Tag: Church

After the Potluck

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We celebrate end of winter’s overlong stay,
And find a respite from embittered mood,
Ignore our sagging incomes for a day,
With shared potluck communion of comfort food.

Beef stew stocked with veggies and potatoes,
Drizzled bread cubes over macaroni and cheese,
Salted nachos dotted with ripened tomatoes,
Meat loaf topped with ketchup to please.

Home made bread from the oven, steaming and soft
Fresh hot chocolate and coffee provide reason to stay,
Remember the smell of shared food will lazily waft
So welcome and hardy with no debt to pay.

When the job is lost or the family is sour,
Too many nights lonely and aching in pain,
Fellowship together for only an hour,
Nurtured and nourished, is never in vain.

Once gratefully finishing up the last crumb,
When life’s feast is done, the journey’s end near
Hang on to your fork awaiting dessert that’s to come
Instead of clinging to worry and unknown fear.

Keep your fork when uncertain about what comes tomorrow
It will remind you of what you can not yet see;
The meal’s not quite over, there’ll be sweetness, not sorrow:
We’ll celebrate together, the best yet to be.

On the Trail of Trillium

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Spring is already in full swing here on the farm.  Grass grows so fast that mowing once a week is not sufficient,  dandelions are dotting the fields in a yellow carpet, the flowering plums and cherries are peaking, the daffodils are in full bloom and the tulips are coming up fast.  The goldfish in our pond have decided to surface from underneath all the winter debris and have grown to a shocking 8 or 9 inches over the winter and now are busy feasting on mosquito larvae as the insects have awakened as well.   At times I feel so overwhelmed by the accelerated pace of growth and activity that I sheepishly long for the dark quiet gray days of winter, if just for the respite of a nap.

Instead of a nap, I go hunting for trillium.  They are the traditional harbinger of spring and without them, it all seems like just so much pretending.  These are somber plants that will only grow in certain conditions of woods and shade, with leafy mulched soil.  Once established, they reliably spring up from their bulbs every spring with their rich green trio of leaves on each stem that are at once soft and slightly shimmery, and at the top the purest of three white petals, one per leaf cluster.  The blossoms last a week or two, then turn purplish and fade away, followed weeks later by the fading of the foliage, not to spring  again from the soil until the following year.  Picking a trillium blossom necessitates picking the leaf foliage beneath it, and that in turn destroys the bulb’s ability to nourish and regenerate, and the plant never forms again.  I think I have known this from my earliest childhood days as I was a compulsive wildflower gatherer as a little kid, having devastated more than my share of trillium bulbs until I learned the awful truth of the damage I had done.  I have since treated them as sacrosanct and untouchable and have taught that respect in my children.

There are still a few trillium blossoms to be found on our farm, steadfast survivors, yet completely vulnerable to someone’s impulse to bring the beauty indoors for a few days in a vase.  What a tenuous grip on life when people are desiring to pluck them, with their resulting oblivion. How unknowingly destructive we are in our blind selfish pursuit of beauty for our own pleasure and purposes.  These pure triad blossoms and leaves, representing all that is preciously drawn from the earth and enriched and nourished by sunlight, can be obliterated, never to return, never to bloom, never to rise again from the dust.

How much more precious is that which rises again to bloom and flourish forever despite our senseless destructiveness?  And He is here, among us, waiting for us, forgiving us for what we have done.

Trillium have been legendary symbols representing the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit and I’m reminded of that analogy as our family and larger church family walk through this Holy Week leading to Easter.  We prepare ourselves and our farm for this week’s events–our church’s Thursday evening Bread and Soup supper with communion tonight, then followed by the Tenebrae service Good Friday evening to meditate on the last words of Jesus from the Cross, followed Saturday night by an overnight Easter vigil service around a bonfire on our farm while we “watch and wait”.

Early Sunday morning our neighborhood community meets on our hilltop to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  We are touched and stricken anew, year after year.

I look at the trillium longingly, wanting to touch them, wanting to own them and hold them, and knowing I never will.  They are meant to stay where they are, as I hope to remain, rooted and thriving for years, yet fragile in the everlasting soil of life.

Alleluia!

Outdoor Easter Sunrise Service on our farm

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Easter Sunrise Service at BriarCroft
(formerly Walnut Hill Farm)

sunrise view from our hill

Sunday, April 12, 2009, 7:00 AM Easter Sunrise Service on the hill above our farm

When we purchased Walnut Hill Farm from the Morton Lawrence family in 1990, part of the tradition of this farm was a hilltop non-denominational Easter sunrise service held here for the previous 10+ years.  We have continued that tradition, with an open invitation to families from our surrounding rural neighborhood and communities, as well as our church family from Wiser Lake Chapel, to start Easter morning on our hill with a worship service of celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

At our annual Easter Sunrise Service in Whatcom County, we develop a different Easter theme each year through use of scripture readings and songs, led by Dan Gibson. We sit on hay bales on the hill for the worship service, followed by breakfast of cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate and coffee in our barn.  As many of the people who attend come from some distance from all over the county, we try to conclude by 8 AM so they may have time to get to morning church services.

We invite all to come to our farm to participate in this traditional service of celebration.  Please dress warmly with sturdy shoes as you will be walking through wet grass to reach the hilltop.  Bring heavy blankets or sleeping bags to wrap up in if it is a chilly morning.  In case of rain, we meet in the big red hay barn on the farm, so we never cancel this service.

If you would like more information and directions, please email us at briarcroft@clearwire.net.

Dan and Emily Gibson– Nate, Ben and Lea

A Church Potluck of Comfort Food

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Perhaps it was celebration of the end of a long cold winter month
Possibly a need of respite from a month of dieting
Likely a response to economic bad news day after day:
A potlatch, a potluck, a communion of comfort food.

What to bring? What soothes stomach and heart?

Macaroni and cheese, with drizzled bread cubes on top
Beef stew chuck-a-block with vegetables and potatoes
Teriyaki chicken
Meat loaf topped with catsup
Spaghetti and pizza

Home made bread, steaming, soft
Whole chocolate milk
And ice cream sundaes

Nothing expensive
Or extravagant
Or requiring debt to pay.

It was the beginning
Of an evening of games and laughter;
When times get tough
And jobs are lost, savings dwindling

It is time for reconnecting community,
For huddling against the storm
Forgetting worry for a night
And sharing comfort, all together, smiling.

Rest Assured

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(originally written New Year’s Day 2007 and adapted for today, which is starting out far more peacefully–at least so far…)

A split instant can change everything. We all know this, but to truly understand it is another thing. I think I must have been due for the lesson.

Things have been a bit busy on the farm during this past holiday week, in addition to our routine chores and work responsibilities. Add in family gatherings and potlucks with friends, more than usual church events, and the natural expected holiday increase in my hospital work in the drug and alcohol unit, and I have been feeling a bit stretched.

On New Year’s Eve I was at church helping get dinner ready for about four dozen people who were going to stay after worship service to see in the New Year together. I was late to get to the sanctuary to play piano for hymn singing and was hurrying in the dark between buildings when I took a misstep off the edge of the sidewalk and fell forward, crashing right into the concrete steps up to the church. I cracked my forehead a good one. I didn’t get knocked out, but my forehead bore an impressive dent. I had the impending sense of “I’m in trouble now” and fully expected to pass out, but I didn’t. My second thought was “I guess I won’t be playing piano because I’d bleed all over the keys” and then the third thought was “the emergency room doctors are going to think I was falling down drunk on New Year’s Eve.” Nope, stone cold sober~~ just incredibly klutzy. Thankfully I had help right away. My husband took me to the hospital where I got stitched up with some 30 sutures and no evidence of a skull fracture. The ER staff who I know very well because they call me regularly to care for their detox patients, teased me relentlessly about “one of the deepest forehead lacs seen yet on New Year’s Eve”. Needless to say today I have quite a headache and will have a pretty nasty scar that will add a few new lines to my forehead but am grateful that I didn’t do more damage to myself.

Once I got home from ER, thinking the worst was over, my husband and two out of three kids started in with vomiting and diarrhea during the night. I have to say this is impeccable timing for the stomach virus that has been passing through our community to hit our family and they are all still miserably sick. I sit here wondering when my turn is coming. Happy New Year!

Times like this require a sense of humor and some perspective about the potential reasons why I needed a knock on the head:

This incident has proven that I am as hard headed as people regularly describe me. Concrete did not win against this noggin. I’m ashamed to say I’ll be even prouder now about my thick skull.

The plastic surgeon told me he’d need to stretch my skin on my forehead a bit to create an even wound closure, so when I raise my eyebrows or furrow my brow, I won’t have the same number of symmetric wrinkles once it is healed. Ah, too bad. He offered to stretch up the other side too while he was at it and I turned him down flat. In fact he told me to not furrow or raise my eyebrow while it is healing–hah, try that for a day under these circumstances!

I knew there was a reason I still wear bangs at age 52. Now I have justification.

This proves that it doesn’t take being under the influence to do something this stupid, unless the “influence” is congenital awkwardness.

Okay, I can try to make light of it but it is not always possible to understand how a split second can change a life, or even take a life. I am just not able to wrap my brain, protected as it is by my thick skull, around how bad things can happen to us when we least expect them. I do know that my travails are puny and pitiful compared to what some people face every day. My sister’s husband died instantly falling off a ladder last August. A good friend was hit from behind while biking home from work, and is now, months later, only beginning to walk again.

I got off easily with a bruised swollen face.

My son Nate showed me lyrics to a song his college choir sung in concert recently, written by a perfectly healthy 24 year old high school music director, Layton DeVries, from Lansing, Michigan a few weeks before he died as a result of injuries in a car accident. He could never have known what was coming so soon for him, yet he had an understanding far beyond his years. I am grateful to Layton that his words are reassuring to me this morning, the first rather traumatic day of a New Year which is blessed despite all that is happening to me and around me.

“O child, child of God, rest assured, the Lord is with you.
When you wake up in the morning and the sun is shining down, the Lord watches over every step you take.
When the world has knocked you down and you don’t know which way to turn, rest assured, the Lord is with you.
When your friends have turned against you and you feel all alone, the Lord watches over every move you make.
He will always be right there to protect and love his child, rest assured, the Lord is with you.
When darkness drifts around you, and your eyes close in sleep, the Lord watches over every breath you take.
And when death comes near to bring you home, you have no need to fear.
Rest assured, the Lord is with you. “