Tag: Morning

A Twittering World

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kingfisherjapan3

 

mukudori

 

Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning…

…Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
~T. S Eliot from Burnt Norton (1936) part of Four Quartets

 

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Eliot didn’t have birds or future tweets of the 21st century in mind when he wrote Burnt Norton in 1936.  He was far more concerned about the concept of time and redemption, using the analogies of a garden, a graveyard, and most disturbingly, a subway train of empty-souled people traveling under London in the dark.  Only the present matters as the past cannot be changed and the future remains unknown, trusting the reassurance and salvation of Logos, the source of  the natural and creative order of all things.   Only God Himself remains outside of the constraints of time and place.

Perhaps Eliot predicted the unknowable future.  It now is a “twittering world” in a way that Eliot, critical of dehumanizing technology of his time,  somehow was prescient enough to foresee.

When birdsong begins on our farm in mid-June at 4 AM in the apple, cherry, chestnut, and walnut trees outside our bedroom windows, I am brought face to face, eyes and ears wide open, with the immediate present, distracted from the distraction of my dreams by the distraction of wakening to music of the created order among the branches,  amid dew-laden blooms and cool morning air.

Once the birds settle into routine conversation after twenty minutes of their loudly tweeted greetings of the day,  I sit down bleary-eyed at my computer to enter the twittering world of technology, too often filled with fancies, or meanness, or completely empty of meaning.

Yet, I’m determined.  Not here will darkness be found on this page, if I can keep it at bay.

No darkness here.

birdonpostrodenberger
photo by Harry Rodenberger

One at a Time

barnstormingblog1 Comment

sunrise66173

 

morning6615

 

They know so much more now about
the heart we are told but the world
still seems to come one at a time
one day one year one season and here
it is spring once more with its birds
nesting in the holes in the walls
its morning finding the first time
its light pretending not to move
always beginning as it goes
~W.S.Merwin “To This May”

 

springfarm

 

bugged2

 

Each morning is a fresh try at life,
a new chance to get things right
even if all our yesterdays are broken.

So I drink in the golden dawn,
take a deep breath of cool air
and dive in head first
into light and blossoms,
hoping I too just might
stay afloat today.

 

bluejune

yellowpoppy

As Good As Ever

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mothersdaymist

morning514173

marshmallows51116

One day, something very old
happened again. The green
came back to the branches,
settling like leafy birds
on the highest twigs;
the ground broke open
as dark as coffee beans.

The clouds took up their
positions in the deep stadium
of the sky, gloving the
bright orb of the sun
before they pitched it
over the horizon.

It was as good as ever:
the air was filled
with the scent of lilacs
and cherry blossoms
sounded their long
whistle down the track

It was some glad morning.
~Joyce Sutphen “Some Glad Morning”

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centralsakura3

Amazing that it happens yet again each May:

the ground yields up a rich
and blinding verdancy,
the clouds strewn and boiling over on the horizon.

It is enough to overwhelm and enchant us
into waking up yet another day
just to see what lies in store.

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rainychestnutbloom

rainypeony1

aprilmaplesprout

Throwing Off the Covers

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barbednorth

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Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,
then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?
This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—
maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,
dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,
and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.
~Billy Collins “Morning”

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This is the best~~
heading with dogs and camera up the hill
on an early spring morning,
with nothing more than the hope
I can bring this magic back to the house
and preserve it long after the foglight evaporates,
the day moves on and distracted by life,
I’ve forgotten all about how
this is the best~~

haflingermares

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morning53172

Preparing the Heart: The Day-Star Waking

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Venus & Mercury

I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.
~Revelation 22:16

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
Matthew 2: 10

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
Luke 2: 8-9

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photo by Nate Gibson

There are a few moments between the blackness of a long dark night–something we have plenty of this time of year–and the renewal of the sunrise splash of color that spreads across the sky like spilled paint jars of pink and orange. Illuminated in those few moments is a transitional dawn-light or daybreak equivalent to the evening transition of twilight.

That is when the morning “stars” of Mercury and Venus become most visible. They don’t “twinkle” or appear effervescent like the night stars. They are solid radiant globes heralding the Sun to come.

The “star” guides and leads, breaking apart the darkest night.  It points to home, illuminates the birth of God come to earth as man, and presages the New Day to come. We are witnesses only if we arise early enough, peering through the clouds of everyday troubles, and prepare, ready for the dawning to come.

We must run, not walk, to meet the Redeemer.  This is what it was like for the shepherds and the magi.  This is what it is still like for us.  Our Day-Star awakens and we, our senses stolen by glory,  are overjoyed.

1. Whence is the goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away,
never the like did come a-blowing,
Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May,
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away.

2. What is that light so brilliant,
breaking Here in the night across our eyes.
Never so bright, the day-star waking,
Started to climb the morning skies!
What is that light so brilliant, breaking,
Here in the night across our eyes.

3. Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away,
Run ye with eager footsteps vieing!
Worship the Saviour born today.
Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away.
~ Traditional French Carol

sunrise12814all

Spending My Days Grazing

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dawn12221

morning528151

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.
I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell
of my name.
~Ted Kooser “A Birthday Poem”

morningonthefarm

I usually go in to work on my birthday,
just a regular day most summers~
instead today decided to catch up
on weeding, reading and needing
a day of quiet:

To notice each blade of grass while grazing through the hours,
transformed by something so simple,
to be called as the time comes
to return to the barn
in fullness,
ready to give all I have until empty.

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Morning Settles

barnstormingblog3 Comments

wwudeer1

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Perhaps she came down for the apples,
or was flushed out by the saws powering
the far woods, or was simply lost,

or was crossing one open space for another.

She was a figure approaching, a presence
outside a kitchen window, framed
by the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes,

the after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky,

a shape only narrow bones could hold,

turning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak.

I want my life back.

Morning settles around her like a silver coat.
Rustling branches, hooves in flight.
~Philip Terman “Deer Descending”
Who among us does not feel this?

Everything around me changes faster than I can adapt,
trees topple
marriages shatter
illness overwhelms

I am lost
trying to find my way out
trying to find my way back.

I look for Who will take a moment to listen.
I need Refuge where I may rest safe.
I seek Sanctuary where I may settle in peace,
like a new morning.
I want my life back.
ahmama
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ohdeer

wwudeer2

Breathless

barnstormingblog2 Comments

sunrise4316

morning32116

 

All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

 

dawn7253

Every time I open my eyes to a new day, I need to be reminded how precious is each moment, how wondrous each breath and each heartbeat.

We are created for this — to not forget.

To never forget.

 

bakertrail

Between Midnight and Dawn: The Unseen Seen

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sunrise410143

sunrise10915

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.
2 Corinthinians 4: 18

 

I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.
~Mary Oliver from Bone

 

It is in the early morning hour that the unseen is seen,
and that the far-off beauty and glory,
vanquishing all their vagueness,
move down upon us till they stand
clear as crystal close over against the soul.
~Sarah Smiley

***************************

 

In the moments before dawn
when glow gently pink-tints
the inside of horizon’s eyelids,
the black of midnight
waxes to mere shadow:

that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour. (from Emily Dickinson)

Gloaming dusk
fades into gleaming dawn,
a backlit silhouette stark
as the darkening earth
slowly opens her eyes
to greet in rebirth
a new and glorious morn.

 

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Before the Morning Watch

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Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
    or you brought forth the whole world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn people back to dust,
    saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
    they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.
from Psalm 90

 

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending;
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,
Clangs
The bell.
~T.S. Eliot from “The Dry Salvages”

_____________

Today we confront mortality~
our eventual return to dust
on a timeline not our own.
With each headline about tragic accidents,
dire diseases, senseless shootings,
we know this death, this life swept away
could be ours:
is ours.
We do not walk this darkened path alone.
Each death is His as well.

During this Lenten season, I will be drawing from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

 

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photo by Joel DeWaard