Category: heaven

An Advent Threshold: Came Down

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The Word became flesh.
Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed.
Incarnation.
It is not tame.
It is not beautiful.
It is uninhabitable terror.
It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light.

Agonized laboring led to it,
vast upheavals of intergalactic space,
time split apart,
a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself.
You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this:
“God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”
Came down.
Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see.
It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms.
It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.
~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark

Down he came from up,
and in from out,
and here from there.
A long leap,
an incandescent fall
from magnificent
to naked, frail, small,
through space,
between stars,
into our chill night air,
shrunk, in infant grace,
to our damp, cramped
earthy place
among all
the shivering sheep.

And now, after all,
there he lies,
fast asleep.
~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels

[The Incarnation is like] a wave of the sea which, 
rushing up on the flat beach, 
runs out, even thinner and more transparent, 
and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears.
~Hans Urs von Balthasar from Origen: Spirit and Fire

Perhaps it is the mystery of the thing that brings us back,
again and again, to read the story of 
how God came down and disappeared into us.

How can this be?
God appearing on earth first to animals,
then the most humble of humans.

How can He be?
Through the will of the Father and the breath of the Spirit,
the Son was, and is and yet to be.

O great mystery beyond all understanding.

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo,
cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum.
Alleluia!

O great mystery and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in their Manger!
Blessed is the Virgin
whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!

Still Life by Zurbaran in the Norton-Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA

The composer Morten Lauridsen, is a Washington state native who was born only a few miles from where my mother grew up in the wheat fields of the Palouse, and now lives in retirement in the San Juan Islands.  He wrote about his inspiration, wanting to compose something that honored the words as much as the Still Life painted by Zurbaran (above) honored the Virgin Mary.

In Lauridsen’s own words:

“Zurbarán (1598-1664) is the painter of “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose.” The objects in this work are symbolic offerings to the Virgin Mary. Her love, purity and chastity are signified by the rose and the cup of water. The lemons are an Easter fruit that, along with the oranges with blossoms, indicate renewed life. The table is a symbolic altar. The objects on it are set off in sharp contrast to the dark, blurred backdrop and radiate with clarity and luminosity against the shadows.

In composing music to these inspirational words about Christ’s birth and the veneration of the Virgin Mary, I sought to impart, as Zurbarán did before me, a transforming spiritual experience within what I call “a quiet song of profound inner joy.” I wanted this piece to resonate immediately and deeply into the core of the listener, to illumine through sound.

The most challenging part of this piece for me was the second line of text having to do with the Virgin Mary. She above all was chosen to bear the Christ child and then she endured the horror and sorrow of his death on the cross. How can her significance and suffering be portrayed musically?

After exploring several paths, I decided to depict this by a single note. On the word “Virgo,” the altos sing a dissonant appoggiatura G-sharp. It’s the only tone in the entire work that is foreign to the main key of D. That note stands out against a consonant backdrop as if a sonic light has suddenly been focused upon it, edifying its meaning. It is the most important note in the piece.

A scholarly essay about Lauridsen’s composition is here.

Another version by a different composer:

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

An Advent Threshold: Hushed in the Dark

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World.
It is Christ.
That is the comfort of it.
The challenge of it is that it has not come yet.
Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it.
In the meantime we are in the dark,
and the dark, God knows, is also in us.
We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us,
to liberate us from the dark.
Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises.
It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver.
Soon.
But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are. 
~Frederick Buechner from The Clown in the Belfry

Darkness is not where we will dwell forever.
We are hushed in fear and hungry for Light.

We are promised this in the Word:
“and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light…
Revelation 22:5.

Somewhere between the Word in the beginning
and the Word that becomes flesh
and the Word thriving in our hearts and hands,
there is the sacred silent Light of God come to earth.

This Advent becomes a threshold of quiet stillness,
as we stand poised to cross into the Light brought by His Word;
He is a flint struck to our wick in our eagerness to abolish the Darkness with the eternal glow of His illuminating Word.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Lyrics:

In winter’s house there’s a room
that’s pale and still as mist in a field
while outside in the street every gate’s shut firm,
every face as cold as steel.

In winter’s house there’s a bed
that is spread with frost and feathers,
that gleams in the half-light like rain
in a disused yard or a pearl in a choked-up stream.

In winter’s house there’s a child asleep
in a dream of light that grows out of the dark,
a flame you can hold in your hand
like a flower or a torch on the street. 

In winter’s house there’s a tale that’s told
of a great chandelier in a garden,
of fire that catches and travels for miles,
of all gates and windows wide open.

In winter’s house there’s a flame
being dreamt by a child in the night,
in the small quiet house at the turn in the lane
where the darkness gives way to light.
~Jane Draycott

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

An Advent Threshold: A Golden Pin in the Folds of Time

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Beyond the brimming ages Gabriel waits,
his foremost message burning on his breath.
Through time men slide, creeping through the gates
of birth and out again the doors of death.

He sees kings rise and kingdoms fall to dust;
he sees unnumbered souls unfleshed; to some
he gives slight hints, but the full knowledge must
wait, for his best words are not for them.

Then at last, coming from afar
he sees, gleaming like a golden pin
in time’s folds, Mary, rising like a star
above the fretted seas of what had been;

bright hinge on which the gate of Heaven creaks,
to her he turns, inclines himself, and speaks.
~J.C.Sharl “Annunciation”

Be patient and without bitterness,
realizing the least we can do
is make coming into existence
no more difficult for Him
than the earth does for spring when it wants to come.
~Rainier Marie Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

And in all of this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last light off the black West wind went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

Kings and kingdoms come and go, reduced to dust over time.

So the Word waited, like the earth waits for spring,
for a golden point of light to overwhelm the dark.

She says “let it be”, not “no, not me, not now.”

Transformed, simply by accepting Him:
a simple, but oh so difficult faith,
like a tender shoot breaking through
the crust of frozen earth
seeking the Sun, needing now to bloom.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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

An Advent Threshold: What Are You Seeking? Come and See What is Possible…

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, 
“What are you seeking?” 
And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”  

He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.  He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, 
“You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”  Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”  Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”  And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
John 1:35-51

I never knew what was going on.

He would say, “Let’s go,” and we
would follow. “Follow” was his word.

And we would. Fools we were to let that
take us all that way. Why we did to this day

I don’t know. Look how it ended. Look
what it became. But what did we have

to stay for? Nothing. There wasn’t much
work. Nothing much to do. There were no

stories left. Bread. Fish. So we ended up
with more bread and fish. But we did find

stories and stories. Well, what else is there?
I never did much along the way. Look it up…

I will say, though, that it was his words. Words!

Imagine. Words had never done what his did.
I’d listen, and I wasn’t much of a listener. Then

later I would try to make sense of them. I couldn’t.
But I could feel them. And maybe that was it, how

they got inside you and made you wonder and wrinkle.
They got in my brain’s garden and made it seem like

the roots were above ground and all the flowers and
vegetables, all the nourishing, were now below…

See? See how hard it is to
explain this stuff? You just started seeing everything with a

new mind. You began to be drawn to a whole new world,
and it was a world.

You might say, okay, whatever, and yet those words
did become flesh, my flesh. And my flesh, my body, held

the kingdom of God, and if it’s a place that’s a place
for children, then most of what I know really doesn’t matter.

Labor doesn’t, and money, and reason, and, well, you
go make a list. He’d get me so confused. And then we’d

head off worrying about how we would eat and where
we’d sleep. Our feet were filthy. My God, we were always

filthy. We stank. And then he’d go and point at birds or
stalks of grain, even stop and have us kneel before a flower,

and then he’d smile. That haunts me still. That smile.
And then he died. He brought out hate, not love. He had

a terrifying sense of justice. Nothing he said or did
was impossible. Maybe that was it. It was all possible.
~Jack Ridl from “Bartholomew: Disciple”

What are you seeking? What are you looking for in your life?

Jesus asks the new disciples because He needs to know whether they are expecting a wise rabbi/teacher, or a prophesied Messiah come to change the world, or a mighty king who will liberate them from political oppression.

No matter what our expectation is, Jesus asks that we come to see what he is doing, following him to witness what will happen as he speaks, allowing his words to become our new flesh and skin.

He takes us to the threshold of heaven and throws the gate wide open. Nothing he says or does is impossible.

He shows us what is possible simply by asking us what we hope for.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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

An Advent Threshold: The Beginning Shall Remind Us of the End

barnstormingblog2 Comments

…the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.
~T.S.Eliot from The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

Today is my mother’s birthday,
but she’s not here to celebrate
by opening a flowery card
or looking calmly out a window.

If my mother were alive,
she’d be 114 years old,
and I am guessing neither of us
would be enjoying her birthday very much.

Mother, I would love to see you again
to take you shopping or to sit
in your sunny apartment with a pot of tea,
but it wouldn’t be the same at 114.

And I’m no prize either,
almost 20 years older than the last time
you saw me sitting by your deathbed.
Some days, I look worse than yesterday’s oatmeal.

It must have been frigid that morning
in the hour just before dawn
on your first December 1st
at the family farm a hundred miles north of Toronto.

Happy Birthday, anyway. Happy Birthday to you.
~Billy Collins from “December 1”

My mom meeting grandson Noah shortly before her death

December 1st is not my mother’s birthday but it was her death day seventeen years ago.

Yet it felt a bit like a birth.

The call came from the care center about 5:30 AM on the Monday after Thanksgiving on a frozen morning: the nurse gently said her breathing had changed, it wasn’t long now until she’d be gone.

My daughter and I quickly dressed and went out into bleak darkness to make the ten minute drive to where she lay. Mom had been wearily existing since a femur fracture 9 months earlier on a cruel April 1st morning. Everything changed for her at 87 years of being active. It was the beginning of the end for her, unable to care for herself at home.

Those nine months had been her gestation time to cross the threshold into a new life. It occurred to me as I drove – she was about to be born into her long-awaited yet long-feared transition to death.

Her room was darkened except for the multicolored lights on the table top artificial Christmas tree I had brought her a few days earlier. It cast colorful shadows onto the walls and the white bedspread on her hospital bed. It even made her look like she had color to her cheeks where there actually was none.

There was no one home.

She had already left, flown away while we drove the few miles to come to her. There was no reaching her now. Her skin was cooling, her face hollowed by the lack of effort, her body stilled and sunken.

I could not weep at that point – it was her liminal time to leave us behind. She was so very tired, so very weary, so very ready for heaven. And I, weary too, felt much like yesterday’s oatmeal, something she actually very much loved during her life, cooking up a big batch a couple times a week, enough to last several days.

I knew, seeing what was left of her there in that bed, Mom was no longer settling for yesterday’s oatmeal and no longer homeless. I knew she now was present for an everlasting feast, would never suffer insomnia again, would no longer be fearful of dying, her cheeks forever full of color.

I knew she had a new beginning: the glory of rebirth thanks to her Savior who had gently taken her by the hand through heaven’s gate to a land where joy would never end.

Happy Birthday, Mom. Happy December 1st Birthday to you.

I’ll fly away, oh glory
I’ll fly away in the morning
When I die hallelujah by and by
I’ll fly away

God makes us happy as only children can be happy.
God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be –
in our sin, in our suffering and death.
We are no longer alone;
God is with us.
We are no longer homeless;
a bit of the eternal home itself has moved unto us. 
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between heaven and earth

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth
Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her,
Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
And when she wakes she will not think it long.
~Christina Rossetti “Rest”

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

An Advent Threshold: Nothing But Light

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

(Jesus said) I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
Luke 12:49

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning from “Aurora Leigh”

It is difficult to undo our own damage…
It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind.
The very holy mountains are keeping mum.
We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it;
we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. 
~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk

Nine Kinds of Blindness
1. The one where your eyes do not work to see anything.
2. The one where your eyes do not work to see everything.
3. The one where your eyes work, but you cannot see what you have never seen before.
4. The one where your eyes work but you cannot see what is inconvenient.
5. The one where your eyes work but someone is keeping you from using them.
6. The one where your eyes work but you are angry.
7. The one where your eyes work but you are afraid.
8. The one where your eyes work but there is no light.
9. The one where your eyes work but there is nothing but light.
~Paul Pastor “Nine Kinds of Blindness” from  Bower Lodge

I need to turn aside and look, blinded as I am,
to see, as if for the first and last time,
the kindled fire that illuminates even the darkest day
and never dies away.

We are invited, by no less than God Himself,
through the original burning bush that is never consumed
to shed our shoes, to walk barefoot and vulnerable,
and approach the bright and burning dawn,
even when it is the darkest midnight,
even when it is a babe in a manger who kindles a fire in each one of us.

Only then, only then
can I say:
“Here I am! Consume me!”

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire
that never dies away,
that never dies away.
Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire
that never dies away,
that never dies away.
~Taize

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

An Advent Threshold: Taking You Where You Did Not Think To Go

barnstormingblog1 Comment

First let us say

a blessing
upon all who have
entered here before
us.

You can see the sign
of their passage
by the worn place
on the doorframe
as they walked through,
the smooth sill
of the threshold
where they crossed.

On the other side
these ones who wait –
for you,
if you do not
know by now –
understand what
a blessing can do

how it appears like
nothing you expected

how it arrives as
visitor,
outrageous invitation,
child;

how it takes the form
of angel
or dream;

how it comes
in words like
How can this be?
and
lifted up the lowly:

how it sounds like
in the wilderness
prepare the way.

Those who wait
for you know
how the mark of
a true blessing
is that it will take you
where you did not
think to go.

Once through this door
there will be more:
more doors
more blessings
more who watch and
wait for you

but here
at this door of
beginning
the blessings cannot
be said without you

Say the thing that
you most need
and the door will
open wide.

And by this word
the door is blessed
and by this word
the blessing is begun
from which
door by door
all the rest
will come.
~Jan Richardson, from “Blessing the Door” from  Through the Advent Door: Entering a Contemplative Christmas.

And as you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged on the shingly beach of a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.
~Stephen Graham from The Gentle Art of Tramping

That great door opens on the present, illuminates it as with a multitude of flashing torches.
~Annie Dillard (in response to the Graham’s quote) from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

There is a second or two each day
(and some days I must watch hard for it)
when there is a moment of illumination
like a multitude of flashing torches,
when I can see just beyond what is here and now
to heaven’s open door.

It is a liminal promise pointing me to where I didn’t think to go.

If I miss it,
this opened door that is not a door~
too busy to notice-
too blinded to see-
having turned my face away,
nevertheless it still happens –
just without my witness.

It gladdens my heart to know that
God always offers up the open door again and again,
until I see.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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

Come and See: Make Straight the Way

barnstormingblog1 Comment

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”  He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 

And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?”
And he answered, “No.” 
 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 
 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 

John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
John 1:19-28

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When Light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye —

A Moment — We Uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darknesses —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.
~Emily Dickinson

I admit that I’ve been stumbling about in the dark,
bearing the bruises and scrapes of
random collisions with objects hidden in the night.

My eyes must slowly adjust to such bare illumination,
as the Lamp sometimes is carried away.
I must feel my way along the road of life.

I know there are fellow darkness travelers
who also have lost their way and their Light,
giving what they can and sometimes more.

And so, blinded as we each are,
we run forehead-first into the Tree
which has always been there and always will be.

Because of who we are and Who loves us,
we, now free and forgiven,
follow a darkened road guaranteed straight, all the way Home.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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

You See, I Am Alive

barnstormingblog1 Comment

I am a feather on the bright sky

I am the blue horse that runs in the plain

I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water

I am the shadow that follows a child

I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows

I am an eagle playing with the wind

I am a cluster of bright beads

I am the farthest star

I am the cold of dawn

I am the roaring of the rain

I am the glitter on the crust of the snow

I am the long track of the moon in a lake

I am a flame of four colors

I am a deer standing away in the dusk

I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche

I am an angle of geese in the winter sky

I am the hunger of a young wolf

I am the whole dream of these things
You see, I am alive, I am alive
~N. Scott Momaday from “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee” from In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems

I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, the octopus dreams of me.
~N. Scott Momaday

photo by Nate Gibson

If I am brutally honest with myself after my recent cardiac brush with my mortality, one of my worst fears is to have lived on this earth for a handful of decades and then pass away forgotten, inconsequential, having left behind no legacy of significance whatsoever. 

I’m well aware it is self-absorbed to feel the need to leave a mark, but a search for purpose and meaning lasting beyond my time here provides new momentum for each day. The forgetting can happen so fast. 

Most people know little about their great-great-grandparents, if they even know their names. A mere four generations, a century, renders us dust, not just in flesh, but in memory as well. There may be a yellowed photograph in a box somewhere, perhaps a tattered postcard or letter written in elegant script, but the essence of this person is long lost and forgotten.

We owe it to our descendants to write down the stories about who we were while we lived on this earth. We need to share why we lived, for whom we lived, for what we lived.

I suspect, although I try every day to record some part of who I am, it will be no different with me and those who come after me.  Whether or not we are remembered by great-great grandchildren or become part of the dreams of creatures in the depths of the seas:

we are just dust here and there is no changing that.

Good thing this is not our only home.  
Good thing we are more than mere memory and dreams. 
Good thing the river of life flows into
an eternity that transcends good works
or long memories or legacies left behind. 
Good thing we are loved that much and always will be.
You see, we are alive, we are alive,
forever and ever, Amen.

I remember your lectures, Professor Scott Momaday, now nearly two years after you passed from this earth at age 89 – your voice, your stories and your poetry live on.

You are alive. You are alive…

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

To the Dappled Damson West

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

I kiss my hand 
To the stars, lovely-asunder 
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and 
Glow, glory in thunder; 
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west: 
Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder, 
His mystery must be instressed, stressed; 
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand. 
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from The Wreck of the Deutschland

I greet Him when I meet Him
as the plum color of the evening sky
spills as tipped paint
far fleeting across the horizon,
cleaned up and gone before grasped,
I kiss my hand
to the drama played out before the sun sets.

I greet Him when I meet Him
as starlight speckles
the overhead ceiling,
each touching infinity
where it begins
and never ends.

I greet Him when I meet Him
in glowing cloud mountains
sparking lightning
and clapping thunder,
applause for His
resplendent magnificence.

I greet Him when
He is hidden
mysterious
unknown
and unknowable,
waiting for the blessing
of understanding
wafting from Him
in royal color, in glistening speckle,
in enduring glow, in inspiring spark,
in appreciative applause
for His splendor
wrapped in wonder.

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