What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in your hand Ah, what then? ~Samuel Coleridge “What if you slept”
This mountain, this strange and beautiful Shuksan flower that appears suddenly as we round a corner on the hour drive up the Mt. Baker Highway: this mountain has one foot on earth and one foot in heaven – a thin place if there ever was one.
The only way to approach is in awed silence, as if entering the door of a grand cathedral. Those who are there speak in hushed tones if they speak at all.
Mt. Shuksan wears autumn lightly about its shoulders as a multi-faceted cloak, barely anticipating the heavy snow coat to descend in the next few weeks.
I hold this mountain tight in my fist, wanting to turn it this way and that, breathe in its fragrance, bring it home with me and never let go.
Ah, what then?
Home is not nearly big enough for heaven to dwell. I must content myself with this visit to the thin edge, peering through the open door, waiting until invited to come inside.
Original Barnstorming artwork note cards available as a gift to you with a $50 donation to support Barnstorming – information here
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Sometimes you don’t get a chance To pause and rest Even to just take it all in Sometimes life just goes too fast And if you halt, even for a moment You could get rolled over By the momentum of existence So, push yourself and keep going Because once you stop You may not get started again And if you need a breather Do it after the big stuff is done – I guarantee you the view Will be a whole lot better ~Eric Nixon “The Momentum of Existence” from Equidistant
The weather app on my phone tells me precisely when sunrise and sunset will happen every day, but I’m often too distracted to be present to witness them. I miss some great shows because I don’t get up early enough or don’t return home in time or simply don’t bother to look out the window or pay attention.
These are brilliant light and shadow shows that are free for the having if only I pause, take a breather, and watch.
The view from our hill keeps getting better the older I get. The momentum of daily life slows enough to allow me, breathless, to take in the best art show around.
No charge for admission and the Artist’s exhibit rotates daily.
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My father, when he was surprised or suddenly impressed, would blurt “Great day in the morning,” as though a revelation had struck him. The figure of his speech would seem to claim some large event appeared at hand, if not already here; a mighty day or luminous age was flinging wide its doors as world on world revealed their wonders in the rapturous morning, always new, beginning as the now took hold. ~Robert Morgan “Great Day in the Morning” from Terroir.
All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Every time I open my eyes as dawn streams through the window, listening for the voice of yet another morning – I am reminded how precious is this moment ~this “great day in the morning” ~ how intensely grateful I am for each breath and each heartbeat gifted to me.
We are created to experience this realization: we are, everyone of us, beloved.
We are meant to wonder breathless at this, to keep watch each new dawn, waiting to see what will happen next.
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What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs, And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. ~W.H. Davies “Leisure”
…I believe there are certain habits that, if practiced, will stimulate the growth of humble roots in our lives. One of those is a habit of awe and wonder.
By awe and wonder, I mean the regular practice of paying careful attention to the world around us. Not merely seeing but observing. Perceiving. Considering. Asking thoughtful questions about what we see, smell, hear, touch, taste. In other words, attending with love and curiosity to what our senses sense. (How often do we eat without tasting? How often do we look without seeing? Hear without listening?) Admiring, imagining, receiving the beauty of the world around us in a regular, intentional way: this is the habit of a wonder-filled person. And it leads to humility.
A regular habit of awe and wonder de-centers us. It opens a window in our imaginations, beckoning us to climb out of our own opinions and experiences and to consider things greater and beyond our own lives. It strengthens our curiosity, which in turn lowers the volume on our anxieties and grows our ability to empathize. Over time, we become less self-focused and can admit without embarrassment what we don’t know. In short, we grow more humble. ~Kelly Givens from “Teaching Children to See” from Mere Orthodoxy
This would be a poor life indeed if we didn’t take time to stand and stare at all that is displayed before us – whether it is the golden cast at the beginning and endings of the days, the light dancing in streams or simply staring at God’s creatures staring back at us.
I need to be a child for a minute, an hour, a day, a week, or forever, just to experience the wonder of what is before me. There is nothing sweeter.
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Watching the night sky for the Pleiades meteor shower from the back porch, nothing above but clouds and airplanes,
bug bites at our ankles, a sudden track of headlights against the house, pet eyes peering out a window.
“Not a meteor in sight,” I say aloud to my daughters and the nothingness above us, both of them standing
on the picnic table leaning back into me like two armfuls of warm laundry, asking me about the night,
wondering what do stars look like up close? where does the sky begin? how long does it take to get there?
while I hold them next to me in a patch of backyard in America, my wristwatch illuminating
the hour, my thoughts lost in the gap of time between this night and forever, the wonders beyond,
the heavens so near, questions so simple, and the answers so far beyond my knowing. ~Hank Hudepohl, “The Heavens” from Riverbank.
photo by Josh Scholten
And this, then, is the vision of that Heaven of which we have heard, where those who love each other have forgiven each other,
where, for that, the leaves are green, the light a music in the air, and all is unentangled, and all is undismayed. -Wendell Berry “To My Mother”
photo by Joel DeWaardThe Webb telescope’s image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 includes thousands of galaxies, including the faintest objects ever observed in infrared. The light from SMACS 0723 in this image is 4.6 billion years old. Photo Credit…NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
‘Tis moonlight, summer moonlight, All soft and still and fair; The solemn hour of midnight Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,
But most where trees are sending Their breezy boughs on high, Or stooping low are lending A shelter from the sky.
And there in those wild bowers A lovely form is laid; Green grass and dew-steeped flowers Wave gently round her head. ~Emily Bronte “Moonlight, Summer Moonlight”
I try not to miss a light show above me. I both adore and abhor the feeling of entanglement and dismay by what I can not comprehend.
Standing outside on a clear summer night, I am overwhelmed by the heavens – the moon and stars are beacons of light at once so close and so far away. The dome over me feels infinitely divine and divinely infinite with no end within my capacity to witness. Now, with the most far away images by NASA from the Webb telescope, we see infinitely more with no end in sight. Surely Something or Someone will emerge momentarily with trumpets and fanfare to explain it all.
No trumpets. Not yet anyway. Just the sounds of the owls hoo-hooing in the woods and the coyotes yipping in the fields. Only the ordinary below with the extraordinary always spinning above.
The heavens are made with Love and so are we.
I do wonder what might become of us all, we who are specks of intentionally created cosmic dust.
photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenbergerphoto by Joel DeWaard
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White egret glided over grasses, fiddlehead and fern, then landed, as I was caring for young children by a pond.
Angelic, her wing span fanned its gentle wave across the shore
and no one noticed. No one applauded or knelt upon the grass.
But the children, eyes and mouths as round as moons, stopped and held her for that moment,
watched as she preened her wings, leaving them one feather in the midst of spring green. ~Jesse LoVasco, from Native
Every day, there is so much I miss seeing, sounds I fail to hear, a nurturing softness that eludes me, all because I am wrapped in my own worries.
The wonders I miss may never come my way again, so Lord, give me the eyes and ears and hands of a child seeing and hearing and touching everything for the first time.
To notice the beauty that surrounds me, let me marvel at a Creation that started as mere Word and Thought and Hope, left behind like a feather for me to hold on to.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard – And sore must be the storm – That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land – And on the strangest Sea – Yet – never – in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of me. ~Emily Dickinson
Deep in the tarn the mountain A mighty phantom gleamed, She leaned out into the midnight, And the summer wind went by, The scent of the rose on its silken wing And a song its sigh. And, in depths below, the waters Answered some mystic height, As a star stooped out of the depths above With its lance of light.
And she thought, in the dark and the fragrance, How vast was the wonder wrought If the sweet world were but the beauty born In its Maker’s thought. ~Harriet Prescott Spofford
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Here, where this present darkness presses in, pushes down, imprisons you in ice and stone to wall you up alive or crush you into dust, even here, the gold glimmers through a crack in the rock, splits the stones as it flames up in the ruby hue of a tulip bursting into bloom, droops down in the blushing pink of a cherry blossom fluttering in the breeze, sings in the trilling call of a finch, shines in dewdrops sparkling on a spider’s web. Oh the gold pulsing in graced moments of camaraderie and laughter, in the warmth of gentle hands caressing a cold brow, in quiet words of love that brim the hearer’s eyes with tears. And the gold that rises up like incense when you raise your eyes, your heart, your hands in wonder, thanks, and praise. All this golden glory! Light and love. And life. And life. And life! ~E.M. MacDonald “The Double Strand”
It feels as if everything is emerging from the darkness: birdsong is earlier and louder, grass squeaks with growth, buds unfurling with vigor, light glowing with promise.
There is much momentum running pellmell into longer days; so much glory bursting all at once.
As showers blow in from clouds gray and thick with menace, we are stilled and quieted in the drenching, waiting, arms raised, for a shaft of light to break through again, turning everything from gray to golden.
photo by Natalia Burke
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Come behold the wondrous mystery In the dawning of the King, He the theme of heaven’s praises Robed in frail humanity. (First line of “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery”)
Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw on to 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
Inundated by ongoing and overwhelmingly bad news of the world, blasted 24/7 from our screens, we seek respite anywhere we may find it. I have found I must cling to the mystery of God’s magnetism for my weaknesses and flaws.
He willingly pulls our sin onto Himself and out of us. Hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness disappear into the vortex of His love and beauty, the dusty corners of our hearts vacuumed spotless.
We are let in on a secret – His mystery revealed: His frail humanity is unsullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives. Instead, once we are safely within His mysterious divine depths, we are brought to glory by “grace unmeasured, love untold.”
This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.
If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).
In His name, may we sing…
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O God beyond all praising, we worship you today and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay; for we can only wonder at every gift you send… ~Michael Perry
This is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.
…To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’
Because we know what is coming behind the crocus.
The spring comes slowly down the way, but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not.
We can.
We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on…to which He is calling us.
It remains with us whether to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer. ~C. S. Lewis from “God in the Dock”
You, who are beyond our understanding, have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ. You, who are the uncreated God, have made yourself a creature for us. You, who are the untouchable One, have made yourself touchable to us. You, who are most high, make us capable of understanding your amazing love and the wonderful things you have done for us. Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation, the mystery of your life, example and doctrine, the mystery of your cross and passion, the mystery of your resurrection and ascension. ~Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)– prayer
My husband, with help from our neighbor kids and our son who was visiting for Christmas several years ago, prepared soil beds on our farm and planted hundreds of spring bulbs, including over two hundred crocus. We were called to this action, especially in the midst of winter – to plan for, to anticipate, to long for spring, year after year.
We, God’s children, become part of the promise that winter is not forever.
The larger bulbs – the tulips, the daffodils – have no choice but to respond to spring – the expanding light calls to them as the soil begins to warm. But the crocus are a mystery, sprouting earlier when there is not yet reason to surface. Snow is still on the ground. Frost still crisps everything at night. Yet they come forth from the soil even when everything is still weeping winter.
What wondrous love comes behind the crocus?
We are called to rise up from the dark to enter the light. We are called to become part of the mystery.
This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.
If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).
In His name, may we sing…
1 O God beyond all praising, we worship you today and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay; for we can only wonder at every gift you send, at blessings without number and mercies without end: we lift our hearts before you and wait upon your word, we honour and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.
2 Then hear, O gracious Saviour, accept the love we bring, that we who know your favour may serve you as our king; and whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill, we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still: to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways, and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise.
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. ~Mary Oliver
If your everyday life seems poor to you,do not accuse it; accuse yourself, tell yourself you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; since for the creatorthere is no poverty and no poor or unimportant place. ― Rainer Maria Rilkefrom Letters to a Young Poet
When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.
As a child, I would sometimes spend long rainy afternoons languishing on the couch, complaining to my mother how boring my life was.
Her typical response was to remind me my boredom said more about me than about life; I became the accused, rather than the accuser, failing to summon up life’s riches.
Thus convicted, my sentence followed: she would promptly give me chores to do. I learned not to voice my complaints about how boring life seemed, because it always meant being put to work. I decided to live a life of nearly too much work and activity, missing much I could have slowed down to notice.
Some things haven’t changed, even sixty-some years later. Whenever I am tempted to feel frustrated or pitiful or bored, I need to remember what that says about me. If I’m not poet enough to recognize the Creator’s brilliance in every slant of light or every molecule, then it is my poverty I’m accusing, not His.
So – back to the work of paying attention and being astonished. There is the rest of my life to be lived and nearly always something to say about it.
Night has come: for one whole day again I’ve loved you so much, stirring hills. It’s beautiful to see. But: to feel in the lining of closed eyelids the sweetness of having seen … ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Even After All this time The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the Whole Sky. ~Daniel Ladinsky, from “The Gift”
A book of astonishment in words and photography, available to order here:
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