Rain. An excuse to stand at the window And listen, watch, wait. Listen: to the hush Of the house as still as a dark burrow Where an animal hides. Listen: the rush Of occasional gusts, then the stillness.
Watch: the wrens hopping from stem to wet stem Their happy bearing in contrast to titmice Who always seem afraid. Watch: the mayhem That strikes when the grumpy bluejay, twice As big as the rest, frumps onto a branch.
Wait: for what? For the steady rain to cease. Wait: for the fair sunlight to avalanche Down from space and remake the world again. Then let my steps be fearless, like the wren. ~Andrew Peterson “Lenten Sonnet”
I’m the child of rainy Sundays. I watched time crawl Like an injured fly Over the wet windowpane. Or waited for a branch On a tree to stop shaking, While Grandmother knitted Making a ball of yarn Roll over like a kitten at her feet. I knew every clock in the house Had stopped ticking And that this day will last forever. ~Charles Simic “To Boredom”
I’m never bored on a quiet rainy Sunday.
My list of to-do’s and want-to-do’s and hope-to-do’s and someday-maybe-if-I’m-lucky-to-do’s is longer than the days still left to me.
I cherish these Sabbaths when the clock stops, and “to-do’s” will wait. Time suspends itself above me, ~dangling~ and the day lasts forever.
Sunday evening scaries in anticipation of Monday are prayed away.
On a drizzly day of rest and gratitude, the world is remade, eternity moves a little closer, my steps become more fearless and the new week is yet another part of the journey.
Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? Job 38:28
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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Suddenly I knew, when we stood in a circle holding hands; suddenly I knew, that because of the circle, because of friendship, because of love— yes, and because of the brokenness, and the need— I have been in heaven all my life. ~Carol Bialock “I Used to Think Heaven was Future” from Coral Castles
The church, I think, is God’s way of saying, “What I have in the pot is yours, and what I have is a group of misfits whom you need more than you know and who need you more than they know.”
“Take, and eat,” he says, “and take, and eat, until the day, and it is coming, that you knock on my door. I will open it, and you will see me face to face.”
He is preparing a table. He will welcome us in. Jesus will be there, smiling and holy, holding out a green bean casserole. And at that moment, what we say, what we think, and what we believe will be the same: “I didn’t know how badly I needed this.” ~Jeremy Clive Huggins from “The Church Potluck”
…when I experienced the warm, unpretentious reception of those who have nothing to boast about, and experienced a loving embrace from people who didn’t ask any questions, I began to discover that a true spiritual homecoming means a return to the poor in spirit to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs. ~Henri Nouwen from The Return of the Prodigal Son
The journey begins when Christians leave their homes and beds. They leave, indeed, their life in this present and concrete world, and whether they have to drive 15 miles or walk a few blocks, a sacramental act is already taking place…
For they are now on their way to constitute the Church, or to be more exact, to be transformed into the Church of God. They have been individuals, some white, some black, some poor, some rich, they have been the ‘natural’ world and a natural community. And now they have been called to “come together in one place,” to bring their lives, their very world with them and to be more than what they were: a new community with a new life.
We are already far beyond the categories of common worship and prayer. The purpose of this ‘coming together’ is not simply to add a religious dimension to the natural community, to make it ‘better’ – more responsible, more Christian. The purpose is to fulfill the Church, and that means to make present the One in whom all things are at their end, and all things are at their beginning. ~ Father Alexander Schmemann from For the Life of the World
We’ve been through fire, we’ve been through pain We’ve been refined by the power of Your name We’ve fallen deeper in love with You You’ve burned the truth on our lips
Rise up church with broken wings Fill this place with songs again Of our God who reigns on high By his grace again we’ll fly ~Robin Mark from “Shout to the North and the South”
photo by Barb Hoelle
There is so much wrong with the modern church, comprised as it is of fallen people with broken wings determined to find flaws in each other in doctrine, tradition, beliefs.
What is right with the church today, is when it offers a taste of heaven for hopeful people who come together in sanctuary, barn and field, eucharist table and potluck, to hold each other up in prayer and to sing in worship to the Three in One, who is why we sing, whose body we are part of and who, in our need, loves and forgives us despite our motley messiness: Our Lord of Heaven and Earth.
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 1 Corinthians 1:9-10
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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one small crystal that gleams clear colours out of transparency.
I need more.
I break off a fragment to send to you.
Please take this grain of a grain of hope so that mine won’t shrink.
Please share your fragment so that yours will grow.
Only so, by division, will hope increase,
like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower unless you distribute the clustered roots, unlikely source– clumsy and earth-covered– of grace. ~Denise Levertov “For the New Year, 1981”
As this year draws to its end, We give thanks for the gifts it brought And how they became inlaid within Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted And the soul could see delight; When a quiver caressed the heart In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake In forgotten corners of old fields Where expectation seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times When all was awkward And the wave in the mind Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter With light from beyond themselves; And from the granite of some secret sorrow A stream of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned, For all we loved and lost And for the quiet way it brought us Nearer to our invisible destination. ~John O’Donohue “At the End of the Year” from To Bless The Space Between
Sculpture by Artist Albert Gyorgy
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity, while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” And laugh in astonishment and bow their heads. ~Mary Oliver “Mysteries, Yes”from Evidence: Poems
photo by Nate Gibson
Each day, for nearly twenty years, I break off a grain of hope from these dirt-covered, humble roots I have dug up to share.
I hand off a grain of hope to you here, as it will grow through your nurture, a tiny marvel you break off someday to hand on to someone else.
Thanksgiving starts with thanks for mere survival, Just to have made it through another year With everyone still breathing. But we share So much beyond the outer roads we travel; Our interweavings on a deeper level, The modes of life embodied souls can share, The unguessed blessings of our being here, The warp and weft that no one can unravel.
So I give thanks for our deep coinherence Inwoven in the web of God’s own grace, Pulling us through the grave and gate of death. I thank him for the truth behind appearance, I thank him for his light in every face, I thank him for you all, with every breath. ~Malcolm Guite “Thanksgiving: A Sonnet”
Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God in the details,
the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love, and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice,
I started writing over twenty years ago as a way to explain who I am for descendants I will never know. I am beyond grateful for those of you who have shown an interest in what I share, whether photography, poetry or prose.
What you find here is my voice of thankfulness for the way God somehow finds His way into the details of my days – especially into the dustiest corners.
I try to preserve what challenges, shapes and molds me: the beauty I witness in sunrises and sunsets, this farm that blooms and often bears unexpected fruit, the animals, those who live here and those passing through, my mistakes and missteps, buoyed by a loving God, my family and good folks surrounding me.
I want to say thank you on this Thanksgiving Day to each one of you who take a few minutes from your day to follow my stories. Some of you have become precious friends despite our never having met.
I am honored to hear from you whenever you have a moment. Your details matter to me, and especially to God.
So when will I hear you tell your story?
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At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~Albert Schweitzer
One kind word can warm three winter months… ~Japanese Proverb
Charis always demands the answer of eucharistia. Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder and lightning.
…we are speaking of the grace of the God who is God for man, and of the gratitude of man as his response to this grace… ~Karl Barth (1886-1968) in Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation
“Rekindling” happens without expectation. When I’m out of gas, spent and deflated, someone’s kind word, smile, gracious note or thank you makes all the difference. Suddenly I’m reignited and have fuel to spare. The spark plug comes alive once again and I’m up and running. I need to remember how this feels so I become the igniter and kindler for others.
I remember a moment in my work life in clinic as I was hurrying from one patient to another. A young woman stopped me as I was about to leave the exam room and said “Doctor, I am so grateful you were willing to see me so quickly today. I’ve been concerned about this for weeks, losing sleep with worry and now I feel so reassured it is nothing serious. Thank you!”
I once received a hand written letter (something rare as hen’s teeth) from a patient I cared for years before. He wanted to tell me he was doing well and how he had appreciated my kindness to him. I was astonished that he remembered me; in his letter he was uncertain if I would remember him. Patients don’t always know how they dwell in their doctors’ consciousness, how they teach us and how much we learn. I surely did remember this patient, his struggles with drug dependency, his strong urge to kill himself, and his desperate search for a reason to keep on living.
He was alive, doing well. He remembered my caring about him. And I was wrapped in his comforting words through some chilly days.
So – I want to share this gift of grace with you, as a recurring echo which follows a cry of joy, a warm illumination pouring out on darkness, through words and images that kindle hope each day.
I thunder loudly at the lightning spark from God, an unending echo of thanks with my every breath.
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Once I am sure there’s nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,
Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new- Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don’t. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce “Here endeth” much more loudly than I’d meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation – marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these – for whom was built This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round. ~Philip Larkin from “Church-going”
Even an empty shell of a church invites in silent witness- even those of us who struggle with unbelief, who stop only to rest a moment, to mock or sigh, breathe in the musty history of such a place.
Over the centuries, there has been much wrong with churches, comprised as they are of fallen people with broken wings and fractured faith. They seem anachronistic, from another time and place, echoing of baptisms and eucharist, weddings and funerals.
Yet we still return, fragmented souls that we are, acknowledging the flaws in one another as we crack open to spill our own.
What is right with the church goes beyond silence: Who we pray to, why we sing and feast together on the grace and generosity of His Word. We are restless noisy people joined together as a body bloodied, bruised, redeemed.
Dear Lord of Heaven and Earth, look out for us in our motley messiness, rain down Your restless love upon our heads, no matter how frowsty a building we worship in, or how we look or feel today.
Be unignorable, so we might come back, again and again.
We stand, stirred, in silence, simply grateful to be alive, to raise our hands together, then sing and kneel and bow in such an odd and humble house, indeed a home God might call His own.
pulpit peonies
The old church leans nearby a well-worn road, Upon a hill that has no grass or tree, The winds from off the prairie now unload The dust they bring around it fitfully.
The path that leads up to the open door Is worn and grayed by many toiling feet Of us who listen to the Bible lore And once again the old-time hymns repeat.
And ev’ry Sabbath morning we are still Returning to the altar waiting there. A hush, a prayer, a pause, and voices fill The Master’s House with a triumphant air.
The old church leans awry and looks quite odd, But it is beautiful to us and God. ~Stephen Paulus
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“Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.” Mrs. Gibbs to Emily in Our Town
We are ages away from our high school class where first we walked the streets of Grover’s Corners and have lived decades and decades of important days writing our own scenes along the way. In this theater we meet again the lives of people as ordinary and extraordinary as we are and find ourselves smiling and weeping watching a play we first encountered as teens. In our 70’s Our Town brings us joy and also breaks our hearts. Now we know. ~Edwin Romond“Seeing “Our Town” in Our 70’s”
We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute? ~Thornton Wilder, from Emily’s monologue inOur Town
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. Ecclesiastes 3: 11-14
One of our very special friends from church got married today to a high school classmate she knew over sixty-some years ago. Both had recently lost spouses and found their way to each other to join together for the rest of their days. Today became a most important day in their lives, a day they could not have imagined as teenagers so long ago.
The post-ceremony reception was joyous, full of other high school classmates who recognized how extraordinary it was for two lives to come full circle after all the ordinary “least important” days of high school. Observing this tight-knit community celebrating together reminds me of Grover’s Corners of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” where even those in the cemetery under the ground continue to engage in conversation and commentary about their family and friends, sometimes wistful, sometimes full of regrets.
There is so much we miss while we are living out our ordinary days because our capacity for seeing what is truly important is so limited – if we paid attention to it all, we would be overwhelmed and exhausted.
Yet God’s unlimited vision has a plan for each of us, even if we cannot see it in the moment – His divine gift to us, right from our very beginning, until the moment we take our last breath.
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.
With a century old choral society With a Christmas tradition of singing Handel’s Messiah.
Sixty-some enthusiastic singers recruited without auditions Through church bulletin announcements:
Farmers, store clerks, machinists, students Grade schoolers to senior citizens
Gather in an unheated church for six weeks of rehearsal To perform one man’s great gift to sacred music.
Handel, given a libretto commissioned to compose, Isolated himself for 24 days – barely ate or slept,
Believed himself confronted by all heaven itself To see the face of God,
And so created overture, symphony, arias, oratorios Soaring, interwoven themes repeating, resounding
With despair, mourning, anticipation Renewal, redemption, restoration, triumph.
Delicate appoggiaturas and melismata Of astounding complexity and intricacy.
A tapestry of sound and sensation unparalleled, To be shouted from the soul, wrung from the heart.
This changing group of rural people gathers annually to join voices Honoring faith foretold, realized, proclaimed.
Ably led by a forgiving director with a sense of humor And a nimble organist with flying feet and fingers.
The lilting sopranos with angel song, The altos a steadfast harmonic support,
The tenors echo plaintive prophecy The base voices remain full and resonant.
The strings paint a heaven-sent refrain In a duet of counterpoint melody.
The audience sits, eyes closed Remembering oft-repeated familiar verses.
The sanctuary overflows With thankfulness and praise as we shall be changed.
Glory to God! For unto us a Child is born And all the people, whether singers or listeners, are comforted.
Dan and Emily after the 2008 Messiah performance
This year’s Advent theme “Dawn on our Darkness” is taken from this 19th century Christmas hymn:
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, dawn on our darkness and lend us your aid. Star of the east, the horizon adorning, guide where our infant Redeemer is laid. ~Reginald Heber -from “Brightest and Best”
How far friends are! They forget you, most days. They have to, I know; but still, it’s lonely just being far and a friend. I put my hand out—this chair, this table— So near: touch, that’s how to live. Call up a friend? All right, but the phone itself is what loves you, warm on your ear, on your hand. Or, you lift a pen to write—it’s not that far person but this familiar pen that comforts. Near things: Friend, here’s my hand. ~William Stafford “Friends” from The Way It Is
I initially started writing online almost twenty years ago to a group of friends, most that I had met in real life, but some of whom I only knew from afar. It felt like I was writing a letter but without the pen, paper, envelopes and stamp.
Now I write to over 22,000 people every day. A few of you I know well, some I’ve only met once, most of you I will never have the privilege to know personally. Some of you have written to me privately (some with pen and paper, stamp and envelope!) to tell me more about your lives and how the thoughts I send along each day make a difference to you.
I know the power and love found in a hand-written letter. Someone I have known for nearly 50 years still writes to her friends – Jane Goodall was my teacher and mentor. When she gave me the opportunity to work with her in Africa in the 1970s, it changed my life in ways I still am discovering. Most remarkably, she has written to me on a number of occasions and I treasure those notes. Her familiar pen written by her familiar hand comforts me.
It’s lonely being far away, and a friend. But here is my hand. I hope you will continue to take what I offer here and find it comforting.
giving Jane a hug, courtesy of WWU Communications
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…I have been younger in October than in all the months of spring walnut and may leaves the color of shoulders at the end of summer a month that has been to the mountain and become light there the long grass lies pointing uphill even in death for a reason that none of us knows…
my love is for lightness of touch foot feather the day is yet one more yellow leaf and without turning I kiss the light by an old well on the last of the month gathering wild rose hips in the sun ~W. S. Merwin from “The Love of October”
A wind gusts through shedding branches stripping them bare and carrying the leaves to fields far away, to a diverse gathering they have never known before: chestnut, cherry, birch, walnut, apple, alder, maple, parrotia, pear, oak, poplar, cottonwood suddenly all sharing the same fate and grave, each wearing a color of its own, falling, falling, soon to blend with others.
There is an exquisite lightness in letting go of all that feels familiar and safe, for reasons none of us can actually comprehend.
Can’t help “falling” in love and falling in leaf…
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