moment that morning, I did wonder what might become of us all. That thought still occurs to me each morning, as I realize how much merciful grace embodies the heavens above.
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