Morning has broken...

My fall every morning routine... get up at 6:30 or 7... fix a cup of hot tea and eat breakfast... go to the stable and feed horses and donkeys hay... write for an hour or so... feed cows two to four bales of hay. Winter sees another afternoon feeding added to the mix. On Mondays I go to town with mama for a grocery/cat food/used book store/eat lunch out/physical therapy trip. Tuesdays I catch up on household work and get ready for my Wednesday class. Wednesday I teach a group of women who are exploring their creativity. We play for three hours with many different kinds of art material and I am always surprised by the sheer beauty that lives inside each person’s soul waiting for a path to be made plain. Thursdays are consumed by two three hour classes in picture matting and framing that I teach at our local community college. One class is in the morning and one at night. Fridays and Saturdays are at home days with Michael, tending to farm chores... bush hogging, wood cutting... and visiting with friends. Sundays have traditionally been reserved for church but since we left church, Sundays are becoming Sabbath with rest, ritual and relief from the press of the world.
This morning I am sitting at my computer listening to the sounds of friends moving back and forth, up and down the stairs, fixing breakfast, soft conversation of the easy sort that comes with years of relationship. It is the Morning Hymn for this Sabbath. After twenty eight years, we are having a reunion and I am reminded why I fell in love with these friends in the beginning. They know how to be and do communion and community. For all these years, they have met monthly with a book discussion as the formal agenda while they lived their lives together as the Family of God. Death, divorce, weddings, children with cancer, illness, successes, joys and celebrations have been held close in the tender hearts of this group. Countless meals prepared, prayers prayed, hugs handed out, tears wiped away, conflict managed with grace, differences diffused by the Love that binds these children of God together.
This group of women taught me how to make homemade bread, danced with me in worship (I have the pictures to prove it), celebrated the birth of our son Adam, introduced me to the world of organic eating before there was such a concept, made sand candles at the beach retreat, showed me how to live a creative joyfilled life in the midst of the “dailiness” of life, included me in a sisterhood that continues to this day. They showed up Friday with their husbands, their own sheets and towels, and meals prepared. I was allowed to cook the Friday night meal but everything else was brought by the group. We ate high on the hog all weekend long. It was wonderful slow food prepared with care and love. Meals lasted long after we had finished eating as we sat around the table talking and listening. Candlelight and fireflames lit and warmed the room and love’s warmth eased our hearts as we sat together. Every meal was Eucharist and all were welcome at the table.
Eukharistia... origin Greek...thanksgiving... combination of eu “well” and kharizesthai “offer graciously”... For this small moment in time on Sabbath Rest farm, all was well and all was offered graciously. We gathered together, the wine and bread of our lives offered up to one another and to God. Laughter, tears, worship, walks, hayrides, animal blessings, a new Psalm written for me, good food, remembrance of the lives we have shared apart and together... There is no hitch in the getalong of my soul this Sabbath. It has been a gracious plenty and I am filled up and overflowing with thanksgiving.

Peggy’s Psalm for the Animals ( A New Psalm 151) Written by Judy Timmons

O God, you have created them for our care and our pleasure,
The horse Junie B to munch the grass and give me rides in her saddle
The source of my long awaited desire to have a horse of my own.
The once silent donkeys who have found their voices,
Braying to let us know of their hunger or displeasure,
Following close on our heels to greener pastures.
Daddy’s cows and their descendants who marvel at these hills,
So different from flat Georgia pastures.
Barn cats and yard dogs, creations of Yours, all,
Doing their duties-taking care of the grain mice and
Chasing away intruders, whether on two legs or four.

O Lord, how wonderful is your creation of all these four footed beasts
That we fondly call friends and helpers on this much loved land of yours.
You have loaned them to us for a time as you have shared all your world with us
For our care and pleasure.

O Lord, they and we need rain to grow their feed and to nourish our soil and our souls.
Hear our prayer for life-gicing showers of blessings from the heavens.
Turn not a deaf ear to our entreaties.
Answer this prayer and pour down your healing waters of liquid love on all of us.