Tag: Fear

Going to Pieces

barnstormingblog3 Comments
appleeat
fallenapple
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
~Martin Luther
appleseeds
 …as the land around turns rocky and hollow…
I’d never suspected: every day,
Although the nation is done for,
I find new flowers.
~Donald Revell from “Election Year”
pansy1

…the heart of this country does not beat in Washington, DC, nor does its soul lie in a seat of power, nor does its destiny lie in which party occupies which section of government.

No, those things all lie with… people like you and me, people who get up and go to work and love their tiny plot of Earth and whose hands are rough and hardened by loving and giving.
~Billy Coffey from “The Heart of this Land”

 

octevening292

 

 

A Nation-Healing Tree of Life

barnstormingblog6 Comments

eaglecouple2

morningbird

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray–
For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.
Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest
May fall, flit, fly, perch–crouch in the bowery breast
Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;–
Moveless there sit through all the burning day,
And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.
~George MacDonald from Diary of an Old Soul

octevening2910

There can be no response today but to bow in earnest prayer, waiting for the hatch of a healing peace among the diverse peoples and opinions of our nation.

Our lives are half-fledged, not yet fully delivered nor understood, doubt burning into our flesh like thorns on fire.  We are an angry and hurting nation — today becoming those who won and those who lost.  The gloating bloats who we are, beyond recognition.

May our prayers rise like a dove from hearts in turmoil,  once again to soar on the wings of eagles.

Peace, come quickly.
Be no longer moveless.
Move us to higher ground.
Plow deep our hearts.

fallleaf162

octevening298

Not Choose Not To Be

barnstormingblog6 Comments

sunrise1042

fallyard3

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins
sunrise97148

I hear the same anguish
from one patient after another:

their struggle with life makes them
frantic to avoid the fight and flee~

they would
commit suicide,
yet not believing
in God
would mean
jumping from
the pain of living
into

…nothing at all…

I thought
feeling nothing
was the
point
of ceasing
to be

still in their unbelief
they do not recognize
the God who wrestles relentless with them,
who heaven-flung them here
for such sacred struggle

Perhaps they can’t imagine
a God
(who created
doubters
sore afraid
of His caring
enough to die)

so no one
is ever now,
nor ever will be,
~nothing.

sunrise109151

This Need To Kneel

barnstormingblog3 Comments

roseleafrain

I know this happiness
is provisional:

the looming presences –
great suffering, great fear –

withdraw only
into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:

this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,
this need to kneel:

this mystery…
~Denise Levertov “Of Being”

bluestskies

poplarwind

Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw upon itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom.
~N.T.Wright

tomatoshine

Inundated by the overwhelmingly bad news of the world,
blasted 24/7 from cable TV,
highlighted in rapidly changing headlines online,
and tweeted real time from every nook and cranny,
we must cling to the mystery
of His magnetism for our weaknesses and flaws.
He willingly pulls our evil out of us
and onto Himself.

Hatred and pain,
shame and anger,
our bitterness disappears
into the vortex of His love and beauty,
the dusty corners of our hearts vacuumed spotless.

We are let in on this secret:
He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.
Instead, as we kneel forgiven,
He washes us forever clean.

cloversept

rainykale4

 

Back to School Fog

barnstormingblog10 Comments

morningfog82916

crow

A white, indifferent morning sky,
and a crow, hectoring from its nest
high in the hemlock, a nest as big
as a laundry basket …
                                    In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.
 
The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.
 
I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.
 
Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.
~Jane Kenyon “Three Songs at the End of Summer”
morninglayers

Back to school no longer is the day after Labor Day as it was when I was growing up. Some students have been in classes for a couple weeks now, others started a few days ago to ease into the transition more gently.  Only a few are starting today: school buses roar past our farm brimming with young faces, new clothes and shoes, stuffed back packs and a fair amount of dread and anxiety.

I remember well that foreboding that accompanied a return to school — the strict schedule, the inflexible rules and the painful reconfiguration of social hierarchies and friend groups.  Even as a good learner and obedient student, I felt I was a square peg being pushed into a round hole when I returned to the classroom, so the students who struggled academically and who pushed against the boundaries of rules must have felt even more so. We all felt alien and inadequate to the immense task before us to fit in with each other, allow teachers to open our minds to new thoughts, and to become something more than who we were.

Growth is so very hard, our stretching so painful, the tug and pull of potential friendships stressful.  As my own children now make this annual transition to a new school year as teachers, and as I prepare for the new students who will soon be under my care, I take a deep breath on a foggy morning and am immediately taken back to the fears of a skinny little girl in a new home-made corduroy jumper and saddle shoes,  waiting for the bus on a wooded country road.

She is still me — just buried deeply in the fog of who I have become, under all the piled-on layers of learning and growing and stretching — but I do remember her well. She could use a hug.

squirrellayers

 

Where the Land Leaves Off

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kingston3

kingstondock

Then I came to an edge of very calm
But couldn’t stay there. It was the washed greenblue mapmakers use to indicate
Inlets and coves, softbroken contours where the land leaves off
And water lies plainly, as if lamped by its own justice. I hardly know how to say how it was
Though it spoke to me most kindly,
Unlike a hard afterwards or the motions of forestalling.

Now in evening light the far-off ridge carries marks of burning.
The hills turn thundercolored, and my thoughts move toward them, rough skins
Without their bodies. What is the part of us that feels it isn’t named, that doesn’t know
How to respond to any name? That scarcely or not at all can lift its head
Into the blue and so unfold there?
~Laurie Sheck “And Water Lies Plainly”

kitsapsunset

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
~William Wordsworth from Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 1802

kingston

We feel restless about the tail end of summer when it is too hot for anything to grow or thrive without water.  There is a longing to settle in, like going down for a nap–to drift off in comfort instead of sweating, to sink deep and untroubled tucked under blankets that instead are folded away, unused.

Our long uninterrupted sleep waits so we must take our rest at intervals.  There is some daylight left.

We take our calm as it comes, as a serene moment of reflection, looking out from the edge where the land leaves off and wonder at the still waters to come, to ponder what is waiting on the other side.

ferry1

Plunged into the Dark Abyss

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salpiglossis

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction….
The chain reaction of evil —
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars —
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Strength to Love

salpiglossis3

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
— J. R. R. Tolkien

rainyrose

We forget that God is right there, waiting for us to turn to him, no matter how dire our situation.  We forget the reassuring words of his messengers: “Fear not.”   God always seeks to draw close to us — even in the depths of hell.
…it comes down to this: the only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to live life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death.  It means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves, instead of for others.  It means choosing generosity over greed.  It also means living humbly, rather than seeking influence and power.  Finally, it means being ready to die again and again — to ourselves, and to every self-serving opinion or agenda.
~Johann Christoph Arnold

hydrangearainyblu

This week, bullets have been fired out of fear and anger by, and have struck down, people who look and are just like us.  Shed tears never need translation or interpretation, no matter what color cheeks they moisten.

Distrust and fear continue to impact our communities daily, settling like a shroud over the most routine activities.  So we must fall back on what we were told long ago and each and every day in 365 different verses in the Word itself: fear not.

Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.

The goal of this life is to live for others, to live in such a way that death cannot erase the meaning and significance of a life.  We are called to give up our selfish agendas in order to consider the dignity of others and their greater good.

Cherish life, all lives, including, as is crystal clear from Christ’s example,  those who are so fearful, they hate and want to murder us.

Our only defense against evil is God’s offense; only He will lead us to Tolkien’s “where everything sad will come untrue”, where tears are no longer shed in sorrow,  but can only be tears of joy.

dewypetunia

Morning Settles

barnstormingblog3 Comments

wwudeer1

morning113158
241802_556812762084_1372663240_o
Perhaps she came down for the apples,
or was flushed out by the saws powering
the far woods, or was simply lost,

or was crossing one open space for another.

She was a figure approaching, a presence
outside a kitchen window, framed
by the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes,

the after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky,

a shape only narrow bones could hold,

turning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak.

I want my life back.

Morning settles around her like a silver coat.
Rustling branches, hooves in flight.
~Philip Terman “Deer Descending”
Who among us does not feel this?

Everything around me changes faster than I can adapt,
trees topple
marriages shatter
illness overwhelms

I am lost
trying to find my way out
trying to find my way back.

I look for Who will take a moment to listen.
I need Refuge where I may rest safe.
I seek Sanctuary where I may settle in peace,
like a new morning.
I want my life back.
ahmama
IMG_6448
ohdeer

wwudeer2

Weep for Wonder

barnstormingblog7 Comments
fulmoon2
dylansnight7
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
 ~James Agee
______________________
May I always,
as I weep,
whether for joy, or relief,
or fear, or pain,
or frustration, or anger,
or grief, or loss,
or sheer exhaustion,
may I weep in wonder
in gratitude that I weep at all~
that my tears water
holy ground.
octevening
evening1151514
januarymoon

The Doctor is In

barnstormingblog13 Comments

waterfall 3

waterfall2

Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time.
Let it be.
Unto us, so much is given.
We just have to be open for business.
~Anne Lamott from Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

__________________________________

I have the privilege to work in a profession where astonishment and revelation awaits me behind each exam room door.

In a typical clinic day, I open that door up to thirty plus times, close it behind me and settle in for the ten or fifteen minutes I’m allocated per patient.  I need to peel through the layers of each person quickly to find the core of truth about who they are and why they’ve come to me.

Sometimes what I’m looking for is right on the surface: in their tears, in their pain, in their fears.  Most of the time, it is buried deep and I need to wade through the rashes and sore throats and coughs and headaches and discouragement to find it.

Once in awhile, I actually do something tangible to help right then and there — sew up a cut, lance a boil, splint a fracture, restore hearing by removing a plug of wax from an ear canal.

Often I find myself giving permission to a patient to be sick — to take time to renew, rest and trust their bodies to know what is best for a time.

Sometimes, I am the coach pushing them to stop living sick — to stop hiding from life’s challenges, to stretch even when it hurts, to get out of bed even when not rested, to quit giving in to symptoms that can be overcome rather than be overwhelming.

Always I’m looking for an opening to say something a patient might think about after they leave my clinic — how they can make better choices, how they can be bolder and braver in their self care, how they can intervene in their own lives to prevent illness, how every day is just one thread in the larger tapestry of their lifespan.

Each morning I rise early to get work done at home before I actually arrive at my desk at work, trying to avoid feeling unprepared and inadequate to the volume of tasks heaped upon each day.   I know I will be stretched beyond my capacity, challenged by the unfamiliar, the unexpected and will be stressed by obstacles thrown in my way.  I know I will be held responsible for things I have little to do with, simply because I’m the one “in charge” as the decision-maker.

It is always tempting to go back to bed and hide.

Instead of hiding,  I go to work as the exam room doors need to be opened and the layers peeled away.  I understand the worry, the fear and the pain because I have lived it too.  Even now in my seventh decade of life,  I am learning how to let it be, even if it is scary.  It is a gift perhaps I can share.

No matter what waits behind the exam room door,  it will be astonishing to me.

I’m grateful to be open for business.  The Doctor is In.

 

waterfall