Tag: miracle

The Wait’s Begun Again

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crow

…I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel.
For that rare, random descent.
~Sylvia Plath from “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”

 

But it is no trick of radiance nor random.
It was planned and real, this descent,
and yes,
He seizes us and does not let go.
No reason to fear neutrality
as He makes it impossible to be neutral.
We wait, a long wait
and tire of waiting,
but there is content in the wait.
A wide awake, eyelids-now-opened
content.

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cherrysunrise

Every Cubic Inch of Space

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eveningbarnsept1

Why, who makes much of miracles?
As to me, I know nothing else but miracles…
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.

To me [all] is a continual miracle…
~Walt Whitman

When I go to our 100+ year old hay barn to fetch a couple of bales for the horses, I stop to marvel at the continual miracle of this barn.  It is breaking down along its roof crest, yes.  It is sorely in need of another coat of paint, yes.  It has leaks where the winter winds have blown shingles off so the rain and snow come straight indoors, yes.

Yet these old growth beams and rafters, recycled from a nearby dismantled saw mill over a century ago, continue to do their job of holding up the world encased within.  This home of pigeons, swallows, bats, barn owls, mice, rats, raccoons, skunks and possum remains a steadfast sanctuary for the harvest of our hill.  For decades it has remained steep and silent, serene and solace-filled.

Every cubic inch, the streams of light and the shadowy dark, inside and out, is wonder-full, even when it is empty in the late spring and especially when packed to the rafters, as it is now, with this summer’s hay crop.  The miraculous is grown, cut, dried, raked, baled, hauled, stacked and piece by piece, stem by stem, as it sustains living creatures through three seasons of the year.

I have the privilege of entering here every day and witnessing the miracle year after year.
I know nothing else but miracles, despite my own sagging, my weakening foundation and some *occasional* inopportune leaking of my own.

I know where and to whom I belong.

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Jesus, sovereign over all,  does not cry “Mine!”
~Abraham Kuyper

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sliding door

The Bench of Miracles

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bench

bench6

They sat on a bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour.  They were not lonely anymore.  They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other.  What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other.  It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
~Haruki Murakami

It makes sense to simply be with each other, telling our stories and holding hands.  A bench is just such place to be.

I’m not sure there exists a 100% perfect other for each one of us but sitting together on a bench in a beautiful place when nothing and no one is more important makes an almost perfect other 100% perfect.

That is the miracle of the bench.

Just come and sit a spell.  I’ll tell you my story and you tell me yours and we become perfect together.

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Blossomfoam Miracle

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from Baslee Troutman Fine Art Collection
…a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;
overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,
dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,
so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.
~Tony Hoagland from “A Color of the Sky”

After all, I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Lenten Grace — Everyday Moments

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

The sacred moments, the moments of miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only…a gardener, a stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all our being and imagination.. what we may see is Jesus himself.
~Frederick Buechner

We can be blinded by the everyday-ness of it.  A simple loaf of bread is only that.  A gardener crouches in a row of weeds, trying to restore order in chaos.  A wanderer along the road engages in conversation.

Every day contains millions of everyday moments that are lost and forgotten, seemingly meaningless.

We would see Jesus if we only opened our eyes and listened with our ears.   At the table, on the road, in the garden.

There is nothing everyday about the miracle of Him abiding with us.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten