Sunrise – Page 15 – Barnstorming

All the Airy Words We Summon

October 29, 2017October 17, 2019 barnstormingblog4 Comments

The world does not need words.
It articulates itself in sunlight, leaves, and shadows.
The stones on the path are no less real
for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only
the dialect of pure being.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always–
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
~Dana Giola from “Words”

The words the world needs is the Word itself;
we are
because He breathed breath into us
and said that it was good.

Whatever we have to say about His Creation
pales compared to His
it is good

But we try
over and over again
to use words of wonder and praise
to express our awe and gratitude and amazement
while painted golden by His breath of Light.

Strange Visions of Mountains

October 6, 2017October 7, 2017 barnstormingblog2 Comments

He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

Perhaps we actually dwell in Middle Earth here in the Pacific Northwest where astounding, mysterious and dangerous places abound.
The mountains are much more than strange visions; they stand sentinel over our backyard.

For those who live in the unending horizon of the plains, this is the stuff of dreams.

I wake early each morning, just in case the color explodes overhead.

It did today.

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Would You Like to Make a Comment?

October 4, 2017October 7, 2017 barnstormingblog8 Comments

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

It is impossible to stay a silent observer of the world when you awake still alive.
It demands a response.

I would like to make a comment.

It isn’t only nature pulling what was once lush and young into the ground:
daily we witness flying leaves and dropping temperatures, brisk winds and chill rains.

Human kind also is skilled at killing and dying too young.

There can be no complacency in observing such violence in progress.
It blusters, rips, drenches, encompasses, buries.
Nothing remains as it was.

And here I am, alive.
Struck and wrung.
A witness.
Called to comment.
Dying to respond.

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The Alleviation of Dawn

September 27, 2017September 29, 2017 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?
~Thornton Wilder

Early fall mornings often begin obscured – the low fog clings to the moist ground, creating a muted reality of muffled sound and distorted distance.

My head feels just like this when I first wake. I struggle to shake loose of cloudiness and clear my vision so I can take on the day.

Clarity doesn’t come from within.

The dawn burns off the fog, renders and refines landscape colors, separates light from shadow. I too must become part of the solution instead of clouded with precipitate.

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Passing of the Summer

September 22, 2017 barnstormingblog2 Comments

The passing of the summer fills again
my heart with strange sweet sorrow, and I find
the very moments precious in my palm.
Each dawn I did not see, each night the stars
in spangled pattern shone, unknown to me,
are counted out against me by my God,
who charges me to see all lovely things…
~Jane Tyson Clement from “Autumn”

I know I have missed too much over my life time:
so many one-of-a-kind masterpieces hung in the sky
at the beginning and the ending of each day
I never noticed, being asleep to beauty.
I no longer move oblivious
through the birthing and the dying of the days
without shedding a tear,
now knowing how precious the moments
and how rare and loving the Artist.

The Sun Has Begun to Rise

September 16, 2017 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Made for spirituality,
we wallow in introspection.
Made for joy,
we settle for pleasure.
Made for justice,
we clamor for vengeance.
Made for relationship,
we insist on our own way.
Made for beauty,
we are satisfied with sentiment.

But new creation has already begun.
The sun has begun to rise.

Christians are called to leave behind,
in the tomb of Jesus Christ,
all that belongs to the brokenness
and incompleteness of the present world.
It is time, in the power of the Spirit,
to take up our proper role,
our fully human role,
as agents, heralds and stewards
of the new day that is dawning.

That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian,
to follow Jesus Christ into the new world,
God’s new world,
which he has thrown open before us.
~N.T. Wright from Simply Christian

I was made for better than I am.

I was given a voice,
to give thanks, not complain.
I was given two strong legs,
to stand not sit, walk not rest, climb stairs not ride.
I was given two good hands,
to build up not tear down.
I was given eyes,
to see and acknowledge,
not avert and hide behind.
I was given ears,
to listen to your Words,
not my own.
I was asked to follow wherever you may take me:
even in this darkened world
even as the sun begins to rise
even as you make all things new again~
including me.

A Blanket of Peace and Forgetting

September 7, 2017September 10, 2017 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Well I know now the feel of dirt under the nails,
I know now the rhythm of furrowed ground under foot,
I have learned the sounds to listen for in the dusk,
the dawning and the noon.

I have held cornfields in the palm of my hand,
I have let the swaying wheat and rye run through my fingers,
I have learned when to be glad for sunlight and for sudden
thaw and for rain.

I know now what weariness is when the mind stops
and night is a dark blanket of peace and forgetting
and the morning breaks to the same ritual and the same
demands and the silence.
~Jane Clement from No One Can Stem the Tide

I did not sleep last night — my mind would not stop, my blankets twisted in turmoil, my muscles too tight. The worries of the day needed serious wrestling in the dark rather than settling forgotten under my pillow.

Yet morning dawns anew and I’m comforted by the rhythm of hours starting fresh.

Today I’ll get my hands dirty digging a hole deep enough to hold the worries, and tomorrow forget where exactly I buried them.

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Heaven-Flung

August 25, 2017August 25, 2017 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up tomorrow.
~Henry Ward Beecher (clergyman in the 19th century and nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe)

Now burn, new born to the world,

Doubled-naturèd name,

The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled

Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,

Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!

Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;

Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;

A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”

We tend to forget we are heaven-flung and God-woven;
each of us plain and ordinary and numerous as the weeds of the field
until the Light comes upon us from the shadows,
illuminated dazzling rays of gold,
fire-awakened, hard-hurled and reclaimed as His own.He calls us each by name,
knows each slender thread of hair on our heads.We may wander, oh do we wander,
but are not lost
as long as our faces remain turned toward Him.

Now Let the Day Decline

August 2, 2017August 2, 2017 barnstormingblog2 Comments

But hark! the drowsy day has done its task,

Far in yon hazy field where stands a barn,

Unanxious hens improve the sultry hour

And with contented voice now brag their deed—

A new laid egg—Now let the day decline—

They’ll lay another by tomorrow’s sun.
~Henry David Thoreau from “I’m thankful that my life doth not deceive”

We cycle, reassured, from the decline into night, climbing back into day to descend yet again into night,

even at summer-sultry 90+ degrees.
There will be a new sun tomorrow
reddened in the smoky haze of wildfires.
There will be new eggs tomorrow,
bright, clean, fresh, announced by hen-cackle.There will be a tomorrow
and I am thankful.

To Accept the Warming Rays of the Sun

August 1, 2017 barnstormingblog1 Comment

A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world;
he must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge.
Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry.
There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger.
But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion,
their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation.

I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad:
and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer
if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle,
to accept the warming rays of the sun,
and to report them, whenever,
and if ever, they happen to strike me.
~E.B. White (on writing)

It becomes tiresome always feeling angry about what it is happening in the world,
to read and write nothing but words of frustration,
to rail against the meanness that surrounds us,
to push back the bully and seek a balance of perspective and insight.
When I need to feel something other than mad,
I walk as far as I can go,
look up, revel in the light and bask in its warmth.
I seek to accept what the sun has to offer
and tell about it
and my anger drains away,
flushed down a pipe
never to be seen again.

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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	joyouspirate317b5115… on And With Ah! Bright Wings