March. I am beginning to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost where the moles have nosed up their cold castings, and the ground cover in shadow under the cedars hasn’t softened for months, fogs layering their slow, complicated ice around foliage and stem night by night,
but as the light lengthens, preacher of good news, evangelizing leaves and branches, his large gestures beckon green out of gray. Pinpricks of coral bursting from the cotoneasters. A single bee finding the white heather. Eager lemon-yellow aconites glowing, low to the ground like little uplifted faces. A crocus shooting up a purple hand here, there, as I stand on my doorstep, my own face drinking in heat and light like a bud welcoming resurrection, and my hand up, too, ready to sign on for conversion. ~Luci Shaw “Revival” from What the Light was Like
A few remaining hints of frost drip with rain, the frozen ground oozing with mud and mire.
This morning has a hint of fragrance as buds dare to peek open, testing the air.
I wake to dawn’s fiery burning light I hear beckoning eagle chatter and frog chorus
I follow the sun wherever it may appear, so eager for warmth and revival, grateful to be alive to notice.
The thaw is at hand; a new day is aching to bloom.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
AI image created for this post
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Days come and go: this bird by minute, hour by leaf, a calendar of loss.
I shift through woods, sifting the air for August cadences and walk beyond the boundaries I’ve kept
for months, past loose stone walls, the fences breaking into sticks, the poems always spilling into prose.
A low sweet meadow full of stars beyond the margin fills with big-boned, steaming mares.
The skies above are bruised like fruit, their juices running, black-veined marble of regret.
The road gusts sideways: sassafras and rue. A warbler warbles.
Did I wake the night through? Walk through sleeping? Shuffle for another way to mourn?
Dawn pinks up. In sparking grass I find beginnings. I was cradled here. I gabbled and I spun.
As the faithful seasons fell away, I followed till my thoughts inhabited a tree of thorns
that grew in muck of my own making. Yet I was lifted and laid bare. I hung there weakly: crossed, crossed-out.
At first I didn’t know a voice inside me speaking low. I stumbled in my way.
But now these hours that can’t be counted find me fresh, this ordinary time like kingdom come.
In clarity of dawn, I fill my lungs, a summer-full of breaths. The great field holds the wind, and sways. ~Jay Parini from “Ordinary Time”
It can happen like that: meeting at the market, buying tires amid the smell of rubber, the grating sound of jack hammers and drills, anywhere we share stories, and grace flows between us.
The tire center waiting room becomes a healing place as one speaks of her husband’s heart valve replacement, bedsores from complications. A man speaks of multiple surgeries, notes his false appearance as strong and healthy.
I share my sister’s death from breast cancer, her youngest only seven. A woman rises, gives her name, Mrs. Henry, then takes my hand. Suddenly an ordinary day becomes holy ground. ~ Stella Nesanovich, “Everyday Grace,” from Third Wednesday
photo by Emily Gibson
The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future. ~Alfred North Whitehead
This is the last day of “ordinary time” in the church calendar. Yet nothing in this moment is ordinary.
What matters, happens right at this very moment – standing in the grocery store check out line, changing a smelly diaper, sitting in the exam room of the doctor’s office, mucking stalls in an old barn. Am I living fully in the present now? Am I paying attention?
We are sentient creatures with a proclivity to bypass the here and now to dwell on the past or fret about the future. This has been true of humans since our creation.
Those observing Buddhist tradition and New Age believers of the “Eternal Now” call our attention to the present moment through the teaching of “mindfulness” to dwell fully in a sense of peacefulness and fulfillment.
Mindfulness is all well and good but I don’t believe the present is about our minds.
It is not about us at all.
The present is an ordinary day transformed by God to holy ground where we have been allowed to tread with Him who comes to walk alongside us in our travails:
We remove our shoes in an attitude of respect to a living God. We approach each other and each sacred moment with humility. We see His quotidian holiness in all our ordinary activities. We are connected to one another through His Word and promises.
There will be no other moment just like this one, so there is no time to waste.
Barefoot and calloused, sore and stumbling at times, together we step onto the holy and healing ground of Advent.
AI image created for this post — I burst out laughing when I saw what AI came up with for “walking on holy ground”!! Maybe it really isn’t too far off, as much of the time, I’m not sure if I’m coming or going and this illustrates that dilemma pretty well!
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Osana in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domina. Benedictus qui venit. Osana in excelsis. Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi. Dona nobis pacem.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is he who comes. Hosanna in the highest. Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world. Grant us peace.
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The roofs are shining from the rain, The sparrows twitter as they fly, And with a windy April grace The little clouds go by.
Yet the back yards are bare and brown With only one unchanging tree– I could not be so sure of Spring Save that it sings in me. – Sara Teasdale, “April”
The snow piles in dark places are gone. Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear. The gravel of all shallow places shines. A white pigeon reels and somersaults.
Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody. Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers past a blue pool; they celebrate an old festival. A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug sits on my hand washing his forelegs. I might ask: Who are these people? ~Carl Sandburg from “Just Before April Came”
And so Spring asks:
Who are these people?
Here we are, closing in on mid-April and our weather continues to be unpredictable. I am not so sure of Spring.
Yet it sings in me. Yes it sings.
The calendar does not lie, nor does my nose. The pollen counts are rising despite the rains and as I step outside in early dawn, I can catch the slightest fragrance of just-opening cherry and apple blossoms in the orchard. Within a week there will be sweet perfume in the air everywhere and the fruit trees become clothed in white puffy clouds of blossom before bursting full into green.
In defiance of the calendar, our oak trees cling stubbornly to their brown bedraggled fall leaves as if ashamed to ever appear naked, even for a week. In May they will go straight from brown to green without a moment of bare knobby branches.
Even so, it sings in me. Yes it sings.
A morning bird symphony tunes up ever earlier including the “scree” and chatter from bald eagles high up in the fir trees surrounding our house. Nesting has begun despite the wet and cold and wind because their nest is the secure home that calls them back, again and again, year after year.
Like them, it sings in me. Yes it sings.
I rise opening like a bud, I dress my nakedness to cover up my knobbiness, I wander about outside exulting in the free concert, I manage to do chores despite the distractions — this routine of mine which is so unchanging through the calendar days becomes glorious gift and privilege.
Hopefulness sings in me in Spring. Yes it sings.
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torrent rain driven aslant against the barn’s side
swollen Yamhill Creek furious with water
another V of geese over the farm this morning
the plowed field soggy underfoot fixed on distant May
a hawk hung in chill October air like a narrow-winged thought. ~Ed Higgins, “Anticipating Winter” from Near Truth Only
Field with Plowing Farmers by Vincent Van Gogh
Bleak winter weather is predicted to arrive nearly everywhere this week, with subzero temperatures, wind chills and blizzards.
I’m really not mentally ready for this coming cold, but an Arctic outflow waits for no one and certainly not for me.
The gulls, geese and swans somehow endure the chill, gleaning our neighbors’ muddy corn stalk fields, while overhead, eagles and hawks float on the wind currents, scanning for prey.
As I warm up in the house after barn chores, I turn the calendar pages, looking ahead to March. I know better than to try to rush time when each freezing day is precious and fleeting. I still try.
Like the birds sticking it out through winter here, the snowdrops are sprouting from under the leaf cover, as they do each January. They, like me, trust that spring is only around the corner.
So we endure what we must now with the knowledge of what comes next.
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Thank you for this day made of wind and rain and sun and the scent of old-fashioned lilacs. Thank you
for the pond and the slippery tadpole and the wild iris that opened beside the pond last week, so pale, so nearly purple,
their stems already flagged and bent. Thank you for the yellow morels hiding in the field grass, the ones we can only see when we are already
on our knees. And thank you for the humming that rises out of the morning as if mornings are simply reasons to hum. What a gift,
this being alive, this chance to encounter the world. What a gift, this being a witness to spring— spring in everything. Spring in the way
that we greet each other. Spring in the way the golden eagle takes to the thermals and spirals up to where we can barely see the great span of its wings.
Spring in the words we have known since our births. Like glory. Like celebrate. ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “In Case I Forget to Say It Enough” from All the Honey
Sing to the God who turns our sighs into a song Sing to the One who mends our broken hearts with music. Sing to the One who fills our empty hearts with love. Sing to the One who gives us light to step into the darkest night. Sing to the God who turns our sighs into a song. ~Susan Boersma
Each spring day begins new possibility with a sigh, a deep breath and thankfulness-
even when there are tears, sometimes heartbreak, and flat out fear of what may come next.
Even so, through it all I hum along in celebration, singing a song of praise, an alleluia that reminds me why I am and who I live for.
All is well, it is well with my soul.
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For you have been the help of my life; you take and keep me under your wing… ~from Psalm 63
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West 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 “God’s Grandeur”
Next week we read of the crushing of Christ in the Garden of the Oil Press, Gethsemane.
Even there, the moment of betrayal is the moment He is glorified, as He glorifies God. Crushed, bleeding, pouring out over the world — He becomes the wings that brood and cover us.
Jesus is the sacrifice that anoints us.
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…
1 O God eternal, you are my God!
for you I long in body and soul;
as in a dry and waterless land
I search, I thirst, I faint for you.
2 On holy ground your glory I saw;
your steadfast love is better than life;
I'll bless your name as long as I live
and lift my hands to you in prayer.
3 You feed my soul as if with a feast
I sing your praise with jubilant lips;
upon my bed I call you to mind
and meditate on you at night.
4 For you have been the help of my life;
you take and keep me under your wing;
I cling to you, and find your support;
O God my joy, you are my God!
~Christopher Idle
Oh God, you are my God Earnestly I seek you My Soul thirsts for you, My flesh yearns for you In a dry and weary land Where there is no water
I remember you at night Through the watches of the night in the shadow of your wings I sing because you helped me My soul clings to you And your hand upholds me You alone
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I took the dog and went to walk in the auditorium of the woods, but not to get away from things. It was our habit, that was all, a thing we did on summer days, and much there was to listen to. A slight wind came and went in three birches by the pond. A crow uphill was going on about the black life it led, and a brown creeper went creeping up a brown trunk methodically with no record of ever having been understood by anyone. A woodpecker was working out a deep hole from the sound of it in a stand of dead trees up there. And then a jay, much put upon, complained about some treachery it may or may not have endured, though most are liars anyway. The farther in, the quieter, till only the snapping of a stick broke the silence we were in. The dog stood still and looked at me, the woods by then already dark. Much later, on the porch at night, I heard the owl, an eldritch thing. The dog, still with me, heard it too, a call that came from where we’d been, and where we would not be again. ~John Foy, “Woods,” from Night Vision
photo of brown creeper from American Bird Conservancy
photo of stellar jay from allaboutbirds.orgphoto by Ken Schults for National Audubon Society
We live near fields and woods so the evening walks we take with the dogs are listening walks. There is always plenty to hear.
It is an immense relief to hear something other than the talking heads on TV or podcasts. The voices we hear in the woods are unconcerned about upcoming elections, pandemics or the state of the economy.
I listen for the sound of breezes rustling the tree branches, the crunch of sticks and dry leaves under my boots, and more often than not, the woodpeckers tapping away at tree trunks, eagles chittering from the treetops, and unseen owls visiting back and forth from their hidey-holes. The red-tailed hawks scream out warnings as they float from tree top to tree top, particularly upset that we’ve brought along the corgis into their territory.
So, like the outside world, this woods has its own talking heads and drama, but I know who I will listen to and where I prefer to hang out if given a choice. I understand I’m only a visitor to their world and will be invited back only as long as we tread softly.
“Be patient and without bitterness, and realize that the least we can do is to make coming into existence no more difficult for Him than the earth does for spring when it wants to come.” ~Rainier Marie Rilke
Like the birds of the air flying free, we too were created to sing. Yet too often we choose to be grounded — grousing and grumbling.
Many of us know nothing of anticipation of the coming of Christ, some of us might care if we knew, but plenty of us are ready for the whole Christmas thing to be over yesterday.
Whether we care or not does not alter that Christ dwells with us, just as the coming of spring is not stopped by a slumbering disinterested earth.
Like Mary, we say: “Let it be”, not “no, not me, not now.”
We are set free to fly and sing!
He has come on our behalf: a simple, but oh so difficult faith, like the shoot that must break through the crust of frozen earth to reach the sun, in order to bloom.
A star rose in the sky and glory from on high did fill the night with splendor. Came birds with joyful voice to carol and rejoice with songs so sweet and tender.
The eagle then did rise, went flying through the skies, to tell the wondrous story, sang: Jesus, born is he, who comes to set us free, he brings us joy and glory.
The sparrow with delight said: This is Christmas night, our happiness revealing. The sky with praises rang, as finch and robin sang their songs of glad rejoicing.
The lark upon the wing said: Now it seems like spring, no more is winter pressing; for now a flower is born whose fragrance on this morn to earth brings heaven’s blessing.
Sang magpie, thrush, and jay, It seems the month of May in answer to our yearning. The trees again are green and blossoms now are seen, it is the spring returning!
The cuckoo sang: Come, come, And celebrate the dawn this glorious aurora. The raven from his throat then trilled a festive note to the unexcelled Señora.
The partridge then confessed, I want to build my nest beneath that very gable where I may see the Child and watch whene’er he smiles with Mary in that stable. ~translation from Catalonian of “Carol of the Birds”
Whence comes this rush of wings afar Following straight the Noel star Birds from the woods in wondrous flight Bethlehem seek this holy night
Tell us, ye birds, why come ye here? Into this stable, poor and drear? Hasting to see the new born King And all our sweetest musics bring
Hark! How the winged finch bears his part Philomel, too with tender heart: Chants from her leafy dark retreat, “Re, me, fa, sol” in accents sweet
Angels, and shepherds, birds of the sky Come where the Son of God doth lie Christ from the earth and man doth dwell Come join in the shout, “Noel, Noel, Noel.” ~Carol of the Birds (traditional Catalonian carol)
In southern France live two old horses, High in the foothills, not even French, But English, retired steeplechasers Brought across to accept an old age Of ambling together in the Pyrenees. At times they whinny and kick At one another with impatience, But they have grown to love each other.
In time the gelding grows ill And is taken away for treatment. The mare pines, pokes at her food, Dallies on her rides until the other Comes home. She is in her stall When the trailer rumbles Through the gate into the field, And she sings with impatience Until her door is opened. Then full Of sound and speed, in need of Each other, they entwine their necks, Rub muzzles, bumping flanks To embrace in their own way. Together they prance to The choicest pasture, Standing together and apart, To be glad until They can no longer be glad.
~Paul Zimmer, “Love Poem”
There is security in a basic routine, especially on our farm – predictable things happening in predictable ways, day after day, week after week, year after year. Somehow, dull as it may seem, the “norm” is quite comforting, like each breath taken in and let go, each heart beat following the next. We depend on it, take it for granted, forget it until something doesn’t go as it should.
Mornings are very routine for me. I wake before the alarm, usually by 5:30 AM, fire up the computer and turn the stove on to get my coffee water boiling. I head down the driveway to fetch the paper, either feeling my way in the dark if it is winter, or squinting at the glare of early morning sunlight if it is not. I make my morning coffee, check my emails, eat my share of whole grains while reading the paper, climb into my rubber boots and head out for chores.
Some years ago, as I was leading a mare and her colt out to pasture for their daytime turnout, I was whistling to the wandering colt as he had his own ideas about where he wanted to be, and it wasn’t where I was leading. Fifty yards away, he decided he was beyond his comfort zone so whirled around, sped back to his mom and me, and traveling too fast to put his brakes on ended up body slamming her on her right side, putting her off balance and she side stepped toward me, landing one very sizeable Haflinger hoof directly on my rubber booted foot. Hard.
I hobbled my way with them to the pasture, let them go, closed the gate and then pulled my boot off to see my very scrunched looking toes, puffing up and throbbing. I still had more horses to move, so I started to limp back to the barn, biting my lip and thinking “this is no big deal, this is just a little inconvenience, this will feel better in the next few minutes” but each step suggested otherwise. I was getting crankier by the second when I passed beneath one of our big evergreen trees and noticed something I would not have noticed if I hadn’t been staring down at my poor sore foot. An eagle feather, dew covered, was lodged in the tall grass beneath the tree, dropped there as a bald eagle had lifted its wings to fly off from the tree top, probably to dive down to grab one of the many wild bunnies that race across the open pasture, each vulnerable to the raptors that know this spot as a good place for lunch . The wing feather lay there glistening, marking the spot, possessing the tree, claiming the land, owning our farm. It belonged there and I did not–in fact I can’t even legally keep this feather–the law says I’m to leave it where I find it or turn it over to the federal government.
I am simply a visitor on this acreage, too often numbly going through my morning routine, accomplishing my chores for the few years I am here until I’m too old or crippled to continue. The eagles will always be here as long as the trees and potential lunch remain to attract them.
Contemplating my tenure on this earth, my toes didn’t hurt much anymore. I was reminded that nothing truly is routine about daily life, it is gifted to us as a feather from heaven, floating down to us in ways we could never expect nor deserve. I’d been body slammed that morning all right, but by the touch of a feather. Bruised and broken but then built up, carried and sustained, standing together but yet apart.
I am glad for the gifts of this life, for the ache that love inevitably brings, as pain such as this can bring revelation and renewal. Sometimes it is the only thing that does.
Late February days; and now, at last, Might you have thought that Winter’s woe was past; So fair the sky was and so soft the air.
The happy birds were hurrying here and there,
as something soon would happen… – William Morris from Earthly Paradise
We’ve had a pair of bald eagles who return every winter to our hilltop farm. They like the high perches offered by our tall Douglas fir trees providing them a 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside and fields. I suspect their nest is nearby, if not in our woods. They were back today, full of conversation and gossip, chittering back and forth like a couple of sparrows, only much louder and much much bigger/grander. The regular inhabitants of our fir trees — crows and red-tailed hawks — are quite put out at the encroachment of eagles on their territory. They fly about the trees angrily, with scolding and harassing calls.
But the eagles reign wherever they set down talons. There is simply nothing to argue about. My only worry about having them in the yard is how vulnerable our cats might be when the wild bunny pickings get thin. Otherwise I appreciate the eagles for the good neighbors they are. They keep the rodent population under control, they are polite and don’t throw raucous parties at night, and they have a stable long term marriage, something I deeply respect.
So when their chirpy dialogue quiets down for the night and the hoot owls start in, I think about how much I always miss all this conversation during the silent nights of deep winter. Happy birds are back, a truly hopeful sign that we are passing into spring, and something soon will happen…
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