Tag: Worry

A Finisterre Prayer

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What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?

What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?

The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.

What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree.
~Christian Wiman, “Hard Night”

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
~Carol Ann Duffy “Prayer”

photo by Bob Tjoelker

As a child falling asleep, I prayed to God with moans and groans echoing in my ears.

Growing up on a small farm located about two miles from a bay in Puget Sound, I found myself praying for safety on foggy nights as fog horns moaned in the distance. Scattered throughout the inlet, the horns called out mournful groans of warning to passing freighter ships. The resonant lowing of the horns carried miles over the surrounding landscape due to countless water particles in the fog transmitting sound waves so effectively. The louder the foghorn moan heard on our farm, the thicker and more hazardous the mist in the air. Those horns would make me unspeakably sad for reasons I could only articulate to God. Thus I prayed for the ships, and I prayed for my own shaky navigation through life.

Navigating blind in a fog necessitates taking unpredictable risks. The future can seem a murky mess. I cannot see what lies ahead: I navigate by my wits, by my best guess, but particularly by listening for the low-throated warnings coming from the rocky shores and shallows of those who have gone ahead of me.

I am easily lost in the fog of my fears – disconnected, afloat and circling aimlessly, searching for a touch point of purpose and direction. The isolation I sometimes feel may simply be my own self-absorbed state of mind, sucking me in deep until I’m soaked, dripping and shivering from the smothering gray. If only I trust the fog horn warnings and reassurances from the Word of God, I could charge into the future undaunted.

He is in the pea soup alongside me, awaiting the Sun’s dissipation of the fog. Now I know, nearly seventy years into this voyage, the fog eventually clears. The journey continues on beyond these shores.

Even so, I will keep praying with the resonant voices of wisdom and caution from shore, like the nightly tradition of the BBC radio shipping forecasts that calm so many to sleep to this day. Even a Finisterre (the end of the land) prayer holds us in safety as we find our way home.

Instead of echoing the anxious moans and groans of my childhood prayers, may my voice be heard singing an anthem of hope and promise.

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The Neon Night

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Tonight his airplane comes in from the West,
and he rises from his seat, a suitcoat slung
over his arm. The flight attendant smiles
and says, “Have a nice visit,” and he nods
as if he has done this all before,
as if his entire life hasn’t been 170 acres
of corn and oats, as if a plow isn’t dragging
behind him through the sand and clay,
as if his head isn’t nestling in the warm
flank of a Holstein cow.

Only his hands tell the truth:
fingers thick as ropes, nails flat
and broken in the trough of endless chores.
He steps into the city warily, breathing
metal and exhaust, bewildered by the
stampede of humanity circling around him.
I want to ask him something familiar,
something about tractors and wagons,
but he is taken by the neon night,
crossing carefully against the light.
~Joyce Sutphen “My Father Comes to the City” from Straight Out of View.

Photo by Abby Mobley

I’ve lived a mostly quiet farm life over the last four years – minimized air travel and avoided big cities, as I was never fond of either even before COVID. Flying recently to visit family reminded me how challenging it is for me to get used to large crowds again, navigating unfamiliar urban highways and sitting with a hundred people in a winged metal tube 35,000 feet in the air.

But even farmers have to leave home once in a while. We shake the mud off our boots and brush the hayseeds from our hair, and try to act and be presentable in civilized society.

But my nervousness remains, knowing I’m out of my comfort zone, continually yearning for the wide open spaces of home.

Travel will take some getting used to again, but there is a world to be explored out there. It’s time to see how the city’s neon night compares with one illuminating barn light on the farm.

Join the Happy Throng: The Lost is Found

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In a daring and beautiful creative reversal, 
God takes the worse we can do to Him
and turns it into the very best He can do for us.
~Malcolm Guite from The Word in the Wilderness

Samwise Gamgee and Homer, our two Cardigan Corgis, do barn chores with me twice daily. They run up and down the aisles as I fill the buckets and throw the horses hay. Then they explore the manure pile out back, have a happy roll in some really smelly stuff in the field, and have stand offs with the barn cats (which they always lose). 

We have our routine. When I get done with chores, I whistle for them and we all head back to their breakfast in their outdoor pen.

We always return home together.

Except this particular morning. I whistled when I was done and although Homer came running, Sam’s furry fox face didn’t appear as usual. I walked back through both barns calling his name, whistling. No signs of Sam. I walked to the fields, I walked back to the dog pen, I walked the road (where he never ever goes), I scanned the pond where he once fell in as a pup (yikes), I went back to the barn and glanced inside every stall, I went in the hay barn where he likes to jump up and down on stacked bales, worried about a bale avalanche he might be trapped under, or a hole he couldn’t climb out of. 

Nothing.

I’m really anxious about him at this point, fearing the worst. Even Homer seemed clueless about where his friend disappeared.

Sam was nowhere to be found, utterly lost.

Passing through the barn again, I heard a little faint scratching inside one Haflinger’s stall, which I had just glanced in 10 minutes before as a mare was peacefully eating hay. Sure enough, there was Sam standing with his feet up against the door as if asking what took me so long.  He must have scooted in when I filled up her water bucket, and I closed the door unaware he was still inside. He and his horse buddy kept it their secret.

Making not a whimper or a bark when I called out his name, passing that stall at least 10 times looking for him, he patiently waited for me to open the door and set him free.

The lost is found even though he never felt lost to begin with.  

Yet he was lost to me. And that is all that matters. We have no idea how lost we are until a determined Someone comes looking for us, doing whatever it takes to bring us back alongside them.

Sam was just waiting for that closed door to be opened. And this Holy Week, the door is thrown wide open and we’re welcomed back home.

photo by Nate Gibson

Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.
Luke 15: 23-24

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Faithfully Delivered

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It’s like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—
all show up at their intended destinations.

The theft that could have happened doesn’t.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.

And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can’t read the address.
~Thomas R. Smith “Trust” from Waking Before Dawn

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer.
You are yourself the answer.
Before your face questions die away.
~C.S. Lewis from Till We Have Faces

I always have lots of questions when I’m uncertain about a decision. I carefully consider whether I should do this or do that, go here or go there, say something or remain silent.

My questions become a prayer seeking clarity – how? why? and what if?

Before the face of God, these questions fall away.

We who worry are not trusting a Creator who is ever-present in His care for us, even when we may think He is not listening. He knows where we are headed, even if we’re unsure of the destination ourselves.

He makes sure we get there. We’ll be delivered to the right place at the right time.

I must trust Him. He’s on it.

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A Trace of Peace

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I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.
~Mary Oliver “I Happened to be Standing” from A Thousand Mornings

For all
the pain

passed down
the genes

or latent
in the very grain

of being;
for the lordless

mornings,
the smear

of spirit
words intuit

and inter;
for all

the nightfall
neverness

inking
into me

even now,
my prayer

is that a mind
blurred

by anxiety
or despair

might find
here

a trace
of peace.

~Christian Wiman “Prayer” from Once in the West: Poems 

Each morning, I say a prayer that I might find something of value to share here.

Maybe what I offer is a bit of glue to help heal a broken heart, or a balm to soothe a worried mind, or it touches a place of pain so it might hurt less. 

Maybe a song becomes a poignant reminder, or an image might capture the eye.

What might the beauty in the world and in words be but a kind of prayer offered to our Creator? Why not listen, even for a moment, to the purring cat and the singing wren to hear a prayer of thanks and joy they offer in their own way?

Prayer is breath combined with need.

We are capable of just such a silent dialogue with God, breathed out in thanksgiving and breathed in deep during desperate times.

I too know about worry, and hurting, and the need for glue. Within prayer is a trace of peace. So I listen, waiting.

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Cloudy with Sun Breaks

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When it snows, he stands
at the back door or wanders
around the house to each
window in turn and
watches the weather
like a lover. O farm boy,
I waited years
for you to look at me
that way. Now we’re old
enough to stop waiting
for random looks or touches
or words, so I find myself
watching you watching
the weather, and we wait
together to discover
whatever the sky might bring.
~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”

My farm boy does still look at me that way,
wondering if today will bring
frost,
a wind storm,
maybe fog or mist,
a scorcher,
or a deluge.

I reassure him as best I can,
because he knows me so well
in our many years together:

today, like most other days,
I predict I will be partly cloudy
with a chance of showers,
and as always, occasional sun breaks.

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Moments Out of Sight

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A neighborhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.
~Eavan Boland “This Moment” from In a Time of Violence

Photo by William Albert Allard
photo by Nate Gibson

At times, particularly at night, I’m keenly aware of all the unknowable and uncountable lives happening behind closed doors and curtained windows, each one living their own sacred moment in time.

So many meals being eaten, baths taken, tears shed, stories told, prayers recited, kisses shared.

These moments are the blessings of a quotidian predictability that we try to pass on to our children. In our routines, we may become oblivious to the mysteries happening all around us: innumerable stars shining, fragile moths fluttering and sweetening apples hanging heavy — yet there is mystery within each of us as well.

In the dark of night, despite our weariness:
We are remarkably loved and loving.
We try our best in difficult times and circumstances.
We grieve losses while struggling to survive sorrows.
We seek purpose and meaning, despite feeling unworthy.

Each passing moment becomes one to cherish.
Each moment mysteriously holy and sweet.

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Prayer for a Child

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God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and bad-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water, from hurt of the fire.
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise her, from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that wake her desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat.
From the depths o’ sea water by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble, from sickness and weeping;
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.
~Winifred Lett (1882-1973) “Prayer for a Child“

photo by Nate Gibson
photo by Anna Blake

I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.
~C.S. Lewis

This “prayer for a child” has hung on the wall in our home for nearly four decades, purchased when I was pregnant with our first. When I first saw it with its drawing of the praying mother watching her toddler leave the safety of the home to explore the wide world, I knew it addressed most of my worries as a new mama, in language that helped me smile at my often irrational fears. I would glance at it dozens of time a day; it would remind me of God’s care for our children through every scary thing, real or imagined.

I continue to pray for our grown children and their God-given spouses, and now for six precious grandchildren, the latest of whom was born yesterday afternoon.

I pray because I can’t not pray, and because I’m helpless without the care and compassion of our sovereign God for each of us, especially when we are brand new, completely dependent and helpless.

May I be changed by my prayers and molded into a truly “grand” mother for our half dozen cherished grandchildren, each a jewel in His keeping.

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Finding Refuge

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When the wind
turns and asks, in my father’s voice,
Have you prayed?

I know three things. One:
I’m never finished answering to the dead.

Two: A man is four winds and three fires.
And the four winds are his father’s voice,
his mother’s voice . . .

Or maybe he’s seven winds and ten fires.
And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching,
dreaming, thinking . . .
Or is he the breath of God?

When the wind turns traveler
and asks, in my father’s voice, Have you prayed?
I remember three things.

One: A father’s love
is milk and sugar,
two-thirds worry, two-thirds grief, and what’s left over
is trimmed and leavened to make the bread
the dead and the living share.

And patience? That’s to endure
the terrible leavening and kneading.

And wisdom? That’s my father’s face in sleep.

When the wind
asks, Have you prayed?
I know it’s only me
reminding myself

a flower is one station between
earth’s wish and earth’s rapture, and blood
was fire, salt, and breath long before
it quickened any wand or branch, any limb
that woke speaking. It’s just me
in the gowns of the wind,

or my father through me, asking,
Have you found your refuge yet?
asking, Are you happy?

Strange. A troubled father. A happy son.
The wind with a voice. And me talking to no one.
~Li Young Lee “Have You Prayed?”

I pray because I can’t help myself.
I pray because I’m helpless.
I pray because the need flows out of me all the time — waking and sleeping.
It doesn’t change God — it changes me.
~C.S. Lewis

I never did hear my father pray out loud except for saying grace together as a family before our dinner meal. Once he described a prayer he uttered while hunkering in a trench on the island of Tarawa during WWII: if God could see him safe through the three years of combat, he would turn his life to over to God and become a preacher of the Word.

He came home safe, his body still whole but he could see the harsh reality of his foxhole promise: agriculture teachers made better incomes than preachers. He had a family to support so he became a high school FFA teacher. I’m not sure he ever forgave himself for not keeping his word, even when God did. I figure the world needs good farmers as much as good preachers and he trained his share of farmers over the decades, including me.

I learned to pray out loud at our small church as we spend part of every evening service praying out loud for the needs of our church people, our community and our world. It still does not come easily or naturally to me, yet I hope our children, having heard their parents pray out loud, have learned they are not just talking to the wind when they speak to God aloud, when helpless, when weary, when joyful, when thankful.

Praying changes everything.

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Having the Strength to Ask

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Flung is too harsh a word for the rush of the world. Blown is more like it, but blown by a generous, unending breath.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea, 1947

Perhaps as a child you had the chicken pox
and your mother, to soothe you in your fever
or to help you fall asleep, came into your room
and read to you from some favorite book,
Charlotte’s Web or Little House on the Prairie,
a long story that she quietly took you through
until your eyes became magnets for your shuttering
lids and she saw your breathing go slow. And then
she read on, this time silently and to herself,
not because she didn’t know the story,
it seemed to her that there had never been a time
when she didn’t know this story—the young girl
and her benevolence, the young girl in her sod house—
but because she did not yet want to leave your side
though she knew there was nothing more
she could do for you. And you, not asleep but simply weak,
listened to her turn the pages, still feeling
the lamp warm against one cheek, knowing the shape
of the rocking chair’s shadow as it slid across
your chest. So that now, these many years later,
when you are clenched in the damp fist of a hospital bed,
or signing the papers that say you won’t love him anymore,
when you are bent at your son’s gravesite or haunted
by a war that makes you wake with the gun
cocked in your hand, you would like to believe
that such generosity comes from God, too,
who now, when you have the strength to ask, might begin
the story again, just as your mother would,
from the place where you have both left off.
~Keetje Kuipers “Prayer”

How is it possible 64 years have flown by and I still need the same story to be told to me again? 

Long ago the 5-year old me had a sudden terrifying revelation that I would someday cease to walk this earth. Now a nearly 70-year old me is more intimidated at the head-long rush of the days-months-years than at the inevitable end to come. The world hurtles through space and time at a pace that leaves me breathless. Indeed, I have been flung at times, bruised and weary from all the hurry and hubbub.

I want to find the strength to ask God to begin telling the reassuring story again, starting right where we left off. I know I will be blown away again – blown by God’s breath that loves, fills and nurtures with a generous promise both hopeful and fulfilled.

Utterly blown away by what comes next.

If only the five year old me could have known.

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