I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you. ~R.S. Thomas “A Bright Field”
Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing.
I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside. ~Flannery O’Connor from A Prayer Journal
…the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls,who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Matthew 13:45-46
Sometimes the hardest thing is to step out of the way so my own shadow won’t obscure the Source of illumination.
When I am blinded by discouragement, I lose sight of God Himself.
Forgive me, Lord, for my inattention.
When I lament in the shadows, help me lift my voice praising your gift, the pearl of great price, which is held out for me to grasp.
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I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain; A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly. This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Moonrise”June 19, 1876
how you can never reach it, no matter how hard you try, walking as fast as you can, but getting nowhere, arms and legs pumping, sweat drizzling in rivulets; each year, a little slower, more creaks and aches, less breath. Ah, but these soft nights, air like a warm bath, the dusky wings of bats careening crazily overhead, and you’d think the road goes on forever. Apollinaire wrote, “What isn’t given to love is so much wasted,” and I wonder what I haven’t given yet. A thin comma moon rises orange, a skinny slice of melon, so delicious I could drown in its sweetness. Or eat the whole thing, down to the rind. Always, this hunger for more. ~Barbara Crooker “How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn into a Dark River,” from More
The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought.
The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise.
I return from one walk knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name.
Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth. Ailinon, alleluia! ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
The greatest gift is the one I stumble upon rather than having desired, sought out, fought for. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m missing, so oblivious to being surrounded by hidden treasures.
Surprise me, dear Lord.
Though I regularly lament in the shadows, though I try to hide under the blankets each morning, slumbering through the tragic, the painful, the sorrow, you send your gentle crescent light to awaken me.
So I lift my voice in praise and gratitude for your unexpected gift that I didn’t know I needed, would never had thought to seek, the pearl of great priceheld out for me to take each day.
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It can be a gift or a private kind of distress, depending on if you’ve found your purpose. My friend, a physician and farmer, blends her two passions into a life of caring.
Leaving her surgical gloves in the treatment room, she dons leather work gloves when she returns to the farm. This evening the old work gloves are nestled together on a bench by the back door
as if one couldn’t function without the other. They hold the form of her hands. The gloves are dirty, the leather wrinkled, a hole worn through the tip of the index finger, right hand.
Over years of service, gloves have protected her hands as she treated deep wounds in the clinic and in the barn. This gift! Dare I say, her work fits her like a glove? ~Lois Edstrom “Gift of Work” from A Fragile Light
Nothing much to look at lying on the shelf, one on top of the other, an old man resting his hands on a cane. Dried-out yellow cowhide, lines cut deep into the palms from stones, weeds pulled. Fingers crumpled, swollen like grub worms shoveled up in planting. An extra pair of hands helping with lawn work, flower beds, shrubs, whatever else comes along. A grief pulled on to bury the old cat some kid in a speeding pickup knocked out of the street like he’d kick a can. Or kneeling last fall to unearth the blooming rose suddenly plucked by an ice storm, then shaking rich compost loose from its twisted fingers still clenched, holding on for dear life. ~Ron Stottlemyer “Work Gloves”
My farm work gloves tend to look ragged at the end of a year of service. I always depend on being gifted a new pair at Christmas to start afresh. It can take awhile to break them in to the point where they feel like a “second skin.”
These gloves keep me from blistering while forking innumerable loads of smelly manure into wheelbarrows, but also help me unkink frozen hoses, tear away blackberry vines from fencing, pull thistle from the field and heavy hay bales from the haymow.
Over the years, I’ve gone through a few dozen work gloves which have protected my hands as I’ve cleaned and bandaged deep wounds on legs and hooves, pulled on foals during the hard contractions of difficult births, held the head of dying animals as they fall asleep one final time.
Without wearing my protective farm gloves over the years, my hands would be looking very much scarred up like my tired gloves do, full of rips and holes from the thorns and barbs of the world, sustaining scratches, callouses and blisters from the hard work of life.
But they don’t.
Thanks to these gloves, before I retired, I was presentable for my “day” work as a doctor where I would don a different set of gloves many times a day as I tended to my patients’ wounds and worry.
But my work gloves don’t tell my whole story of gratitude.
I’m thankful to a Creator God who doesn’t wear gloves when He goes to work in our world: -He gathers us up even when we are dirty, smelly, and unworthy. -He eases us into this life when we are vulnerable and weak, and carries us gently home as we leave this world, weak and vulnerable. -He holds us as we bleed from self and other-inflicted wounds. -He won’t let us go, even when we fight back, or try not to pay attention, or care who He is.
He hangs on to us for dear life.
And this God came to live beside us with hands just like ours~ tender, beautiful, easy-to-wound hands that bled because He didn’t need or want to wear gloves for what He came to do~
His hands bear evidence of His love…
photo of a plowman teamster’s hand by Joel De WaardAI image created for this post
contains these lyrics by Kim Andre Arnesen: Moving like the rise and fall of wings Hands that shape our calling voice On the edge of answers You’ve heard our cry, you’ve known our cry…
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once i saw my grandmother hold out her hand cupping a small offering of seed to one of the wild sparrows that frequented the bird bath she filled with fresh water every day
she stood still maybe stopped breathing while the sparrow looked at her, then the seed then back as if he was judging her character
Of course I love the sparrows, Those dun-colored darlings, So hungry and so many. I am a God-fearing feeder of birds, I know he has many children, Not all of them bold in spirit… ~Mary Oliver from “The Red Bird”
Through the year, I put seed and suet out for the sparrows and grosbeaks, the woodpeckers and chickadees, the juncos and finches, and yes — even the red-winged blackbirds and starlings. They would be fine without my daily contribution to their well-being, but in return for my provision of seeds, I am able to enjoy their spirited liveliness and their gracious ability to share the bounty with one another.
These birds give back to me simply by showing up, without ever realizing what their presence means to me. I don’t want to try to feed them from my hand – our communion is in my watching closely from my window.
How much more does God lay out for me on a daily basis to sustain me as I show up for Him? How oblivious am I to His gracious and profound gifts? How willingly do I share His gifts with others?
Unlike the birds, I could never survive on my own without His watchful care.
When life feels overwhelming, when I am filled with worries, sorrow, regrets and pain, I seek out this God who cares even for sparrows. He knows how to quiet my troubles and strengthen my faith and perseverance, a comfort that extends far beyond a few thistle seeds.
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I wasn’t paying enough attention when my bird feeders ran out of suet and seed this week. My little feathered buddies fly up to the feeders by our kitchen window and poke around the empty trays, glance disparagingly in my direction, then fly away disheartened.
Although there is no free lunch today, knowing me as they do, they trust it will replenish. They will keep an eye out from a distance, will return to feast, especially the doves who have chosen to nest nearby, so are constantly cleaning up what the other birds leave behind.
I am no birder; I don’t go out looking for birds like the serious people of the birding community who keep a careful list of all they see or hear. I don’t even track every species visiting my humble offerings here on the farm nor do I recognize the frequent visitors as individuals. I just enjoy watching so many diverse sizes, colors and types coming together in one place to feast in relative peace and cooperation.
So unlike my own kind.
I’m happy to host such grateful creatures — even the innovative, voracious and athletic squirrel thieves.
This is my visual and tangible reminder that the good Lord provides, and I, in my own little way, can help.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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These four photos are my new “spring series” notecards I have just mailed out to my Barnstorming financial supporters as a thank you gift for your donation of $50 or more.
Your financial support at any level makes a difference to keep this ad-free blog a daily offering, always made free to all readers without a paid subscription.
I want to especially acknowledge those of you who have generously supported Barnstorming over the years by sending you these notecards made from my collection of farm and landscape photos.
Four times a year, I make a seasonal series of blank note cards with my photographs of scenes from our farm and nearby landscapes in Washington state and British Columbia – for donations of $50 or more, I’ll send four in the mail to you as a thank-you gift.
Please email your mailing address to emilypgibson@gmail.com when you make your donation below.
If you prefer to send a check in the mail to support Barnstorming, email me at emilypgibson@gmail.com and I’ll send you our mailing address.
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I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. ~Jane Kenyon “Otherwise”
…this has been a day of grace in the dead of winter, the hard knuckle of the year, a day that unwrapped itself like an unexpected gift, and the stars turn on, order themselves into the winter night. ~Barbara Crooker from “Ordinary Life” in Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems
…it’s easy to forget that the ordinary is just the extraordinary that’s happened over and over again. Sometimes the beauty of your life is apparent. Sometimes you have to go looking for it. And just because you have to look for it doesn’t mean it’s not there. God, grant me the grace of a normal day. ~Billy Coffey
…there is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them. ~Katrina Kenison from The Gift of an Ordinary Day
These dead of winter days are lengthening, slowly and surely. I’m thankful I’m retired now so I no longer I leave the farm in darkness to head to work in town, and return in darkness at the end of the workday. I’m able to do my barn chores at either end of the day as the sun is rising to chase away the moon, and later as the sun is chased away by starlight.
I tend to get complacent in my daily routines, confident in the knowledge that tomorrow will be very much like yesterday. The distinct blessings of an ordinary day are lost in the rush of moving forward to whatever comes next. Poet Jane Kenyon wrote her poem with the knowledge she was dying of leukemia, which meant each ordinary day was precious indeed.
The reality is there is nothing ordinary about the events of each day. It might have been otherwise and some day it will be otherwise. That is the hard knuckle of the days we are given, each a gift, each peaches and cream.
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How granular they feel—grief and regret, arriving, as they do, in the sharp particularities of distress. Inserting themselves— cunning, intricate, subversive—into our discourse.
In the long night, grievances seem to multiply. Old dreams mingling with new. Disappointment and regret bludgeon the soul, your best imaginings bruised, your hopes ragged.
Yet wait, watch. From the skylight the room is filling with soft early sun, slowly sifting its light on the bed, on your head, a shower of fine particles. How welcome. And how reliable. ~Luci Shaw“Sorrow”
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
We are given a box full of darkness by someone who loves us, and we can’t help but open it, weeping.
It takes a lifetime to understand, if we ever do, we will inevitably hand off this gift to others we love.
Opening the box allows the Light in where none existed before.
Light pours into our brokenness.
Sorrow ends up shining through our tears: we reach out from a deep well of need. Because we are loved so thoroughly, we too love deeply beyond ourselves.
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And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, oneby one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine andtwenty, until the apples plummet like rain, fall like horse hoofsin the soft, darkening grass, and you are the last apple on thetree; and you wait for the wind to work you slowly free fromyour hold upon the sky, and drop you down and down. Longbefore you hit the grass you will have forgotten there everwas a tree, or other apples, or a summer, or green grass below, You will fall in darkness… ~Ray Bradbury from Dandelion Wine
But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep. ~Robert Frost from “After Apple-Picking”
I pick up windfall apples to haul down to the barn for a special treat each night for the Haflingers. These are apples that we humans wouldn’t take a second glance at in all our satiety and fussiness, but the Haflingers certainly don’t mind a bruise, or a worm hole or slug trails over apple skin.
I’ve found over the years that our horses must be taught to eat apples–if they have no experience with them, they will bypass them lying in the field and not give them a second look. There simply is not enough odor to make them interesting or appealing–until they are cut in slices that is. Then they become irresistible and no apple is left alone from that point forward.
When I offer a whole apple to a young Haflinger who has never tasted one before, they will sniff it, perhaps roll it on my hand a bit with their lips, but I’ve yet to have one simply bite in and try. If I take the time to cut the apple up, they’ll pick up a section very gingerly, kind of hold it on their tongue and nod their head up and down trying to decide as they taste and test it if they should drop it or chew it, and finally, as they really bite in and the sweetness pours over their tongue, they get this look in their eye that is at once surprised and supremely pleased. The only parallel experience I’ve seen in humans is when you offer a five month old baby his first taste of ice cream on a spoon and at first he tightens his lips against its coldness, but once you slip a little into his mouth, his face screws up a bit and then his eyes get big and sparkly and his mouth rolls the taste around his tongue, savoring that sweet cold creaminess. His mouth immediately pops open for more.
It is the same with apples and horses. Once they have that first taste, they are our slaves forever in search of the next apple.
The Haflinger veteran apple eaters can see me coming with my sweat shirt front pocket stuffed with apples, a “pregnant” belly of fruit, as it were. They offer low nickers when I come up to their stalls and each horse has a different approach to their apple offering.
There is the “bite a little bit at a time” approach, which makes the apple last longer, and tends to be less messy in the long run. There is the “bite it in half” technique which leaves half the apple in your hand as they navigate the other half around their teeth, dripping and frothing sweet apple slobber. Lastly there is the greedy “take the whole thing at once” horse, which is the most challenging way to eat an apple, as it has to be moved back to the molars, and crunched, and then moved around the mouth to chew up the large pieces, and usually half the apple ends up falling to the ground, with all the foam that the juice and saliva create. No matter the technique used, the smell of an apple as it is being chewed by a horse is one of the best smells in the world. I can almost taste the sweetness too when I smell that smell.
What do we do when offered such a sublime gift from Someone’s hand? If it is something we have never experienced before, we possibly walk right by, not recognizing that it is a gift at all, missing the whole point and joy of experiencing what is being offered. How many wonderful opportunities are right under our noses, but we fail to notice, and bypass them because they are unfamiliar?
Perhaps if the Giver really cares enough to “teach” us to accept this gift of sweetness, by preparing it and making it irresistible to us, then we are overwhelmed with the magnitude of the generosity and are transformed by the simple act of receiving.
We must learn to take little bites, savoring each piece one at a time, making it last rather than greedily grab hold of the whole thing, struggling to control it, thereby losing some in the process. Either way, it is a gracious gift, and how we receive it makes all the difference.
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The tree of life my soul hath seen, Laden with fruit and always green; The trees of nature fruitless be, Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.
His beauty doth all things excel, By faith I know but ne’er can tell The glory which I now can see, In Jesus Christ the Appletree.
For happiness I long have sought, And pleasure dearly I have bought; I missed of all but now I see ‘Tis found in Christ the Appletree.
I’m weary with my former toil – Here I will sit and rest awhile, Under the shadow I will be, Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.
With great delight I’ll make my stay, There’s none shall fright my soul away; Among the sons of men I see There’s none like Christ the Appletree.
I’ll sit and eat this fruit divine, It cheers my heart like spirit’al wine; And now this fruit is sweet to me, That grows on Christ the Appletree.
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive, It keeps my dying faith alive; Which makes my soul in haste to be With Jesus Christ the Appletree.
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Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue. ~Eugene O’Neill
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice – – – though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations – – – though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do – – – determined to save the only life you could save. ~Mary Oliver “The Journey”
When I first read <Mary’s poem> years ago, I had trouble with it. It seemed to advocate the kind of self-centered life that’s one of the core pathologies of modern culture.
But life experience—hard experience—has led me to see the wisdom here.None of us can “mend” another person’s life, no matter how much the other may need it, no matter how much we may want to do it.
Mending is inner work that everyone must do for him or herself. When we fail to embrace that truth the result is heartbreak for all concerned.
What we can do is walk alongside the people we care about, offering simple companionship and compassion. And if we want to do that, we must save the only life we can save, our own.
Only when I’m in possession of my own heart can I be present for another in a healing, encouraging, empowering way. Then I have a gift to offer, the best gift I possess—the gift of a self that is whole, that stands in the world on its own two feet.
…anything one can do on behalf of true self is done ultimately in the service of others. ~Parker Palmer writing about Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey”
We are born hollering, so abruptly separated from warmth and comfort. Broken in emptiness from the first breath, every alveoli fills up with the air of a fallen world.
Yet air is never enough for us.
The rest of our days are spent filling up our empty spaces whether lungs or stomach or starving synapses, still hollering in our loneliness and heart- broken.
I spent over forty years devoted to the mending business, patching up the breaking and broken.
Yet I know I was never enough.
We heal best through our walk with others who are also broken. We bridge the gaps by knitting together scraggly fragments of each other’s shattered lives.
The crucial glue is boiled from gifted Grace – our filled holes miraculously made holy.
So it is – Immanuel, God with us, is always enough.
The Mending Song – lyrics from Arnold Lobel’s poem below
There was an old woman of long ago who went about her mending; She sewed the wind against the clouds to stop the trees from bending; She stitched the sun to the highest hill, to hold the day from ending.
Her thimbles and threads were close at hand for needlework and quilting, For sewing gardens to the sky to keep the blooms from wilting, For lacing the land to the crescent moon, to save the world from tilting.
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