Tag: God

Every Cubic Inch of Space

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Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk city streets,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
Every spear of grass — the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them…

What stranger miracles are there?
~Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass

Everywhere I turn, there is a miracle in the making. I know this deep in my bones, even when our days on this earth are short. I focus my camera to try to preserve it; I search for words to do it justice.

God touches every square inch of earth as if He owns the place, but these square inches are particularly marked by His artistry. It is a place to feel awed by His magnificence.

The strange miracle is that we are here at all: in an instant we are formed in all our unique potential, never having happened before and never to happen again—to become brain and heart and skin and arms and legs. We were allowed to be born, a miracle in itself in this modern age of conditional conception.

The strangest miracle of all is that we are still loved, corrupted as we are. We are still offered salvage, undeserving as we are. We are still gifted with the miracle of grace until our last breath.

How strange indeed. How utterly wondrous.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.
~Gustav Flaubert


There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!
~Abraham Kuyper

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An Everlasting Party

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In the home of God, there is a never-ending festival…
~St. Augustine in Exposition on Psalm 42

Some small bone in your foot is longing for heaven
                          —Robert Bly

This twinge at first stir
too modest for throb,
more diffident
than tug,
not an itch,
not the most

incurious twitch
of a hook,
not a jerk,
but the tease
of brustle
of the fine, stiff pinions
of every curtained
saint and cherub.
~Hailey Leithauser “Some Small Bone,”

Even the smallest part of us
~each cell, each skin pore, each little bone~
longs to know what to believe about what comes next.

~perhaps heaven is as light and gentle
as a touch of a feather.

~maybe heaven is as rich as the glow
of a full blood moon.

~or heaven is like the ever-changing colors
of the northern lights illuminating the skies.

~certainly heaven is eternal felicity,
where we join an everlasting party.

yet despite the discomfort of
our questions, quandaries and doubts,
or perhaps, because of them…

it is the Lord in heaven who longs for,
and believes in,
us.

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A Swirling of Seeds

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I am here to modestly report
seeing in an orchard
in my town
a goldfinch kissing
a sunflower
again and again
dangling upside down
by its tiny claws
steadying itself by snapping open
like an old-timey fan
its wings
again and again,
until, swooning, it tumbled off
and swooped back to the very same perch,
where the sunflower curled its giant
swirling of seeds
around the bird and leaned back
to admire the soft wind
nudging the bird’s plumage,
and friends I could see
the points on the flower’s stately crown
soften and curl inward
as it almost indiscernibly lifted
the food of its body
to the bird’s nuzzling mouth
whose fervor
I could hear from
oh 20 or 30 feet away
and see from the tiny hulls
that sailed from their
good racket,
which good racket, I have to say
was making me blush,
and rock up on my tippy-toes,
and just barely purse my lips
with what I realize now
was being, simply, glad,
which such love,
if we let it,
makes us feel.
~Ross Gay “Wedding Poem” from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

For the last several days
I’ve heard an insistent tapping
at my kitchen window bird feeder.

A flash of yellow feathers makes the racket
drawing my attention;
I figure he wants the feeder refilled.

Yet it is full.

This goldfinch is wanting my attention,
not more sunflower seeds.

When I approach the window,
he wings off,
returning only if I retreat to the shadows.

Then his tapping resumes.

He can see me in the shadows,
watching him watching me.

I think he is simply enjoying making noise,
as his thanks for the feast of seeds
in a world of desperate hunger and despair.

So much like the good racket
we make when we sing in church,
thanking God when His swirling seeds
of love and care are bestowed upon us.

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Strung With Care

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In none of her other ages had she noted
her age or its burden and bounty of expectations.
The future was as flexible as the past,
and, in between, moments like unstrung pearls
strewn across velvet grieved and gladdened her
and always astonished her with their perfection.
There was no nothingness: there was only being.

Slowly she wakes from what had seemed a dream
to realize that this is her final age—
of indeterminate length and quality.
Things are ending, or have ended, or will end.
The pearls are strung with care, it is quite clear.
There is no nothingness—but she can almost,
some days, picture the world without her in it.
~Jane Greer “In none of her other ages”
(Jane died after a short illness last week at the age of 72)

I have always been well aware
we each arrive here with an expiration date
hidden from view.

We may live for decades assuming
the circled length of our own string of pearls
will continue indefinitely
with the latch closed and tight.

A few months ago,
my clasp opened unexpectedly,
my finite days of carefully strung pearls
threatening to spill, forever lost to me.

I realized things could end
without any hugged goodbyes.

Later, having been emergently restrung,
at least for the time being,
the look in my eyes
prompted the surgeon to say
“now you can live out your full life span.”

What I wanted to ask him
but couldn’t:
“and just how long might that be?”
knowing he had no true reassurance
for something only God can promise:

There is no nothingness.

By grace and a surgeon’s skill,
I gained nearly six months of pearls.
I’m still here, looking back
at the carefully strung
hours and days and weeks
behind and before me.

Right now I remain clasped tight,
hugging and held secure,
though one day I know
it will be time
to let go.

There we shall rest and we shall see;
we shall see and we shall love;
we shall love and we shall praise.
Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.
~Augustine of Hippo from The City of God, Bk. XXII, Chap. 30

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Don’t Let Them Go

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He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.
~Norman MacCaig “Small Boy” from The Poems of Norman MacCaig

photo by Nate Gibson at Sendai, Japan

Some things we pick up
but toss aside like a game.
They hold no meaning
and we want to see how far they go
and how many skips they make.

Some things we pick up
and they are smooth and sparkly,
seeming somehow special;
throwing them back into the abyss
feels like a loss, yet we still let them go.

When there is the one appearing so ordinary,
yet feels just right in our hand,
picked up and pondered,
then placed securely in a pocket,
never to be tossed away.

And so it is,
ordinary as we are,
He never lets us go.
We fit perfectly in His Hand,
safely stowed inside His pocket.

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I Borrowed This Dust

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Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver “Sometimes” from Red Bird

Getting older:

The first surprise: I like it.
Whatever happens now, some things
that used to terrify have not:

I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose
my only love. My three children
never had to run away from anyone.

Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent.
We all approach the edge of the same blackness
which for me is silent.

Knowing as much sharpens
my delight in January freesia,
hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say

as we lie close on some gentle occasion:
every day won from such
darkness is a celebration.
~ Elaine Feinstein, “Getting Older” from The Clinic, Memory

Maybe
it’s time for me to practice
growing old… I only
borrowed this dust.
~Stanley Kunitz from “Passing Through” from Collected Poems

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, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

I am astonished at living over seven decades,
despite my faltering dust.

Amazed by joys and sometimes by sorrows,
I hope to see much more before I’m done,
trying in my own way to tell about it.

I am grateful, so very grateful
to still be here,
living out the time left to me
learning:
how love can heal,
how tears are dried,
and most astonishing of all,
how God came here
to loan us His dust –
until the day He carries us,
all dusty,
back home.

photo by Tomomi Gibson

Lyrics from Carrie Newcomer:
I’ve been looking for beauty
In these broken times
By making some beauty
In the world that I find
Some say it′s too late
It′s too much to brave
But I believe there’s so much
Worth being saved

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Standing Still

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In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls…
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope.
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
~T.S. Eliot from “East Coker”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~David Wagoner “Lost”

Come listen in the silence of the moment before rain comes down.
There’s a deep sigh in the quiet of the forest and the tall tree’s crown.

Now hold me.
Will you take the time to hold me and embrace the chill?
Or miss me,
will you take the time to miss me when the earth stands still?

Cause there’s no use running
cause the storm’s still coming
and you’ve been running for too many years.

Come listen in the silence of the moment before shadows fall.
Feel the tremor of your heartbeat matching heartbeat as we both dissolve.

Now hold me….

Cause there’s no use running
cause the storm’s still coming
and you’ve been running for too many years.

So stay with me, held in my arms
Like branches of a tree
They’ll shelter you for many years.
~Don MacDonald “When The Earth Stands Still”

If I’m feeling lost in the figurative forest of my days on this earth, unsure where I’m heading and struggling to figure out where I’ve been, I just look up at our lone fir on the hill of our farm.

This fir has stood still through years of change around it, buffeted by windstorms and frozen rain and heavy snow, thirsted through dry summers, and rooted solid during the occasional earthquake.

I tend to follow whatever path appears before me, keeping my head down to make sure I don’t trip over a root or stumble on a rock. Yet around and above me are the clues to where I am and where I’m going.

So standing still beneath this tree, with a changing sky around me, God always reminds me where I am.
He knows when my focus is distracted and floundering.

I once was lost, and now am found.

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The Bees of the Invisible

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Let us go forward quietly,
forever making for the light,
and lifting up our hearts in the knowledge
that we are as others are
(and that others are as we are),
and that it is right to love one another
in the best possible way –
believing all things,
hoping for all things,
and enduring all things. 
~Vincent Van Gogh from a Letter to Theo Van Gogh – 3 April 1878

I have lived so long
On the cold hills alone . . .
I loved the rock
And the lean pine trees,
Hated the life in the turfy meadow,
Hated the heavy, sensuous bees.
I have lived so long
Under the high monotony of starry skies,
I am so cased about
With the clean wind and the cold nights,
People will not let me in
To their warm gardens
Full of bees.
~Janet Loxley Lewis “Austerity”


Everywhere transience is plunging into the depths of Being.
It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth
into ourselves, so deeply, so painfully and passionately,
that its essence can rise again, invisible, inside of us.
We are the bees of the invisible.
We wildly collect the honey of the visible,
to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.
~Rainier Maria Rilke in a letter to his friend Witold Hulewicz, 1925

I am convinced,
reading the news,
too many people are forced to survive
in a world cold and cruel,
without warmth or safety,
too many empty stomachs,
no healing hands for injury or disease.

Our country was trying to help
up until the last few months
when so much has been pulled away.

No longer are we, the helper bees, sent to the invisible,
bringing tangible hope and light, food and meds,
to those who have so little.

No longer do we bring collected honey
to the suffering, the ill, the poor and
invisible who share this planet.

Oh Lord, turn us away from such austerity.
Let us not forget how to share
the humming riches of Your warm garden.

AI image created for this post

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Has This Day Changed You?

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In June’s high light she stood at the sink
            With a glass of wine,
And listened for the bobolink,
And crushed garlic in late sunshine.

I watched her cooking, from my chair.
            She pressed her lips
Together, reached for kitchenware,
And tasted sauce from her fingertips.

“It’s ready now. Come on,” she said.
            “You light the candle.”
We ate, and talked, and went to bed,
And slept. It was a miracle.
~Donald Hall “Summer Kitchen”

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?
~Jeanne Lohmann “Questions Before Dark” from The Light of Invisible Bodies

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer.
You are yourself the answer.
Before your face questions die away.
~C.S. Lewis from Till We Have Faces

When the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, what a gift is a wonderful evening meal, conversation at the dinner table and falling asleep with a gentle sigh of contentment.

These are sweet moments are worth remembering.

It is easy to get swept up in frustration with a plethora of angry public opinions and even angrier societal actions. Yet I find that only leads to indigestion, irritability and insomnia.

I ask myself thoughtful and sometimes troubling questions at the end of the day that too often feel unanswerable — only because I’m not paying attention to the ultimate Answer to all questions.

Each day I should be ready to be changed by His call to me to finish well.

I must not take any day for granted. Each is a sweet day to be remembered for some special moment that made me hope it could last forever.

And then to bed and sleep. It is a miracle.

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The Edge of the Known World

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I came here to study hard things
– rock mountain and salt sea –
and to temper my spirit on their edges. 
“Teach me thy ways, O Lord” is, like all prayers,
a rash one, and one I cannot but recommend. 

These mountains — Mount Baker and the Sisters and Shuksan,
the Canadian Coastal Range and the Olympics on the peninsula — are surely the edge of the known and comprehended world…. 

That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to see plain, makes them,
as Chesterton said of the Eucharist, only the more mysterious
by their very visibility and absence of secrecy.
~Annie Dillard (who lived in Whatcom County in the 70s) from Holy the Firm

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.
~Denise Levertov  “Witness”

Even on the days like today when the mountains are hidden behind a veil of clouds, I have every confidence they are there.  They have not moved in the night, gone to another county, blown up or melted down.  My vision isn’t penetrating enough to see them through cloud cover today, but they will return to my line of sight, if not tomorrow, perhaps the next day, maybe not until next week. 

I know this and have faith it is true – the mountains do not keep themselves a secret.

On the days when I am not bothering to look for them, too preoccupied so walk right past their obvious grandeur and presence, then they reach out to me and call me back, refocusing me. 

There are times when I turn a corner on the farm and glance up, and there rests a mountain, a silent and overwhelming witness to beauty and steadfastness. I literally gasp at not noticing before, at not remembering how I’m blessed by it being there even at the times I can’t be bothered.

It witnesses my lack of witness and, so in its mysterious way of being in plain sight, stays put to hold me fast yet another day.  And so I keep coming back to gaze – sometimes just at clouds – yearning to lift their veil, and as a result, lift my veil, just one more time.

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