We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet. ~Annie Dillard from The Force That Drives the Flower
What inference might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works? An inordinate fondness for beetles. The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other. ~ J.B.S. Haldane, British biologist
Indeed, we stranded folk do encounter a God who saves us by flipping us back onto our feet as we lie helplessly waving our arms and legs in the air, so stuck and pitiful.
God knows all about the helplessness of suffering and hears our cry for mercy.
Once we are righted back to our feet, we walk forth forever changed – restored to the world, ready to help anyone we encounter who finds themselves stuck upside down in their misery.
When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles… …they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle. ~ Dr. Seuss from Fox in Socks
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They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?” Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. John 9: 13-41
When we look long at one another, we soften, we relent, listen,
might forgive. We allow for silence —and when we see each other,
are known, and in that moment might change
though nothing has moved or been spoken.
There are some who say the walls cannot be broken,
but suddenly we are in a free place, and the fields
that extend from its center stretch for miles
as if out of the pupil and the iris of that momentary kingdom. ~Annie Lighthart “When We Look” from Pax
Why no! I never thought other than That God is that great absence In our lives, the empty silence Within, the place where we go Seeking, not in hope to Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices In our knowledge, the darkness Between stars. His are the echoes We follow, the footprints he has just Left. We put our hands in His side hoping to find It warm. We look at people And places as though he had looked At them, too; but miss the reflection. ~R.S. Thomas “Via Negativa”
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”
We cannot recognize our blindness, unaware of what we can’t see and don’t know, until our eyes are opened.
Before that happens, all we know is the emptiness behind our closed eyes.
How can we know what vision we are capable of until suddenly, miraculously, it is given to us in a gift of grace.
Lord, banish the blindness of my guilt, fill the vacuum of my emptiness with your love, allow me to see — not only the world around me, but to look deeply into other open eyes and see You reflected.
Open up my eyes, so I might see That You have made these ways for me Open up my eyes so I may see That You my God, will walk with me ~Chorus lyrics from All My Ways are Known to You
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain, Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, Jesus’ touch can call us back to life again, Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green. ~ John Macleod Campbell Crum – two stanzas from “Now the Green Blade Riseth”
…times of dormancy and deep rest are essential to all living things. Despite all appearances, of course, nature is not dead in winter– it has gone underground to renew itself and prepare for spring. Winter is a time when we are admonished, and even inclined, to do the same for ourselves.
Our inward winters take many forms–failure, betrayal, depression, death. But every one of them, in my experience, yields to the same advice: “The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them–protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance–we can learn what they have to teach us. Then, we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in winter, the most dismaying season of all. ~Parker Palmer from Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
Why did “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen” resonate as a universal pop anthem some ten years ago?
Maybe we needed the call to emerge from our dormancy, to reach out in our God-given ability to overcome challenges, despite everything the outward and inward winters blow at us.
I trust, from all I’ve learned in His Word — I have only gone underground temporarily and will soon emerge restored in renewal.
The cold never bothered me anyway? Yes, of course it did, but it is not the end of my story.
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As long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum in painted quiet and concentration keeps pouring milk day after day from the pitcher to the bowl the World hasn’t earned the world’s end. ~Wislawa Szymborska “Vermeer” tr. by Claire Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak from Here
Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
As ever, the sun rises and the sun sets, day after day. God continues to pour out His colors across the skies.
God loves us enough to plant each of us here with a plan for our redemption.
We don’t know how much longer.
Today we wave flags, some in a show of power, some in a show of gratitude, some in a show of discontent.
Instead, I pour milk as a daily sacrament: quietly, with great concentration and appreciation, as that is the work I must do, day after day.
To milk the cows and raise wheat for bread and conceive children and raise them up to pour and bake.
This is God’s created world, after all. We must do our best to restore and preserve all that He has made.
So keep milking and keep pouring.
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’Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer Thought it scarcely worth his while, To waste his time on the old violin. But he held it up with a smile, “What am I bid, good friends,” he cried. “Who’ll start the bidding for me?” “A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two? Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?”
“Three dollars once. And three dollars twice. And going, and going, . . . ” But no, From the back of the room a gray-haired man Came forward and picked up the bow. And wiping the dust from the old violin And tightening the loose strings He played a melody pure and sweet As caroling angels sing.
The music ceased and the auctioneer With a voice that was quiet and low, Said “What am I bid for the old violin?” As he held it up with the bow. “One thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two? Two thousand dollars, and three! Three thousand, once, and three thousand twice, And going, and going, and gone!” said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cried, “We don’t quite understand What changed its worth.” Swift came the reply. “’Twas the touch of the master’s hand.” And many a man with life out of tune And battered and scarred with sin, Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, Much like the old violin.
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine, A game, and he travels on. He’s going once, and going twice, And going, and almost gone. But the Master comes and the thoughtless crowd Never can quite understand The worth of a soul, and the change that is wrought, By the touch of the Master’s hand. ~Myra Brooks Welch “The Touch of the Master’s Hand”
Strange shape, who moulded first thy dainty shell? Who carved these melting curves? Who first did bring Across thy latticed bridge the slender string? Who formed this magic wand, to weave the spell, And lending thee his own soul, bade thee tell, When o’er the quiv’ring strings, he drew the bow, Life’s history of happiness and woe, Or sing a paean, or a fun’ral knell?
Oh come, beloved, responsive instrument, Across thy slender throat with gentle care I’ll stretch my heart-strings; and be quite content To lose them, if with man I can but share The springs of song, that in my soul are pent, To quench his thirst, and help his load to bear. ~Bertha Gordon “To a Violin”
My maternal grandfather, a Palouse wheat farmer starting in the late 1800s, was a self-taught fiddle player. My mother, born in 1920, remembered him pulling the violin out of its case at the end of a long day working in the fields, enjoying playing jigs and ditties for his family.
The history of how he acquired this violin has been lost three generations later. The fiddle itself became a veteran of many sad and joyous tunes over the years.
Now scratched and tarnished and stringless, it is hardly a thing of beauty. My research suggests it is one of many mass-produced factory-made violins sold through Sears Roebuck back in the early 1900’s. It was made to “appear” like a rare hand-crafted German Stradivarius, but affordable for the common man.
Still, its value isn’t in how it was made, or who actually glued it together and stamped a brand on it. Its value is found in the hands that cradled it, holding it carefully under the chin, drawing heart-felt sounds from its strings.
Just like this old violin, aged and out of tune, I’m looking a bit scratched up and battered from years of use.
God has picked me up, blowing away my dustiness. He has tightened and tuned my strings to coax a song from me.
Restored, I can resonate in joy and tears.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw upon itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom. ~N.T. Wright from The Crown and The Fire
Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention… And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng’s clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, O Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it. ~Denise Levertov from “Primary Wonder” from Sands of the Well
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things… Ephesians 3:9
Despite the bad news of the world, I cling to the mystery of God’s sustaining us through weaknesses, flaws and bitterness. He pulls us out of the dark, to His Light.
Hatred and pain and shame and anger disappear into the vortex of His bright love and beauty, the mucky corners of our lives wiped spotless.
We are let in on a secret: He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.
Created in His image, sustained and loved, thus reflecting Him, we emerge, hopeful, from the soil and washed forever clean.
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Stat Sua cuique dies (To each his day is given) Stat Sua cuique dies (To each his day is given) – Latin, The Aeneid Maél is mé tó féran(‘Tis time that I fare from you)– Old English Aleto men moi nostos (Lost is my homecoming) -Greek, The Illiad C’est pour cela que je suis née(I was born for this)–French, Joan of Arc Kono michi ya(On this road)Yuki hito nishi ni (Goes no one)– Japanese C’est pour cela que je suis née (I was born for this) – French Ne me plaignez pas (Do not pity me) – French, Joan of Arc
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Just down the road… around the bend, Stands an old empty barn; nearing the end. It has sheltered no animals for many years; No dairy cows, no horses, no sheep, no steers. The neigh of a horse; the low of a cow; Those sounds have been absent for some time now. There was a time when the loft was full of hay, And the resounding echoes of children at play. At one time the paint was a bold shade of red; Gradually faded by weather and the sun overhead. The doors swing in the wind… the hinges are loose, Windows and siding have taken a lot of abuse. The fork, rope and pulleys lifted hay to the mow, A task that always brought sweat to the brow. But those good days are gone; forever it seems, And that old barn now stands with sagging beams. It is now home to pigeons, rats and mice; The interior is tattered and doesn’t look very nice. Old, abandoned barns have become a trend, Just down the road… around the bend. ~Vance Oliphant “Old Barn”
We will call this place our home The dirt in which our roots may grow Though the storms will push and pull We will call this place our home
We’ll tell our stories on these walls Every year, measure how tall And just like a work of art We’ll tell our stories on these walls
Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide Settle our bones like wood over time, over time Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine
A little broken, a little new We are the impact and the glue Capable more than we know To call this fixer upper home
With each year, our color fades Slowly, our paint chips away But we will find the strength And the nerve it takes To repaint and repaint and repaint every day
Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide Settle our bones like wood over time, over time
Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide Settle our bones like wood over time, over time
Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine
Smaller than dust on this map Lies the greatest thing we have The dirt in which our roots may grow And the right to call it home ~Ryan O’Neal “North” (listen to the choral versions below)
Each of us needs a home. Every creature needs a place to put down roots and rest their head.
Yet, due to ravages of time, a poverty of spirit and strength, discouragement and discord, natural disasters and drought, or the devastation of politics and war — too many find themselves chipped away until nothing is left.
It is time for restoration. It is time for renewal.
It is time for kindness: the broken repaired, the lonely made welcome, the hungry fed.
Somehow, someway, we rebuild, repaint and restore so all put down roots and thrive and are welcomed home.
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Season of ripening fruit and seeds, depart; There is no harvest ripening in the heart.
Bring the frost that strikes the dahlias down In one cruel night.The blackened buds, the brown And wilted heads, the crippled stems, we crave – All beauty withered, crumbling to the grave. Wind, strip off the leaves, and harden, ground, Till in your frozen crust no break is found.
Then only, when man’s inner world is one With barren earth and branches bared to bone, Then only can the heart begin to know The seeds of hope asleep beneath the snow; Then only can the chastened spirit tap The hidden faith still pulsing in the sap. ~Anne Morrow Lindberghfrom The Unicorn and Other Poems
After the ranks of stubble have laid bare, And field mice and finches’ beaks have found The last spilled seed corn left upon the ground; And no more swallows miracle in air;
When the green tuft no longer hides the hare, And dropping starling flights at evening come; When birds, except the robin, have gone dumb, And leaves are rustling downwards everywhere;
Then out, with the great horses, come the ploughs, And all day long the slow procession goes, Darkening the stubble fields with broadening strips. Grey sea-gulls settle after to carouse:
Harvest prepares upon the harvest’s close, Before the blackbird pecks the scarlet hips. ~John Masefield “Autumn Ploughing”
photo by Joel De Waard
Our farm has been changing gradually over the past several weeks, each day moving a little closer to the reality of winter around the corner. Most of the fruit which is not residing in our freezer has fallen from the trees, and the walnut husks are hanging lonesome and bulbous as a windstorm pulled many leaves to the ground creating a multi-colored carpet everywhere I walk.
Readying for winter’s sleep is quite a glamorous affair for some trees on our farm–they are clothed in rich crimson and gold like the most alluring and ostentatious negligee. However the majority of tree leaves turn drab yellow or brown, as if donning a practical flannel nightgown or an oversized t-shirt without any pretense of grandeur. Even our Haflinger horses laze about, comfortable in their soft winter woolie coats and feathered slippers, happy with their gift of hay. I understand their contentment as I prefer fluffy flannel myself.
I’m ill at ease with the autumnal transition, as unready as a small child who resists the approach of bedtime, even when exhausted to the point of meltdown. It takes someone to quietly sit down with me to read a good bedtime story and to sing a soft hymn of lullaby. I keep leaping up, eyes propped open, pushing on, aware there are still too many “miles to go before I sleep”.
Yet I know the nighttimes of autumn and winter are the best time to be contemplative, to be still, to have eyes closed in prayer.
The time to sleep will come. Just as a storm brings the leaves to the ground, so I too shall be laid to rest, waiting to be restored in fullness and light when the time is right.
Maybe I should think about wearing that bright red flannel nightie.
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To pull the metal splinter from my palm my father recited a story in a low voice. I watched his lovely face and not the blade. Before the story ended, he’d removed the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale, but hear his voice still, a well of dark water, a prayer. And I recall his hands, two measures of tenderness he laid against my face, the flames of discipline he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon you would have thought you saw a man planting something in a boy’s palm, a silver tear, a tiny flame. Had you followed that boy you would have arrived here, where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down so carefully she feels no pain. Watch as I lift the splinter out. I was seven when my father took my hand like this, and I did not hold that shard between my fingers and think, Metal that will bury me, christen it Little Assassin, Ore Going Deep for My Heart. And I did not lift up my wound and cry, Death visited here! I did what a child does when he’s given something to keep. I kissed my father. ~Li-Young Lee, “The Gift” from Rose
I did, without ever wanting to, remove my child’s splinter, lance a boil, immobilize a broken arm, pull together sliced skin, clean many dirty wounds. It felt like I crossed the line between mommy and doctor. But someone had to do it, and a four hour wait in the emergency room didn’t seem warranted.
My own children learned to cope with hurt made worse by someone they trusted to be comforter. I dealt with inflicting pain, temporary though it may be, to flesh that arose from my flesh. It hurt as much as if it were my own wound needing cleansing, not theirs.
And so, in the similar way, our wounds are His – He is constantly feeling our pain as He performs healing surgeries in our lives, not because He wants to but because He must, to save us from our own self-destruction. Too often we yell and kick and protest in our distress, making it all that much more difficult for both of us.
If only we can come to acknowledge His intervention is our salvage: our tears to flow in relief, not anguish, we cling to His protection rather than pushing Him away, we kiss Him in gratitude as we are restored again and yet again.
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
More than once I’ve seen a dog waiting for its owner outside a café practically implode with worry. “Oh, God, what if she doesn’t come back this time? What will I do? Who will take care of me? I loved her so much and now she’s gone and I’m tied to a post surrounded by people who don’t look or smell or sound like her at all.” And when she does come, what a flurry of commotion, what a chorus of yelping and cooing and leaps straight up into the air! It’s almost unbearable, this sudden fullness after such total loss, to see the world made whole again by a hand on the shoulder and a voice like no other. ~John Brehm from “If Feeling Isn’t In It”
photo by Brandon Dieleman
We all need to know love like this: so binding, so complete, so profoundly filling: its loss empties our world of all meaning as our flowing tears run dry.
So abandoned, we woeful wait, longing for the return of the gentle voice, the familiar smile, the tender touch and encompassing embrace.
With unexpected restoration when we’ve done nothing whatsoever to deserve it- we leap and shout with unsurpassed joy, this world without form and void is made whole again.
photo by Nate Gibson
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