Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten — What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild — Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child? ~Sara Teasdale “Only in Sleep”
When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, That Eden lost unknown and found unsought.
Then just within the gate I saw a child,— A stranger-child, yet to my heart most dear,— Who held his hands to me, and softly smiled With eyes that knew no shade of sin or fear: “Come in,” he said, “and play awhile with me; I am the little child you used to be.” ~Henry van Dyke, “A Child in the Garden” from The Poems of Henry van Dyke
My childhood home is painted a different color but so familiar as we drive slowly by, full of memories of laughter and games with friends, long winter days of sledding and longer summer evenings playing hide and seek and kick the can.
Back then, I wrote notes to my future self, left them in hiding places, a diary of sorts to preserve those days. I still remember what I wrote.
My child’s heart tried to imagine itself decades hence, what fears and joys would I pass through, what wounds would I bear and bleed, what love and tears would trace my face?
I have not forgotten. No, I have never forgotten the child I was ~ she is me, as I was, and, deep down, still am.
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Each night, an owl cries out from the redwoods. He calls, and I call back. I call, and he answers. We share the same bright moon, the same shadows, and the same fate. The possibility of discussion is limitless; we have no secrets. This morning I discovered an owl pellet by the front door—a wad of fur, and a jumble of femurs and little ribs—oracle bones, easy to decipher. ~Gary Young [Each night, an owl cries out from the redwoods.]
Once again a child asks me suddenly What is a poem?, And once again I find myself riffing freely and happily Without the slightest scholarly expertise or knowledge; But I am entranced by how poems can hint and suggest And point toward things deeper than words. A poem is An owl feather, I say. It’s not the owl—but it intimates Owlness, see what I mean? You imagine the owl, owls, Silent flight, razors for fingers, a wriggle of mouse tail Slurped up right quick like the last strand of angel hair, A startle of moonlight, a fox watching from the thicket, All that from a feather. It’s like an owl is in the feather. A poem is a small thing with all manner of bigger in it. Poor poems only have a writer in them, but better ones Have way more in them than the writer knew or knows About. This poem, for example, amazingly has owls in It—who knew we’d see a flurry of owls this afternoon? ~Brian Doyle, “A Flurry of Owls”
Once in awhile I walk into our big hay barn to retrieve a few barn owl feathers and owl pellets.
They were left behind, waiting for a poem to hide within.
The barn owls stay tucked invisibly in the rafters until dusk and hunger lures them to the hunt, swooping outside to capture both moonlight and mice to be coughed up in pellets of fur and bones.
These feathers, dropped like so many random snowflakes, carry within them the glint and glow of the moon.
A reminder: what we leave behind matters, whether it be feather or fur or a wee dry skeleton, a shell of who we once were yet are no longer.
We leave more than shadow.
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and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue, green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.
I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening
a prayer for being here, today, now, alive in this life, in this evening, under this sky. ~David Budbill from Winter: Tonight: Sunset
Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. ~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”
At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace.
It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your fists, your back, your brain, and then – and only then – it is handed to you. From the corner of your eye you see motion. Something is moving through the air and headed your way. It is a parcel bound in ribbons and bows; it has two white wings.
It flies directly at you; you can read your name on it. If it were a baseball, you would hit it out of the park. It is that one pitch in a thousand you see in slow motion; its wings beat slowly as a hawk’s. ~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”
I began to write regularly after September 11, 2001 because that day it became obvious to me I was dying too, though more slowly than the thousands who vanished in fire and ash, their voices obliterated with their bodies. So, nearly each day since, while I still have voice and a new dawn to greet, I speak through my fingers to others dying around me.
We are, after all, terminal patients, some of us more prepared than others to move on, as if our readiness has anything to do with the timing. When our small church lost one of its most senior members to metastatic cancer, he announced his readiness once the doctor gave him the dire news (he liked to say he never bought green bananas as he wasn’t sure he’d be around to use them), but God had different plans and kept him among us for several years beyond his diagnosis.
Each day I too get a little closer to the end, but I write in order to feel a little more ready. Each day I detach just a little bit, leaving a trace of my voice behind. Eventually, through unmerited grace, so much of me will be left on the page there won’t be anything or anyone left to do the typing. I will be far out of the park, far beyond here.
Not a moment, not a sunrise, not a sunset, and not a word to waste.
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I did not just drag and drop. I did not just haul a burden so heavy that my hands, arms, and shoulders gave way and I had to let it go.
Neither did I just browse. I did not get on my hands and knees and join the gentle cows to slowly sample whatever the open field had to offer.
Instead, I sat here at my desk manipulating a mouse which is not, in fact, a mouse and I searched for something on the web that is not, in fact, a web.
And isn’t this how we move forward:
with horsepower for jet engines and candlepower for light bulbs we take what we understand from one era to describe what we don’t in the next. ~Julie Cadwallader-Staub “Progress”
I don’t store anything in the clouds that circle above, nor do I stream or phish from the flowing creeks that burgeon after the rains of winter. I’m just getting over the aches and chills of the latest virus, which landed in my nose and chest, not on my hard drive or software.
Instead of time I used to spend on embroidery, I now put too much effort following threads on discussion forums. I should get back to baking cookies.
I liked the old words better than repurposing them with new-fangled meanings. Words told more interesting stories back then, but now I can’t send any of this to you without Word, cloud, streams, and threads.
But forget my virus. I’ll keep it to myself. I’ll just wave at you through the windows while I clack away on my keyboard.
Alas! Is there no end to what we borrow and forget to give back?!?
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Have you ever noticed how much of Christ’s life was spent in doing kind things – in merely doing kind things? … he spent a great proportion of his time simply in making people happy, in doing good turns to people.
There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world, and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping. But what God has put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them.…
I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are. How much the world needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered. ~Henry Drummond from The Greatest Thing in the World
Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason. ~Mary Oliver from “Dogfish”
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.” ~Danusha Laméris “Small Kindnesses”
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~Plato
I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien from “The Hobbit”
It is tender kindness I miss most these days in this world aflame with anger and violence, distrust and bitterness, resentment and suspicion and plain old cussed stubbornness.
There is true holiness in moments of kindness: I notice it now more than ever. I am given infinite daily opportunities to show kindness to others and when I’m preoccupied, too inside my own head, or feeling too injured myself, I usually walk by without even trying.
Yet when kindness is shown to me, I don’t forget it – it permeates me like a homespun apple pie fragrance that lingers around me, comforting and welcoming me home when I feel alone and a stranger in the world.
I remember all the kindnesses shown to me over the years and always carry them with me. When I have an opportunity in a brief encounter to show kindness, I want to help make someone else feel noticed and special. I want them to feel like they belong, right in that moment.
This daily sharing of words and photos is one way I try to give back what I have been gifted from others over the years. During the two or three minutes you look at what I offer here daily, I want you to know:
– you belong here – I am forever grateful for you – your words and support enrich me.
Thank you for spending some of your precious time with me.
…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4: 4-5
You, who are beyond our understanding, have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ. You, who are the uncreated God, have made yourself a creature for us. You, who are the untouchable One, have made yourself touchable to us. You, who are most high, make us capable of understanding your amazing love and the wonderful things you have done for us. Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation, the mystery of your life, example and doctrine, the mystery of your cross and passion, the mystery of your resurrection and ascension. ~Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)– prayer
There is nothing I can give you Which you have not; But there is much that, While I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us Unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future Which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. Take joy.
And so, at this Christmastime, I greet you with the prayer that for you, Now and forever, The day breaks and the shadows flee away. – Fra Giovanni Giocondo letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi, Christmas Eve 1513
To each one of you who come to this page each day to read words, hear music, immerse in pictures: take heart!
The shadows flee away with day break.
May you be encouraged to explore the mystery of Who has been born within us, in the fullness of time.
Merry Christmas Day to one and all from our hilltop farm –
May all be well for you and yours.
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All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. ~William Butler Yeats from “Easter, 1916”
…just calm clean clear statements one after another, fitting together like people holding hands... a feeling eerily like a warm hand brushed against your cheek, and you sit there, near tears, smiling, and then you stand up. Changed. ~Brian Doyle “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”
In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, ad without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5
Have you ever read words that made such a difference in your thinking that you felt changed? Words that hold on to you and won’t let you go?
The gospel of Jesus’ descent to earth is just such a story.
From the divinely inspired declarations of the prophets, the joy and heartbreak spoken in the Psalms ~from His birth and ministry and death and rising~ Words linked from the very beginning of the universe, to the here and now, to what is to come.
Life can be a thick fog, leaving us lost without a sense of direction. Scripture brings light and clarity in the darkness, so we might hold hands with all who have come before, and those after.
The Father immerses us in His Creation. The Son, Word in flesh, walks alongside us. The Spirit connects us when we feel alone and hopeless.
Changed.
Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye; 1 Corinthians 15:51
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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
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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 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”
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I wanted a horse. This was long after we sold the work horses, and I was feeling
restless on the farm. I got up early to help my father milk the cows, talking
a blue streak about TV cowboys he never had time to see and trying to
convince him that a horse wouldn’t cost so much and that I’d do all the work.
He listened while he leaned his head against the flank of a Holstein, pulling
the last line of warm milk into the stainless bucket. He kept listening
while the milk-machine pumped like an engine, and the black and silver cups fell off and
dangled down, clanging like bells when he stepped away, balancing the heavy milker
against the vacuum hose and the leather belt. I knew he didn’t want the trouble
of a horse, but I also knew there was nothing else I wanted the way I wanted a horse—
another way of saying I wanted to ride into the sunset and (maybe)
never come back—I think he knew that too. We’ll see, he said, we’ll see what we can do. Joyce Sutphen – “What Every Girl Wants”
I once was a skinny freckled eleven year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have her own horse. Every inch of my bedroom wall had posters of horses, all my shelves were filled with horse books and horse figurines and my bed was piled with stuffed horses.
I suffered an extremely serious case of horse fever.
I had learned to ride my big sister’s horse while my sister was off to college, but the little mare had pushed down a hot wire to get into a field of spring oats which resulted in a terrible case of colic and had to be put down. I was inconsolable until I set my mind to buy another horse. We had only a small shed, not a real barn, and no actual fences other than the electric hot wire. Though I was earning money as best I could picking berries and babysitting, I was a long way away from the $150 it would take to buy a trained horse back in 1965.
I pestered my father about my dreams of another horse, and since he was the one to dig the hole for my sister’s horse to be buried, he was not enthusiastic. “We’ll see,” he said. “We will see what we can do.”
So I dreamed my horsey dreams, mostly about golden horses with long white manes, hoping one day those dreams might come true.
In fall 1965, the local radio station KGY’s Saturday morning horse news program announced their “Win a Horse” contest. I knew I had to try. The prize was a weanling bay colt, part Appaloosa, part Thoroughbred, and the contest was only open to youth ages 9 to 16 years old. All I had to do was write a 250 word or less essay on “Why I Should Have a Horse”.
I worked and worked on my essay, crafting the right words and putting all my heart into it, hoping the judges would see me as a worthy potential owner. My parents took me to visit the five month old colt named “Prankster”, a fuzzy engaging little fellow who was getting plenty of attention from all the children coming to visit him, and that visit made me even more determined.
When I read these words now, I realize there is nothing quite like the passion of an eleven year old girl:
“Why I Should Have a Horse”
When God created the horse, He made one of the best creatures in the world. Horses are a part of me. I love them and want to win Prankster for the reasons which follow:
To begin with, I’m young enough to have the time to spend with the colt. My older sister had a horse when she was in high school and her school activities kept her too busy to really enjoy the horse. I’ll have time to give Prankster the love and training needed.
Another reason is that I’m shy. When I was younger I found it hard to talk to anybody except my family. When my sister got the horse I soon became a more friendly person. When her horse recently died (about when Prankster was born), I became very sad. If I could win that colt, I couldn’t begin to describe my happiness.
Also I believe I should have a horse because it would be a good experience to learn how to be patient and responsible while teaching Prankster the same thing.
When we went to see Prankster, I was invited into the stall to brush him. I was never so thrilled in my life! The way he stood there so majestically, it told me he would be a wonderful horse.
If I should win him, I would be the happiest girl alive. I would work hard to train him with love and understanding. If I could only get the wonderful smell and joy of horses back in our barn!
I mailed in my essay and waited.
Fifty nine years ago on this day, November 27, 1965, my mother and I listened to the local horse program that was always featured on the radio at 8 AM on Saturday mornings. They said they had over 300 essays to choose from, and it was very difficult for them to decide who the colt should go to. I knew then I didn’t have a chance. They had several consolation prizes for 2nd through 4th place, so they read several clever poems and heartfelt essays, all written by teenagers. My heart was sinking by the minute.
The winning essay was next. The first sentence sounded very familiar to me, but it wasn’t until several sentences later that we realized they were reading my essay, not someone else’s. My mom was speechless, trying to absorb the hazards of her little girl owning a young untrained horse.
I woke up my dad, who was sick in bed with an early season flu bug. He opened one eye, looked at me, and said, “I guess I better get a fence up today, right?” Somehow, fueled by the excitement of a daughter whose one wish had just come true, he pulled himself together and put up a wood corral that afternoon, despite feeling so miserable.
That little bay colt came home to live with me the next day. Over the next few months he and I did learn together, as I checked out horse training books from the library, and joined a 4H group with helpful leaders to guide me. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, learning from each one, including those that left behind scars I still bear.
Prankster was a typical adolescent gelding who lived up to his name — full of mischief with a sense of humor and a penchant for finding trouble, but he was mine and that was all that mattered.
…that and a dad who saw what he needed to do for his passionate kid. I’ll never forget how he showed his love for me by doing what was needed in that moment.
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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
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