gentle – Barnstorming

A Beautiful Softness of Being Human

May 24, 2023 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Sometimes when you start to ramble
or rather when you feel you are starting to ramble
you will say Well, now I’m rambling
though I don’t think you ever are.
And if you ever are I don’t really care.
And not just because I and everyone really
at times falls into our own unspooling
—which really I think is a beautiful softness
of being human, trying to show someone else
the color of all our threads, wanting another to know
everything in us we are trying to show them—
but in the specific,
in the specific of you
here in this car that you are driving
and in which I am sitting beside you
with regards to you
and your specific mouth
parting to give way
to the specific sweetness that is
the water of your voice
tumbling forth—like I said
I don’t ever really mind
how much more
you might keep speaking
as it simply means
I get to hear you
speak for longer.
What was a stream
now a river.
~Anis Mojgani “To the Sea”

I always thought
softness was weakness
that by letting my
body relax
or gentleness live
on my fingertips
that I was somehow
letting go
somehow sacrificing
my bravery

now I see, to be soft
is majestically courageous
~Juniper Klatt from I was raised in a house of water

I’ve always wanted to be tougher than I am. So soft, I’m ready to burst into tears too much of the time, whether from sadness, worry, or joy. I wish I could be less transparent with my big feelings.

Yet I wouldn’t change my softness for you. I want to always be unspooling myself, to finally reveal what is underneath all the woven threads.

So much of this life is about having the courage to trust even when things are rocky, to follow the flow of things rather than creating obstruction, to lead when everyone else hangs back, to be gentle when the world needs kindness.

May I always be soft enough if you need a cushion to land upon and a pillow to rest your thoughts.

The sun went down and the moon came out
On the day that you were born
The stars were more than we could count
On the day that you were born
On a morning that was old and new
On the day that you were born
The world opened up to welcome you
On the day that you were born

It’s all mystery and motion
How the wheels of this world open
There were gentle rains and summer storms
On the day that you were born

The winds blew patterns through the trees
On the day that you were born
The waters wandered toward the sea
On the day that you were born

The redbuds fade and bloom again
On the day that you were born
The birds knew where and they knew when
On the day that you were born

In the clouds and vapor and the quiet lakes
On the day that you were born
In the deepest currents and waves that break
On the day that you were born

In the prayers and psalms that whisper through the trees
In the secret places only God can see
In the things we feel but cannot be said
We all hold hands and bow our heads

Seasons pass and seasons grow
On the day that you were born
There were things we’ll never know
On the day that you were born
But love is all and love is true
On the day that you were born
And love will always welcome you
On the day that you were born
~Carrie Newcomer

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Fixing Eyes on the Unseen: Like a Cloud of Dew

February 27, 2023March 3, 2023 barnstormingblog1 Comment

This is what the Lord says to me:
“I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
Isaiah 4:18

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

Amid daily hubbub, there comes a time when I must be quiet myself, devoid of selfish desires and hushing pointless ambitions. I need rest and renewal with a refreshing of purpose.

Only when I am thus silent and still – receptive and emptied of self, I am ready.

It is then I am touched, filled oh so softly, without fireworks or thunderclap, or dramatic collapse. The Spirit descends like silent dew onto my longing heart.

I wake restored, a new life quickened within me.

It is that simple. And so gentle.

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.

Neither Before Nor After

September 7, 2021 barnstormingblog4 Comments

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew
~W.S. Merwin “To the Light of September”

The light of September is a filtered, more gentle illumination than we have experienced for the past several months of high summer glare.

Now the light is lambent: a soft radiance that simply glows at certain times of the day when the angle of the sun is just right, and the clouds are in position to soften and cushion the luminence.

It is also liminal: it is neither before or after, on the threshold between seasons when there is both promise and caution in the air.

Sometimes I think I can breathe in light like this, if not through my lungs, then through my eyes. It is a temptation to bottle it up with a stopper somehow, stow it away hidden in a back cupboard. Then I can bring it out, pour a bit into a glass on the darkest days and imbibe.

But for now, I fill myself full to the brim. And my only means of preservation is with a camera and a few words.

So I share it now with all of you to tuck away for a future day when you too are hungry for lambent light. Just check out “September.”

More photos and words of light from Barnstorming available to order here:

All Barb and Bristle

July 11, 2021July 11, 2021 barnstormingblog4 Comments

This upstart thistle
Is young and touchy; it is
All barb and bristle,

Threatening to wield
Its green, jagged armament
Against the whole field.

Butterflies will dare
Nonetheless to lay their eggs
In that angle where

The leaf meets the stem,
So that ants or browsing cows
Cannot trouble them.

Summer will grow old
As will the thistle, letting
A clenched bloom unfold

To which the small hum
Of bee wings and the flash of
Goldfinch wings will come,

Till its purple crown
Blanches, and the breezes strew
The whole field with down.
~Richard Wilbur “A Pasture Poem” from Anterooms

Not unlike the thistles that dot our pastures, I can have a tendency to be a bristly, barbed and sharp – some is simply my nature, but also long years of relentless training to become tough and impenetrable. Perhaps it represents my need for self-protection, but like the thistle, though having spiky thorns may keep me from being “eaten”, it doesn’t deter the gentle approach of butterfly or bee.

As a result, I have been softened over time (in more ways than one!) by forces outside of myself – a ripening that means I am less threat and more welcoming. My unfolding into fluffy blossom became my way of enveloping myself around my world as grace enveloped me.

With the breezes, the softest of thistle down spreads afar rather than standing stock-still in self-defense. I find in my seventh decade, I’m actually meant to fly, settling into nooks and crannies I never could have dreamed while barbed and spiky.

That is how grace and redemption works on thistles and bristly people: from sharp edges to delicate downiness.

We are all in need of such transformation.

A new book from Barnstorming is available to order here:

The Forgiveness of Sleep

June 8, 2021June 8, 2021 barnstormingblog1 Comment

The children have gone to bed.
We are so tired we could fold ourselves neatly
behind our eyes and sleep mid-word, sleep standing
warm among the creatures in the barn, lean together
and sleep, forgetting each other completely in the velvet,
the forgiveness of that sleep.

Then the one small cry:
one strike of the match-head of sound:
one child’s voice:
and the hundred names of love are lit
as we rise and walk down the hall.

One hundred nights we wake like this,
wake out of our nowhere
to kneel by small beds in darkness.
One hundred flowers open in our hands,
a name for love written in each one.
~Annie Lighthart “The Hundred Names of Love”

In the lull of evening, your son nested in your arms
becomes heavier and with a sigh his body
sloughs off its weight like an anchor into deep sleep,
until his small breath is the only thing that exists.

And as you move the slow dance through the dim hall
to his bedroom and bow down to deliver his sleeping form,
arms parting, each muscle defining its arc and release—
you remember the feeling of childhood,

traveling beneath a full moon,
your mother’s unmistakable laugh, a field of wild grass,
windows open and the night rushing in
as headlights trace wands of light across your face—

there was a narrative you were braiding,
meanings you wanted to pluck from the air,
but the touch of a hand eased it from your brow
and with each stroke you waded further

into the certainty of knowing your sleeping form
would be ushered by good and true arms
into the calm ocean that is your bed.
— Alexandra Lytton Regalado, “The T’ai Chi of Putting a Sleeping Child to Bed” author of Matria

Each of those countless nights of a child wakening,
each of the hundreds of hours of lulling them in the moonlit dark,
leading them back to the soft forgiveness of sleep.

I remember the moves of that hypnotic dance,
a head nestled snug into my neck,
their chest pressed into mine,
our hearts beating in synchrony
as if they were still inside.

Even when our sleep was spare and our rest was sparse,
those night times rocking in unison
were worth every waking moment, trusting
we’re in this together, no matter what,
no matter how long.

We’re in this together.

A new book from Barnstorming is available to order here:

He Looks on Life with Quiet Eyes

July 18, 2019July 18, 2019 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Who loves the rain
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.
~Frances Shaw, “Who loves the rain” from Look To the Rainbow

No jump-starting the day,
no bare feet slapping the floor
to bath and breakfast.

Dozing instead
in the nest
like, I suppose,
a pair of gophers

underground
in fuzz and wood shavings.
One jostles the other
in closed-eye luxury.

We are at last
perhaps
what we are:

uncombed,
unclothed,
mortal.

Pulse
and breath
and dream.
~Marjorie Saiser “Weekends, Sleeping In” from Beside You at the Stoplight.

Each year, as we grow older together:
grayer, softer, gentler
with ourselves,
each other
and the world.

I pause,
on this day you were born,
to thank God yet again
for bringing you to earth
so we could meet,
raise three amazing children,
and walk this journey together
with pulse and breath and dreams.

It was your quiet brown eyes I trusted first
and just knew
I’d follow you anywhere
and I have.

Of Their Own Free Will

August 11, 2017August 19, 2017 barnstormingblog3 Comments

The mares go down for their evening feed
                                                              into the meadow grass.
Two pine trees sway the invisible wind—
                                                          some sway, some don’t sway.
The heart of the world lies open, leached and ticking with sunlight
For just a minute or so.
The mares have their heads on the ground,
                                 the trees have their heads on the blue sky.
Two ravens circle and twist.
              On the borders of heaven, the river flows clear a bit longer.
~Charles Wright “The Evening is Tranquil, and Dawn is a Thousand Miles Away”

When I stroll in the fields on summer evenings,
the horses raise their heads in greeting,
still chewing, they walk up slowly from pasture
to follow me inside for the night.

They could choose not to leave the field,
to enjoy freedom all night under the stars outside,
yet they choose the walls and doors of the barn,
and joining with me when I call.

Come and go gently, my friends. Come and go gently.

And so will I.

Underneath the stars I’ll meet you
Underneath the stars I’ll greet you
There beneath the stars I’ll leave you
Before you go of your own free will

Go gently

Underneath the stars you met me
Underneath the stars you left me
I wonder if the stars regret me
At least you’ll go of your own free will

Go gently

Here beneath the stars I’m mending
I’m here beneath the stars not ending
Why on earth am I pretending?
I’m here again, the stars befriending
They come and go of their own free will

Go gently
Go gently

Underneath the stars you met me
And underneath the stars you left me
I wonder if the stars regret me
I’m sure they’d like me if they only met me
They come and go of their own free will

Go gently
~Kate Rusby “Underneath the Stars”

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