May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
This is a song in praise of hard, dark nights: no firelight, no afterglow, but the sliver of a crescent moon and a few stray stars flung out into the wilderness, calling you into the great Alone with your animal self, falling down on tired knees broken against the ground. Then prostrate— cross-like— face down and stretched to the end of yourself by how wrong you’ve been— because, of course, this is the end.
But there is still some warmth coming up from the Earth, and a humming in the sweet black air— some great vibration of life that goes out before you. And though you can’t see them, the birchwood and pines rustle inside the wind’s divine pull— in a dance of wills— and somewhere, a great horned owl bellows his clear, determined hoot like a psalm across the land.
So, you learn to breathe, again, with his heralding— a rhythm that beats electric blue like a pulse: “It’s not the end— it’s not the end—”
No, this is not the end— hardly an end, but a hard beginning. There will always be a morning— a rebirth.
So, here in the dark— in a night bleaker than bleak— in a time outside of time— there is a mark on the Holy map of your soul where you found your Maker in the hard, dark night— and then lived to see the light of dawn. ~Kimberly Phinney “An Ode to Hard, Dark Nights”
So many seem lost without a map, unable to find their way in the dark, wrecked and wandering, weeping and wretched, believing they have come to the end.
Yet this is not the end, only the beginning. A hard start – all rebirths are hard.
As I have been shown mercy, so I must become mercy, be loving where others show hate, be giving when others take away, build up while others tear down.
We walk together in the emerging light – it’s right there – on God’s holy map of your soul.
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
The Old Year’s gone away To nothingness and night: We cannot find him all the day Nor hear him in the night: He left no footstep, mark or place In either shade or sun: The last year he’d a neighbour’s face, In this he’s known by none.
All nothing everywhere: Mists we on mornings see Have more of substance when they’re here And more of form than he. He was a friend by every fire, In every cot and hall— A guest to every heart’s desire, And now he’s nought at all.
Old papers thrown away, Old garments cast aside, The talk of yesterday, Are things identified; But time once torn away No voices can recall: The eve of New Year’s Day Left the Old Year lost to all. ~John Clare “The Old Year”
Every morning, cup of coffee in hand, I look out at the mountain. Ordinarily it’s blue, but today it’s the color of an eggplant.
I study the cat’s face and find a trace of white around each eye, as if he made himself up today for a part in the opera. ~Jane Kenyon from “In Several Colors”
If you notice anything it leads you to notice more and more.
And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking at this and that.
If I stopped the pain was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe the world can’t be saved, the pain was unbearable. ~Mary Oliver from “The Moths” from Dream Work
As the old year ends, although I love routine, I try to see and do things in a new way, to hang on to what is memorable and let go of what is best forgotten.
My attempts to put a shine on an ordinary year feel futile in a messed-up upside-down world.
The effort can be painful: it means getting muddy in the muck of news and conflict, falling down again and again and trying to get back up.
If I stop getting dirty, if I abandon salvage and renewal, I give up on God’s promise to see the world changed.
God hands me a broom, a shovel and cleaning rags, so I can keep at my efforts into the new year – transforming the old and the ornery and the ordinary into something shiny and new and truly extraordinary.
photo by Nate Gibson
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Now, newborn, in wide-eyed wonder he gazes up at his creation. His hand that hurled the world holds tight his mother’s finger. Holy light spills across her face and she weeps silent wondering tears to know she holds the One who has so long held her. ~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary”in Light Upon Light
Now burn, new born to the world, Doubled-naturèd name, The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame, Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came; Kind, but royally reclaiming his own; A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east… ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~John 1:5
Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79 (Zechariah’s Song)
It never fails to surprise and amaze: dawn seems to come from nowhere.
There is bleak dark, then a hint of light over the foothills in a long thin line, followed by the appearance of subtle dawn shadows as if the night needs to cling to the ground a little while longer, not wanting to relent and let us go.
Then color appears, erasing all doubt: the hills begin to glow orange along their crest, as if a flame is ignited and is spreading down a wick. Ultimately the explosion of Light occurs, spreading the orange pink palette unto the clouds above, climbing high to bathe the glaciers of Mount Baker and onto the peaks of the Twin Sisters.
~Dayspring to our dimness~
From dark to light, ordinary to extraordinary. This gift is from the tender mercy of our God, who we welcome as the Light of a New Day, guiding our feet on the pathway of peace.
We no longer need to stumble about in the shadows. He is here to light our darkness.
AI image created for this post
Sleeping child, I wonder, have you a dream to share? May I see the things you see as you slumber there? I dream a wind that speaks, like music as it blows As if it were the breath of everything that grows.
I dream a flock of birds flying through the night Like silent stars on wings of everlasting light. I dream a flowing river, deep as a thousand years, Its fish are frozen sorrow, its water bitter tears.
I dream a tree so green, branches wide and long, And ev’ry leaf and ev’ry voice a song. I dream of a babe who sleeps, a life that’s just begun. A word that waits to be spoken. The promise of a world to come. ~Charles Bennett “Sleeping Child”
Oh little child it’s Christmas night And the sky is filled with glorious light Lay your soft head so gently down It’s Christmas night in Bethlehem town.
Chorus: Alleluia the angels sing Alleluia to the king Alleluia the angels sing Alleluia to the king.
Sleep while the shepherds find their way As they kneel before you in the golden hay For they have brought you a woolly lamb On Christmas night in Bethlehem.
Chorus
Sleep till you wake at the break of day With the sun’s first dawning ray You are the babe, who’ll wear the crown On Christmas morn in Bethlehem town.
Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name. ― C.S. Lewis from Prince Caspian
He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names. ~Psalm 147:4
The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. ~John 10:3-4
The Lord has called Me from the womb; He has made mention of My name… ~Isaiah 49:1
The new residents of Eden were given the task of naming the things of creation right from the beginning: plants, animals, rocks and even the heavens.
In our modern world, it is a lost art for us to learn the scientific names of things in nature, often no longer caring about the taxonomy and species, the Latin name or even common name.
We have lost the intimacy of knowing the name of what and who we walk among every day.
Not so with God. Not only the stars reflect His naming but He calls us by name – Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Mary, Peter, Paul among others– all heard their name uttered by the voice of God. He knows each of us in His intimate relationship with us.
Let His love be heard when He says our name.
It is up to us to listen closely enough to recognize His voice. It is up to us to be ready to respond: I’m here, Lord!
photo by Nate Gibson
This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together
The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton.
In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself.
You hold your breath to listen.
You are aware of the beating of your heart…
The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.
Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how. ~Thomas Merton
The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:10
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. Luke 2: 10 and 17-18
photo by Nate Gibson
The Advent story is chock-full of listening people.
They listen to Caesar Augustus, to angels, to shepherds, to Herod, to Simeon and Anna in the temple.
It took great courage to simply listen and pay attention–to hear what was frightening, amazing, terrifying, joyous, distressing, fulfilling.
I too listen again to this story with amazement and joy, forgetting my fear as I know the end of the story and what it means for my life. I am called to continue listening throughout my life: for the angel song, for the blessing, for the spreading of good news, and particularly and especially–for the sound of God’s heartbeat here on earth.
Though I hold my breath to listen, Jesus reminds me to keep breathing.
AI image created for this post
This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
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.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Before the adults we call our children arrive with their children in tow for Thanksgiving,
we take our morning walk down the lane of oaks and hemlocks, mist a smell of rain by nightfall—underfoot,
the crunch of leathery leaves released by yesterday’s big wind.
You’re ahead of me, striding into the arch of oaks that opens onto the fieldsand stone walls of the road—
as a V of geese honk a path overhead, and you stop—
in an instant, without thought, raising your arms toward sky, your hands flapping from the wrists,
and I can read in the echo your body makes of these wild geese going where they must,
such joy, such wordless unity and delight, you are once again the child who knows by instinct, by birthright,
just to be is a blessing. In a fictional present, I write the moment down. You embodied it. ~Margaret Gibson “Moment”
I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. ~Jane Kenyon “Otherwise”
We can become complacent in our routines, confident in the knowledge that tomorrow will be very much like yesterday. The small distinct blessings of an ordinary day become lost in the rush of moving forward to the next experience, the next task, the next responsibility.
The reality is – this is an ordinary day –just to be is a blessing – it could be otherwise and some day it will be otherwise.
I look around longingly at the blessings of my life that I don’t even realize, all you who I treasure for reading my words, knowing that one day, it will be otherwise.
I dwell richly in the experience of these moments, these peaches and cream of daily life, as they are happening.
So much to be grateful for, including you…
Off in another city, or maybe a clean quiet town with brick homes and front yards of rhododendrons, bloomless azaleas, you are doing something today. Are you a cook? Is it you who’s involved in peeling, slicing, stuffing, baking? Or maybe you are with a book, or a child is playing at your feet.
I am here, playing with words, my heart filled with something you could call thankfulness, but which is much wider than that. Something which says, you didn’t need to make room for this— the onions, the beets, the linen closet, the river and the copper Palisades. Your life was full without my words, but you’ve held me in a space out back, near the red tree, and I am like a flute set amidst the leaves, singing when the wind moves through. ~L.L. Barkat “A Poet’s Thanks”
AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
There was an entire aspect to my life that I had been blind to — the small, good things that came in abundance. ~Mary Karr from The Art of Memoir
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder, quotes from “Our Town”
The smell of baking bread, smooth floured hands, butter waiting to be spread with blackberry jam, and I realize, this is no small thing. These days spent confined, I am drawn to life’s ordinary details, the largeness of all we can do alongside what we cannot. The list of allowances far outweighs my complaints. I am fortunate to have flour and yeast, a source of heat, not to mention soft butter, the tartness of blackberries harvested on a cold back road. A kitchen, a home, two working hands to stir and knead, a clear enough head to gather it all. Even the big toothy knife feels miraculous as it grabs hold and cracks the crust. ~Ellen Rowland “No Small Thing”
The words from “Our Town” written over 80 years ago still ring true: our country a Great Depression of the economy then – now we stagger under a Great Depression of the spirit.
Despite being more connected electronically, we are actually more divisive than ever, many feeling estranged from family, friends, faith.
Some less economically secure, yet many emotionally bankrupt.
May we be more conscious of our abundance – our small daily treasures.
God knows we need Him. He cares for us, even when we turn our faces away from Him.
I search the soil of this life, this farm, this faith to find what still yearns to grow, to bloom, to fruit, to be harvested to share with others.
My deep gratitude goes to you who visit here once in awhile, or daily. Thank you to those who let me know the small and the good I share with you makes a difference.
I’m right here, alongside you in joint Thanksgiving to our Creator and Preserver.
Many blessings today and always, Emily
Let it go my love my truest Let it sail on silver wings Life’s a twinkling and that’s for certain But it’s such a fine thing
CHORUS:There’s a gathering of spirits There’s a festival of friends And we’ll take up where we left off When we all meet again
I can’t explain it I couldn’t if I tried How the only things we carry Are the things we hold inside
Like a day in the open Like the love we won’t forget Like the laughter that we started And it hasn’t died down yet
Oh let it go my love my truest Let it sail on silver wings Life’s a twinkling and that’s for certain But it’s such a fine thing
Oh yeah now didn’t we And don’t we make it shine Aren’t we standing in the center of Something rare and fine
Some glow like embers Like a light through colored glass Some give it all in one great flame
Throwing kisses as they pass
So let it go my love my truest Let it sail on silver wings Life’s a twinkling and that’s for certain But it’s such a fine thing
East of eden But there’s heaven in our midst And we’re never really all that far From those we love and miss Wade out in the water There’s a glory all around And the wisest say there’s a thousand ways To kneel and kiss the ground
Oh let it go my love my truest Let it sail on silver wings Life’s a twinkling and that’s for certain But it’s such a fine thing
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
And who has seen the moon, who has not seen Her rise from out the chamber of the deep, Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw Confession of delight upon the wave, Littering the waves with her own superscription Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes towards us Spread out and known at last, and we are sure That beauty is a thing beyond the grave, That perfect, bright experience never falls To nothingness, and time will dim the moon Sooner than our full consummation here In this odd life will tarnish or pass away. ~D.H. Lawrence “Moonrise”
the moon looked into my window it touched me with its small hands and with curling infantile fingers it understood my eyes cheeks mouth its hands(slipping)felt of my necktie wandered against my shirt and into my body the sharp things fingered tinily my heart life
the little hands withdrew, jerkily, themselves quietly they began playing with a button the moon smiled she let go my vest and crept through the window she did not fall she went creeping along the air over houses roofs
At times, I’m amazed at the heat of my own breath. Forming a cloudy mist on a cold day, a round fog on the mirror or window, a warming of my ungloved fingers.
This breath that I was given at my beginning is a gift I rarely think about, a fragile gift I take for granted.
Nightly, as the moon honors the sun, reflecting its glory like a faint echo gathering in its light and warmth, I treasure the heat and heart of that first gift of breath so long ago.
Soli deo Gloria.
photo of supermoon by Harry RodenbergerAI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
I am out with lanterns looking for myself… ~Emily Dickinson from “Letters”
And is it not enough that every year A richly laden autumn should unfold And shimmer into being leaf by leaf, Its scattered ochres mirrored everywhere In hints and glints of hidden red and gold Threaded like memory through loss and grief,
When dusk descends, when branches are unveiled, When roots reach deeper than our minds can feel And ready us for winter with strange calm, That I should see the inner tree revealed And know its beauty as the bright leaves fall And feel its truth within me as I am?
And is it not enough that I should walk Through low November mist along the bank, When scents of woodsmoke summon, in some long And melancholy undertone, the talk Of those old poets from whose works I drank The heady wine of an autumnal song?
It is not yet enough. So I must try, In my poor turn, to help you see it too, As though these leaves could be as rich as those, That red and gold might glimmer in your eye, That autumn might unfold again in you, Feeling with me what falling leaves disclose. ~Malcolm Guite “And Is It Not Enough?”
For over 15 years now, I have bared my soul here at Barnstorming, looking for others’ words to help me sort through the events of my life. I particularly look for words that resonate: I can say “I’ve felt like that as well,” with the hope that others reading along with me will recognize that familiar “yes, that is the way it is for me.”
Every day, I am out looking for myself with the help of Light provided by our Creator God. I carry lanterns hither and yon, exploring paths and hidden spaces and wondering what is around the next corner.
So I want to help you see where this journey is going.
Maybe it is finding your own “inner tree” as the leaves fall, revealing the strength of bare bones. Maybe it is noticing beauty in the ordinary. Maybe it is the warmth of knowing someone else feels as you do. Maybe it is discovering a connection, mysterious and wondrous.
Often I hear from you that the Light you carry helped lead you here. Welcome, my friend — let’s walk together…
photo by Josh ScholtenAI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Barnstorming 