You can change the world with a hot bath, if you sink into it from a place of knowing you are worth profound care, even when you are dirty and rattled. Who knew? ~Anne Lamott from Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace
As a farmer, I spend at least a part of every day muddy and up to my knees and elbows in muck, especially now that the fall rains have arrived, turning beast and barnyard to mush.
I call my barn life “the real stuff” as the rest of the hours of the day are spent dealing with “virtual stuff ” which nonetheless leaves me dirty and rattled. Frankly, I prefer the real over virtual muck even though it smells worse, leaves my fingernails hopelessly grimy and is obvious to everyone where I’ve been.
The stains of the rest of my day are largely invisible to all but me and far harder to scrub away. But even virtual grime can become overwhelming.
It is so much easier for me to deal with what is produced in the barnyard over the mess of political lack of integrity and moral standing. What soils me can be washed off and I’m restored for another day of wallowing in my muck boots. There is true grace in drawing up clean warm water, soaping with the suds that truly cleanse by sinking down into a deep tub of renewal.
God knows how badly we all could use a good scrubbing right now.
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…when the world is mud-lucious… when the world is puddle-wonderful... ~e.e. cummingsfrom “[In Just]”
My father loved more than anything to work outside in wet weather. Beginning at daylight he’d go out in dripping brush to mow or pull weeds for hog and chickens. First his shoulders got damp and the drops from his hat ran down his back. When even his armpits were soaked he came in to dry out by the fire, making coffee, read a little. But if the rain continued he’d soon be restless, and go out to sharpen tools in the shed or carry wood from the pile, then open up a puddle to the drain, working by steps back into the downpour.
I thought he sought the privacy of rain, the one time no one was likely to be out and he was left to the intimacy of drops touching every leaf and tree in the woods and the easy muttering of drip and runoff, the shine of pools behind grass dams.
He could not resist the long ritual, the companionship and freedom of falling weather, or even the cold drenching, the heavy soak and chill of clothes and sobbing of fingers and sacrifice of shoes that earned a baking by the fire and washed fatigue after the wandering and loneliness in the country of rain. ~Robert Morgan “Working in the Rain”
I’m hearing much “easy muttering” since the rain started a few days ago. And not all of it is coming from dripping and runoff into puddles. We all can’t resist grumbling while everything outside soaks, oozes, and drips.
A few of us die-hards celebrate the wet, as it has been quite awhile since we had a decent rain. Everything, including me, is far too brittle, dusty and tinder-dry.
Rain is what makes the Pacific Northwest special, but like in Camelot, many people prefer that it never fall till after sundown. To them, these all-day rains ensure this is not a more congenial spot forhappily-ever-aftering than in Camelot.
I may be an oddity, though typical of northwest-born natives. I celebrate this country of rain whenever it comes, especially before sundown or after sunrise. I enjoy working in the lonely intimacy of a drizzling shower when no one else is out and about. Yet I’m not immune to muttering.
This was a hardy late summer rain, this falling weather in the last gasp of August. Even this rain-lover spent the day puttering inside to avoid muttering about outside.
Guess I am overdue for a good drenching. Then comes the happily-ever-aftering.
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Trust your bones Trust the pull of the earth And the earth itself Trust the hearts of trees The stone at the edge of the sea And all else true
Trust that water will bear you up Trust the moon to keep faith With ebb and flow Trust the leafing The chrysalis, the seed And every other way Death gives birth to resurrection ~Bethany Lee, “To Keep Faith” from The Breath Between
Over the last several weeks, roots have become shoots and their green blades are rising chaotically, uneven and awkward like a bad haircut. And like a bad haircut, another two weeks will make all the difference — sprouts will cover all the bare earth, breaking through crusted soil to create a smooth carpet of green.
There is nothing more mysterious than the barren made fruitful, the ugly made beautiful, the dead made alive.
The muddy winter field of my heart will recover, bathed in new light; I trust love will come again like shoots that spring up green.
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed… 1 Corinthians 15:51–52
This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”
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On the tidal mud, just before sunset, dozens of starfishes were creeping. It was as though the mud were a sky and enormous, imperfect stars moved across it as slowly as the actual stars cross heaven. All at once they stopped, and, as if they had simply increased their receptivity to gravity, they sank down into the mud, faded down into it and lay still, and by the time pink of sunset broke across them they were as invisible as the true stars at daybreak. ~Galway Kinnell “Daybreak”
photo by Nate Gibson
We know the stars, heavenly or terrestrial, still shine, though made invisible by a brighter light – hidden in plain sight at daybreak yet always throwing sparks, ever eternally lit, immersed but never overwhelmed within the muddy dark.
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Mo sheasamh ort lá na choise tinne… (You are the place where I stand on the day when my feet are sore…) ~Irish saying translated by poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama
I’ve been foot sore the last few days, most likely from trying in vain to pull my feet out of some boot-sucking mud in the barnyard while pushing a heavy wheelbarrow. With each painful step I now take, I am reminded how dependent I am on strong legs and feet to carry me through the pathways of life.
I have stumbled into holes, picked my way carefully over sharp rocks, scrambled up steep climbs and pulled my way through the muddiest mire.
Yes, of course I’ve had sore feet before: blisters and callouses, tendonitis and fasciitis, bruised toes and stressed arches. When every step I take points out my failures and frailty, I begin to beg for a soft landing with each stride.
But more than comfort, I seek a stable place of trust to put my feet, to stand firm even when standing feels impossible.
Lord, be my landing place when I hurt and pull me out when I get stuck up to my ankles. May your gentle road rise to meet my sore feet.
This year’s Lenten theme: 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 Corinthians 4: 18
Take this fainted heart Take these tainted hands Wash me in Your love Come like grace again
Even when my strength is lost I’ll praise You Even when I have no song I’ll praise You Even when it’s hard to find the words Louder then I’ll sing Your praise I will only sing Your praise
Take this mountain weight Take these ocean tears Hold me through the trial Come like hope again
Even when the fight seems lost I’ll praise You Even when it hurts like hell I’ll praise You Even when it makes no sense to sing Louder then I’ll sing Your praise, oh-ooh I will only sing Your praise, oh-ooh
I will only sing Your praise, oh, God I will only sing Your praise I will only sing Your praise
And my heart burns only for You You are all, You are all I want And my soul waits only for You And I will sing ’til the morning has come
Lord my heart burns only for You You are all, You are all I want And my soul waits only for You And I will sing ’til the miracle comes, yeah
I will only sing Your praise I will only sing Your praise, ooh-oh, oh I will only sing Your praise
Even when the morning comes I’ll praise You Even when the fight is won I’ll praise You Even when my time on earth is done Louder then I’ll sing your praise I will only sing Your praise ~Joel Houston
Every valley drinks, Every dell and hollow: Where the kind rain sinks and sinks, Green of Spring will follow.
Yet a lapse of weeks Buds will burst their edges, Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks, In the woods and hedges;
But for fattening rain We should have no flowers, Never a bud or leaf again But for soaking showers;
We should find no moss In the shadiest places, Find no waving meadow grass Pied with broad-eyed daisies:
But miles of barren sand, With never a son or daughter, Not a lily on the land, Or lily on the water. ~Christina Georgina Rossetti from “Winter Rain” from Poems of Christina Rossetti (1904)
Reading the news of ongoing drought in the U.S. Southwest being the worst in over a thousand years, I look at our over-filled Northwest rain gauges with renewed appreciation and gratitude. We’ve had more “fattening” rain than typical over the last several months, which at times resulted in devastating flooding and damage, impacting hundreds of homes and businesses. Yet, but for rain, we too would become miles and miles of barren sand, with nothing able to thrive and grow, no sons or daughters or the beauty of the lilies.
I love our “kind” rain: the wet, the drizzle, the mist, the gray, the clouds, the mud, the moss, the slosh and the “evening dews and damps.”
“In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea…” The rain transfigures us all.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.”
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. ~Julia Ward Howe (published 1862)
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I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130: 5-6 from a Song of Ascents
Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for.
We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory.
It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter
from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come. I modernise the anachronism
of my language, but he is no more here than before. Genes and molecules have no more power to call him up than the incense of the Hebrews
at their altars. My equations fail as my words do. What resources have I other than the emptiness without him of my whole being, a vacuum he may not abhor? ~R.S. Thomas “The Absence”
To wait is hard when we know the value of the gift that awaits us. We know exactly what is in the package since we have watched it being carefully chosen, wrapped and presented to us to open.
We have seen His footprints on our landscape: in the hottest dessert, in the deepest snow, in the meadows and in the forests, in the mud and muck and mire of our lives; we know He has been here and wait for His return.
Not yet though, not quite yet. So we wait, and continue to wait.
Even more so, we wait and hope for what we do not see but know is coming, like a groaning in the labor of childbirth.
The waiting is never easy; it is painful to be patient, staying alert to possibility and hope when we are exhausted, barely able to function. Others won’t understand why we wait, nor do they comprehend what we could possibly be waiting for when it remains unseen, with only the footprints left behind to remind us.
Yet we persevere together, with patience, watching and hoping, like Mary and Joseph, like Elizabeth and Zechariah, like the shepherds, like the Magi of the east, like Simeon and Anna in the temple.
This is the meaning of Advent: we are a community groaning together in sweet anticipation and expectation of the gift of Morning to come.
photo by Josh Scholten
I pray my soul waits for the Lord My hope is in His word More than the watchman waits for dawn My soul waits for the Lord
1) Out of the depths I cry to You; From darkest places I will call. Incline Your ear to me anew, And hear my cry for mercy, Lord. Were You to count my sinful ways How could I come before Your throne? Yet full forgiveness meets my gaze – I stand redeemed by grace alone.
CHORUS I will wait for You, I will wait for You, On Your word I will rely. I will wait for You, surely wait for You Till my soul is satisfied.
2) So put Your hope in God alone, Take courage in His power to save; Completely and forever won By Christ emerging from the grave.
3) His steadfast love has made a way, And God Himself has paid the price, That all who trust in Him today Find healing in his sacrifice.
I will wait for You, I will wait for You Through the storm and through the night. I will wait for You, surely wait for You, For Your love is my delight.
Wait for the Lord, his day is near Wait for the Lord, be strong take heart Prepare the way for the Lord Make a straight path for Him The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed All the Earth will see the Lord Rejoice in the Lord always He is at Hand Joy and gladness for all who seek the Lord
This year’s Barnstorming Advent theme “… the Beginning shall remind us of the End” is taken from the final lines in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”
Everything in the garden is dead, killed by a sudden hard freeze, the beans, the tomatoes, fruit still clinging to the branches. It’s all heaped up ready to go to the compost pile: rhubarb leaves, nasturtiums, pea vines, even the geraniums. It’s too bad. The garden was so beautiful, green and fresh, but then we were all beautiful once. Everything dies, we understand. But the mind of the observer, which cannot imagine not imagining, goes on. The dynasties are cut down like the generations of grass, the bodies blacken and turn into coal. The waters rise and cover the earth and the mind broods on the face of the deep, and learns nothing. ~Louis Jenkins, “Freeze” from Where Your House is Near: New and Selected Poems
This week was our first hard freeze of autumn, following on the heels of the worst flooding in a half century in our county. The land and all that grows here experienced a one-two punch – when the waters pulled back into the streams and rivers, what was left behind looked frozen, soaked and miserable. The people whose homes were devastated are so much more than miserable; they are mudding out by removing everything down to the studs to try to begin again. With hundreds of volunteers and disaster teams helping, there are piles of kitchen appliances, dry wall, carpet and every household item along the main streets of nearby towns, waiting to be hauled off.
Surveying our dying garden is small potatoes in comparison to a flooded town only a few miles away. The memories of how beautiful our garden was a 2-3 months ago is nothing in contrast to the families who lost their stored heirlooms and cherished memories to the muck and mire of deep waters.
But we are a resilient community. We are people of persistence and creativity and there will eventually be beauty again here. Driving on a newly opened road beside the still-surging river where a few days ago several feet of water covered a cornfield, I spotted a trumpeter swan, standing in glorious spotless white, picking her way through the mud-stained cornstalks, hoping to find something of value left behind in the devastation.
There is still hope; it did not wash away. We only need to use our imagination to find it.
Taken from our farm–cornfield stubble and feeding swans
That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly,dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. ~Ray Bradbury from The October Country
Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn. ~Leo Tolstoy
A few days of heavy rain in November transforms our farm to mush. Puddles are everywhere, the ground is saturated and mushrooms are sprouting in the most unlikely places. It’s ideal weather for the trumpeter swans and snow geese who glean in the nearby harvested cornfields, filling up on dropped corn kernels. They fly overhead to head out to the fields, noisily honking, their wings swooshing the air as they pass over.
The wet weather means chores are more challenging on our farm. Some of the stalls in the barn have started to get moist from the rising ground water, so the Haflingers appreciate diving into fresh shavings for a good roll and shake. I can appreciate the relief they feel as I like getting back to solid footing too at the end of the day. Much of my day also seems to be spent navigating slippery slopes and muddy terrain, both real and figurative.
It isn’t always apparent what ground is treacherous from appearance alone. The grassy slope heading down to the barn from the house looks pretty benign until I start navigating in a driving rainstorm in the dark, and suddenly the turf becomes a skating rink and I’m finding I’m picking my way carefully with a flashlight. The path I seek is to find the patches of moss, which happily soak up the water like a sponge carpet-like, so not slick to walk on. Even if moss ordinarily is not a welcome addition to lawn or pasture–I appreciate it this time of year.
Another challenge is pushing a wheelbarrow with two 60 pound bales of hay back up that slope to the stalls for the day’s feeding. There is no traction underneath to help my feet stick to the ground for the push uphill. I can feel particularly foolish at this futile effort–my feet sometimes slide out beneath me, landing me on my knees down on the ground, soaked and humiliated, and the wheelbarrow goes skidding right back down to the barn door where it started.
Trusting the footing underneath my feet is crucial day to day. If I am to get work done most efficiently and make progress, I must have solid ground to tread. But the stuff of real life, like our farm’s ground, doesn’t come made to order that way. Some days are slick and treacherous, unpredictable and ready to throw me to my knees, while other days are simple, easy, and smooth sailing. Waking in the morning, I cannot know what I will face that day–whether I need my highest hip boots to wade through the muck or whether I can dash about in comfy house slippers. My attitude has something to do with it too–sometimes my “internal” footing is loose and slippery, tripping up those around me as well as myself. That is when I need most to plant myself in the solid foundation that I know will support me during those treacherous times. I need my faith, my need to forgive and experience forgiveness, my family holding me as I fall, and to help pick them up when they are down. Without those footings every day, I’m nothing more than a muddy soiled mess lying face down on the ground wondering if I’ll ever walk again.
There is good reason I end up on my knees at times. It is the best reminder of where I would be full time if it were not for stronger Hands that lift me up, clean me up and guide my footsteps all my days.
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It was in the Spring The Passover had come. There was feasting in the streets and joy. But an awful thing Happened in the Spring – Men who knew not what they did Killed Mary’s Boy. He was Mary’s Son, And the Son of God was He – Sent to bring the whole world joy. There were some who could not hear, And some were filled with fear – So they built a cross For Mary’s Boy ~Langston Hughes “The Ballad of Mary’s Boy”from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
We have had several days of southerly winds trying to break us loose from the vise grip of a tired and dying winter. Yet we are held tightly by our frailties.
Despite the warming trend, I find my strength still waning at the end of a long day. I slipped in the mud trying to gain traction unloading a couple hundred pounds of manure from the wheelbarrow. Landing on my backside, my pants muddied thoroughly, I can choose to laugh or cry.
The baptism of mud is a sacrament of the present moment, reminding me of my need for cleansing grace. So I both laugh and cry.
God is revealed in the awful and glorious moments of my being covered in the soil of earth and the waste of its creatures. He knows I need reminding that I too am dust and to dust shall return.
He knows I am too often wasteful and a failed steward, so need reminding by landing me in the middle of it.
He knows I need to laugh at myself, so lands me right on my backside.
He knows I need to cry, so allows me to feel sore and sorrow.
To be known for who I am by a God who laughs with me, weeps for me and groans with the pain I have caused; I will know no greater love.
God, as Mary’s boy, conquered the shroud and the rolled away stone, ending my living for myself, only to die, and began my dying to self, in order to live. and that has made all the difference.
When Jesus wept, the falling tear In mercy flowed beyond all bound. When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear Seized all the guilty world around.
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