old – Barnstorming

He Sees Us As We Are: Shedding the Fluff

March 4, 2020 barnstormingblog2 Comments

In the morning I take out
most of what I put in last night.

I cross out everything that seems
excessive, every frill and fandango,

anything fluffy—a word that should
never again appear in a poem,

along with blossom and awesome.
Once I have deleted everything

except the title—which now seems
to have been written by a poet

who knows something I don’t,
I delete that as well and turn

the page. All that empty space
is waiting. What will I say?
~Joyce Sutphen “The Art of Revision”

It is shedding season on the farm. Suddenly it feels like everything is being purged, leaving a blank slate, an empty canvas, a wordless page.

Someone who knows something that I don’t is directing all this dropping of the burdensome to make space for the shiny and new.

I wish my own extra insulation could just be brushed out and thrown away like horse and dog hair. Mine clings to me through cold weather and warm, padding my hips and my middle and a few other spots I’d rather not disclose. I know I don’t really need all this extra fluff, and I know what I must do to shed it, but somehow knowing and doing are not always in synch.

In fact I hang on to a lot that I don’t need, some of which only makes me more miserable, as it is no longer useful and is downright detrimental. Some of it is tangible accumulation, in not-just-a-few piles and closets. Some is not visible but is deeply seeded nevertheless. The excess hurts to have it pulled out by the roots.

Yes, it is time to revise, start fresh, and figure out what is next.

I have an undercoat that I cling to because it guards my heart, providing an insulated layer buffering against the chill and sharp edges of life. I need a good stiff brushing from a strong arm. The time has come for the coat to blow. I’ll be smooth and free once again, feeling the breezes right through my skin, all the way to my heart.

I remain fluffy at my peril. It is time to figure out what comes next.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

Preparing Through Parable: Bursting at the Seams

February 15, 2018 barnstormingblog2 Comments

…no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’
Luke 5:36-39

Sometimes one good metaphor leads us to another good metaphor. That’s why parables are well remembered as we can link them to our personal experience, even across millenia.

Unfortunately there are no new or old, full or empty wineskins lying around on the farm to help this illustration — all the animal bladders here are in full use by warm and furry critters.

However, on the farm I have found skins that burst when the new breaks through the old. The old skin becomes so tight and inflexible that new vibrant life can no longer be held within. It is left behind, a useless shell: still interesting, worthy of study, but in no way alive like the new skin.

Lord, help me wriggle free of my old skin even when I want to cling to it and help me celebrate the new way you have reinvented me.

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand. He prepares me with parable.

Preparing Through Parable: New Patch on an Old Tear

February 14, 2018 barnstormingblog2 Comments

He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.
~Luke 5:36-37

…awakening the mind’s attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand…
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Vol. II

My life brims with holes and tears that I attempt to mend by slapping on bandaids that don’t stick to the sides of the wounds. I try fixing what is gaping with iron-on patches, or darning until midnight, or whipping stitches through frayed cloth.

My efforts are futile. The edges cannot hold no matter how I try to bring them together myself. I am dust, as is what I’m trying to repair.

Jesus tells me to quit trying to save the old – the dusty old laws, the old rituals, the old ways of doing things – and to embrace the brand new life that He offers, not use it as superglue to patch up the old life.

What I’m trying to hold on to ~ the comfortable, the familiar, the traditional ~ is no match with what is to come.

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand. He prepares me with parable.

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

	pokrov2021 on An Advent Threshold: When All…
	sapphireraintae on An Advent Threshold: When All…
	suet624 on An Advent Threshold: The Begin…
	lateblooms7e02154fcf on An Advent Threshold: The Begin…
	barnstormingblog on An Advent Threshold: A Wall Be…