Tag: calm

Our Neighbor The Moon

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Just as the night was fading
Into the dusk of morning
When the air was cool as water
When the town was quiet
And I could hear the sea

I caught sight of the moon
No higher than the roof-tops
Our neighbor the moon

An hour before the sunrise
She glowed with her own sunrise
Gold in the grey of morning

World without town or forest
Without wars or sorrows
She paused between two trees

And it was as if in secret
Not wanting to be seen
She chose to visit us
So early in the morning.
~Anne Porter, “Getting Up Early” from An All Together Different Language. 

And who has seen the moon, who has not seen
Her rise from out the chamber of the deep,
Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber
Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw
Confession of delight upon the wave,
Littering the waves with her own superscription
Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes towards us
Spread out and known at last, and we are sure
That beauty is a thing beyond the grave,
That perfect, bright experience never falls
To nothingness, and time will dim the moon
Sooner than our full consummation here
In this odd life will tarnish or pass away.
~D.H. Lawrence “Moonrise”

photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger

What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. It’s full tonight.
So we go

and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit, myself

thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
perfect beauty and also, oh! how rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up
into my face. As though I were just as wonderful
as the perfect moon.
~Mary Oliver “The Sweetness of Dogs” from Dog Songs

I could not sleep last night,
a tossing turmoil,
wrestling with my worries,
concerned I’ve dropped the ball.

As a beacon of calm,
the moon shone bright
onto our bed covers before sunrise.

This glowing ball is never dropped,
this holy sphere of the night
remains aloft, sailing the skies,
to rise again and again to light our darkest nights.

A lambent reflection of His Love and Peace;
I am soothed by its balming beauty.

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When I Was Sinking Down: Entering Empty Time

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When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
~John O’Donahue “For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing”

I know from experience that when I allow busy little doings to fill the precious time of early morning, when contemplation might flourish, I open the doors to the demon of acedia. Noon becomes a blur – no time, no time – the wolfing down of a sandwich as I listen to the morning’s phone messages and plan the afternoon’s errands.

When evening comes, I am so exhausted that vespers has become impossible. It is as if I have taken the world’s weight on my shoulders and am too greedy, and too foolish, to surrender it to God.
~Kathleen Norris from The Quotidian Mysteries

These are days with no breathing room,
no time to stop and appreciate
that each moment is a swelling bud
about to burst into bloom.

And it is my fault
that I’m not breathing deeply enough~
simply skimming the surface
in my race to the end of the day.

Time’s petals, so open, so brilliant, so eternal,
are closing up, unseen and unknown, just emptied,
without my even noticing.

Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
Isaiah 40:28-29

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

Sing, Be, Live, See.
This dark stormy hour,
The wind, it stirs.
The scorched earth cries out in vain:
O war and power,
You blind and blur,
The torn heart cries out in pain.
But music and singing
Have been my refuge,
And music and singing
Shall be my light.
A light of song,
Shining Strong: Alleluia!
Through darkness, pain, and strife,
I’ll Sing, Be, Live, See…
Peace.

Oh, good shepherd, would you teach me how to rest
I’m rushing on, will you make me to lie down
Will you build a fold by the waters that refresh
Will you call my name and lead me safely out

From my anxious drive to labor on and on
From the restless grind that has put my mind to sleep
Will you call me back and gently slow me down
Will you show me now what to lose and what to keep

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

When my table’s bent with only greed and gold
And my grasping hands are afraid you won’t provide
Will you pour the wine that loosens up my hold
Set your table here with what truly satisfies

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

On the busy streets trying to make myself a name
If the work is yours, there is nothing I can claim
Will you lead me home to the pastures of your peace
And the house is yours, I’m sitting at your feet

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

Slow me down, slow me down

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When I Was Sinking Down: Every Falling Thing

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Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.
~Li-Young Lee “One Heart” from Book of My Nights

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from “Autumn” translated by Robert Bly

Sometimes I wake from my sleep
with a palpitating start:
dreaming of falling,
an intense sinking down,
my body pitching and tumbling
yet somehow I land,
~oh so softly~
in my bed,
my fear quashed and cushioned by
wakening safe.

I feel caught up,
and held tightly,
rescued amid the fall.
Like leaves drifting down
from heaven’s orchard,
like wings that lift me to freedom,
the bed of earth rises to greet me
and Someone is waiting to cradle me there.

Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10

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

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Becoming a Skeleton of Its Summer Self

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Toward the end of August I begin to dream about fall, how
this place will empty of people, the air will get cold and
leaves begin to turn. Everything will quiet down, everything
will become a skeleton of its summer self. Toward

the end of August I get nostalgic for what’s to come, for
that quiet time, time alone, peace and stillness, calm, all
those things the summer doesn’t have. The woodshed is
already full, the kindling’s in, the last of the garden soon

will be harvested, and then there will be nothing left to do
but watch fall play itself out, the earth freeze, winter come.
~David Budbill, “Toward the End of August” from Tumbling Toward the End.

As the calendar page flipped to September this past week, I felt nostalgic for what is coming, especially for our grandchildren who are starting new classes tomorrow.

Summer is filled with so much overwhelming activity due to ~18 hours of daylight accompanying weeks of unending sunny weather resulting in never-enough-sleep.  Waking on a summer morning feels so brim full with possibilities: there are places to go, people to see, new things to explore and of course, a garden and orchard always bearing and fruiting out of control.

As early September days usher us toward autumn, we long for the more predictable routine of school days, so ripe with new learning opportunities. One early September a few years ago, my teacher friend Bonnie orchestrated an innovative introduction to fifth grade by asking her students, with some parental assistance, to make (from scratch) their own personalized school desks that went home with them at the end of the year. These students created their own learning center with their brains and hands, with wood-burned and painted designs, pictures and quotes for daily encouragement.

For those students, their desks will always represent a solid reminder of what has been and what is to come.

So too, I welcome September’s quieting times ushering in a new cool freshness in the air as breezes pluck and toss a few drying leaves from the trees.  I will watch the days play themselves out rather than feeling I must direct each moment.  I can be a sponge, ready to take in what the world is trying to teach me.

And so I am whispering hush … to myself.

Goodnight August, goodnight summer, goodnight leaves,
goodnight garden, goodnight moon, goodnight air,
goodnight noises everywhere.

Bonnie’s student-made desks

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Holding Your Heart

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The main thing is this–
when you get up in the morning
you must take your heart in your two hands.
You must do this every morning.
Then talk softly to your heart, don’t yell.
Say anything but be respectful.
Say–maybe say, Heart, little heart,
beat softly but never forget your job, the blood.
You can whisper also, Remember, remember.
~Grace Paley from “The Art of Growing Older” in  Just As I Thought

Approaching seventy, she learns to live,
at last. She realizes she has not
accomplished half of what she struggled for,
that she surrendered too many battles
and seldom celebrated those she won.
Approaching seventy, she learns to live
without ambition: a calm lake face, not
a train bound for success and glory. For
the first time, she relaxes her hands on the
controls, leans back to watch the coming end.
Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of
the things she didn’t do, as much as the
things she did do. Did she sing a love song?
Approaching seventy, she learns to live
without wanting much more than the light in
the catbird window seat where, watching the
voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along.
~Marilyn Nelson “Bird Feeder”

I’m learning to let go by relaxing my grip on the controls on the runaway train of ambition. This is a change for someone driven for decades to succeed in various professional and personal roles.

I’m aware who I am is defined by what I haven’t gotten done and what I managed to do. And now, nearing seventy, I have some time to explore some of those things I left undone.

Reflecting the calm I feel.
Holding my heart gently.
Humming as I go.
Just sitting when I wish to.
Watching out the window.
Loving up those around me.

It’s sweet to remember why I’m here.

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Why Not Stop and Do Nothing For A While

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You see them on porches and on lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple

who might sit there and look out
at the water or the big shade trees.
The trouble is you never see anyone

sitting in these forlorn chairs
though at one time it must have seemed
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.

Sometimes there is a little table
between the chairs where no one
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.

It may not be any of my business,
but let us suppose one day
that everyone who placed those vacant chairs

on a veranda or a dock sat down in them
if only for the sake of remembering
what it was they thought deserved

to be viewed from two chairs,
side by side with a table in between.
The clouds are high and massive on that day.

The woman looks up from her book.
The man takes a sip of his drink.
Then there is only the sound of their looking,

the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird
then another, cries of joy or warning—
it passes the time to wonder which.
~Billy Collins “The Chairs That No One Sits In”  from Aimless Love

I don’t take enough time
to do nothing.

I think about doing nothing all the time
but then I do nothing about it.

Too many lonely benches on porches
so many empty chairs
too many vistas unnoticed
so many birds singing with no one listening

all deserve an appreciative audience,
someone who is simply there to see and hear and be.

Perhaps today.
Possibly today.
Maybe, just maybe,
today.

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Another Wednesday

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Each one is a gift, no doubt,  
mysteriously placed in your waking hand  
or set upon your forehead  
moments before you open your eyes…

Through the calm eye of the window  
everything is in its place  
but so precariously  
this day might be resting somehow 

on the one before it,  
all the days of the past stacked high  
like the impossible tower of dishes  
entertainers used to build on stage. 

No wonder you find yourself  
perched on the top of a tall ladder  
hoping to add one more.  
Just another Wednesday 

you whisper,  
then holding your breath,  
place this cup on yesterday’s saucer  
without the slightest clink.
~Billy Collins, “Day” from The Art of Drowning

Some days feel like this:
teetering at the top of a finite number of minutes and hours,
trying to not topple over a life so carefully balanced,
even as the wind blows and the fencing sharp
and the ladder of time feels rickety.

It is a balancing act –
this waking up to try on a new day
while juggling everything still in the air
from the days before.

To stay on solid ground,
while flowing with the river of time,
I anchor deep
into the calm eye of your unchanging love,
reminded, once again,
I’m held up from above
when everything beneath me feels precarious.

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Fixing Eyes on the Unseen: Like a Cloud of Dew

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This is what the Lord says to me:
    “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
Isaiah 4:18

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

Amid daily hubbub, there comes a time when I must be quiet myself, devoid of selfish desires and hushing pointless ambitions. I need rest and renewal with a refreshing of purpose.

Only when I am thus silent and still – receptive and emptied of self, I am ready.

It is then I am touched, filled oh so softly, without fireworks or thunderclap, or dramatic collapse. The Spirit descends like silent dew onto my longing heart.

I wake restored, a new life quickened within me.

It is that simple. And so gentle.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is taken from 2 Corinthians 4: 18:
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.

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Let the Wind Die Down

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The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
John 3: 8

Question: What causes
the wind? Why do I feel some way
in wind?

Answer: Trees
fan the wind as they sway.
Bushes help.
Your heart fills up.
~Annie Dillard from “Some Questions and Answers About Natural History from Tickets for a Prayer Wheel

Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us   
comfortless, so let evening come.
~Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

We’re in the middle of an arctic outflow northeaster that is predicted to blow for several more days and bring snow. What felt like hints of spring have literally gone back underground – the peeper frogs’ song at night is gone, the shoots of snowdrops are frozen in place, delicate buds are in shock, daffodils that recently emerged are now held in suspense.

This is no gentle breeze nor is it a life threatening hurricane. Instead, it is a consistent bone-chilling reminder how vulnerable we are to forces far more powerful than our frail and temporary earthly bodies.

We are not in control, never have been. It helps to remember that.

So we sit tight indoors as much as possible, bundling up when we need to go out for farm chores, yet knowing eventually this bruising air will eventually go still. We ourselves are changed and humbled, with hearts full of the knowledge that God is within those unseen forces. Though we may be afraid of the buffeting sting of a strong chill wind, we pray for the inevitable calm and comfort to come.

And I have no doubt – God Himself will bring it.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is taken from 2 Corinthians 4: 18:
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.

All Here is Well…

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Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us 
comfortless, so let evening come.
~Jane Kenyon “Let Evening Come”

And into nights when bats were on the wing
Over the rafters of sleep, where bright eyes stared
From piles of grain in corners, fierce, unblinking.
The dark gulfed like a roof-space. 
~Seamus Heaney from “The Barn”

The barn is awake,
There is no mistake,
Something wonderful is happening here.
Yellow panes glowing, it begins snowing.
Over rafters a hoot owl takes flight.
A safe place to dwell—all here is well— when we’re in the barn at night.
~Michelle Houts from “Barn at Night”

Usually, after turning out that forgotten barn light, I sit on the edge of the tractor bucket for a few minutes and let my eyes adjust to the night outside. City people always notice the darkness here, but it’s never very dark if you wait till your eyes owl out a little….

I’m always glad to have to walk down to the barn in the night, and I always forget that it makes me glad. I heave on my coat, stomp into my barn boots and trudge down toward the barn light, muttering at myself. But then I sit in the dark, and I remember this gladness, and I walk back up to the gleaming house, listening for the horses.
~Verlyn Klinkenborg from A Light in the Barn

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
~Ted Kooser “Flying at Night”

The night barn is a type of beacon as darkness falls.
Light falls through the cracks to guide our footsteps.
It becomes protection from wind and rain and snow.
It provides creatures comfort so their keepers can sleep soundly.
It is safe and warm – full of steaming breath and overall contentment.
It is a kind of sanctuary: a cathedral sans stained glass grandeur or organ hymns.

Yet the only true sanctuary isn’t found in a weather-beaten barn of rough-hewn old growth timbers vulnerable to the winds of life.

An illuminated night barn happens within me, in the depths of my soul, comforted by the encompassing and salvaging arms of God. There I am held, transformed and restored, grateful beyond measure: all is well here.

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