mother – Page 8 – Barnstorming

Awaiting His Arrival: From Burdened to Blessed

December 23, 2014 barnstormingblog1 Comment

The winds were scornful,
Passing by;
And gathering Angels
Wondered why

A burdened Mother
Did not mind
That only animals
Were kind.

For who in all the world
Could guess
That God would search out
Loneliness.
~Sr. M. Chrysostom, O.S.B. “The Stable”

Call Me When You Get There

May 11, 2014May 11, 2014 barnstormingblog5 Comments

Originally written April 26, 2008
A vigil at my mother’s bedside

Lying still, your mouth gapes open
I wonder if you breathe your last
Your hair a white cloud
Your skin softened from disuse
No washing, digging, planting
Gardens or children
Anymore.

Where do your dreams take you?
At times you wake in your childhood home
Rolling wheat fields, boundless days of freedom.
Other naps take you to your college student and teaching days
Grammar and drama, speech and essays.
Yesterday you were a young mother again
Juggling babies, farm and your wistful dreams.

Today you looked about your empty nest
Disguised as hospital bed
Children grown, flown
You try to control through worry
Travel safely
Get a good night’s sleep
Take time to eat
Call me when you get there

I dress you as you dressed me
I clean you as you cleaned me
I love you as you loved me
You try my patience as I tried yours
I wonder if I have the strength to
Manage mothering as you did
As you need
Forever.

When I tell you the truth
Your brow furrows as it used to do
When I disappointed you
This cannot be
A bed in a room in a sterile place
Waiting for death
Waiting for heaven
Waiting

And I tell you
Travel safely
Eat, please eat
Sleep well
Call me when you get there.

Elna Schmitz as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a drama production at Washington State College, Pullman 1940

Great Grandma Elna meeting Noah 5 days before she died, 2008

Warm Milk of Light

October 27, 2013October 27, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

portrait of Dan's mom, Emma Gibson, praying, by granddaughter Sara Lenssen — portrait of Emma Gibson, Dan’s mom in her later years, photo taken by granddaughter Sara Lenssen

I sit with braided fingers

and closed eyes

in a span of late sunlight.

The spokes are closing.

It is fall: warm milk of light,

though from an aging breast.

I do not mean to pray.

The posture for thanks or

supplication is the same

as for weariness or relief.

But I am glad for the luck

of light. Surely it is godly,

that it makes all things

begin, and appear, and become

actual to each other.

Light that’s sucked into

the eye, warming the brain

with wires of color.

Light that hatched life

out of the cold egg of earth.
~May Swenson from “October”

Call Me

July 1, 2010 barnstormingblog2 Comments

April 26, 2008
vigil at my mother’s bedside

Lying still, your mouth gapes open
I wonder if you breathe your last
Your hair a white cloud
Your skin softened from disuse
No washing, digging, planting
Gardens or children
Anymore.

Where do your dreams take you?
At times you wake in your childhood home
Rolling wheat fields, boundless days of freedom.
Other naps take you to your teaching days
Grammar and drama, speech and essays.
Yesterday you were a young mother again
Juggling babies, farm and your wistful dreams.

I dress you as you dressed me
I clean you as you cleaned me
I love you as you loved me
You try my patience as I tried yours
I wonder if I have the strength to
Manage mothering
Forever.

When I tell you the truth
Your brow furrows as it used to do
When I disappointed you
This cannot be
A bed in a room in a sterile place
Waiting for death
Waiting for heaven
Waiting

And I tell you
Travel safely
Eat, please eat
Sleep well
Call me when you get there.

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

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

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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