Lenten Living Waters

We have a new baby on the farm, born on Valentine’s day. Sassy had a little heifer with a white heart shaped mark on her forehead. What else could we name her but Sweetheart? She joins her half sister Tinkerbell born three weeks ago. They will have fun being playmates this spring. All our babies names begin with the same first letter as their mom’s name. That helps us know who belongs to whom. This system breaks down with Annie and her daughter Anna Belle when they have babies. Two A’s make it a little difficult to keep them separated. It is the season for babies, new life beginning to peep out all around the farm.
The yarrow is sprouting underneath the layer of leaf mulch. Violas are blooming and tiny fern fronds are unfolding. Green spears of daffodil and narcissus are pushing their way up into the light. Underneath the brown thatch of grass is the green of tender growth. No new leaves yet but the buds are swelling on the blueberry bushes. Last year the blueberries budded out too early and were killed back by a late freeze. There were no blueberries to pick last year and Matthew was disappointed.
The cows and Junie B are tired of a hay diet. They race to the farmhouse yard when Michael opens the gate to let them graze the farm. They know the farmhouse yard is full of perennial rye, sweet and juicy green grass, spring candy for cows. The piles they leave behind will be scooped with a shovel for flower fertilizer. A nice system... they cut the grass and provide fertilizer at the same time. Francisco and Ariel, two of the yearlings, always maneuver around the gate to the grass on the other side. Teenagers! You got to love them.
Spring rains have begun leaving muddy mucky mess everywhere. It is hard to complain about the mess though because we are still in the grip of a deep drought. Here we are surrounded by plenty of visible water... streams, rivers, rivulets everywhere you look but our groundwater is drying up all over the mountains. Increased demand from the rapid growth with a limited supply is a dangerous combination. Mountain land is rocky and water often does not percolate easily to the lower levels. It is ironic that the wild waterfalls and rushing rivers that are such an integral part of the mountain experience do not reflect the water crisis in our community.
Our partners, Tim and Jeannie, have had two wells run dry. They now have an underground cistern system that collects rainwater to use. Our neighbor Gary’s well ran dry last summer but refilled. Another neighbor had to drill two wells, both with a very slow flow, in order to have enough water if he is careful. Water is not taken for granted on our farm. For all the surface appearance of abundance, the reality is an underground scarcity.
Outlanders come and marvel at the scenic waterfalls and rivers. They gaze at the mountains streams with moss covered rocks tumbling down mountain sides. City folks, insulated from the reality of drought by location and water authorities, do not feel the pinch until the situation is desperate. But farmers know. Farmers taste the dust that billows up from the gravel roads to their homes. They watch fields turn brown and crunchy in the heat. And when the grass grows slowly, they have to buy hay because their fields did not produce. If they have to buy hay, hard decisions have to be made about keeping livestock. There is a glut of horses for sale simply because folks can’t feed them.
And herein lies the crux of our Lenten observances. We have a surface appearance of abundance. We are busy about the works of peace and justice, shaking the established order of things up. Our lives are crammed full of good deeds, good living and good times. But underneath the surface of our filled to overflowing lives run dry stream beds of the soul. The drought slips up on us and we are surprised when our wells run dry. Depression, anxiety, worry, angst, loss of faith, restlessness, continuous anger and frustration, no sense of meaning, lives lived by rote, responding to the latest crisis time after time... all these signal a drought, a dry well. The rains of spiritual practices such as daily prayer and Bible reading will help fill our wells. The practice of silence in the middle of our noisy worlds will percolate down to the bedrock of our souls. Spending time outdoors in quiet meditation will help our souls become the juicy creations they were intended to be. It is time to let the waters of mercy flow for me and my soul this Lent. Only when I am filled up can I be the Living Water for those in the world around me. May it be so.

Sabbath is not for sissies...

It shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month (nearly October) on the tenth day of the month you shall afflict yourselves by fasting with pertinence and do no work at all, either the native born or the stranger who dwells temporarily among you.
For on this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you, from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord.
It is a sabbath of solemn rest to you... It is a statute forever. Leviticus 16:29-31
Keeping the Sabbath holy was serious business when I was growing up and in spite of the rest required, it was hard work. Church attendance twice on Sunday, morning and evening, was the norm in our church. The morning was for worship and the evening was for training. Baptists, for all they did not do, knew how to prepare you for the work of the church.
After Sunday dinner, a special event with fried chicken and mashed potatoes and banana pudding, quiet time was enforced. Mama and Daddy took a nap and woe betide the one who woke them up! Gayle and I would emigrate outside to the field to have our noisy
disagreements. We were free to run and play, read, or go play with neighbors. Doing homework was not allowed since that should have been finished before Sunday.
While Daddy was Sunday School Superintendent, we would go visiting after the nap. He made it his mission to visit every home in our church during the year he served. That meant donning our Sunday dress and shoes again because often we would go straight from visiting back to church with a leftover picnic in the car for supper. Daddy held firm to the ideal of not purchasing services or goods on the Sabbath. We did not eat out or go to the store. Our Sabbath was not for sissies.
As a child I often complained about the rules for Sabbath. My mother would respond with stories of her childhood sabbaths... no outdoor play, no sewing because every stitch would take a day off your life, sitting and playing with the button box, going to church, having to rub Uncle Bill’s back until he went to sleep, endless tedious boredom. That was supposed to make me feel better and sometimes hearing those stories of long ago did help. Now my stories are the stories of long ago and I am surrounded by a generation who have no memory of Sabbath.
I see now some of the wisdom contained in the observance of Sabbath as a holy day set apart from the rest of the week. It is a day that begins with worship, praise and adoration offered to the One who is our Creator. We set ourselves apart from the workaday world so that we might remember to whom we belong. We gather together so that we might find comfort for aching hearts and bruised spirits in the company of other Christian believers. Our souls are strengthened and soothed by an encounter with the Holy One. We lift our hearts up to God and we are lifted up in body and soul, renewed and revised, ready to re-enter the world that needs us.
We rest, really rest. We take some time away from our usual routines so that our souls might catch up with our minds and bodies. All too often in our culture productivity becomes the altar at which we worship and anything that does not result in accomplishment is denigrated. Our list making and checking off should be given a Sabbath rest also. For every thing there is a season and Sabbath is a season for rest. Lent is the liturgical season for soul Sabbaths.
For Lent I am going to take a Sabbath day every week. Maybe it will be Sundays or maybe not. One day each week I will give my soul some time to come out of hiding and play. I will read books that help me consider the state of my soul. I will make atonement so that I might be as one with God. I will play with my art and not worry about it measuring up. I will sing praises to the One who sings back to me in the winter wind. I will eat a Sabbath meal with those I love and give thanks for this most amazing life I have in the midst of an amazing universe. I will count my blessings and count myself blessed. This is Sabbath indeed.

Viet Nam Vet Valentine

For Tim, Dyrall, Andy,Tommy and all the other men and women who lived through Viet Nam
I stood at the gas pump at Ingle’s Grocery watching the dollars fly by. He got out of his truck and walked up to the pump on the other side. I glanced his way and saw the Viet Nam Vet insignia on his ball cap. He was my age, wearing cargo pants, a jacket and that cap. For a moment I stood caught in an internal debate... Do I speak to him or not? I called out to him and asked if he had served in Viet Nam. "Yes", he said, "I was in the DMZ."
"My first husband was stationed at Cu Chi as a medevac pilot. He was killed just as he took off with a load of wounded. The chopper was shot down, exploded and all aboard were killed," I said. We spent a minute or two exchanging information... What year were you there?... What out fit did you belong to? As I turned to leave he reached out, gave me a hug and said "Happy Valentine’s Day". We were both surprised by the rush of tears to our eyes as we acknowledged our connection through the horrors of war. He lived to come home and Tim, like so many others, didn’t. Those who came home were forever changed by experiences I can not begin to imagine. The smells, sounds and sights of war change those who are caught up in its net. They bring home memories that cannot be erased, only softened by the passage of time. But occasionally, like today, the Holy Spirit reaches down and helps us remember so that we might shoulder each others burdens.
I am reminded of another Viet Nam Vet gathering in Louisville, Kentucky many years ago. For all the raucous laughter and behavior, there was a strong feeling of connection that flowed between the veterans. Some were indistinguishable from bankers and lawyers (which some of them were). Some were tattooed and wearing black leather with chains. Some bore the marks of combat still as they sat in wheelchairs or showed scars left from wounds. Some of them carried the damage done by war deep in their souls, not visible to the outside world. All of them are heroes for me.
These people who have been sent to wage war in far off places... Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq... for the most part answer because duty calls not a career. They come home to a home that has never known the pain and anguish, the suffering and death, the awfulness that separates them from the rest of us. They bear this being set apart, this bearing of the knowledge of life and death, this having eaten from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, with courage and grace. They pick up their interrupted daily lives and are our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers.
Those of us who have lost someone we loved in a war know the additional burden those who come home carry. They came home. Others did not. Why them? What could be the meaning of this war? Any war? And how can I honor the memories of those who didn’t make it home?
Valentine... the word means worthy, having valor. My Viet Nam Valentines... all of you are worthy and full of valor, not for deeds of war but for the lives you have lived in spite of the war. This Lenten season I salute you. You are not invisible to my eyes. You have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and come out on the other side. I pray for you and for all those who are coming home now from other far away places bearing the same wounds you carried all those years ago. Some day, I pray, the madness of war can cease to be. But until then, I pray for the peace that passes all understanding for soldiers and their families. I pray that those of us who have never seen nor felt the stench and destruction of war can be tender and loving for those who carry these memories in their souls. And may God grant us all healing from the scars of battles waged here and far away. My Lenten Valentines...

Dale Evans and Miss Pearl Todd... my dream team

My friend Sandra and I are both entering the HGTV contest every day for the dream vacation house in Key West. So are a few million others. That doesn’t slow our dreaming down. Dreams are heady intoxicating visions of the might be, Iwannabe, itoughtabe life as we imagine it could be. As a child my dreams were complex and simple at the same time. I dreamed of a horse and I wanted to be able to ride like Dale Evans. I dreamed of being first in my class academically and being everybody’s best friend. I dreamed of being a missionary in far off lands like Miss Pearl Todd, our own South Georgia missionary to China. When she was on furlough, she would come visit us at the local Baptist camp named for her and bring all her Chinese things.
Every night when I went to bed, I lay awake for a long time savoring instant replays of my favorite dreams, making stories up in my head. I could see, hear and feel them come alive. For years this alternate reality of night time awake dreaming helped me bridge the gap between consciousness and sleep. My active imagination created a safe place to be in that in-between land where I starred in my dreamland movies. On the surface I was an outgoing, smart, happy little girl. Underneath the outer skin lived an introverted, sensitive, scared of her own shadow little girl who never felt like she measured up. In my dreams I always triumphed, kissed the horse and the cowboy, rode off into a blazing sunset full of promise of new adventures to come.
As I grew older, my dreams changed. I dreamed of meeting my first love. That was hard to do when your daddy stood on the stoop waiting for you every time you and your date drove up. I dreamed of being a good Christian. That was and is still the most challenging dream of my life. I dreamed of marriage and family and a home of my own. All those dreams and more came to be. I found good work to do, began to experience life and death, robbing Peter to pay Paul all the while wishing there were another disciple to rob, saw children grow and begin the cycle all over again. There were global dreams of peace and prosperity for all and hope for a green revolution if I could just switch to cloth napkins instead of paper ones. In many ways all my dreams came true but somewhere my dreaming changed.
My dreamer began to fray around the edges. Years of praying and hoping and working for dreams to come true took a toll on my soul. Some dreams never saw the light of day. Some dreams, like the seed scattered on rocky ground, sprouted, grew then withered and died. And some dreams did come true. Sabbath Rest Farm is a dream realized, a place of true rest and comfort not just for us but for others also.
Junie B revitalized my dreamer. One long held tender dream of a horse who could be my friend has come true. Michael and Vince and Gary and Tim are building her stable. As I look out my kitchen window, I see the posts in the ground and the trusses waiting to be raised up. The hillside is reshaped with a gentler slope so the rain won’t puddle in front of the stalls. By spring the stable will be complete and I will be able to step out my back porch door and call her up. She is a sucker for carrots and peppermint candy. Sometimes the dream deferred is all the more valuable for the wait.
Tonight I will close my eyes and as I wait for sleep to blot out the cares of the day, I will dust off my dreamer to see if it might help me catch a vision of life with God. This dark valley of Lent is fertile ground for dreaming as I walk through the shadows of death hanging over Jesus, and me. I pray my dreams will be the beginning of new resurrection life not just for me but for others too... and maybe my dreams are a gift to God who first dreamed of creating us. I wouldn’t mind being able to ride like Dale Evans, God. I’ll practice in my dreams first.
Peggy Hester

showdown with the stranger...

I went to a little elementary school in the small community of Clyattville. Our school was first grade through twelfth in those pre-consolidation and separation days. High school students and first graders were all in the same red brick building. Intergenerational education called out the best in us most of the time. When the snack shack opened during the afternoon recess, high school kids would lift up the little ones so they could see what was offered for sale. The lunchroom ladies were the parents of some of the students. The small bamboo grove on the playground had paths worn by running feet playing "catch". The old canning plant at one side of the school yard had been pressed into service as a classroom. Tall pine trees gave shade in the hot sun and blanketed the ground with a carpet of needles. Recess came twice a day, fifteen minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the afternoon. We had time to be children at school, time to play without rules and regulations or adult expectations. What we did was up to us. Sometimes we watched the high school girls and giggled about their walking so slow with a boy carrying their books. Sometimes we chased our favorite boy down and gave him a kick in the shins to let him know we liked him.
One of the favorite holidays for the whole school was May Day. The week before the first of May was spent constructing May baskets to be filled with flowers and hung on doorknobs as a present. A maypole, just an old telephone pole, was a year long fixture in the playground. As the first of May drew near, the raggedy old pole would be garnished with ribbon. Two elementary children were elected to lead the maypole dance every year at the May Day celebration. The whole school would turn out to watch and it was a festive occasion. I was campaigning hard to win that coveted spot the winter of my fourth grade year.
She came as a new student just after the Christmas break. Blonde, pretty, friendly... she became everybody’s best friend. Not only was she beautiful but she was sweet, a personality trait much desired and admired by teachers and students alike. She never chased boys to kick them or yelled or rumpled her crinolines. She was everything I wanted to be and wasn’t. I hated her guts on principle. All my hard campaigning to be May Queen was going down the drain as she sat on the round bench that ringed the old oak tree holding court. My response was quick and cruel, a behind the hands conversation with all my friends about not letting the new girl take over. I wanted to be May Queen really, really bad.
It didn’t work, of course. Teachers and students alike voted for her in droves and I never got to be May Queen. What I remember, though, is not the loss of the crown of flowers but the ugly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I waged my war of words against the new girl. Other than fights with my sister (not to be counted as real war), this was my first experience with the Stranger and I did not measure up to Jesus’ admonition to welcome those who were different from me. Hospitality... a Biblical virtue... a behavior commandment straight from Jesus... I was a stranger and you took me in.
Sometimes I am so focused on the stranger without, I miss the stranger within. I see the young woman in choir who is struggling to stay afloat on her own but I miss the young woman who still struggles inside me with feelings of not being good enough. I can hold out my arms in welcoming hugs for the young mother from another country who is trying hard to make a place for herself here in our town and church. But, I have a hard time hugging myself as I search for meaning as I live the decade of my sixties. Children always find welcome in our home but I have difficulty welcoming the anxious child, myself, living in my memory.
Lent is a time for searching within, the interior lands of our souls... a time to name the hurts and failures and sins... a time to offer them up to the One who has known us all the days of our lives. This Perfect Love sees what we do not take time to look for, is waiting to help us heal the broken places, holds us close as we struggle to find our way and leads us to the Love and Light that wait for us at the end of this dark Lenten walkway.
Help me know myself, Lord, as you know me. Help me see the hurt and broken places in my soul. Help me hold them up in the Light of Love so that you might lead me to a right relationship with You, O God, with myself and with others. Give me courage, clear vision and a tender heart as I begin to search for the stranger within. Peggy Hester

heat, light, fire

I am a murder mystery junkie. I have loved mysteries since I was a child reading my way through the Carnegie Library adult section. When I discovered Agatha Christie my fate was sealed. Michael has often said he will die tripping over a plastic covered library mystery book. They never bore me and I am always intrigued by the many different locations, characters and methods of murder used by the clever authors. My favorite books are those set in geographical locations I know and love. Virginia Lanier wrote a series of books set in South Georgia with bloodhounds, and their owner, as the heroes of the books. I have been to many of the places she names, have friends who live there and the swamps she describes have indeed been the scene of many crimes. Western North Carolina mountains, New Mexico reservations, New Orleans, Chicago at the turn of the century, New York city in the early nineteen hundreds... I have time traveled to all these places and more as I read mysteries.
Reading mysteries taught me how to look for clues. As I read a mystery, I am not only following the development of plot and character, I am unconsciously scanning the text for the solution to the problem at hand. All good mystery writers know how to make the obvious disappear. The puzzle of a good whodunnit can entertain me, satisfy my bloodthirsty instincts without harm to any living being and has taught me a new way to read the Bible.
It didn’t take long at the seminary for me to discover I would never be a Greek or Hebrew scholar. If you want to read the Bible in its original languages you have to be willing to devote a great deal of time and have some skill in languages. You also have to want to do that. I didn’t and couldn’t. I marvel at those who read the ancient texts in their original languages. There is a texture and depth in the rich languages of the past that I will never know. One word can mean different things. Cultural meanings peculiar to the time in which the text was written elude me because of my limited knowledge. I have to use translations and commentaries to search out the particulars of a text. But I can know in part some of the meaning of the Bible by reading it as a mystery.
As a child spending the summers with my grandma in Virginia, I discovered the Apocrypha in her bookcase upstairs on lazy morning. Nobody ever told me that was a part of the Bible. Judith and Holofernes (now there is a bloodthirsty story for you) and other characters came to life for me as I read through this new piece of the Bible that summer. And it set me to wondering how many more pieces of the Bible have I not yet read. The Bible is a mysterious book full of mystery, puzzles to be put together and puzzles solved. Clues abound and as I read, I look for the truth disguised in story and poetry and song. Blaise Pascal, mathematician and philosopher, must have read the same book I do and found some clues, too. In the front of a mystery book I found this quote and it caught my soul’s eye. I have this taped to my computer now to remind me during Lent to whom I belong and for whom I am searching.

Heat
Light
Fire
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,
Not of philosophers and scholars.
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace,
God of Jesus Christ,
God of Jesus Christ,
My God and Your God...
Blaise Pascal
November 23,1654
Found after his death
on a piece of parchment
sewn into his clothes