dying – Page 6 – Barnstorming

Trees Are Undressing

October 30, 2015October 31, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places—
On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill—
Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider’s web has caught one while downcoming,
That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.
~Thomas Hardy “Last Week in October”

So we too will be flung into the unknown,
trembling in the chill wind,
unready to let go of what sustains us,
fated to land wherever the storm blows.

If caught up by a silken thread,
left to dangle suspended by faith
to await the hope of rescue, alone and together,
another and another, still and still.

Making the Cosmos New

October 18, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Grace does not remain outside
or above
or beside nature
but rather permeates
and wholly renews it.
And thus nature,
reborn by grace,
will be brought to its highest revelation.
That situation will again return in which
we serve God freely and happily,
without compulsion or fear,
simply out of love,
and in harmony with our true nature.

Christianity does not introduce
a single substantial foreign element
into the creation.
It creates no new cosmos
but rather makes the cosmos new.
It restores what was corrupted by sin.
It atones the guilty
and cures what is sick;
the wounded it heals.
~Herman Bavinck from “Common Grace”

As we wither, our colors changing
as we die,
we are cured,
our nature reborn
by transforming amazing grace.
Renewed,
we respond
in love.
Let it be with me
as You have said.

A Final Flood of Colors

September 18, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.
~Clive James from “Japanese Maple”

Let Fall Your Shadows

September 14, 2015September 14, 2015 barnstormingblog6 Comments

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Let fall your shadows on the sundials,
upon the fields let loose your winds.

Command the last fruits to be full;
give them just two more southern days,
Press them to completion, and chase the last
sweetness into the heavy wine.

Who has no house now – he will never build.
Whoever is alone now, long will so remain;
will stay awake, and read, and write long letters
and wander the alleys up and down,
restless, as the leaves are drifting.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Autumn Day”

This sadness that fall brings
is less about the ending of a long hot dry summer
and more about deepening shadows,
the fullness of harvest,
the drifting and dying to self.

I am misty in memories
of children dressed for school
eating around a full kitchen table,
of chores done hurriedly on frosty mornings,
of afternoons darkening too early
from drizzly clouds,
of nights under heavy comforters.

Lord, it is time. Too soon, too soon.
Help ready me.

The Bounds of the Infinite

August 16, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

God is not infinite;
He is the synthesis
of infinity and boundary.
~Coventry Patmore

He chose the boundaries of the finite;
to be helpless as a baby,
to love flawed parents,
to be dusty and tired and tempted,
to weep,
to be hurt, bleeding, bound by nails,
dead and buried as man,
to await rising as God.

Living and dying within such boundaries as ours
show us His infinite Truth:
He knows what it means
to be finite,
like us.

The Core of the Heart

October 9, 2014October 9, 2014 barnstormingblog4 Comments

October is marigold, and yet
A glass half full of wine left out

To the dark heaven all night, by dawn
Has dreamed a premonition

Of ice across its eye as if
The ice-age had begun its heave.

The lawn overtrodden and strewn
From the night before, and the whistling green

Shrubbery are doomed.

…a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,

Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart,
And now it is about to start.
~Ted Hughes from “October Dawn”

Final Flood of Color

September 20, 2014September 20, 2014 barnstormingblog2 Comments

vinemapleharry1 — photo by Harry Rodenberger

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable.
You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact.
When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

vinemapleharry2 — photo by Harry Rodenberger

This Surge of Hill

September 10, 2014 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Here, on this surge of hill, I find myself
not as I am or will be or once was,
not as the measure of days defines my soul;
beyond all that a being of breath and bone,
partaker of wind and sun and air and earth,
I stand on the surge of hill and know myself
Below, the stars sink landward, and above
I breathe with their slow glimmer; fields are gone,
the woods are fallen into the speechless dark;
no claim, no voice, no motion, no demand.
It is alone we end then and alone
we go, creatures of solitary light;
the finger of truth is laid upon my heart:
See and be wise and unafraid, a part
of stars and earth-wind and the deepening night.
~Jane Clement

A Patient Willing Descent

June 3, 2014 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man’s evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.
~Wendell Berry “The Wish to be Generous”

Going Gentle Into That Good Night

May 16, 2014July 12, 2018 barnstormingblog8 Comments

dylanED — Drawing of Dylan Thomas by Emily Vander Haak Dieleman

Dylan Thomas and his kids in 2002, by Karen Mullen — Dylan Thomas and his kids in 2003, by Karen Mullen

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~Dylan Thomas

This pup came to us almost 13 years ago through a family friend, as we were mourning the death of Dan’s father, Tom, after a series of strokes. Tom had rallied with amazing emotional strength against his growing weakness, until the final event took him quickly from us over a few short hours. At home on the farm, we were watching a similar decline in our 16 year old Belgian Tervuren “Tango” who was deaf, blind and increasingly forgetful. Our farm desperately needed the invigoration of a young vital life.

So Dylan Thomas, Welsh Cardigan Corgi puppy, moved in. He was a most unusual color, with spotted eyes that laughed and mused at life. He loved to cuddle and spent plenty of time in our kids’ laps. When Tango’s time came after a sudden paralyzing stroke, as I held a flashlight for a young vet as she searched for a vein to administer the final medication outside on a freezing November night, I was very grateful we had Dylan’s calm face, strong back and short legs to carry us through another death.

He was asked to carry us again and again. When he and a new dog to our farm went to the vet on the same day to be neutered, Dylan came home alone when his good buddy died from a devastating anesthetic reaction. He watched another dog arrive as a pup and die a decade later of a rare muscle cancer. Alone, Dylan would howl pitifully in the night. He got grayer, barked more the deafer he grew, and moved through farm chores with somber deliberateness.

When young Sam arrived two years ago, Dylan was obviously ambivalent about training up another pup. He would put up with Sam’s lavishing kisses all over his face, but would never relinquish a bone or a preferred bed. Sam was company but too much a bundle of energy to cuddle with, just a young whippersnapper who didn’t understand the serious business of life as a farm dog.

Dylan watched through his spotted eyes as our children grew up, got busier and moved away. He watched them return for visits, accompanied them for walks to the top of the hill, but knew they would soon depart again to places far away. Dylan’s world was a pen that felt like all the home he needed. His farm, his family and his food were all he wanted.

He decided two weeks ago not to get up when I went to feed him in the morning. He lay flat on the grass, weak, looking at me through those eyes as I petted and stroked his deaf ears, unable to hear any words of reassurance I spoke. Our daughter was taking her semester finals at college in Chicago and I reluctantly let her know that I thought Dylan was not long for this world. She asked if there was any way he would last until she arrived home on May 14 for a brief visit and I said it simply wasn’t possible. That evening, anticipating that I was about to call the vet to come to the farm, Dylan struggled to his feet, clearly not ready to check out. He was willing to take some special treats from my hand and decided that it was worth sticking around if it meant fresh steak meat and farm eggs to eat.

Remarkably, he grew strong enough to come to the barn again for chores, raid the cat food dish and even climb the hill one last time two nights ago. He was clearly hanging on, raging against the dying of the light, until May 14, the morning of Lea’s arrival back home, when he wouldn’t accept the special treats from me any more. When she arrived late that evening and came to say hello to him, it was clearly goodbye. His eyes were fading, his strength waning. But he had hung on in an old age that burned and raved. He had made sure one of his kids was home so he could now sleep sound.

Yesterday, he didn’t get up in the morning, and laid quietly in his little house, watching the farm around him, the light fading from his eyes. He napped in the warm spring afternoon and didn’t wake back up. The light had flown into the skies above.

Many of us tend to measure our lives in dogs. Dylan was the one who took us from a full house of young growing children to a house that longs for those arms to return home every once in awhile. Dylan clearly waited for the arms he loved to come home and then he was ready to let go, going gently, oh so gently, into that very good night.

Sam watching the clouds from the hill after Dylan's death — Sam watching the clouds from the hill after Dylan’s death

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

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”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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