Today as the news from Selma and Saigon poisons the air like fallout, I come again to see the serene great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light the eye like the eye of faith believes. The seen, the known dissolve in iridescence, become illusive flesh of light that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears. Here is the aura of that world each of us has lost. Here is the shadow of its joy. ~Robert Hayden “Monet’s Waterlilies”
…The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and change our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end. ~Lisel Mueller, “Monet Refuses the Operation” from Second Language
We see things differently, don’t we? What seems ordinary to one person is extraordinary to another.
How might I learn to adjust my focus to see things as you do? How might I help others to see the world as I do?
The world is flux; my delight and dismay flows from moment to moment, from object to absence, from light to darkness, from color to gray. Perhaps the blur from the figurative (or real) cataract impeding my vision creates a deeper understanding, as I use my imagination to fill in what I can’t discern.
My heart and mind expands to claim this world and all that beauty has to offer, while heaven – all this while – is pulling me into its arms.
In heaven, my focus will be clear. It will all be extraordinarily holy.
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You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. ~G.K. Chesterton
Norman Rockwell’s 1951 painting Saying Grace
Chesterton has it right. No matter what I embark on, I should say grace first. Even my breathing, my waking, and my sleeping. Even the brilliance right outside my back door.
Continual and constant thanks and praise to the Creator for all things bright and beautiful, and helping us through the dark times.
Instead I am plagued with inconstancy and inconsistency, with a stubborn tendency to take it all for granted.
As I “dip pen in ink” this morning, join me in saying grace:
He is worthy. Amen and Amen.
Even more so. Ever more now.
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In the quiet misty morning When the moon has gone to bed When the sparrows stop their singing And the sky is clear and red When the summer ceased it’s gleaming When the corn is past its prime When adventures lost its meaning I’ll be homeward-bound in time ~Marta Keen from “Homeward Bound”
On Halloween day in 1985, I packed up a roll-up mattress pad, grabbed one lonely pumpkin from our small garden, locked our rental house door for the last time, then climbed in my car to head two hours north out of Seattle.
I don’t recall looking back in the rear view mirror at the skyline after nine years living in the city. My husband had moved to Whatcom County two months earlier to start his new job. I had stayed behind to wrap up my Group Health family practice in the Rainier Valley of central Seattle.
I was leaving the city for our new rural home and a very uncertain professional future.
I knew two things for sure: I was finally several months pregnant after a miscarriage and two years of trying to conceive, so our family was on its way, and we were going to live in our own house with a few acres and a barn.
A real (sort of) starter farm and starter family, a dream we both shared. Our home sits in the midst of woods and corn fields, with deer strolling through the fields at dawn, coyotes howling at night, Canadian geese and trumpeter swans calling from overhead and salmon thriving in nearby streams. The snowy Cascades greet us in the morning to the east, the Canadian Coastal range majestic to the north and not far to the west, the Salish Sea/Puget Sound.
Since it wouldn’t be a farm without animals, I stopped at the first pet store I drove past and found two tortoise shell calico kitten sisters peering up at me, just waiting for new adventures in farmland. Their box was packed into the one spot left beside me in my little Mazda.
With that simple commitment to raise and nurture those kittens alongside the life growing inside me, life seemed very complete.
I will never forget the freedom I felt on that drive north. The highway seemed more open, the fall colors more vibrant, the wind more energizing, our baby kicking my belly, the kittens mewing from their box. There seemed so much potential even though I had just left behind the greatest family practice found in any urban setting (at the time, it was the most ethnically diverse zip code in the United States) with patients from all over the world: alongside the multi-racial inner city population living in subsidized housing developments, my patients included Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Indonesia, Orthodox Jews, Italian Catholics, and refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
I will never know so much variety of ethnic background and perspective again. If I could have packed them all into my little car and driven them north with me, I would have.
Despite what I was leaving behind, there was certainly a feeling of freedom that rainy Halloween day as the big city disappeared in the rear view mirror.
No longer would I sit captive in freeway rush-hour bumper to bumper traffic jams. I traded that for a new rural commute winding through farm fields while watching eagles fly overhead. I could become part of a community in a way I never could manage in the city, visiting with friends at the grocery store, playing piano and teaching Sunday School at church and serving on various community boards.
After the new kittens, dubbed Nutmeg and Oregano, arrived on our farm, we added even more diversity: a Belgian Tervuren dog Tango, a Haflinger horse Greta, Toggenburg goats Tamsin and her kids, a few Toulouse geese, Araucana chickens, Fiona the Scottish Highland cow, then another Haflinger Hans and another, Tamara. I worked as a fill-in doctor in four different clinics before our first baby was born, then settled into part-time practice in several different clinics for most of my career.
With those new commitments, life was fulfilling and busy – we soon added a little brother and seven years later, a sister. Then it felt like our family was complete.
Forty years later, our children have grown and gone to homes of their own, all married to wonderful spouses, raising six delightful children for us to lavish love on.
Somehow life now feels even more complete.
A few cats, a Cardigan Corgi, and three ponies still live at the farm with us. Now retired from our professional lives “in town”, we enjoy the freedom of slower and quieter days, nurtured and nurturing.
It all started October 31, 1985 with two orange and black kittens and a pumpkin sitting beside me in a little Mazda, my husband awaiting my homecoming 100 miles north. Now, forty years later, we celebrate this Halloween anniversary of farm and family, still pregnant with the possibility that life is never truly complete when there is always a new day just around the corner.
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Some mornings all I do is write down words—cistern, tribal, cached—copying them from sprawled pages of books across my desk, words that call out— glimmerings, cursive, saffron, heartwood—holding me in place as if to say listen, you may need me someday, I might offer you another way toward beauty, or even beyond. ~Andrea Potos “Daily Practices” from The Presence of One Word
I want to make poems that look into the earth and the heavens and see the unseeable. I want them to honor both the heart of faith, and the light of the world; the gladness that says, without any words, everything. ~Mary Oliver from “Everything”from New and Selected Poems: Volume Two
This morning
poem hopes
that even though its lines are broken
its reader
will be drawn forward to the part where blueberries firm against fingers
In the ghostly dawn I write new words for your ears— Even now you sleep. ~Amy Lowell“V” from Twenty-Four Hokku
The blueberry fields are all afire, each leaf an October mosaic.
As chlorophyll wanes, the colors appear by magic, like words selected for a poem which begins as an empty slate.
Each carefully chosen.
Each surrounded by silence becoming more holy when it’s no longer empty.
So much of the beauty of poetry is the silence, a pause between the words.
Like life, there is nothing empty or meaningless about pausing.
Like poet Mary Oliver:
I want to make poems that look into the earth and the heavens and see the unseeable.
I am so awed at your faithful reading and generous sharing of what I offer here.
Even when my lines are broken, or I say again what another has already said much better, yet bears repeating — I too try to write with quiet hands, and see through quiet eyes, out of reverence and awe for what unseeable gifts God has given us.
Thank you for being here with me.
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~Lustravit lampade terras~ (He has illumined the world with a lamp) The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. – Blaise Pascal from “Miscellaneous Writings”
And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment … a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present… ~Wendell Berry from Hannah Coulter
Early morning, everything damp all through. Cars go by. A ripping sound of tires through water. For two days the air Has smelled like salamanders. The little lake on the edge of town hidden in fog, Its cattails and island gone. All through the gloom of the dark week Bright leaves have been dropping From black trees Until heaps of color lie piled everywhere In the falling rain. ~Tom Hennen “Wet Autumn” from Darkness Sticks to Everything.
An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear. – Denise Levertov “The Breathing“
Worry and anger and angst can be more contagious than the flu.
I want to mask up and wash my hands of it throughout the day. There should be a vaccination against the fear of reading headlines.
I want to say to myself: Stop now, this moment in time. Stop and stop and stop.
Stop needing to be numb to all discomfort. Stop resenting the gift of each breath. Just stop. Instead, simply be still, in this moment
I want to say to myself: this moment, foggy or fine, is yours alone, this moment of weeping and sharing and breath and pulse and light.
Shout for joy in it. Celebrate it. I am alive in it, even in worry.
Be thankful for tears that flow over grateful lips just as rain clears the fog. Stop holding them back.
Just be– be blessed in both the fine and the foggy days– in the now and now and now.
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Two old dogs out doing chores. One on two legs, one on four. Side by side, they water and feed. Caring for others daily need.
Two old dogs make their rounds Well worn paths on familiar ground. To greet the day or say goodnight Side by side, their friendship tight.
Two old dogs with dish and pail. Singing songs and wagging tail. Slower now, than in the past But that just makes the good time last.
Two old dogs, both muzzles grey. Aging joints sometimes curb play. Companionship a simple joy. His old dad; Dad’s old boy.
Two old dogs, and then one day One old dog has gone away. The other left to carry on Two legs to barn and field and pond.
One old dog, eyes full of tears Can still feel his old friend walking near A reminder in the morning dew. Just one path, instead of two.
When one old dog has no more chores And walks through heaven’s golden doors He’ll see that face he can’t forget. A kindred spirit, not just a pet.
So many old dogs, made whole; anew Reunion of a loyal crew. Never again to be apart. Many souls. But just one heart. ~Jeff Pillars “Two Old Dogs”
I knew this day was coming. Samwise Gamgee, approaching age 14, had been hinting that he was getting ready to leave for the past couple weeks. He was much slower following me for chores, his appetite wasn’t quite as robust as usual, and his hearing was fading.
Life had become an effort when it had been a lark for 13+ years.
But yesterday morning, he perked up enough to do his usual rounds on the farm, poke around the stalls in the barn, check the cat dishes for morsels, and bark when a strange car drove in the driveway. Then last night he ignored his supper, laid down and closed his eyes, having used up all his reserves.
This morning, he was gone, leaving only a furry shell with big ears behind.
He had joined us on the farm as company for our aged Cardigan Corgi Dylan Thomas, who died two years after Samwise arrived. Then Sam himself needed company, so another Cardigan corgi, Homer, arrived. They became a happy Corgi team on the farm.
Sam had a great dog life, with the exception of getting lost once and one overnight visit to the emergency vet hospital for treatment from poisoning from ivermectin, the horse worming medicine he somehow managed to lap up quickly off the barn floor when a horse dripped the paste from her mouth. After that he promised to never need a vet again.
His peaceful passing is a reminder of our temporary stay on his soil. He’s smelling the flowers and watching the sunrises and sunsets from the other side now.
I honor Samwise’s long life with the photos I have compiled over the years.
Till we meet again, old friend.
photo by Nate Gibson
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Now constantly there is the sound, quieter than rain, of the leaves falling.
Under their loosening bright gold, the sycamore limbs bleach whiter.
Now the only flowers are beeweed and aster, spray of their white and lavender over the brown leaves.
The calling of a crow sounds Loud — landmark — now that the life of summer falls silent, and the nights grow. ~Wendell Berry “October 10” from New Collected Poems.
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the heart feels a languid grief Laid on it for a covering, And how sleep seems a goodly thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
And how the swift beat of the brain Falters because it is in vain, In Autumn at the fall of the leaf Knowest thou not? and how the chief Of joys seems — not to suffer pain?
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the soul feels like a dried sheaf Bound up at length for harvesting, And how death seems a comely thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf? ~Dante Rossetti “Autumn Song”
If I were a color, I am green, turning to gold, turning to bronze, becoming dust.
If I were a sound, I patter like raindrops and children’s feet. If I were a smell, I would be dry earth soaking up rain. If I were a touch, I am a leaf letting go, landing softly. If I were a taste, I would be warm and bittersweet. If I were a season, I am the wistful goodbye hug of autumn.
But I am none of these, being enough for now; this is enough for now.
Singing in the falling leaves, I will come rejoicing, Singing in the leaves.
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Love means to learn to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills— A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things So that they stand in the glow of ripeness. It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves: Who serves best doesn’t always understand. ~Czeslaw Milosz “Love” from New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001
Let him kneel down, lower his face to the grass, And look at light reflected by the ground. There he will find everything we have lost… ~Czeslaw Milosz from “The Sun”
It’s not easy to subdue the needy ego and let the life-giving soul take control, even though doing so saves us grief and serves the world well. So if you see me on the street one day, quietly muttering, “Only one thing among many, only one thing among many…,” you’ll know I’m still working on it, or it’s still working on me. ~Parker Palmer “The Big Question: Does My Life Have Meaning?”
It is always tempting to be self-absorbed; since my heart stent placement nearly 8 months ago, I tend to analyze every sensation in my chest, fuss over how many steps I take daily, and get discouraged when the scale doesn’t register the sacrifices I think I’m making in my diet.
In other words, in my efforts to heal my physically-broken heart, I become the center of my attention, rather than just one among many things in the days/months/years I have left. I need to look at myself from a distance rather than under a microscope.
It is a skewed and futile perspective, seeking meaning and purpose in life by navel gazing.
Instead, I should be concentrating on the ripeness of each day. I’ve been given a second chance to recalibrate my journey through the time I have left, focusing outward, gazing at the wonders around me, sometimes getting down on my knees.
I don’t fully understand how I might serve others by what I share here online, or what I do in my local community with my hands and feet. I now know not to miss the moments basking in the glow of loving those around me, including you friends I may never meet on this side of the veil.
May you glow in ripeness as well.
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Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other. ~A.S. Byatt from Possession
If librarians were honest, they would say, No one spends time here without being changed. Maybe you should go home. While you still can. ~Joseph Mills from “If Librarians Were Honest”
Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?
Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?
Why are we reading, if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage and the hope of meaningfulness, and press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? ~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”
…for people who love books and need To touch them, open them, browse for a while, And find some common good––that’s why we read. Readers and writers are two sides of the same gold coin. You write and I read and in that moment I find A union more perfect than any club I could join: The simple intimacy of being one mind. Here in a book-filled sun-lit room below the street, Strangers––some living, some dead––are hoping to meet. ~Garrison Keillor
The mere brute pleasure of reading–the sort of pleasure a cow has in grazing. ~G.K. Chesterton
Each day as I decide what to share here, I think of each of you who might open my email, or click on a link to see what I have to say.
We are alone together, you and I, for only a few minutes. I consider that precious time you are entrusting to me and want to make it worthwhile.
When you read this, you may be eating breakfast, or in the middle of your workday at the computer, or on your phone during a commute, or sitting in a waiting room wondering when your name will be called.
Or maybe you are sitting in the bathroom, or past ready to fall asleep in bed.
I am honored and humbled to hear from you after our alone time together each day.
I too spend reading time alone every day, grateful for what writers write while alone. I don’t tell them often enough how they change my day for the better.
Some are long gone from this world, so I’ll never have the chance.
Like infinite blades of grass in a pasture, I find far too many words to read — so much to consume, so little time. I nibble away, blade by blade, page by page, word by word, but the greatest pleasure of all is to settle down into a good long cud-chewing session, redigesting and mulling over what all I’ve taken in.
It is brute pleasure to take in words that grow roots so deep they never go away, words that sustain and make me grow and keep me alive. Words to illuminate from without and within.
Every October it becomes important, no, necessary to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded by leaves turning; it’s not just the symbolism, to confront in the death of the year your death, one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony isn’t lost on you that nature is most seductive when it’s about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its incipient exit, an ending that at least so far the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain) have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception because of course nature is always renewing itself—
the trees don’t die, they just pretend, go out in style, and return in style: a new style.
3
You’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably won’t last. But for a moment the whole world comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives— red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion, gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations of burning. You’re on fire. Your eyes are on fire. It won’t last, you don’t want it to last. You can’t stand any more. But you don’t want it to stop. It’s what you’ve come for. It’s what you’ll come back for. It won’t stay with you, but you’ll
remember that it felt like nothing else you’ve felt or something you’ve felt that also didn’t last. ~Lloyd Schwarz from “Leaves”
The world wakes up and comes to, with vivid, overwhelming color for a moment before it dies.
The landscape is simply acting out its part, perhaps just pretending. Nothing is really dying, just taking a nap under a brilliant blanket.
Rest well. See you next year.
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