Tag: bread

We Are No Longer Alone: Fed and Filling

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The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.
~J.I. Packer from  Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
~John 6:51



Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
~Matthew 14:16

He has filled the hungry with good things…
~Luke 1:53

If there is one thing universal about human beings, it is that we must eat to grow, stay healthy, and stay alive. Feeding a hungry person is one of the most nurturing and loving actions available to us in our outreach to others.

I learned this first as a nurses’ aide in a rest home when I was a teenager. The most disabled residents depended on me to feed them, bite full by bite full. I could not rush them or they might not swallow properly and could aspirate. I needed to be aware of what they liked and didn’t like or it might end up back in my lap in much less appetizing form.

Later, as a mother feeding my children, especially late at night rocking in our rocking chair, I found those times to be some of the most precious hours I ever spent with them. I was able to make a tangible difference in their lives with a gift from myself — of myself.

So too, we are fed by God–from His Word, from His Spirit, from His Hand at the Supper as He breaks the bread, from His Body. Our eyes are opened, our hearts burn within us.

But the ironic truth is that with the Incarnation, the world – we mere human beings – fed and nourished God Himself. He thrived, grew, and lived among us because His mother nourished Him from her own body and His earthly father had a trade that made it possible to feed his family.

Feeding others as we are fed.
Feeding God when He chose to be helpless in our hands,
trusting and needing us as much as we trust and need Him.

AI image created for this post
AI image created for this post

This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.

God comes.

He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons

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To God and to the Lamb: We Would See Him

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The sacred moments,
the moments of miracle,
are often the everyday moments,
the moments which,
if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only…
a gardener,
a stranger coming down the road behind us,
a meal like any other meal.
But if we look with our hearts,
if we listen with all our being and imagination..
what we may see is Jesus himself.
~Frederick Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

Farmer with a pitchfork by Winslow Homer

We can be blinded by the everyday-ness of it:
A simple loaf of bread is a meal we take for granted.
A gardener looks up and smiles as he hoes a row of weeds,
trying to restore order in chaos.
A wanderer along the road catches up to engage in conversation.

Every day contains millions of everyday moments lost and forgotten, seemingly meaningless.

Perhaps we would see Jesus if only we opened our eyes
and listened with our ears.
At the table, on the road, in the garden at sunrise.

With the new vision we have been given, we discover:
there is nothing everyday about the miracle of Him abiding with us –
always in plain sight.

“Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
John 12: 21

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Made Worthy By His Word

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Here is the source of every sacrament,
The all-transforming presence of the Lord,
Replenishing our every element
Remaking us in his creative Word.

For here the earth herself gives bread and wine,
The air delights to bear his Spirit’s speech,
The fire dances where the candles shine,
The waters cleanse us with His gentle touch.

And here He shows the full extent of love
To us whose love is always incomplete,
In vain we search the heavens high above,
The God of love is kneeling at our feet.

Though we betray Him, though it is the night.
He meets us here and loves us into light.
~Malcolm Guite “Maundy Thursday”

On this Maundy Thursday
we are called to draw near Him,
to gather together among the
hungry and thirsty
to the Supper He has prepared.

He washes the dirt off our feet;
we look away, mortified.
He serves us from Himself;
we fret about whether
we are worthy.

We are not.

Starving and parched,
grimy and weary,
hardly presentable
to be guests at His table,
we are made worthy only because
He has made us so.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

By the magnet of Christ I am drawn to stillness
My joy is to live as a recluse of Love
Resting my head on the heart of all Mercy
Living in the presence of the Presence

This is my home where I will live forever:
Hidden with Christ in God

This breath and this heartbeat, the rhythm of my praising,
sounding to the wing-beats of angel-song.
My will is an anchor in the depths of silence –
Living in the presence of the Presence

Each morning I rise in the Holy of Holies
to sacrifice each moment of time.
Burning like a lamp with the oil of gladness –
Living in the presence of the Presence

Fasting from all things to feast on your manna,
bread in the wilderness gathered each dawn.
Tasting your sweetness in quiet communion –
Living in the presence of the Presence

With my prayer I am sowing / sewing the seeds of heaven,
a garden of paradise to bloom on earth.
Spinning and weaving, revealing the beauty
of Living in the presence of the Presence

In the silence of the senses I know only Being –
the vast fields of heaven in the smallest thing.
Unknowable mystery that cannot be spoken
living in the presence of the Presence
~Kathleen Deignan

An Ordinary Night

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What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside–
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it’s all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles–
each a different height–
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt–
frog at the edge of a pond–
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.
~Billy Collins “I Ask You”

I want to make poems while thinking of
the bread of heaven and the
cup of astonishment; let them be
songs in which nothing is neglected…
~Mary Oliver  from “Everything”

Some days, my search for new words and images runs dry, especially in mid-winter when a chill wind is blowing and inhospitable. I seek indoor comfort more than inspiration. I am content sitting in a warm kitchen with other’s words running through my ears and over my tongue.

I feel kinship with the amaryllis bulb that has been on my kitchen table for the past month, as it enjoys the warmth in its soil pot and occasional drink of water. It started out as such a plain-looking bulb, so dry, so underwhelming in every respect. Once the stem started emerging from its plain-jane cocoon, I watched it grow taller each day. Last week it burst open, wearing its heart on its sleeve, comically cheerful at this drab time of year. I appreciate its effort at bringing summer right into my kitchen and my heart; I get a bit drab and cranky myself without the reminder that winter is not forever.

So I allow myself to drink deeply from a cup of astonishment, even on an ordinary night in an ordinary kitchen on an ordinary very cold end-of-January evening.

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An Unexpected January Light

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Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies
in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape
to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away.
You know you’re alive.
You take huge steps,
trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

After years of rarely paying attention,
too busy with whatever household,
work-place, or barnyard task needed doing,
I realized there are only a finite number
of sunrises and sunsets left to me.

Now I stop, take a deep breath,
sense the earth’s roundness
and feel lucky to be alive,
a witness to a moment of manna
falling from the sky.

Sometimes it is as plain and gray
as I am, but at times,
a fire is lit from above and beneath,
igniting the sky, overwhelming me.

I am swept away by light and shadow,
transfixed and transformed,
forever grateful to be fed
by heavenly bread broken over my head.

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When One’s Ramble is Over

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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

I’m not a practitioner of the ancient art of aromatherapy for medicinal purposes but I do know certain smells transport me more effectively than any other mode of travel. One whiff of a familiar scent can take me back years to another decade and place, in time traveling mode. I am so in the moment, both present and past, my brain sees, hears, tastes, feels everything just as it was before.

The most vivid are kitchen smells. Cinnamon becomes my Grandma’s farm kitchen full of rising breakfast rolls, roasting turkey is my mother’s chaotic kitchen on Thanksgiving Day, fresh baked bread is my own kitchen during those years I needed to knead as therapy during medical training.

The newly born wet fur of my foals in the barn carries the sweet and sour amnion that was part of every birth I’ve been part of: delivering others and delivering my own. My heart races at the memory of the drama of those first breaths.

The garden yields its own treasure: tea roses, sweet peas, heliotrope, mint, lemon verbena take me back to lazy breezes wafting through open bedroom windows in my childhood home. And of course the richness of petrichor: the fragrance of the earth after a long awaited rain will remind me of how things smell after a dry spell.

I doubt any aromatherapy kit available would include my most favorite farm smells: newly mown hay, fresh fir shavings for stall bedding,  the mustiness of the manure pile, the green sweetness of a horses’ breath.

Someday I’ll figure out how to bottle all these up to keep forever.   Years from now my rambles will be over, when I’m too feeble to walk to the barn,  I can sit by my fireplace, close my eyes, open it up and take a whiff now and then to remind me of all I’m grateful for. 

I’ll breathe deeply of those memories that speak to me through scents — with no uncertain voice.

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Letting My Heart Go Forth

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The season of sunset as it draws a veil over the day,
befits that repose of the soul when earthborn cares
yield to the joys of heavenly communion.
The glory of the setting sun excites our wonder,
and the solemnity of approaching night awakens our awe.

If the business of this day will permit it, it will be well, dear reader,
if you can spare an hour to walk in the field at eventide,
but if not, the Lord is in the town too, and will meet with you
in your chamber or in the crowded street.

Let your heart go forth to meet Him.
~Charles Spurgeon from Morning and Evening Devotionals

During my forty years in medical practice, I saw many patients who struggled to sleep at night. Their minds raced, they couldn’t stop worrying, their bodies were tight with tension.

I would have preferred to prescribe walking an hour with God at sunset but that was not permissible at a public institution owned by the government.

Instead, I prescribed sleep hygiene habit, over the counter herbals, prescription medications or talk therapy, wrote documentation for emotional support animals, or suggested yoga or “meditation” or even a labyrinth walk.

I find what is most effective in my own life is allowing my heart to go forth and meet God’s invitation to communion with Him.

Spurgeon, in his own anxiety and depression, knew the healing power of a walk with God at sunset or a meal together in His memory. Even when we are hungry, thirsty, exhausted with worry — by throwing the cares of our heart out to Him, He will catch and hold them tight, raising us up alongside Him on the last day.

I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me shall not hunger;
he who believes in me shall not thirst.
No one can come to me
unless the Father draw him.

And I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up on the last day.

The bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world,
and he who eats of this bread,
he shall live for ever,
he shall live for ever.

And I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up on the last day.

Unless you eat
of the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink of his blood,
and drink of his blood,
you shall not have life within you.

And I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up on the last day.

I am the resurrection,
I am the life.
He who believes in me
even if he die,
he shall live for ever.

And I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up on the last day.

Yes, Lord, I believe
that you are the Christ,
the Son of God,
who has come
into the world.

And I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up on the last day.

Sr. Suzanne Toolan

Original Barnstorming artwork note cards available as a gift to you with a $50 donation to support Barnstorming – information here

Freedom: Being Easy in the Harness

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photo by Joel DeWaard
Photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

I find my greatest freedom on the farm.
I can be a bad farmer or a lazy farmer and it’s my own business.
What is my definition of freedom?
It’s being easy in your harness.
~Robert Frost in 1954, at a news conference on the eve of his 80th birthday

photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

Little soul,
you and I will become
the memory
of a memory of a memory.
A horse
released of the traces
forgets the weight of the wagon.
~Jane Hirshfield “Harness”

photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

The past was faded like a dream; 
There come the jingling of a team, 
A ploughman’s voice, a clink of chain, 
Slow hoofs, and harness under strain. 
Up the slow slope a team came bowing…

O wet red swathe of earth laid bare,
O truth, O strength, O gleaming share,
O patient eyes that watch the goal,
O ploughman of the sinner’s soul.
O Jesus, drive the coulter deep
To plough my living man from sleep…

That Christ was standing there with me, 
That Christ had taught me what to be, 
That I should plough, and as I ploughed 
My Saviour Christ would sing aloud, 
And as I drove the clods apart 
Christ would be ploughing in my heart, 
Through rest-harrow and bitter roots, 
Through all my bad life’s rotten fruits.

Lo, all my heart’s field red and torn,
And Thou wilt bring the young green corn,
And when the field is fresh and fair
Thy blessed feet shall glitter there,
And we will walk the weeded field,
And tell the golden harvest’s yield,
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.
~John Masefield from The Everlasting Mercy

photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

We historically have shouldered much burden
in our pursuit of happiness and freedom;
it’s worth every ounce of sweat,
every sore muscle,
every drop of blood,
every tear.

We forget the weight of the plow
as it turns over the earth
where someday we will rest as dust.

The soil of our hearts is well-tilled,
yielding to the plowshare
digging deep with the pull of the harness.
The furrow straight and narrow.

Although we are tread upon
yet do we bloom;
though we are turned upside down
yet we produce bread.

Plowing brings freshness to the surface,
a new face upturned to the cleansing dew,
knots of worms making our simple dust fertile.

Plow deep our hearts this day
of celebrating freedom in You, Dear Lord.
Let us remember to worship You, and not ourselves.

May we plow, sow, grow,
gather and harvest what is needed
to feed your vast and hungry children
everywhere.

photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

Thank you once again to Joel DeWaard, local farmer, craftsman and photographer, who graciously shares his photos of the Annual International Lynden (Washington) Plowing Match

Whatcha gonna do when the plowin’s done?
Workin’ all day in the heat of the sun
The game’s been caught; the bread’s been won
Whatcha gonna do when the plowin’s done?

What I’m gonna do when the plowin’s done
Is take some time just to have some fun
Say the barn-dance just begun
That’s where I’m goin’ when the plowin’s done

Whatcha gonna do when the daylight’s gone
Twilight settles and the shade grows long
The whippoorwill sings his favorite song
Whatcha gonna do when the daylight’s gone?

What I’m gonna do when the daylight’s gone
Is take you to the dance if you’ll come along
The down-home past time can’t go wrong
That’s what I’m doing when the daylight’s gone

Whatcha gonna do when the moonlight’s gone
And dewdrops settle on the farmer’s lawn
I’m gonna stay right here and dance till dawn
That’s what I’m doing when the moonlight’s gone

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The Stones Themselves Will Start to Sing: Sacred Moments

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Who but the Lord can give the shadows light,
can break into the dark, draw morning from the night?
Who but the Lord will hear our cry and answer, “Here am I”?
Who but the Lord makes blinded eyes to see,
gives music to the deaf, sets the lonely captive free?
Who but the Lord will by His glory show the paths of peace?
O shine on us the brightness of Your face,
to earth’s remotest end, every people, every race.
O shine on us until to each is shown Your saving grace.
~Susan Boersma

The sacred moments, the moments of miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only…a gardener, a stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all our being and imagination, what we may see is Jesus himself.
~Frederick Buechner

We can be blinded by the everyday-ness of Him: 
A simple loaf of bread is only that. 
A gardener crouches in a row of weeds, restoring order to chaos. 
A wanderer along the road engages in conversation.

Every day contains millions of everyday moments lost and forgotten, seemingly meaningless.

We would see Jesus if we only opened our eyes and listened with our ears.   At the table, on the road, in the garden.

The miracle of Him abiding with us is that it truly is every day.

He has made it so He shines upon us.

This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.

If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).

In His name, may we sing…

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Watching Ensanguining Skies

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Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
  Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
  Falls the remorseful day.
~A.E. Houseman from “How Clear, How Lovely Bright”

O’er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold…
~John Greenleaf Whittier from “The Barefoot Boy”

Once I saw a chimpanzee gaze at a particularly beautiful sunset for a full 15 minutes, watching the changing colors [and then] retire to the forest without picking a pawpaw for supper.
~Adriaan Krotlandt, Dutch ethologist in Scientific American (1962)

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions — that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~ R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

How can I feel so warm   
Here in the dead center of January? I can   
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is   
The only life I have. 
~James Wright from “A Winter Daybreak Above Vence”

Last night was a once a year sunset experience in the dead center of January, following a full day of pouring-rain gray-skies monochrome nothingness.

For twenty minutes our region was blissed to witness an evolving array of crimson and purple color and patterns, streaks and swirls, gradation and gradual decline.

It all took place in silence.  No bird song, no wind, no spoken prayer.
Yet a communion took place – the air broke and fed us like manna from heaven. And so filled to the brim…

May I squander my life no more and instead treasure each moment.

May I vow to cherish God, church, family, friends, and those in my community who are strangers to me.

May I never forget my witness this winter day of the bleeding of the last light of day.

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