Thank you for visiting this page often, with your heart open to the ever-changing seasons. Your encouragement keeps me looking for beauty in words and images to share each day.
Here’s to another year passed by and yet another to come, full of blessings yet to be discovered…
Previous collections of “Best of Barnstorming” photos:
but the whole shadowed earth reaching up, taking hold ~David Baker “Quicker”
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? ~Robert Browning from Andrea del Sarto
My branches are bare during this season of letting go. As starkly revealed as I am, perhaps darkening days are a blessing – less spotlight on my plainness in silhouette – all knobby joints and awkward angles and curves.
One thing I know though: in this season I prefer the shadowland, yet I still reach up, trying to hold on to the promise beyond me. In fact, so many of us have kept grasping at what we know is there but cannot see, God has come down to grab on to each one — and is still hanging on to us.
We are not too plain to be lifted, welcomed, cherished as we are, into heaven’s arms.
This year’s Advent theme “Dawn on our Darkness” is taken from this 19th century Christmas hymn.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, dawn on our darkness and lend us your aid. Star of the east, the horizon adorning, guide where our infant Redeemer is laid. ~Reginald Heber -from “Brightest and Best”
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Rutabagas were new to me when I first paired with Jean. At Thanksgiving and Easter dinners her grandpa Frank, her spinster cousin, mom, dad, and a tribe of handsome brothers dined in near silence at a great green table with fierce griffins underneath. I would wonder if their quiet was about secrets or something wrong but now I think it was just how they gathered.
Rutabagas were on the table. I had to ask Jean what they were. My first mouthful tasted like something in a gunny sack; nothing like a wine from which an epicure, or would-be epicure, might claim to read the soils in which the grapes were grown. She said she loved their dug-up texture, the hint of dirt that couldn’t be baked away, how they left the tongue with a rumor of something underground and dark.
Autumn vegetables suit her, I think, and none more than rutabagas, so reluctant to have left the ground. ~James Silas Rogers, “Rutabagas: A Love Poem” from Sundogs
It’s true. We had never eaten rutabaga before this Thanksgiving. It is an otherworldly thing that looks like it would rather stay out of sight in the ground. Rutabagas get no respect because they appear rough and tumble, though in actuality they are exceedingly humble with a shy sense of humor.
Our son Ben is an innovative cook and loves to try new things for family get-togethers. This week our dinner was graced with peeled, diced and roasted root vegetables including this new addition. These all came direct from our garden – hiding deep in the soil one minute and roasting in olive oil and seasonings the next: beets, carrots, leeks, garlic and this absolutely ginormous and homely-looking rutabaga.
This is Dan’s first year of planting rutabaga seed, having experimented with turnips previously; we were impressed with the growth of roots up to the size of a melon. It was a great addition to the roasted vegetables, tasting of an earthy but slightly sweet essence of the soil that nourished it.
Rumor is – rutabagas will be back in the garden plan for next year. There is just something exceptional about a scabby-skinned, pock-marked and bumpy vegetable that prefers to stay tucked away in the dark underground, but when chosen, picked and brought into the light, happily feeds a family for a week.
May we all have the heart of a rutabaga.
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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 fields and 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”
On this day, this giving-thanks day, I know families who surround loved ones fighting for life in ICU beds, others struggling to find gratitude in their pierced hearts when their child/brother/sister/spouse is gunned down in mass shootings, or too many tragically lost every day to overwhelming depression, as well as those lost in a devastating three year pandemic.
It is the measure of us – we created ones – to kneel in gratitude while facing the terrible and still feel touched, held, loved and blessed, to sincerely believe how wide and long and high and deep is His love for us — even when we weep, even when we mourn, even when our pain makes no sense.
God chose to come alongside us and suffer, rather than fly away. He knew being alive ~just to be like us at all~ was His blessing to last an eternity.
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There is an arid Pleasure – As different from Joy – As Frost is different from Dew – Like Element – are they –
Yet one – rejoices Flowers – And one – the Flowers abhor – The finest Honey – curdled – Is worthless – to the Bee – ~Emily Dickinson
Remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity. ~Charles Spurgeon
Even when hard times leave us frozen solid, completely immobilized and too cold to touch, there is hope and healing, in the warming immensity of the goodness of God.
Even when life’s chill leaves us aching, longing for relief, the coming thaw is real because God is good.
Even when we’re flattened, stepped on, broken into fragments — the pieces left are the beginning of who we will become, becoming whole again because God is good.
Frost lasts not forever. Sunlight makes us glisten and glitter as ice melts down to droplets. We are a reflection of the goodness of God: His eyes and ears, heart and soul, hands and feet. Even more so, we become His tears as God weeps in His goodness.
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Last evening, As I drove into this small valley, I saw a low-hanging cloud Wandering through the trees. It circled like a school of fish Around the dun-colored hay bales. Reaching out its foggy hands To stroke the legs of a perfect doe Quietly grazing in a neighbor’s mule pasture I stopped the car And stepping out into the blue twilight, A wet mist brushed my face, And then it was gone. It was not unfriendly, But it was not inclined to tell its secrets. I am in love with the untamed things, The cloud, the doe, Water, air and light. I am filled with such tenderness For ordinary things: The practical mule, the pasture, A perfect spiral of gathered hay. And although I should not be, Consistent as it is, I am always surprised By the way my heart will open So completely and unexpectedly, With a rush and an ache, Like a sip of cold water On a tender tooth. ~Carrie Newcomer “In the Hayfield”
I realize that nothing in this life is actually ordinary – at times I could weep over the unordinariness that is around me.
The light falls a certain way, the colors astound, the animals grace the fields with their contentment, the birds become overture, the air is perfumed with rain or blossom.
How can I not ache with this knowledge? How can I not feel the tenderness of my heart feeling so full, it could burst at any moment?
Truly extraordinary to be able to give myself over to this.
Light pools like spilled water on the floor Cold air slips like silk beneath the door The sky feels like a grey wool cap Pulled down round my ears that near
All the ridge is lined with stands of beech At the tops they’re swaying quietly So elegant and raw without their leaves All of these I see
I catch a memory a scent another short glimpse Like someone leaned over and gave my forehead a kiss I give myself to this
There’s a hidden spring back where it’s hard to find Someone used it years ago to make moonshine This forest has a different sense of time Than yours or mine
I catch a memory a scent another short glimpse Like someone leaned over and gave my forehead a kiss I give myself to this
There’s a soil horizon Layers beneath the trees A sign of outward grace Unraveling
One bird sits and sings an aching song One turning leaf, ten circles on the pond Two careful does wait silently beyond Then they’re gone they’re gone
I catch a memory a scent another short glimpse Like someone leaned over and gave my forehead a kiss I give myself to this ~Carrie Newcomer
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The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart… Psalm 51:17
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. 2 Corinthians: 6-12, 16
The great mystery of God’s love is that we are not asked to live as if we are not hurting, as if we are not broken. In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness as a brokenness in which we can come in touch with the unique way that God loves us. The great invitation is to live your brokenness under the blessing. I cannot take people’s brokenness away and people cannot take my brokenness away. But how do you live in your brokenness? Do you live your brokenness under the blessing or under the curse? The great call of Jesus is to put your brokenness under the blessing. ~Henri Nouwen from a Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center
Every day, as the sun goes down, I pause, broken, remembering how often I messed up that day, in big and small ways. I’m cracked open, my mistakes illuminated, weighing down my heart, impossible to forget. Yet, as I pray for mercy, there follows a peacefulness, as my errors are blotted out.
My slate, one more time, is wiped clean.
This ceramic pot is meant specially for our kitchen table — handmade by a friend using the abstract artistry of mane hairs from our farm’s Haflinger horses burnt onto the sides. But it hit the floor and broke into many pieces, looking completely beyond repair.
It is back on our table, repaired with love and care by another friend, using nothing more than copious amounts of Elmer’s Glue. This is the glue of every child’s school desk, the glue of every mother’s junk drawer, the glue of every heart that needs mending. Elmer’s is not the gold of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken vessels are repaired with precious metals, creating an object even more valuable and beautiful than before, with streaks and tracks of gold highlighting their shattered history.
Yet this ceramic is now even more precious to me. Someone we love cared deeply enough to make it in the first place, and another we love cared deeply to repair it, making it more beautiful and blessed in its brokenness, highlighting ragged pieces made whole again.
Someone made us. Someone repairs us when we fall apart. Someone blesses our brokenness with a glued-together beauty that makes us whole.
Therefore do not lose heart…
~Allegri’s Miserere — setting of Psalm 51
Translation: Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness According to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offenses.
Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my faults: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear when Thou art judged.
Behold, I was shaped in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother conceived me. But lo, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.
Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.
Turn Thy face from my sins: and put out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence: and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
O give me the comfort of Thy help again: and establish me with Thy free Spirit. Then shall I teach Thy ways unto the wicked: and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou that art the God of my health: and my tongue shall sing of Thy righteousness. Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord: and my mouth shall shew Thy praise.
For Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee: but Thou delightest not in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise.
O be favorable and gracious unto Sion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, with the burnt-offerings and oblations: then shall they offer young bullocks upon Thine altar.
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the leaves believe such letting go is love such love is faith such faith is grace such grace is god i agree with the leaves ~Lucille Clifton “Lesson of the Falling Leaves” from Blessing the Boats
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up, as if orchards were dying high in space. Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.” And tonight the heavy earth is falling away from all other stars in the loneliness. We’re all falling. This hand here is falling. And look at the other one. It’s in them all. And yet there is Someone, whose hands infinitely calm, holding up all this falling. ~Rainer Maria Rilke “Autumn” translated by Robert Bly
Sometimes I wake from my sleep with a palpitating start: dreaming of falling, my body pitching and tumbling yet somehow I land, ~oh so softly~ in my bed, my fear quashed and cushioned by awaking safe.
I feel caught, held tightly, rescued amid the fall we all do someday, like leaves drifting down from heaven’s orchard, like seeds released like kisses into the air, the earth rises to meet me and Someone cradles me there.
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Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling out of the brisk cloud, to be happy again in a new way on the Earth!
That’s what it said as it dropped, smelling of iron, and vanished like a dream of the ocean into the branches and the grass below.
Then it was over. The sky cleared. I was standing under a tree with happy leaves, and I was myself, and there were stars in the sky that were also themselves at the moment my right hand was holding my left hand which was holding the tree which was filled with stars and the soft rain–
I’m walking under the trees walking in and out of their shadows walking step by step under the trees so the leaves on their lowest branches graze my bare head as I walk slowly under the trees so close to me they could have their arms around my shoulders, walking under the guardian trees.
I’m walking under the trees plucking a leaf and putting it in my pocket so I won’t forget walking under the cloak of these trees thinking of nothing else but the trees and me walking under all their leaves and branches walking all morning under the trees. ~Billy Collins “Walking Under the Trees”
I’m fortunate to have grown up in the land of trees, here in the Evergreen State of Washington. I spent hours and hours just walking or riding my horse in the woods of my childhood home. When I moved away to a state without many trees, I felt abandoned and lonesome. I had to find my way back.
Sometimes the woods can feel claustrophobic and I need to see a horizon to be aware of the comings and goings of the sun. Fortunately, on this farm where we raised our children, we can move easily from one to the other.
Each day, I’m reminded of the wondrous journey I am on. As a child, I always imagined living in a place of happy leaves. Growing up, I looked until I found it.
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It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree out of blue sky the wind sings loudest surrounding me.
And solitude, a wild solitude ’s reveald, fearfully, high I’d climb into the shaking uncertainties,
part out of longing, part daring my self, part to see that widening of the world, part
to find my own, my secret hiding sense and place, where from afar all voices and scenes come back
—the barking of a dog, autumnal burnings, far calls, close calls— the boy I was calls out to me
here the man where I am “Look! I’ve been where you most fear to be.” ~Robert Duncan “Childhood’s Retreat”
And this is where we went, I thought, Now here, now there, upon the grass Some forty years ago.
The days being short now, simply I had come To gaze and look and stare upon The thought of that once endless maze of afternoons. But most of all I wished to find the places where I ran
What’s happened to our boys that they no longer race And stand them still to contemplate Christ’s handiwork: His clear blood bled in syrups from the lovely wounded trees? Why only bees and blackbird winds and bending grass? No matter. Walk. Walk, look, and sweet recall.
I came upon an oak where once when I was twelve I had climbed up and screamed for Skip to get me down. It was a thousand miles to earth. I shut my eyes and yelled. My brother, richly compelled to mirth, gave shouts of laughter And scaled up to rescue me. “What were you doing there?” he said. I did not tell. Rather drop me dead. But I was there to place a note within a squirrel nest On which I’d written some old secret thing now long forgot.
{Now} I lay upon the limb a long while, thinking. I drank in all the leaves and clouds and weathers Going by as mindless As the days. What, what, what if? I thought. But no. Some forty years beyond!
I brought forth: The note.
I opened it. For now I had to know. I opened it, and wept. I clung then to the tree And let the tears flow out and down my chin. Dear boy, strange child, who must have known the years And reckoned time and smelled sweet death from flowers In the far churchyard. It was a message to the future, to myself. Knowing one day I must arrive, come, seek, return. From the young one to the old. From the me that was small And fresh to the me that was large and no longer new. What did it say that made me weep?
I remember you. I remember you. ~Ray Bradbury from “Remembrance”
Not long ago, we drove the country roads where I grew up, over sixty years later, and though some trees are taller, and others cut down – it looked just as I remembered. The scattered houses on farms still standing, a bit more worn, the fields open and flowing as always, the turns and bends, the ups and downs of the asphalt lanes unchanged where once I tread with bicycle tires and sneakered feet.
My own childhood home a different color but so familiar as we drive slowly by, full of memories of laughter and games, long winter days and longer summer evenings full of its share of angry words and tears and eventual forgiveness.
I too left notes to my future self, in old barns, and lofts, and yes, in trees, but won’t go back to retrieve them. I remember what I wrote. My young heart tried to imagine itself decades hence, with so much to fear – bomb drills and shelters in the ground, such anxiety and joy would pass through me like pumping blood, wondering what wounds would I bear and bleed, what love and tears would trace my aging face?
I have not forgotten that I wish to be remembered.
No, I have never forgotten that I remember that child: this is me, as I was, and, deep down, still am.
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