Tag: Easter

Easter Meditation–Amen!

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The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people.
Amen.
Revelation 22:21

Experiencing grace within the body of Christ is the point of Easter.  This is a day to seek out our brothers and sisters as Jesus did on that Resurrection Day.
He did not remain shrouded and dead in the tomb, but rose, breathing the air of earth once again, to seek us out, call our names, walk alongside and eat with us.
Most importantly, he opened wide the hearts that had been closed in fear, confusion, and ignorance.

He makes our hearts burn within us as we contemplate the gift we were given when we deserved only punishment.

The Amen echoes our certainty.

Yes.  Indeed.

It is so.

And so shall it ever be.

Lenten Meditation: Barnstorming

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An unexpected southerly wind hit suddenly late last night, gusting up to 40 miles an hour and slamming the house with drenching rain as we prepared to go to bed. Chores in the barn had been done hours before, but as we had not been expecting a storm, the north/south center aisle doors were still open, and I could hear banging and rattling as they were buffeted in the wind. I quickly dressed to go latch the doors for the night, but the tempest had done its damage. Hay, empty buckets, horse blankets, tack and cat food had blown all over, while the Haflingers stood wide-eyed and fretful in their stalls. A storm was blowing inside the barn as well as outside it.

It took some time to tidy up the mess after the doors were secured but all was soon made right. The wind continued to bash at the doors, but it no longer could touch anything inside them. The horses relaxed and got back to their evening meal though the noise coming from outside was deafening. I headed back up to the house and slept fitfully listening to the wind blow all night, wondering if the metal barn roof might pull off in a gust, exposing everything within.

Yet in the new daylight this morning, all is calm. The barn is still there, the roof still on, the horses are where they belong and all seems to be as it was before the barnstorming wind. Or so it appears.

This wind heralds another storm coming this week that hits with such force that I’m knocked off my feet, swept away, and left bruised and breathless. No latches, locks, or barricades are strong enough to protect me from what will come over the next few days.

Yesterday he rode in softly, humbly, and wept. Today, he overturns the tables in fury. On Tuesday he echoes the destruction that is to happen.  Wednesday, he teaches, then rests in anticipation.  On Thursday, he pours water over dusty feet, presides over a simple meal, and then sweats blood in agonized prayer. By Friday, all culminates in a perfect storm, transforming everything in its path, with nothing untouched. The silence on Saturday is deafening. Next Sunday, the Son rises and returns, all is calm, he calls my name, my heart burns within me at his words and I will never be the same again.

Barnstormed to the depths of my soul. Doors flung open wide, the roof pulled off, everything blown away and now replaced, renewed and reconciled.

Alleluia!

Hill Top Easter Sunrise Service Invitation

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2012 Easter Sunrise Service at BriarCroft  — April 8, 2012 at 7 AM
(formerly Walnut Hill Farm)

sunrise view from our hill–see more at our website at http://www.briarcroft.com/easter.htm

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 to our farm at 1613 Central Road, between Hannegan and Noon Road, please email us at emily@briarcroft.com

Dan and Emily Gibson

Hay Bale Pews

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Where His people gather, He is.

On the road to Emmaus, men walked alongside Jesus without recognizing him, their hearts “burning within” them as He spoke, yet did not know Him until he broke bread and fed them. Worship and wonder does still take place in unlikely places alongside country roads.

Our farm is along such a road amidst rolling hills of evergreens and fields, next to a crossroads where 100 years ago sat the village of Forest Grove. This small settlement boasted a one room school house, a general store, a saw mill and a small Methodist church. Families would travel by horse and buggy to attend Sunday morning services, and during good weather, would picnic together on our farm’s nearby hill top to enjoy the expansive view. And every Easter, the small congregation would gather on the hill for a service at sunrise.

When the sawmill closed 80 years ago, the village shut its doors as well. The buildings were dismantled; the beams and timbers were transformed into our large hay barn and the humble little church became our farm’s chicken coop, long and narrow with smooth fragrant cedar lined walls and rough fir floors. Hens lay their eggs to the echoes of sacred hymns still resonating in those walls and floor.

Formal worship moved to nearby towns, yet the Easter Sunrise Service tradition remains alive on our farm. Cherished by local families and neighborhood folk, some of whom have attended since they were children, this service is never canceled for any reason–not rain, not northeasters, not even the occasional Easter snow shower. If it is too stormy to be outside on the hill, the service takes place in the big red hay barn. In either setting, a tiered row of rough stickery hay bales, theater style, creates a semicircle of seats ready and waiting for the intrepid faithful who come annually to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, huddled together for warmth under blankets.

Each year a different Resurrection theme is explored through Bible readings and hymn singing. One year, it was noted how God has walked with His people since the beginning of time. First, in the Garden, He is “walking… in the cool of the day”  looking for Adam and Eve, but after the Resurrection, Jesus walked with the men to Emmaus. Because of Jesus, we go from hiding from God as He walks in the garden, ashamed of the forbidden meal we have eaten, to Emmaus where we walk alongside Him, invited to join Him as He shares with us the Bread of Life.

We are called to worship Him: from knowing dread to being fed.

Hay bale pews don’t create the most comfortable seating for worship. They poke us where we are most tender. Yet it is good to be reminded from where true comfort arises. Even when in shame we hide from Him, even when we do not recognize Him as He walks alongside us, our hearts burn for Him.

And He feeds us wherever we gather.

Amen!

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Not Playing Possum

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Painting of our old barn by our friend Dick Laninga
Painting of our old barn by our friend Dick Laninga

We are preparing for the Sunday Easter Sunrise service our farm has hosted for most of the last 30 years.  Ordinarily, this gathering of neighborhood families takes place on our hilltop open field overlooking the Canadian mountains to the north, the valley reaching out to Puget Sound to the west and to Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters peaks to the east.  However, every few years, the weather is foul enough to drive us into the hay barn to worship, so we need to always plan for that contingency and have the barn ready if we wake up to rain Sunday morning.

There still is considerable summer hay stored in our large red barn, so it takes some organizing of the bales to create a seating arrangement for 70+ people.  Once we started moving bales around this week, it became quite apparent that we had a visitor who had decided to make the barn home and ended up not leaving.  Something had definitely died in there. The smell hung thick and pervasive, clinging to us and refusing to be ignored.

We eventually found the source: a dead opossum.  Not just pretending either–no ‘playing possum’.  Truly, utterly, completely, and sincerely dead. Tucking himself between hay bales, he must have gone to sleep and forgotten to wake up.   Having lost his hiding place and his life, we needed badly to find him a final resting place so the air could clear between now and Easter, in case our worship is in the barn.  Somehow the stench of death is just not fitting in the celebration of life on Easter morning.

Yet overcoming death is what it is all about.

Mr. Opossum is now resting in the ground and our noses are no longer assaulted by his untimely death.  Instead we now must prepare for an all-out spiritual assault on our souls this week.  Being reminded of rotting flesh is rather helpful right before Easter.  Death is an overwhelming reality to each of us; how can we begin to imagine its defeat?  Death cannot be faked like some startled opossum temporarily gone floppy.

Where is death’s victory, where is its sting/stink?  No longer in our barn and no longer for us !

We are renewed instead of being unceremoniously disposed of–not buried in the deep pit we deserve.

We are saved, preserved and graciously restored.


On the Trail of Trillium

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trillium2

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!

The Stones Will Cry Out

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So much conspires to keep us silent~
Faith is not fashionable
A crutch for the weak
Outmoded, obsolete,
Outrageous belief.

Far easier to worship the earth
Or each other
Or nothing at all
Rather than exalt the
Living God Everlasting.

His name no longer spoken
At school or work
Remembered one hour a week
By some,
Forgotten by most.

Sing of His glory
In joy and gratitude
Imperfectly sincere,
Never to be silenced
While we have tongues.

If we do not shout out loud,
Nor spread branches at His feet,
Or worry what others might think,
The stones will cry out and will not stop,
As He weeps for us.

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

Already But Not Yet

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springsunsetcolor(written originally in 2006)
The first full day of spring broke bright, sunny and full of promise.  After a hectic day at work, I turned to my barn chores, rushing to bring the horses in to the barn as the sunset began coloring everything on the farm.  I wanted to take a picture of the paint-streaked sky, but the sun’s descent was faster than I.  By the time I grabbed the camera and headed to the hillside to take photos of the red flushed woods to the east, the amber hue was barely visible as a cloak of gray dusk settled over everything.   I took photos in that mere light and when I loaded them on the computer there reappeared the light I’d lost outside.  Though grainy from the darkness, the red was vibrant and visible after all.  The sun had already set, but not quite yet.

It was an “already but not yet” kind of week.  Spring has already arrived if one looks at the calendar.  Yet there are not the typical signs of full-fledged spring.  The frogs have not begun to chorus at night, the orchard buds are staying stubbornly small, the tulip blossoms are staying tight and green, the grass is only beginning to show growth, the snow is still low in the hills.   So there is a “not yet” feel to spring. We continue to wait, hopeful.

One of our mares seemed “all ready” to deliver her foal last week when we needed to be away for the farm for a couple days, so a “horse sitter” came and stayed until we returned, and but the foal arrival time was “not yet”, so it was an exceedingly boring mare watch for her.

My 85 year old mother spent the week in the hospital after suffering a small stroke which affected her balance and coordination.  Though not a major setback for her physically, it was a blow to her confidence and makes her feel vulnerable to future strokes, which may be worse next time.  She knows, after a long healthy life, she should be “all ready” for the day the Lord takes her home, but it is “not yet” her time.

I am already in the midst of my own life transition with plummeting hormonal levels in my 50s as my teenage daughter’s peak.  I’m most definitely in the proverbial middle of the generational sandwich–whether I’m the meat, the cheese or a condiment is not clear to me. What I do know is that I’m not yet done with this very challenging and compressed part of my life.

Already but not yet.  There is tension in knowing that something profound is happening–a vanishing sunset, a vernal equinox, a life change or transition, but the transformation is not yet complete, and I’m not sure when it will be. I am still unfinished business.

In a few weeks I will be reminded of what is yet to come. I will know the shock of the empty tomb. My heart will burn within me as more is revealed, through the simple act of bread breaking.

It is finished on my behalf.

I’m all ready.