The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back. ~ C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love. But if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God. ~Meister EckhartfromFreedom from Sinful Thoughts
I tend to get distracted, losing my sense of purpose and the reason I’m here; I become too absorbed by the troubles of the moment, or dwelling on the troubles of the past, or anticipating the troubles of tomorrow.
My feelings end up overwhelming all else – am I uncomfortable? restless? discouraged? peevish? worried? empty?
When my spirit grows cold, I need igniting. I long for the spark of God to set me aflame again, even at the risk of getting singed.
We’re all His kindling ready to be lit. I long for longing at the beginning and ending of every day.
Lyrics: From the love of my own comfort From the fear of having nothing From a life of worldly passions Deliver me O God
From the need to be understood From the need to be accepted From the fear of being lonely Deliver me O God Deliver me O God
And I shall not want, I shall not want when I taste Your goodness I shall not want when I taste Your goodness I shall not want
From the fear of serving others From the fear of death or trial From the fear of humility Deliver me O God Deliver me O God
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Needing them still, I come when I can, this time to the sea where we share a room: their double bed, my single. Morning fog paints the pale scene even paler. Lace curtains breathing, the chenille spread folded back, my father’s feet white sails furled at the edge of blue pajamas. Every child’s dream, a parent in each hand, though this child is fifty. Their bodies fit easily, with room to spare. When did they grow so small? Grow so small— as if it were possible to swell backwards into an earlier self.
“Her Room” by Andrew Wyeth in the Farnsworth Art Museum
My parents have been gone now for some time, my father 30 years, my mother, nearly 17 years. Their dying was a long process of counted breaths and pauses. I witnessed their bodies curling into themselves, shrinking smaller, worn down by illness and age.
I still miss them as I’m reminded of them by the events of my own life, still wanting them to take me by the hand as I navigate my own daily path.
After mom’s death, those possessions not distributed to family members have remained packed up and stored in our barn buildings. I know it is well past time to deal with their stuff as I become keenly aware of my own graying and aging.
In the house, next to where I write, is a box of over 500 letters written by my mother and father between 1941 and 1945. The letters began as they were getting to know each other at college, going from “pinned” to “engaged” and continue for three and a half more years after a hurried wedding Christmas Eve 1942. By mid-January 1943, my newly minted Marine officer father shipped out to spend the next three years of his life fighting on the battlefields of Saipan, Tinian and Tarawa in the Pacific Ocean, not to return again to the states until late summer of 1945.
My mother wrote her letters from the small rural eastern Washington community of Colville, living in a “teachers’ cottage” with other war wives who taught school while waiting for their husbands to return home – or not.
It took me a decade to find the courage and time to devote to reading these letters they treasured and never threw away. I sorted them unopened by postmark date into some semblance of order and sat down to start at the very beginning, which, of course, is my beginning as well. I opened each one with some trepidation and a lump in my throat about what I might find written there. I worried I may find things I didn’t want to know. I hoped I would find things that I desperately needed to know.
Most of all I wanted to understand the two people who became my parents within the coiled shell of their forty years together, though broken by a painful divorce which lasted a decade. Having lived through that awful time with them, I want to understand the origin of a love which eventually mended their cracked shell of companionship, gluing them back together for five more years before my father died.
As I ponder their words, I too cross a bridge back to them both, my ear pressed to the coiled shell of those fading voices, as if I might still hear the sea, at times bringing them closer, then pulling them farther away.
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And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives– Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser Wherein all plunged and perished! ~Robert Browning from “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”
photo by Nate Gibson
It was 27 years ago in the middle of a hot August much like this one. With no air conditioning then, as now, we used fans and at night hoped for comfort from any cooling breeze drifting through the window curtains.
Sleep can be elusive when one is busy sweating all night.
I remember waking suddenly from a fitful sleep in the dark of night, startled by a sound I could not readily identify. I lay still, my eyes wide open staring into the black space of our bedroom, discerning the sound of intermittent splashing in the adjacent bathroom.
What the heck?
Our five year old daughter’s bedroom was the next room in the hallway on the other side of the bathroom. I called out her name, wondering what she could possibly be doing in the middle of the night, making splashing noises in the bathroom.
No answer. More splashing.
Now I was worried. I got up, walked into the hallway, peered into the dark bathroom, unable to see anything amiss. I flipped on the light switch. As my eyes tried to adjust to the sudden illumination, I was able to see one thing that most definitely did not belong in this picture: a rat’s hind end and long tail disappearing back down into the toilet. I gasped, shut the bathroom door quickly and gathered my wits.
There is nothing that will turn one’s stomach quite like seeing a rat in a place it absolutely should not be.
I checked my daughter’s room, flipped the light on quickly to scan the floor and her bed, and she was soundly sleeping and all seemed fine. I shut off her light and shut her door quietly.
Then I woke the man of the house, the only reasonable thing to do in such a situation.
I’m not sure he believed me. Maybe I had only imagined I’d seen a rat? Maybe it was all a dream? Maybe the heat was getting to me?
I went and got a broom and handed it to him. He opened the door to the bathroom a crack, and saw little puddles on the bathroom floor and dirty wet marks on the toilet seat. He quickly closed the door again and looked at me.
There definitely had been a grimy little something in that bathroom. But where was it now??
He opened the door again and went in, getting the broom handle ready to clobber the varmint. He peeked into the toilet and there was nothing to be found except some scummy debris floating in the water and scattered on the seat. He flushed. He flushed again. Nothing.
It was really hard to believe that a rat would voluntarily dive back into a toilet bowl and swim into the pipes …. unless it was headed for another toilet bowl. We quickly closed the toilet lid, piled books on top and went to check the two other bathrooms–no signs of disturbance, wet paw prints or other ratty evidence of invasion.
There is little rational thinking that goes on in the middle of the night when a rat has swum up your pipes into a toilet. I admit to being a little emotional. That’s when we went for the bleach and poured a gallon down each toilet bowl, flushing a dozen times each, thoroughly disrupting all the healthy bacterial flora in our septic drain field. It did make me feel better momentarily. We closed all the toilet lids, closed all the bathroom doors and didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night. When we inspected the toilets in the morning, one of the other toilets had been “visited” as well, but with the lid shut, the rat had disappeared back down the pipe.
In the morning, we coolly told lies to our three children. We told them two of our toilets were plugged up and they had to use one only, and always put the lid down afterward. We decided if we told them about a rat in the bowl, they would never feel safe about sitting on the toilet again. There is the potential of a real psychological PTSD (post-toileting stress disorder) entity. I certainly didn’t feel safe about sitting on the toilet and kept furtively looking down, which doesn’t make for a very relaxed bathroom visit. It can be positively constipating.
We did a search under the house, around the house, trying to figure out where rats could have found access to our septic system. Finally, we discovered that a pipe previously connecting the septic drain field to our temporary single-wide trailer living quarters during our major farm house remodel the previous year had not been completely sealed off when the trailer was removed. It was an open invitation to rodents seeking a cool dark (and wet) place to hide during a hot summer.
It wasn’t the end of our rat woes, but it was the last time they breached our plumbing. We later had a major invasion of our barns, requiring the ongoing services of expert exterminators as well as super duper barn cat defense. I’m proud to say we’ve not seen evidence of rats or their homely furry selves for nearly three decades now. I wish I could say the same for their field mouse cousins, but that’s another story for another time…
We never told anyone about this little middle-of-the-night episode. In fact, our children thought for years we had sudden massive toilet failure at our house.
…until I blogged about it a few years ago because it is a good tale (tail??) to tell…
Sorry, kids. We lied to you – sort of.
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…today, the unseen was everything. The unknown, the only real fact of life. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Purposefully lost in the willow stillness of a late summer meadow in the deer-filled dusk—a silver evening following a blue and amber day. ~Tim Hawkins “Purposefully Lost” from West of the Backstory
I search for the unseen, purposely lost, hoping to find meaning in the unknown.
I am bewildered by this life much of the time. Anyone looking at what I share here sees my struggle each day to discern how to make this sad and suffering world a little bit better place.
I have little to offer you other than my own wrestling match with the mysteries we all face.
Then, when a light does shine out through darkness, when a deer steps out of the woods into the meadow, I am not surprised.
I simply need to pay attention. Illumination was there all the time, but I needed the eyes to see its beauty laid bare, brave enough to show itself even brighter in the light of day.
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Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block. ~Annie Dillard from The Writing Life
Over seventeen years ago, I decided to aim for the block on this website of reflections, as if words were wood and pictures were kindling. I started storing up cords of words and pictures, chopping away every day in case I’d need this storehouse of fuel in the future.
As a result, my ax needs constant sharpening.
I have ended up with a quite a pile of over 5000 posts strewn about my feet due to random chopping. I’ve been drenched in sweat at times, some complain about the noise I make, and I’ve garnered my share of blisters and splinters.
I’m readying for when the weather gets cold and the nights long.
It is not that the world needs another blog post or another book — instead I keep a focused aim, chopping by keeping my eye on the block, cutting through and past the wood. Writing is something to do because I feel better when I do it. What I store up here will keep us warm when life gives us chills.
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Since childhood, I’ve imagined the books on my shelf having an internal life of their own, filled as they are with words and characters and plots and devices, contained in darkness between two covers until someone opens and reads.
Those words are freed, exposed to the light of day, to leak through the bindings or trickle down the pages to find new destinations. The stories morph, journeying on to who knows where.
Perhaps they drift to the ever-changing clouds that illuminate or darken the skies, depending upon their impact: some words of joy and some words of lament and sorrow.
Perhaps like closed books whose words are set free, when I pray, my words are liberated into the changing light to reach the ear of God.
And it is there my story is told, and He listens carefully to each word.
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It’s just a leaf. A damaged leaf at that, clinging to a filbert tree ravaged by blight. The leaf turns partially back upon itself, riddled with holes, the traumatic result of voracious insect appetites.
Damaged does not accurately describe this leaf, the color of rich burgundy wine, deep purple veins that branch to the tips of its serrated edge. The holes open the leaf to light and air, forming a filigree of nature, an exquisite fragile beauty.
It makes me think of our own traumas, how they open us, raw and hurting, humble us, soften and expand us to the pain of others and when we are most vulnerable we hold on, weakened, but not necessarily damaged.
Perhaps it is then our scars become beautiful and an inner loveliness shines through. ~Lois Parker Edstrom “Fragile Beauty” (an ephrastic poem written about the picture below) from Almanac of Quiet Days
Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound. By the mediation of a thousand little mosses and fungi, the most unsightly objects become radiant of beauty. There seem to be two sides of this world, presented us at different times, as we see things in growth or dissolution, in life or death. And seen with the eye of the poet, as God sees them, all things are alive and beautiful. ~Henry David Thoreau (journal)
…writing was one way to let something of lasting value emerge from the pains and fears of my little, quickly passing life. Each time life required me to take a new step into unknown spiritual territory, I felt a deep, inner urge to tell my story to others– Perhaps as a need for companionship but maybe, too, out of an awareness that my deepest vocation is to be a witness to the glimpses of God I have been allowed to catch. ~Henri Nouwen
As I stepped under a dripping birch tree on our farm on this rainy summer day, I ran head-long into a branch of leaves that appeared more lace than leaf.
They were filagreed nearly to invisibility, presumably by a leaf miner of some sort who chewed intricate designs as its leavings. The residual was left hanging, trying to make the best of things in the drizzle.
Though they are mostly eaten away, these leaves have nearly fulfilled their full season of growth in support of their home base tree. Instead of an ordinary summer of drying and coloring and dropping as a birch leaf must in another month or two, they instead manifest the creativity of our God who designed his creatures to interact in such a way that beauty could be found in the most unlikely places, slapping us full in the face.
God sees such intricate wounds in the leaf as beautiful. God knows our visible and invisible scars are the way His Light illuminates our darkness. I feel the deep urge to share this glimpse of such “holiness” with you.
Lyrics: No star is o’er the lake, Its pale watch keeping, The moon is half awake, Through grey mist creeping, The last red leaves fall round The porch of roses, The clock hath ceased to sound, The long day closes. Sit by the silent hearth In calm endeavour, To count the sounds of mirth, Now dumb for ever. Heed not how hope believes And fate disposes: Shadow is round the eaves, The long day closes. The lighted windows dim Are fading slowly. The fire that was so trim Now quivers lowly. Go to the dreamless bed Where grief reposes; Thy book of toil is read, The long day closes
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Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. ~William Butler Yeats from “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven“
I know for a while again, the health of self-forgetfulness, looking out at the sky through a notch in the valley side, the black woods wintry on the hills, small clouds at sunset passing across. And I know that this is one of the thresholds between Earth and Heaven, from which I may even step forth from myself and be free. ~ Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2000
John O’Donohue gave voice to the connection between beauty and those edges of life — thresholds was the word he loved— where the fullness of reality becomes more stark and more clear.
If you go back to the etymology of the word “threshold,” it comes from “threshing,” which is to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness.
There are huge thresholds in every life.
You know that, for instance, if you are in the middle of your life in a busy evening, fifty things to do and you get a phone call that somebody you love is suddenly dying, it takes ten seconds to communicate that information.
But when you put the phone down, you are already standing in a different world. Suddenly everything that seems so important before is all gone and now you are thinking of this.So the given world that we think is there and the solid ground we are on is so tentative. And a threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit, and very often how we cross is the key thing.
Over a decade ago, someone told me that my writing reflected a “sacramental” life — touching and tasting the holiness of everyday moments, as if they are the cup and bread of God’s eternal grace and gift.
I allow those words to sit warmly beside me during the hours I struggle to know what to share here.
It is all too tempting to focus on sacrament over the sacrifice it represents. As much as I love the world and the beauty in the moments I share here, we should explore the “thin places” between heaven and earth, through forgetting self, stepping forth through a holy threshold into something far greater.
I feel so unworthy — in fact, threshed to pieces most days, incapable of thinking of anything but how I feel reduced to fragments. Perhaps those fragments are like the droplets coming from a farm sprinkler at sunset, sparkling and golden despite waning light, bringing something essential to someone feeling dry, parched and dusty.
I may even step forth from myself and be free.
Then we can walk each other home.
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But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have August and abundantly so. You can have love, though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys until you realize foam’s twin is blood.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can’t bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. You can’t count on grace to pick you out of a crowd but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa.
And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s, it will always whisper, you can’t have it all, but there is this. ~Barbara Ras from “You Can’t Have It All” from Bite Every Sorrow
My pragmatic mother gave up her teaching career for marriage and family so would remind me regularly that I couldn’t have it all: there was no way a woman can have a husband and children and a farm and a garden and animals and a profession and write and travel and volunteer in the community and not make a mess of it all and herself.
My father would listen to her and say to me softly under his breath: “you do whatever you put your mind to…you know what you are here for.”
They were both right.
The alluring abundance of this life has invited me to want to touch and feel and taste it all, not unlike another woman who was placed with purpose in the Garden to be a side-by-side companion and co-worker. Yet she demonstrated what happens when you want more than you are given and yes, she indeed made a mess of things.
Yet there is this: despite wanting it all and working hard for it all and believing I could do it all, I missed the point altogether.
Life is all gift, never earned. Life is all grace, not deserved. It is all August abundance, it is right now, sustaining us through the year’s droughts and floods and storms and drab gray weather.
And there is this: I know what I am here for.
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The ant in the shadow of this blade of grass Is indifferent to my presence, to the action Of the day, to the creaking of the limbs Of the sycamore, to the sun lowering itself Slowly from the scaffolding of the sky…
The ant has not moved. It is deep in meditation.
…Ants understand The principle of undefiled silence. My ant glows Like charcoal now in the lengthening rays of the sun. I kneel and whisper, “Look up at me. I’m here.” ~John Gilgun from “The Ant in the Shadow of This Blade of Grass”
Today, when I could do nothing, I saved an ant...
Small black ant, alone, crossing a navy cushion, moving steadily because that is what it could do.
Set outside in the sun, it could not have found again its nest. What then did I save?
It did not move as if it was frightened, even while walking my hand, which moved it through swiftness and air.
Ant, alone, without companions, whose ant-heart I could not fathom— how is your life, I wanted to ask. I lifted it, took it outside.
This first day when I could do nothing, contribute nothing…
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