Tag: sunset

The Dead Center of January

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How can I feel so warm   
Here in the dead center of January? I can   
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is   
The only life I have. 
~James Wright from “A Winter Daybreak Above Vence”

Once I saw a chimpanzee gaze at a particularly beautiful sunset for a full 15 minutes, watching the changing colors [and then] retire to the forest without picking a pawpaw for supper.
~Adriaan Krotlandt, Dutch ethologist in Scientific American (1962)

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
  Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
  I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
  Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
  Falls the remorseful day.
~A.E. Houseman from “How Clear, How Lovely Bright”

to the northwest

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions — that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~ R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

The dead center of January here in the Pacific Northwest is usually pouring-rain gray-skies monochrome-mist.

But at times, mid-January sunsets are an evolving array of crimson and purple color and patterns, streaks and swirls, gradation and gradual decline.

It all takes place in silence. No bird song, no wind, no spoken prayer.
Yet communion takes place – the air breaks and feeds us like manna from heaven.

Filled to the brim with a reminder:

May I squander my life no more and treasure each moment.

May I vow to cherish God, church, family, friends, alongside those unknown and struggling in my community.

May I witness to the winter’s bleeding out at the last light of day.

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Such a Strange Sweet Sorrow

barnstormingblog5 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” in No One Can Stem the Tide

I have missed too much over my life time:
one-of-a-kind masterpieces hung briefly in the sky
at the beginning and the ending of each day.

For too long, I didn’t notice,
being asleep to beauty,
oblivious to a rare and loving Artist.

We’re already a month into autumn.
I’ve had a hard time letting go of summer.
Until the last week of heavy rain and wind,
our days have been filled with blue skies,
warm temps and no killing frosts.

In short, it felt like perfection:
sweater weather filled with vibrant leaf color, clear moonlit nights, northern lights and some outstanding sunrises.

I feel I must try to absorb it all, to witness and record and savor it. 
God convicted us to see, listen, taste and believe.

Can there be a more merciful sentence for His children,
given the trouble we people have been to Him? 
Yet He loves us still, despite the strange sweet sorrow we cause.

See, listen, taste and believe.  I do and I will.

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At the Edge of the World

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At the edge of the city,
at the edge of the world,
at the edge between
the earth and endless sky,
the moonshining place,
the place where we hung
our long summer legs
over the edge and fought
the urge to drop a shoe
or sneak a real first kiss,
the place where we played
hide-and-go-seek
and Tag, you’re it!
until we couldn’t breathe
or the sun went down,
the place where we came
on the quietest nights
to feel the moon kiss
the edge between
our skin and endless sky.
~Sarah Kobrinsky, from Nighttime on the Otherside of Everything

photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger

The truth of it is: we’re always on the edge of something. Often we’re not aware of it but that’s where some of the best things happen.

Summer itself can lead us right to edge of ourselves, a bright and bold tease to imagine something even more beautiful beyond our reach. It is an invitation to follow the lingering light of the horizon to wherever it may take us.

I can’t help but cling just a while longer before I tumble off the edge of the world.

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Making Daisies

barnstormingblog2 Comments

…perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun;
and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike;
it may be that God makes every daisy separately,
but has never got tired of making them.
~G.K. Chesterton from Orthodoxy

Over  the shoulders and slopes of the dune  
I saw the white daisies go down to the sea,  
A host in the sunshine, an army in June,  
The people God sends us to set our hearts free.  
~Bliss William Carman from “Daisies”

As I get older, my daily routine can seem mundane and repetitive to the point of being boring. When our grown children call us to see how we’re doing, I don’t have much new to report (which is just fine with me). It must seem like we’re in a rut. I’m tempted to make stuff up, just to make my day sound more interesting…

Yet, I’ve discovered, if I don’t keep to a steadfast routine, I truly flounder in an unpredictable wilderness of my own making. The sun rises every morning, even if I’m not awake to witness it. It sets every evening without my standing on the hill to watch it go down.

But there is something very comforting about making an effort to be there, my eyes open, treasuring the passage of another day.

Surely God celebrates the predictability of His design and enjoys repetition, whether it is another sunrise or sunset or the reappearance every June of an infinite number of identical daisies?

He remains consistent, persistent and insistent. We need His steadfast reliability to lead us out of our personal chaotic wilderness.

Do it again, God.  Please — please do it again.

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January Light

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Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away. You know you’re alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

After years of rarely paying attention,
too busy with work or household or barnyard tasks needing doing,
I realized only a finite number of sunrises and sunsets are left to me.

I don’t want to miss them, so now I stop, take a deep breath
and feel lucky to be alive, a witness to that moment.

My feet are planted on the ground beneath me.
My face feels the light from above,
then a shadow sweeps it away,
just for now, not forever.

Sometimes sunrises and sunsets are plain and gray,
just as I am,
but there are days lit from above and beneath
with a fire that ignites across the sky.

I too am engulfed for a moment or two,
until sun or shadow sweeps me away,
transfixed and transformed,
yet forever grateful for the moment of light.

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A Prayer for Being Here

barnstormingblog2 Comments

Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first

through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.
~David Budbill “Winter: Tonight: Sunset”

I strive to remember, each day,
no matter how things feel,
no matter how tired or distracted I am,
no matter how worried, or fearful or heartsick
over the state of the world or the state of my soul:

it is up to me to distill my gratitude
down to this one moment of beauty
that will never come again.

One breath,
one blink,
one pause,
one whispered word:
wow.

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The Sunrise Shall Visit Us: Like a Root Not Ready

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In the dark I rest,
unready for the light which dawns
day after day,
eager to be shared…
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.
~Denise Levertov from “Eye Mask”

photo by Joel DeWaard

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
~Isaiah 9:2

photo by Joel DeWaard

Take heart…
There is a power here in the bowels of the earth,
a “deeper magic,” as C.S. Lewis called it. 
Death is not given the final word.
Christ doesn’t need to turn east to greet the sunrise:
he is himself the Dawn by whose light we see light (Psalm 36:9). 
The sun will not set again. 
That was our last night.
Ever.
~Sarah Arthur from Introduction to Between Midnight and Dawn

Over this past week of gray rainy days that begin and end in an all-encompassing and, in some ways, comforting darkness, I am feeling quite “hunkered down.” 

I’m seeking shelter right now, surrounded like a root yet to sprout, needing time to ready myself for the power of the Light soon to come.

In the fullness of time, I’ll be called forth to merge with the Dawn.

Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love.
~George Herbert “The Call”

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An Unvanquished November Sun

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Than these November skies
Is no sky lovelier. The clouds are deep;
Into their grey the subtle spies
Of colour creep,
Changing that high austerity to delight,
Till ev’n the leaden interfolds are bright.
And, where the cloud breaks, faint far azure peers
Ere a thin flushing cloud again
Shuts up that loveliness, or shares.
The huge great clouds move slowly, gently, as
Reluctant the quick sun should shine in vain,
Holding in bright caprice their rain.
And when of colours none,
Not rose, nor amber, nor the scarce late green,
Is truly seen, —
In all the myriad grey,
In silver height and dusky deep, remain
The loveliest,
Faint purple flushes of the unvanquished sun.
~John Freeman “November Skies”

November is a barren landscape growing peasant-bare and farmer-plain with austerity. Even so, the month is often offset by a royal light show in the skies. I am able to witness golden and purple hues in the light show of the rising and setting sun.

The sky has subtlety and nuance, not unlike what we see in a beloved aging face. Indeed, a remembered beauty is visible behind myriad gray. The horizon’s folds, lines and wrinkles are glowing with lambent light and depth.

Despite these darkening days, our sun is never vanquished. May I be illuminated like these incredible skies, my grayness enrobed within royal golds and purples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJHK5nG6XbA
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An Unexpected January Light

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Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies
in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape
to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away.
You know you’re alive.
You take huge steps,
trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

After years of rarely paying attention,
too busy with whatever household,
work-place, or barnyard task needed doing,
I realized there are only a finite number
of sunrises and sunsets left to me.

Now I stop, take a deep breath,
sense the earth’s roundness
and feel lucky to be alive,
a witness to a moment of manna
falling from the sky.

Sometimes it is as plain and gray
as I am, but at times,
a fire is lit from above and beneath,
igniting the sky, overwhelming me.

I am swept away by light and shadow,
transfixed and transformed,
forever grateful to be fed
by heavenly bread broken over my head.

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Here Under This Sky

barnstormingblog3 Comments

I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.
~David Budbill from Winter: Tonight: Sunset

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case.
~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”

At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace.

It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your fists, your back, your brain, and then – and only then – it is handed to you. From the corner of your eye you see motion. Something is moving through the air and headed your way. It is a parcel bound in ribbons and bows; it has two white wings.

It flies directly at you; you can read your name on it. If it were a baseball, you would hit it out of the park. It is that one pitch in a thousand you see in slow motion; its wings beat slowly as a hawk’s.
~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”

I began to write regularly after September 11, 2001 because that day it became obvious to me I was dying too, though more slowly than the thousands who vanished in fire and ash, their voices obliterated with their bodies.   So, nearly each day since, while I still have voice and a new dawn to greet, I speak through my fingers to others dying around me.

We are, after all, terminal patients, some of us more prepared than others to move on, as if our readiness has anything to do with the timing.  Once, when our small church lost one of its most senior members to metastatic cancer, he announced his readiness once the doctor gave him the dire news (he liked to say he never bought green bananas as he wasn’t sure he’d be around to use them), but God had different plans and kept him among us for several years beyond his diagnosis.

Each day I too get a little closer to the end, but I write in order to feel a little more ready.  Each day I detach just a little bit, leaving a trace of my voice behind.  Eventually, through unmerited grace, so much of me will be left on the page there won’t be anything or anyone left to do the typing. I will be far out of the park, far beyond here.

Not a moment, not a sunrise, not a sunset, and not a word to waste.

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