To rest before the sheaves are bound, toss the scythes aside, bare the feet and sink into the nearest haystack, release the undone task and consent to sleep while the brightest hour burns an arc across its stretch of sky: this is the body’s prayer, mid-day angelus whispered in mingled breath while the limbs stretch in thanksgiving and the body turns toward the beloved.
This is the prayer of trust: what’s left undone will wait. The unattended child, the uncut acre, cracked wheel, broken fence that are occupations of the waking mind soften into shadow in the semi-darkness of dream. All shall be well. Little depends on us. The turning world is held and borne in love. We give good measure in our toil and, meet and right, obey the body when it calls us to rest. ~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre “Noon Rest (after Millet: 1890)” from “The Color of Light: Poems on Van Gogh’s Late Paintings”
When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Proverbs 3:24
Thanks to retirement, I have learned to love mid-day naps.
After forty-plus years of 10 hour work days, then awakened with calls at night, I managed to semi-thrive on minimal sleep.
Not any more.
In my new reality, I have discovered that it is possible to leave things undone, something that was never possible during doctoring and patient care. Now it is okay to set a task aside and think about it later. All this hasn’t come naturally to me, but I’m learning.
So it is time to kick off my shoes, pull a quilt up to my chin and close my eyes, just for a little while.
All will be well. The world keeps turning, even when I’m not the one pedaling to keep it going.
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I will seek a letter at the mailbox’s red flag, how many more times? Walk this puddled gravel drive with the dog and cat, how many more times?
Dislike the sight, row of brown molehills risen like my own petty complaints? Be here to hear the just-before-spring birds tune up, how many more times?
My life, ordinary as unmown grass, tattered and dormant in fencerows…. Sons asleep upstairs under quilts pieced of castoff jeans, how many more times?
Witness sunrise over the barn, frost on the grass, deer by the pines? Think of “Jesus asking that man, Do you want to be made well? How many more times?
Think of Him asking me. Of walking back to the mailbox in late afternoon, of pulling it open, reaching in again, how many more times? ~Daye Phillippo “Ordinary Ghazal” from Thunderhead
…it’s easy to forget that the ordinary is just the extraordinary that’s happened over and over again. Sometimes the beauty of your life is apparent. Sometimes you have to go looking for it. And just because you have to look for it doesn’t mean it’s not there. God, grant me the grace of a normal day. ~Billy Coffey
I tend to get complacent in my daily routines, confident in the knowledge that tomorrow will be very much like yesterday.
I look out on plenty of unmown grass.
The reality is there is nothing ordinary about the events of this day or any other – it might have been otherwise and some day it will be otherwise.
I am reminded to stop rushing, take a look around and actually revel in the quiet moments of daily work, chats, walks, meals, and sleep, and yes, lawn mowing. As both of us suffered, one after the other, through a spring cold which interrupted our plans and schedules, we still knew how remarkable it is to just be here living life together.
We are granted peace even, maybe especially, when not feeling well.
Christ came to earth to remind us to dwell richly in the experience of these moments, to live, wanting to be well, despite our limitations.
God knows, such is a foretaste of the heaven which is to come.
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There is weather on the day you are born and weather on the day you die. There is the year of drought, and the year of floods, when everything rises and swells, the year when winter will not stop falling, and the year when summer lightning burns the prairie, makes it disappear. There are the weathervanes, dizzy on top of farmhouses, hurricanes curled like cats on a map of sky: there are cows under the trees outlined in flies. There is the weather that blows a stranger into town and the weather that changes suddenly: an argument, a sickness, a baby born too soon. Crops fail and a field becomes a study in hunger; storm clouds billow over the sea; tornadoes appear like the drunk trunks of elephants. People talking about weather are people who don’t know what to say and yet the weather is what happens to all of us: the blizzard that makes our neighborhoods strange, the flood that carries away our plans. We are getting ready for the weather, or cleaning up after the weather, or enduring the weather. We are drenched in rain or sweat: we are looking for an umbrella, a second mitten; we are gathering wood to build a fire. ~Faith Shearin “Weather” from Orpheus, Turning.
On the planet the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades… Lick a finger, feel the now. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from The Cost of Discipleship
Never before in the history of humanity have we had the ability to pull the weather forecast out of our pocket and know not only what to anticipate in the next 24 hours or 10 days, but even what is happening right now.
Prior to phone apps, we scanned the skies, checked the barometer, looked at where the weather vane points, monitored the thermometer, and put a licked finger up to test the wind direction.
As obsolete as those measures seem now, I confess they still make sense to me.
It’s a little silly if my phone says it is raining at “my location” and I can’t find a single cloud.
I want to know what is happening around me from my own observation, trust my own eyes, feel my own sweat in the heat, my chilly goose bumps in the cold, my wet head in the rain, my hair messy in the wind.
I want to know we’re all in this together, right now.
I want to live completely in this world, living now, finger held to the wind.
Then, having the information I need, I throw myself completely into the arms of God.
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But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them,
“Do you take offense at this?Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”
(For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. John 6: 61-71
When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can. Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie, Contract into a span.”
So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay.
“For if I should,” said he, “Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He would adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature; So both should losers be.
“Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessness; Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast.” ~George Herbert “The Pulley”
Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee. St. Augustine of Hippo in Confessions Book 1, Chapter 1
It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter
from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come.
What resources have I other than the emptiness without him of my whole being, a vacuum he may not abhor? ~R.S. Thomas from “The Absence”
Why no! I never thought other than That God is that great absence In our lives, the empty silence Within, the place where we go Seeking, not in hope to Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices In our knowledge, the darkness Between stars. His are the echoes We follow, the footprints he has just Left. We put our hands in His side hoping to find It warm. We look at people And places as though he had looked At them, too; but miss the reflection. ~R.S. Thomas “Via Negativa”
… to be consumed by God’s holy fire can be the best thing to ever happen to us. As one of my favorite authors Marilynne Robinson writes in her novel Gilead, “The idea of grace had been so much on my mind, grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials.”
To walk with Jesus is to leave some things behind, but I now know that the life he’s called me in to is one of beauty and grace, provision and purpose, relief and restoration — a life with all of the essentials. ~Grace Leuenberger from “Spiritual Formation Dropout” in Mockingbird
We are called to life in Him, containing all the essentials, even when we aren’t sure, don’t know and don’t care.
He knows this about us; He sees some turn back and walk away.
He knows they seek an easier life. He knows how hard it is to follow Him.
He knows our restlessness; He knows our impatience.
His footprints remain for us to find again. The pulley that lets us go will draw us back to Him.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
Text from Christina Rossetti None other Lamb, none other Name, None other hope in Heav’n or earth or sea, None other hiding place from guilt and shame, None beside Thee!
My faith burns low, my hope burns low; Only my heart’s desire cries out in me By the deep thunder of its want and woe, Cries out to Thee.
Lord, Thou art Life, though I be dead; Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be: Nor Heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head, Nor home, but Thee.
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Every morning I sit across from you at the same small table, the sun all over the breakfast things— curve of a blue-and-white pitcher, a dish of berries— me in a sweatshirt or robe, you invisible.
Most days, we are suspended over a deep pool of silence. I stare straight through you or look out the window at the garden, the powerful sky, a cloud passing behind a tree.
There is no need to pass the toast, the pot of jam, or pour you a cup of tea, and I can hide behind the paper, rotate in its drum of calamitous news.
But some days I may notice a little door swinging open in the morning air, and maybe the tea leaves of some dream will be stuck to the china slope of the hour— then I will lean forward, elbows on the table, with something to tell you, and you look up, as always, your spoon dripping milk, ready to listen. ~Billy Collins “A Portrait of the Reader With a Bowl of Cereal”from Picnic, Lightning
The smell of that buttered toast simply spoke to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Some of what we do, we do to make things happen, the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc, the car to start.
The rest of what we do, we do trying to keep something from doing something the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting, the truth from getting out.
With yes and no like the poles of a battery powering our passage through the days, we move, as we call it, forward, wanting to be wanted, wanting not to lose the rain forest, wanting the water to boil, wanting not to have cancer, wanting to be home by dark, wanting not to run out of gas,
as each of us wants the other watching at the end, as both want not to leave the other alone, as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone, we gaze across breakfast and pretend. ~Miller Williams “Love Poem with Toast” from Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems
“Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It’ll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields… and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?” ― J.R.R. Tolkienfrom Lord of the Rings
In our despairing moments, we hold on to memories most precious to us, recalling what makes each moment, indeed life itself, special and worthwhile.
It can be something so seemingly simple becoming cherished and retrievable– the aroma of cinnamon in a warm kitchen, the splash of colors in a carefully tended garden spot, the cooing of mourning doves as light begins to dawn, the velvety soft of a newborn foal’s fur, the embrace of welcoming arms.
This morning, dear reader, I lean forward, elbows on the table, with something to tell you, and you look up, as always, in the middle of whatever you are doing, ready to listen.
That is no small thing. Thank you.
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No speed of wind or water rushing by But you have speed far greater. You can climb Back up a stream of radiance to the sky, And back through history up the stream of time. And you were given this swiftness, not for haste Nor chiefly that you may go where you will, But in the rush of everything to waste, That you may have the power of standing still- Off any still or moving thing you say. Two such as you with such a master speed Cannot be parted nor be swept away From one another once you are agreed That life is only life forevermore Together wing to wing and oar to oar ~Robert Frost “Master Speed”
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too. ~Robert Frost “The Pasture”
An Epithalamion
Today, the day the pasture gate opens after a long winter, you are let out on grass to a world vast and green and lush beyond your wildest imaginings.
You run leaping and bounding, hair flying in the wind, heels kicked up in the freedom to form together this binding trust of covenant love.
You share your rich feast today, as grace grows like grass stretching to eternity, yet bound safely within the fence rows of sacred vows.
When rains come, as hard times always do, and this spring day feels far removed, when buffeted by the winds or mud or frost or drought of life, know your promises were made to withstand any storm.
Even though leaning and breaking, as fences tend to do, they remind you to whom you belong and where home is, anchoring you if you lose your way, pointing you back to the gate opened to you today.
Once there you will remember the gift of commitment: a community of faith and our God has blessed this beckoning gate, these fences, and most of all your love as you feast with joy on the richness of His spring pasture.
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Imagine you wake up with a second chance: How good to rise in sunlight, in the prodigal smell of biscuits – eggs and sausage on the grill. The whole sky is yours
to write on, blown open to a blank page. Come on, shake a leg! You’ll never know who’s down there, frying those eggs, if you don’t get up and see. ~Rita Dover “Dawn Revisited” from On the Bus with Rosa Parks
Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast…” John 21:12a
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Here we sit as evening falls Like old horses in their stalls. Thank you, Father, that you bless Us with food and an address And the comfort of your hand In this great and blessed land. Look around at each dear face, Keep each one in your good grace. We think of those who went before, And wish we could have loved them more. Grant to us a cheerful heart, Knowing we must soon depart To that far land to be with them. And now let’s eat. Praise God. Amen. ~Gary Johnson “Table Grace”
Our life revolves around the table, whether at home or at church.
This is where we hang out late into the evening, and begin the day before dawn.
This is where prayer happens, our meals eaten, stories told, arguments ensue and ease.
This is where we listen to, understand and love each other through smiles and tears.
This is where we share what we have and eat and are fed and this is where God provides for us daily.
We think of those who went before and wish that we could have loved them more.
So let us love one another now, while we can, when we can, and we shall feast together.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
Amen and Amen.
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In the morning, when I slide open the heavy old barn door on its track and step inside, pull the cord to let the chickens out, then turn again toward that open door, tall rectangle of light and ragged grass, trees and sky, the face of the other old barn at the right, its hand-hewn rafters where barn swallows nest, fly in and out through gaps made by neglect and the passage of time, the way the body falls into disrepair, I wonder if stepping from this life into the next will be like stepping through an aperture like this and I hope it’s true, ordinary morning like this. ~Daye Phillippo “Aperture” from Blue Between Owls: Blue Chore Coat and Other Collected Poems
Each ordinary morning, I’m aware how much our barn buildings have aged as I slide open sticky doors, walk past peeling paint, mossy roofs, and gaps in the siding.
Deterioration of the body is inevitable over the decades.
I know this about my own state of disrepair as I move about more carefully during my chores, staying aware of uneven footing, struggling to lift what used to seem lighter, finding the work, as gratifying as it has always been, more challenging.
Our over 100 year old red hay barn underwent a major renovation 5 years ago because it was threatening to fall down in one of our winter windstorms. Thanks to that investment, it is strong and hearty again with new foundation posts, siding, and roof.
Still, it won’t last forever.
I had a pretty major repair myself last year allowing me to continue to do this physical work that is so important to me. Yet, I won’t last forever.
I like to think when those heavy rolling doors open to heaven someday, it will feel just like this: leaving behind what is temporary and always needing repairs, to enter into the redeeming glory of the eternal and everlasting.
And there is absolutely nothing ordinary about that.
photo by Harry Rodenberger
video by Harry Rodenberger
sample of lyrics: Can’t touch my heart it’s not my time. Bust my bones and throw my body on the line Cause I’ve got love to fill me in I’ve family to help me re-begin
Old barns don’t tear down let ’em stand proud until they fall to the ground.
A strange feeling waking up to meet my Savior this whole bizarre ballet that I lived through but I’m not living all alone these wounds of mine will set me free
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“Be a lotus in the pond,” she said, “opening slowly, no single energy tugging against another but peacefully, all together.”
I couldn’t even touch my toes. “Feel your quadriceps stretching?” she asked. Well, something was certainly stretching.
Standing impressively upright, she raised one leg and placed it against the other, then lifted her arms and shook her hands like leaves. “Be a tree,” she said.
I lay on the floor, exhausted. But to be a lotus in the pond opening slowly, and very slowly rising– that I could do. Mary Oliver“First Yoga Lesson” from Blue Horses
After dinner, I try to digest kale and cauliflower in my longing to live longer, and a root-beer float in case my world ends tomorrow.
I play the gamble game with exercise and diet, reminded daily by obituaries featuring people younger than me: the impossible becoming likely.
I want to go out full, embraced by my life, the grand quilt of being here. Yet memories are remnants, and come one patch at a time. And like moments, most fade unnoticed.
After a storm, I take a walk. At the jasmine vine by my front door, a raindrop, suspended on a stem, stops me. What I want, what I can have, merge. ~Jeanie Greensfelder “What I Want and What I Can Have” from I Got What I Came For
In spring there’s hope, in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its leafy cave, but in summer there is everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts, the hospitality of the Lord and my inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body through this water-lily world. ~Mary Oliver from “Six Recognitions of the Lord”
It is hard to accept my temporary status on this earth, until face to face with the compounding limitations of aging.
Perhaps a life-time guarantee of flexibility would be lovely, depending on the length of the lifetime. But forget balancing like a contorted tree waving in the breeze. Even in my prime, I never could manage it without tipping over.
And so I float, slowly opening, like a bouyant lily pad. That I can do…
Even if I am slower to rise than I used to be, I am blessed by the immense gift of the Lord’s hospitality, as long as I’m here.
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Resurrection of the little apple tree outside my window, leaf- light of late in the April called her eyes, forget forget— but how How does one go about dying? Who on earth is going to teach me— The world is filled with people who have never died ~Franz Wright “On Earth”from Walking to Martha’s Vineyard
The year Dylan’s mother died I picked sprays of apple blossom, wound its pink, off-white shades in raffia for you to take to him.
Every year it’s out I think of us, the children, how apples bring the tree so low, until they thud to the lawn, drumming the end
of summer. The blossom was heavy when Dylan’s mother was dying – old wood doing its best again – and he, like you, was so young. ~Jackie Wills “Apple Blossom”
Is there anything in Spring so fair As apple blossoms falling through the air?
When from a hill there comes a sudden breeze That blows freshly through all the orchard trees.
The petals drop in clouds of pink and white, Noiseless like snow and shining in the light.
Making beautiful an old stone wall, Scattering a rich fragrance as they fall.
There is nothing I know of to compare With apple blossoms falling through the air. ~Henry Adams Parker “Apple Blossoms”
Jesus, Apple of God’s eye, dangling solitaire on leafless tree, bursting red.
As he drops New Eden dawns and once again we Adams choose: God’s first fruit or death. ~Christine F. Nordquist “Eden Inversed”
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:20-23
The rain eased enough to allow blades of grass to stand back up refreshed, yet unsuspecting, primed for the mower’s next cutting swath.
Clusters of pink tinged blossoms sway in response to my mower’s pass. Apple buds bulge on snagging branches, showering me from their hidden raindrop reservoirs collected within each blushing petal cup.
My face anointed by perfumed apple tears when I tend to forget – forget– this first fruit is offered, not forbidden, hanging from the tree, broken so our hearts will drop too, bursting open red with Him.
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