Tag: Worry

Stalk the Gaps

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The gaps are the thing. 
The gaps are the spirit’s one home, 
the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean 
that the spirit can discover itself like a once-blind man unbound. 
The gaps are the clefts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; 
they are fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, 
the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. 
Go up into the gaps. 
If you can find them; 
they shift and vanish too. 
Stalk the gaps. 
Squeak into a gap in the soil, 
turn, and unlock…
a universe.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed … We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.
~Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water

There is a yawning separation threatening us all right now as we peer over the frightening edge of another tight election.

Once again there is a fissuring gap between us.

People who have eaten at our tables, who were good friends, who we have worshiped alongside – became estranged. This separation was buoyed by blowing of the chill wind of politics where once there had been warmth and nurture and caring. 

We disagreed then and continue to disagree. We no longer understand one another’s points of view.

How did we allow these gaps between us to develop?
How do we close these fissures so something new and vital can grow?
How can we stalk the gaps together?

Not one of us has the corner on the Truth; if we are honest with ourselves and each other, we cower together for safety in the cracks of this world, watching helplessly as the backside of God passes by, His face too holy for us to gaze upon.

He places us there together for our own good. I see you there alongside me.

We are weaker together when one side wins and the other loses. We are dependent together. We need to hold each other up as we look over the edge of the upcoming cliff.

Only His Word – nothing else –
can fill the open gaping hollow before us.
His Grace is great enough
to fill every hole
bridge every gap
bring hope to the hopeless
plant seeds for the future
and restore us wholly to each other.

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An Ache Nothing Can Satisfy

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At the alder-darkened brink
Where the stream slows to a lucid jet
I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat,
And see, before I can drink,

A startled inchling trout
Of spotted near-transparency,
Trawling a shadow solider than he.
He swerves now, darting out

To where, in a flicked slew
Of sparks and glittering silt, he weaves
Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves,
And butts then out of view

Beneath a sliding glass
Crazed by the skimming of a brace
Of burnished dragon-flies across its face,
In which deep cloudlets pass

And a white precipice
Of mirrored birch-trees plunges down
Toward where the azures of the zenith drown.
How shall I drink all this?

Joy’s trick is to supply
Dry lips with what can cool and slake,
Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache
Nothing can satisfy.
~Richard Wilbur “Hamlen Brook”

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

How can I take it all in?

Like so many others right now, I’m thirsty for honest, respectful discussion and debate about the state of the world. Instead, I’m left dry and wanting, ready to blow away with the next gust.

So I ache to witness fading colors, fallen leaves, swift winds and pouring rain, as all creatures great and small prepare for winter’s chill. There is stark honesty among all soon to fall asleep.

I yearn to hear God’s Truth spoken out loud.
How amazing it would be — to be dumbstruck with joy.

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A Morning Promise Unfurls

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I know this sound, first birds of morning.
As a child, I waited for hours for the drape
of night to roll up again. Leaning into the first
hint of the fresh day, the fragile lace of hesitant
light, the receding darkness dappled with bird song,
able at last to close my eyes.

I know this sound, some kind of redemption,
waking me from scattered sleep, a healing fragment
even as the work of the previous day marks my bones
in notches. Night leaves its small fur as the dawn
pushes, as the birds persist, and morning unfurls
like a promise you hoped someone would keep.
~Susan Moorhead “First Light” from Carry Darkness, Carry Light

The grace of God means something like:

“Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.
Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”

There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.

Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
~Frederick Buechner from Wishful Thinking

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by your name;
you are mine.

When you walk through the waters,
I’ll be with you;
you will never sink beneath the waves.
When the fire is burning all around you,
you will never be consumed by the flames.
When the fear of loneliness is looming,
then remember I am at your side.
When you dwell in the exile of a stranger,
remember you are precious in my eyes.
You are mine, O my child,
I am your Father,
and I love you with a perfect love.
~Gerard Markland “Do Not Be Afraid”

When I open my eyes in the morning
I depend on the promise of a new day
reminding me of hope and grace.

But if the unexpected terrible thing happens–
when beauty seems to hide its face,
I fear it is gone forever.

Yet, promises are kept:

in Words written
again and again and again,
-365 times in total-
once for every day of the year:

if only I can truly believe them,
if only I can reassure others so
they reach out and take them to heart

He is here, with us,
in this broken, too often terrible, world-
do not be afraid
do not be afraid
do not be afraid

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It Could Happen…

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It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out––no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
~William Stafford “Yes”  from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?”

“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.

Piglet was comforted by this.
~A.A. Milne from The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh

photo of our friends’ bedroom after a particularly bad windstorm

Of course, there are no guarantees about how a particular day is going to go — no matter how selfless we are, how devout our practices, how righteous we appear in others’ eyes.

A natural disaster can still happen, an illness gets worse, the unexpected bad stuff still happens because there is no extended service warranty on how things are supposed to go.

What is guaranteed is our vision of God’s glory as portrayed through His infinite sacrifice, His infinite worth, His infinite value, His infinite presence and transcendence. We glorify him through our enjoyment of Him — right now, right here — celebrating the bonus of another morning, another noon, another evening. It is bonus, and not anything we are owed.

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 Question and Answer 1

“Supposing it didn’t” — says our Lord
(and we are comforted by this)
but even if it did …
even if it did –
as awful things sometimes do –
we are never abandoned.

He is with us always and guaranteed glorious.
Unlimited warranty.

We who long to be cherished…are.

The God who made you adores and desires you deeply. His words to Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), are also directed toward you as you rest by faith in Christ.

And guess what? Even when you feel that this is all too good to be true…

…it still is.
~Scott Sauls from “Covenant, Restoration, Joy“

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Whatever Happens Now…

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Getting older:

The first surprise: I like it.
Whatever happens now, some things
that used to terrify have not:

I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose
my only love. My three children
never had to run away from anyone.

Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent.
We all approach the edge of the same blackness
which for me is silent.

Knowing as much sharpens
my delight in January freesia,
hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say

as we lie close on some gentle occasion:
every day won from such
darkness is a celebration.
~ Elaine Feinstein, “Getting Older” from The Clinic, Memory

It is a privilege and a gift to turn 70 years old today. I’m pleased to make it this far relatively unscathed.

When I was an early grade school kid, I worried about everything: whatever could happen would happen – in my imagination. My parents would perish in an accident while I was at school. My dog would get lost and never come home. I would get sick with a dread disease that only afflicts one in a million children, but I would be that one.

The worries went on and on, often keeping me awake in the night and certainly ensuring that I had stomachaches every morning so my mother would keep me home from school where life felt safer. Our pediatrician, who saw me much more regularly than was actually necessary, would look at me over his glasses with a gentle perceptive gaze, put his hands on my shoulders as I squirmed about on the noisy paper on his exam table, and tell me for the umpteenth time I was 110% healthy. He affirmed there was nothing I needed to worry about.

Decades later, I tried to emulate this reassurance and instill this confidence in my own patients, thanks to the wisdom of that good man.

But I knew I needed to worry; somehow the worry was a talisman that kept the awful darkness of bad stuff away, things like nuclear missiles and polio outbreaks and earthquakes. That is a heavy load for a little kid to carry, making sure everything stays right with the universe.

None of it ever happened in my sheltered little life so I must have been doing something right!

Thankfully, by the time I turned nine, I finally learned to coexist with the inherent risks of daily life, as I realized I, in fact, wasn’t in control of the universe. We survived a rumbling 6.3 earthquake. We lived through a 114 mph windstorm that took out the power for a week. We coped with my grandpa dying. Later on I made it through some hard stuff that is too painful to even recall so I’d rather not.

Growing older means realizing that bad stuff will happen, and it is usually survivable yet the reality is: life on earth itself isn’t survivable. I’ve seen and experienced a few traumatic things over my 70 years, and have seen how some people, maybe even me, can be amazingly heroic in the worst possible situations

But I’ve learned my confidence can’t be in myself or anyone else. It rests solely in Someone who really is in charge of everything that moves and breathes in the universe and Who knows all that was, is and will be.

I really am not responsible for the universe — thank goodness.

Oh, I still worry. It is hard to stop when it is deeply engrained in my DNA, having been descended from a long line of worriers. My children are not grateful for that genetic gift to them. It is already evident my grandchildren won’t thank me either.

Yet, every day I snatch back from that darkness is reason for celebration, and today is no different.

Over 25,500 days under my belt of celebrating being here.
Hoping for more gentle occasions like this one is.

It’s a great day to be alive. Soli Deo Gloria.

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Get Up, All of You!

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He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).  Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 
Mark 5:41-43

Little girl. Old girl. Old boy.
Old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis,
and young boys and girls with tattoos and body piercing.

You who believe, and you who sometimes believe
and sometimes don’t believe much of anything,
and you who would give almost anything to believe
if only you could.

You happy ones and you who can hardly remember
what it was like once to be happy.
You who know where you’re going and how to get there
and you who much of the time aren’t sure you’re getting anywhere.

“Get up,” he says, all of you – all of you!
– and the power that is in him is the power to give life
not just to the dead like the child,
but to those who are only partly alive,
which is to say to people like you and me
who much of the time live with our lives closed
to the wild beauty and miracle of things,
including the wild beauty and miracle
of every day we live
and even of ourselves.
~Frederick Buechner from Secrets in the Dark

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
~Mary Oliver “I Worried” from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Christ said to the dead girl, “Get up.” And she did.

He also tells us to get up, get moving – despite everything that holds us back.

I know there are times when I feel immobilized from tiredness, worry, hopelessness, fear. I hear His reminder: get up and go anyway.

God has given us a world of wild beauty and miraculous things;
time to get up and take our place in it.

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These Things You Do

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There you are
this cold day
boiling the water on the stove,
pouring the herbs into the pot,
hawthorn, rose;
buying the tulips
& looking at them, holding
your heart in your hands at the table
saying please, please, to nobody else
there in the kitchen with you.
How hard, how heavy this all is.
How beautiful, these things you do,
in case they help, these things you do
that, although you haven’t said it yet,
say that you want to live.
~Victoria Adukwei Bulley “There You Are”

Our daily rituals are so routine and mundane, unless they are disrupted by unexpected and unwanted events. Then we desire nothing more than to get back to what is routine, familiar and comforting.

Right now, I’m aware of at least four friends in our small church congregation who are undergoing treatment for cancer, and a couple others who are waiting on testing results. They would love nothing more than a boringly routine day like they had known pre-diagnosis. Instead, nothing seems as if it will ever be the same again, except an awareness of how precious and valued each day of life is.

Thankfully, very few people are forced to share their life-threatening illnesses with the world via headlines, videos and photos like the King of England and Princess of Wales. Surely, that adds another layer of hard heaviness on top of dealing with such difficult, exhausting treatments and interventions.

For those coping with challenging medical illness, I pray for comforting rituals and routines that remind you how much you are loved. These beautiful moments of everyday life are reasons you want to live, even as you do these hard things.

May your heart and soul be held in loving hands as you see this through.

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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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