Tag: storm

On the Spot, Watching

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rainstorm

breezetrees

A tree can’t thrash its branches;
it waits for the wind to move them.
I can manufacture neither poems nor spiritual power,
but my task is to be on the spot, watching,
ready when the breeze picks up.
~Luci Shaw from Breath for the Bones

 

I awake as a gust unlatches our front door ajar,
blinds clattering over screened windows
yawning open for months;
raindrops blowing everywhere,
sucked up with a thirst
unknown by this soil before.

I thirst too~
sweat-dried from a too-long summer,
eager to be tasked with watching
this amazing change
to be moved as it passes by,
bowed and bent by its power.

breezepoplar

breezebirch

 

The Storm Within

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marketballoonman

fountainkids

Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions,
beneath our religion or lack of it,
we are all vulnerable both to the storm without
and to the storm within.
~Frederick Buechner – from Telling the Truth

We are so complicit and compliant
in pleasant and peaceful appearance,
sitting in silence allowing
our inner storm to stay well hidden;
if called and compelled to face wrongs boldly,
the tempest can no longer be contained.
Silence in the face of evil
must itself be shattered,
even the rocks will cry out,
as our storm spills forth
speaking the truth.

 Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Awash with Angels

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sunrise830

Today, in Bellingham, even the sidewalks gleam.
Small change glints from the creases
in the lady’s mantle and the hostas after
the rain that falls, like grace, unmerited.
My pockets are full, spilling over.
~Luci Shaw from “Small Change”

There were thunder storms and torrential rains to the north of us, to the east and to the south, but we had only a gentle constant showering during the night — a calm center.  This morning such undeserved grace is gleaming as if a spill over of twilight’s gloaming.

Today we are awash, cleansed,  with bright wings.

sunrise8302

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~ Gerard Manly Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”


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Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
~Richard Wilbur

Lenten Grace — Barnstormed

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(Emily’s note: I’ve been asked how my blog came to be named “Barnstorming” — most assume it is a doctor-farmer’s twist on “brainstorming” which didn’t occur to me until someone mentioned it to me.  Instead, the name has nothing to do with brains, baseball teams, politics or daredevil piloting of small airplanes.  It has everything to do with a storm taking place in our barn at the beginning of Holy Week a few years ago.  This is a repost.)

An unexpected southerly wind hit suddenly late Sunday night, gusting up to 40 miles an hour and slamming the house with drenching rain as we prepared to go to bed. Chores in the barn had been done hours before, but as we had not been expecting a storm, the north/south center aisle doors were still open, and I could hear banging and rattling as they were buffeted in the wind. I quickly dressed to go latch the doors for the night, but the tempest had done its damage. Hay, empty buckets, horse blankets, tack and cat food had blown all over, while the Haflingers stood wide-eyed and fretful in their stalls. A storm was blowing inside the barn as well as outside it.

It took some time to tidy up the mess after the doors were secured but all was soon made right. The wind continued to bash at the doors, but it no longer could touch anything inside them. The horses relaxed and got back to their evening meal though the noise coming from outside was deafening. I headed back up to the house and slept fitfully listening to the wind blow all night, wondering if the metal barn roof might pull off in a gust, exposing everything within.

Yet in the new daylight this Monday morning, all is calm. The barn is still there, the roof still on, the horses are where they belong and all seems to be as it was before the barnstorming wind. Or so it might appear.

This wind heralds another storm coming this week that hits with such force that I’m knocked off my feet, swept away, and left bruised and breathless. No latches, locks, or barricades are strong enough to protect me from what will come over the next few days.

Yesterday he rode in on a donkey softly, humbly, and wept at what he knew.

Today, he overturns the tables in his fury.

Tomorrow he echoes the destruction that is to happen.

Wednesday, he teaches the people to prepare them, then rests in anticipation.

On Thursday, he kneels, pours water over dusty feet, presides over a simple meal, and then, abandoned,  sweats blood in agonized prayer.

By Friday, all culminates in the perfect storm, transforming everything in its path, leaving nothing untouched.

The silence on Saturday is deafening.

Next Sunday, the Son rises and returns, all is calm, all is well, all set to right.  He calls my name, my heart burns within me at his words and I can never be the same again.

Barnstormed to the depths of my soul. Doors flung open wide, the roof pulled off, everything blown away and now replaced, renewed and reconciled.

May it be done as he has said, again and yet again.

The Face of February

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

“Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”
–  William Shakespeare,  Much Ado About Nothing

February never fails to be seductive,  teasing of spring on a bright sunny day and the next day all hope is dashed by a frosty wind cutting through layers of clothing.  There is a hint of green in the pastures but the deepening mud is sucking at our boots.  The snowdrops and crocus are up and blooming, but the brown leaves from last summer still cling tenaciously to oak branches, appearing as if they will never ever let go to make room for a new leaf crop.

A February face is tear-streaked and weepy, winter weary and spring hungry.  Thank goodness it is a short month or we’d never survive the glumminess of a month that can’t quite decide whether it is done with us or not.

So much ado.
So much nothing.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Companions in Adversity

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

When shrieked
The bleak November winds, and smote the woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades
That met above the merry rivulets
Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still; they seemed
Like old companions in adversity.
~William Cullen Bryant  in A Winter Piece

When the winds start to howl
and leaves are flying through the air
like birds on the wing heading south,
when branches snap
and trunks bend to the point of breaking
when the ground is hopelessly barren
and the hills are nothing
but continuing shades of gray
descending from the sky
when the sun disappears for days
and the rains are continuous

I love it all still;

knowing we are in this together
when the times are tough and
the mud is thick
and obstacles fall in our way
even to the end of time
as we travel this road
like old companions
broken, withered, splintered
but sharing the journey
wherever it blows us.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Frightening Silence

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photo by Josh Scholten

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
― Blaise Pascal

On the opposite coast of our nation from where we live, a storm is spiraling forward in a relentless course to bring well over a foot of rain and upwards of 90 mile an hour winds to the front doors of millions of our people.  There will be nothing silent about it.  It will roar through, like a hungry lion seeking whom it may devour.

Our nephew, who works on power lines in California, is part of a caravan of trucks and power crews from all over the nation heading east to try to help restore power and order over the next few weeks of recovery.

What is more frightening than the surge of the storm itself would be the potential of utter silence in its aftermath.  The silence following a storm would be hopelessness beyond our ability to grasp and hold.  If there is one cry, one call for help,  any sound at all, then there is still hope of rescue.

As the billows of clouds and waves roll in to shore with tumultuous howl and din, may they retreat quickly without leaving a trace behind.  And may all the people sing loud over the rumble of the storm, lifting their voices together to keep silence forever at bay.

photo by Josh Scholten

Responding

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photo by Josh Scholten

And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
~Mary Oliver

Some mornings it is impossible to stay a silent observer of the world.  It demands a response.
The overnight wind and rain have pulled down nearly every leaf, the ground is carpeted with the dying evidence of last spring’s rebirth, the dropping temperatures robing the surrounding foothills and peaks in a bright new snow covering.

There can be no complacency in witnessing this startling transition in progress.   It blusters, rips, drenches, encompasses, buries. Nothing remains as it was.

And here I am, alive.
Awed.
Responding.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

 

 

Mountains of the Sky

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It’s wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears. ~Helen Keller

They don’t make clouds like this in the northwest. These are thunderheads over Sioux Falls, South Dakota tonight, complete with constant lightning flashes sparking the center of the shimmering liquid mountains in the sky.

God behind, before, overhead. I am not ashamed to admit awesome fear of His mighty power.

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Feel the Now

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photo by Nate Gibson

“On the planet the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades…Lick a finger, feel the now.”
Annie Dillard

We fell asleep last night content in the knowledge that the weather forecast on three different websites confirmed no rain.  This is particularly important when there are about 750 bales worth of cut hay lying in our fields curing, getting ready for raking and baling the next day.  Rain is the farmer’s best friend most of the time, but definitely not when there is cut hay on the ground.  Wet hay becomes moldy hay, or worse–combustible–if not allowed to thoroughly dry, and it gradually loses nutrient value the longer it dries.

As opposed to drought conditions in much of the nation, in the northwest a stretch of at least four days of warmer weather had been long awaited.  It was a relief to get the hay finally cut, several weeks later than typical with a promise of at least three more clear days to ted, rake, bale and get it in the barn without being rained on.  The air felt sticky and still when we went to bed.  I woke about two hours later to a cool breeze coming through the open window–it felt a little too cool.  I could hear rumbling in the distance–too low pitched for airplane or truck sounds.  Somewhere nearby it was thundering.  Thunder meant heavy moisture-filled clouds.  Heavy clouds meant showers.  Showers meant wet hay.  Wet hay meant…well, you get my drift.

The rumbling moved closer and closer, with accompanying flashes of lightning,  finally cracking right above us.  The wind picked up.  I got out of bed to go outside to feel the direction of the wind and see if the rain– licking a finger and holding it up.  The wind was southerly but not consistent–the air was changing so quickly that all I could do was acknowledge and anticipate the change, knowing a storm was coming and there was no stopping it.   It was the inevitability of feeling the “now” of which Dillard writes.

The breeze was moisture-laden: wet without raindrops.  Then they began to fall,  gentle at first but finally earnest showering–not a downpour.  It lasted less than an hour, just long enough to dampen but not soak.  The hay would not be a complete ruin.  It could be salvaged.  The storm had passed, leaving little damage in its wake, just plenty of noisy drama and jangled nerves.

The experience of a thunder storm overhead is unlike any other.  It commands our attention, wakes us from sound sleep, turns night into day in a flash, drowns humid heat in a downpour.   As some pray for the relief of such a storm, others fear its effects, whether igniting forest fires from lightning strikes, frightening animals or molding cut hay.

I’m content to just be a witness, in wonder at the storm’s strength and command.   All I can do is lick a finger and hold it up in awe, knowing I’m here and it’s now.

photo by James Clark Photography of lightening strike over Mt. Rainier 7/8/12