I’ve learned that evenwhen I have pains, I don’t have to be one … I’ve learned that: people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelouon her 70th birthday, citing a quote from Carl Buehner
I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point. I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came. I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch. ~Julie Kasdorf– “What I Learned from my Mother”
Moms often know best about these things — how to love others when and how they need it — the ways to ease pain, rather than become one. Despite years of practice, I don’t always get it right; others often do it better.
Showing up with food is always a good thing but it is the showing up part that is the real food; bringing a cake is simply the icing.
Working as a physician over four decades, my usefulness tended to depend on the severity of another’s worries and misery. If no illness, no symptoms, no fear, why bother seeing a doctor? Since retiring, the help I offer no longer means writing a prescription for a medication, or performing a minor surgery. I have to simply offer up me for what it’s worth, without the M.D.
To be useful without a stethoscope, I aim to be like any good mom or grandma. I press my hand into another’s, hug when needed, smile and listen and nod and sometimes weep when someone has something they need to say. No advanced degree needed.
Oh, and bring flowers. Cut up fruit. Bake a cake. Leave the ants at home.
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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
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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Praise be to the not-nearly-a-girl anymore clerking at our local grocery outlet since junior high. Single mom, moved up after a decade of customer service to manage four well-ordered aisles of hairsprays, lipsticks, and youthful glow in glittering squeeze tubes. Familiar red-headed, brown-eyed, gap-toothed smile. Willing to put aside her boxes of chores to chat with each of us she names by heart.
I forget if she’s Mary or Alice or Jane. Fine, I answer after she asks, How’s your day? And driving my sacks of next week’s meals home, I wonder why she rises from her labors to greet me, why she straightens her smock where it’s pulled up a bit and rides her hips. Tucks in place a loose wisp of curl. When I walk by, what does she want to know, when she asks, How’s your day? I wonder why so seldom I’ve asked it back. ~Lowell Jaeger “Praise Be” from Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone.
Did you find everything you were looking for?Julie, the magenta-haired
checkout girl, asks, and no, I think, I didn’t find inner peace, or answers to
several questions I’ve been mulling, like are we headed for nuclear war and
does the rest of the world think America has gone bonkers and also, by the way,
I could not find the tofu bacon, and the chocolate sorbet shelf was empty
(I did find canned pumpkin in aisle four) but I am silent and smile at Julie who
seems to know what I’m thinking anyway so I hold back and muse on the view
of the bay this morning when we walked the dog and the parsnip soup we’ll
make for dinner and realize that total fulfillment probably jades the senses and
the bagger asks if I’d like help today carrying my groceries out to the car. ~Thomas R. Moore, “Finding Everything” fromRed Stone Fragments
He was a new old man behind the counter, skinny, brown and eager. He greeted me like a long-lost daughter, as if we both came from the same world, someplace warmer and more gracious…
…his face lit up as if I were his prodigal daughter returning, coming back to the freezer bins in front of the register which were still and always filled with the same old Cable Car ice cream sandwiches and cheap frozen greens. Back to the knobs of beef and packages of hotdogs, these familiar shelves strung with potato chips and corn chips…
I lumbered to the case and bought my precious bottled water and he returned my change, beaming as if I were the bright new buds on the just-bursting-open cherry trees, as if I were everything beautiful struggling to grow, and he was blessing me as he handed me my dime over the counter and the plastic tub of red licorice whips. This old man who didn’t speak English beamed out love to me in the iron week after my mother’s death so that when I emerged from his store my whole cock-eyed life – what a beautiful failure ! – glowed gold like a sunset after rain. ~Alison Luterman from “At the Corner Store”
This week as I shopped in one of our local grocery stores, I witnessed a particularly poignant scene. As I waited in the check out line, the older man ahead of me was greeted by the young cashier with the standard “Did you find everything you were looking for?” He responded with: “I looked for world peace on your shelves, but it must have been sold out…”
She stopped scanning and looked directly at him for the first time, trying to discern if she misunderstood him or if he was mocking her or what. “Did you try Aisle 4?” she replied and they both laughed. They continued in light-hearted conversation as she continued scanning and once he had paid for his order and packed up his cart, he looked at her again.
“Thank for so much for coming to work today – I am so grateful for what you do.” He wheeled away his groceries and she stood, stunned, watching him go.
As I came up next, I looked at her watering eyes as she tried to compose herself and I said to her: “I’ll bet you don’t hear that often enough, do you?” She pulled herself together and shook her head, trying to make sense of the gift of words he had bestowed on her.
“No – like never,” she said as she scanned my groceries. “How could he possibly have known that I almost didn’t come to work today because it has been so stressful to be here? People are usually polite, but lately more and more have been so demanding. No one seems to care about how others are feeling any more.”
She brushed away a tear and I paid for my groceries, and told her:
“I hope the rest of your work day is as great as that last customer. You’ve given me everything I was looking for today…”
And I emerged from the store feeling blessed, like I had scored a pot of gold like a sunset after rain.
Today a while it rained I washed the jars And then I lit a flame set the water to start And at the end of the day lined up to cool and seal Twelve pints of spiced peach jam twenty jars of dill beans canned From an old recipe that my mother gave to me Because it’s good to put a little bit by For when the late snows fly All that love so neatly kept By the work of our hands
Lay hands on boards and bricks and loud machines With shovels and rakes and buckets of soup they clean And I believe that we should bless evеry shirt ironed and pressed Salutе the crews out on the roads Those who stock shelves and carry loads Whisper thanks to the brooms and saws the dirty boots and coveralls And bow my head to the waitress and nurse Tip my hat to the farmer and clerk All those saints with skillets and pans And the work of their hands Work of their hands
Laid out on the counter pull up out of hot water The work of our hands so faithful and true I make something barely there music is a little more than air So now every year I’ll put by tomatoes and pears Boil the lids and wipe the lip with a calloused fingertip And I swear by the winter ground We’ll open one and pass the thing around Let the light catch the jar amber gold as a falling star It’s humble and physical it’s only love made visible Yeah now I understand it’s the work of our hands
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After all the false dawns, who is this who unerringly paints the first rays in their true colours? We have kept vigil with owls when the occult noises of the night fell tauntingly silent and a breeze got up as if for morning. This time the trees tremble. Is it with a kind of reckless joy at the gentle light lapping their leaves like the very first turn of a tide? Timid creatures creep out of burrows sensing kindness and the old crow on the cattle-shed roof folds his wings and dreams. ~Richard Bauckham “First Light”
Who is this who dawns on my darkness, changes everything in my life and everything within my heart?
Who is this who paints the skies to speak to me from His creation?
Who is this who wraps me firmly within His grasp and holds me tenderly when I am trembling afraid in the night?
There will be no more false dawns. He brings the sun with Him and I am here, a witness to the reckless joy of His Advent, as I stand before His kindness and mercy.
This year’s Advent theme “Dawn on our Darkness” is taken from this 19th century Christmas hymn.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, dawn on our darknessand lend us your aid. Star of the east, the horizon adorning, guide where our infant Redeemer is laid. ~Reginald Heber -from “Brightest and Best”
You have broken this old soil You have torn this skin apart And the seed that you have planted Buries naked in the dark
In the springtime of my breathing You have sheltered me from harm All you asked was that my seedling Play into your earthen yarn
If you trimmed off all my branches They would not complete your pile There is no way that I’m left standing When you light that final fire
Even small fruit you have nourished On these branches weighs them down If I bear it, if I carry It will sink me to the ground
With the sunset in the background And this tree placed in the fore I could just make out what you have Planted all these years before
In the forests in the orchards Broken trees cover the ground When they’ve fallen, when they’re trampled They have made a clapping sound
And they join with the mountains And they join with the seas And they join with the parts that are alive inside of me And they cry out in longing for the earth that’s yet to be And they find joy and peace And they find joy and peace
If I’m bearing when you’re ready If you come at the right time Take the fruit that I have carried Crush it down and make your wine ~Wendell Kimbrough
If I am alive this time next year Will I have arrived in time to share? And mine is about as good this far And I’m still applied to what you are And I am joining all my thoughts to you And I’m preparing every part for you And I heard from the trees a great parade And I heard from the hills a band was made And will I be invited to the sound? And will I be a part of what you’ve made? And I am throwing all my thoughts away And I’m destroying every bet I’ve made And I am joining all my thoughts to you And I’m preparing every part for you For you ~Sufjan Stevens
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If you sit down at set of sun And count the acts that you have done, And, counting, find One self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard, One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went — Then you may count that day well spent.
But if, through all the livelong day, You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay — If, through it all You’ve nothing done that you can trace That brought the sunshine to one face — No act most small That helped some soul and nothing cost — Then count that day as worse than lost. ~George Eliot “Count That Day Lost”
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. ~Naomi Shihab Nye from “Kindness”
I tend to forget – in my own self-absorption – the privilege I have to help make the world a better place for someone else each day — to share a drop of sunshine in some way. Each morning I’m given another chance to treat the day like the gift that it is and hand it off to someone else in a continual “pay it forward” act of kindness.
Only kindness makes sense in this fallen world. We have been steeped in sorrow for so long. I don’t want to lose one more day to anything less than a depth of kindness and comfort that never leaves my side, still present as the sun goes down into darkness.
Only such Loving Kindness will raise the sun again in the morning.
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Now winter downs the dying of the year, And night is all a settlement of snow; From the soft street the rooms of houses show A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere, Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin And still allows some stirring down within.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause. We fray into the future, rarely wrought Save in the tapestries of afterthought. More time, more time. The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow. ~Richard Wilbur from “Year’s End”
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. ~Lord Alfred Tennyson “Ring Out, Wild Bells”
I know there are still communities where the New Year begins at midnight with church bells ringing, just as in days of old.
Here in the frontier of the rural Pacific Northwest, all we can hear from our farm are gun shots, bottle rockets and (what sounds like) explosions of cannon fire and mortar shells.
So much for larger hearts and kindlier hands.
Even without being able to hear wild bells ringing out the old and ringing in the new, I want to begin the new year with singing in harmony, mending the frays in the tapestry of time, behaving with good manners and care for those around me, and abandoning a thousand years of war to find a thousand years of peace.
Let the darkness make room for the Light that was and is and will ever be.
Amen and hallelujah!
I will sing with the spirit Hallelujah, hallelujah
And I will sing with the understanding also Hallelujah, hallelujah
I will sing (I will sing) With the spirit (sing hallelujah) I will sing with the spirit Hallelujah, hallelujah
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I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.” ~Danusha Laméris “Small Kindnesses”
There is true holiness in moments of kindness: I notice it now more than ever. I am given infinite daily opportunities to show kindness to others and when I’m preoccupied, too inside my own head, or feeling too injured myself, I usually walk by without even trying.
Yet when kindness is shown to me, I don’t forget it – it permeates me like a homespun apple pie fragrance that lingers around me, comforting and welcoming me home when I feel alone and a stranger in the world.
I remember all the kindnesses shown to me over the years and always carry them with me. When I have an opportunity in a brief encounter to show kindness, I want to help make someone else feel noticed and special. I want them feel like they belong, right in that moment.
This daily sharing of words and photos is one way I try to give back what I have been gifted over the years. During the two or three minutes of someone looking at what I offer here daily, I want you to know:
you belong here I am forever grateful for you your words enrich me with your gift of kindness.
Thank you for being here.
(today I am sharing all the different stages of one special hydrangea bush on our farm)
When I opened the door I found the vine leaves speaking among themselves in abundant whispers. My presence made them hush their green breath, embarrassed, the way humans stand up, buttoning their jackets, acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if the conversation had ended just before you arrived. I liked the glimpse I had, though, of their obscure gestures. I liked the sound of such private voices. Next time I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open the door by fractions, eavesdrop peacefully. ~Denise Levertov, “Aware” from This Great Unknowing.
I need to be cautious or I also would be swallowed up inch by inch by a variety of vines surrounding our home and farm buildings. Between the ivy, Virginia creeper and our opportunistic ubiquitous blackberry vines, I’m mere audience to their varied plans of expansive world domination.
As part of generations of human creep, I can’t indict the vines as aggressive interlopers for going where no vine has gone before. Much human migration has been out of necessity due to inadequate food sources or inhospitable circumstances. Some is due to a spirit of adventure and desire for new places to explore. Nevertheless, we human vines end up dominating places where we may not be really welcome.
So we human vines whisper together conspiratorially about where to send out our tendrils next, never asking permission, only sometimes asking for forgiveness later.
I can’t help but listen to those private voices – one of which is my own – who feel discontented with the “here and now” — we suspect somewhere else may be better. Rather than choose to stay and flourish in place, we keep creeping and overwhelming our surroundings.
Dear human vines: creep gently with sensitivity for the ground you occupy. Don’t block the sun from others or quench yourself while others thirst. Be kind and make the spot you cover more beautiful than it was before.https://barnstorming.blog/new-book-available-almanac-of-quiet-days/
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 “Sure on this Shining Night”
Imagine the illumination which can transform sorrows, which banishes the night so darkness flees. It is that of which I sing, that about which I rejoice, that which bought me and set me free. His love is all. That which was, is and will be will rise again.
Peace be to you and grace from Him Who freed us from our sin Who loved us all, and shed his blood That we might saved be.
Sing holy, holy to our Lord The Lord almighty God Who was and is, and is to come Sing holy, holy Lord.
Rejoice in heaven, all ye that dwell therein Rejoice on earth, ye saints below For Christ is coming, Is coming soon For Christ is coming soon.
E’en so Lord Jesus quickly come And night shall be no more They need no light, no lamp, nor sun For Christ will be their All! ~Paul Manz and Ruth Manz, written when their three year old son was critically ill
After all the false dawns, who is this who unerringly paints the first rays in their true colours? We have kept vigil with owls when the occult noises of the night fell tauntingly silent and a breeze got up as if for morning. This time the trees tremble. Is it with a kind of reckless joy at the gentle light lapping their leaves like the very first turn of a tide? Timid creatures creep out of burrows sensing kindness and the old crow on the cattle-shed roof folds his wings and dreams. ~Richard Bauckham “First Light”
Who is this who has come to change everything in my life and everything within my heart?
Who is this who paints the skies to speak to me from His creation?
Who is this who wraps me firmly within His grasp and holds me tenderly when I am trembling afraid?
There will be no more false dawns. He brings the sun with Him and I am here, a witness, standing before Him.
If I am alive this time next year Will I have arrived in time to share? And mine is about as good this far And I’m still applied to what you are And I am joining all my thoughts to you And I’m preparing every part for you And I heard from the trees a great parade And I heard from the hills a band was made And will I be invited to the sound? And will I be a part of what you’ve made? And I am throwing all my thoughts away And I’m destroying every bet I’ve made And I am joining all my thoughts to you And I’m preparing every part for you For you ~Sufjan Stevens
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