As I stepped out the front door this morning, Phoebe, Zeke, Barney and the new stray met me, ready for the walk. After passing out treats, we set out through the hayfield. The dogs led the way, following the path worn in the grass. Sabbath Rest Farm is crisscrossed with animal highways, paths worn by deer hooves, racoons, dogs, cats, cows and bears. I am always fascinated with the direction of these pathways.
Some seem to follow the contours of the land, the path of least resistance. Others clearly lead to water or to the woods. Paths that meander with no obvious rhyme or reason intersect other paths and a land jigsaw puzzle emerges. Here a bear beds down. There the deer graze in the field or on the hill below the high barn. The clay path in the high pasture runs near the woods and the cows travel this as they move down the hill.
This morning as I walked, I called the cows to follow me to the low pasture for their feed. Fanny led the way, walking on my heels. As we passed through the gate, she took the lower cow path and I walked through the grass. Junie B came running and settled in next to my shoulder, keeping pace with me. We slipped and slid down the wet red clay hill path to the low pasture and made our way to the feed trough. Everyone found their way with Ferdinand the gentle giant coming up last. The hay I had put out last night was gone so I decided to let them graze the farm today. Our hay supply is running out and the grass is green and growing outside the pastures. I will be leaving for a few days and will need to leave a generous hay supply for the cows so this will help conserve hay. As I walk, I ponder the pathmaking in my life. Like the paths on the farm, the paths in my life often meander without any visible purpose or destination.
This writing path I am walking just happened one day. I had no plan, no dreams of being a writer. The first time I shared what I wrote, I held my breath and prayed "Please don’t let me sound stupid, Lord" as I hit the send button. Some read and asked to be kept on the list. Others asked to be taken off. And it was o.k. The writing path was not to show how smart I was but shows me how to pay attention to God in my life.
The music path, begun as a twelve year old girl who yearned to play the piano, enriches my soul still. I sing and whistle and play the piano. Hymns spring to my lips as I do housework. I hear God singing in the birdsongs that wake me in the morning. Sometimes when I hear just the right music at just the right time, I am lifted up to a higher plane, a place near to the heart of God.
The Christian path continues to grow wider and narrower, steeper and more level, easier and more difficult as I age. As a child I committed my life to the Jesus way and that one decision has informed my life ever since. I have not always been a perfect Christian. I, like Fanny on the steep red clay hill, slip and slide from time to time. But I hold on, grab a branch, straighten up and get back on the path.
This path leads me to God’s heart. Sometimes I catch glimpses of God’s presence on the path much like I catch long distance views of faraway mountains from the Sound of Music hill on the farm. And once in a great while, the Illuminating Effervescent Love surrounds me as I walk in sunlight or shadow. My heart leaps up in joy and I sing praise to my Creator. For sixty one years pathways have twisted and turned, gone to unforseen destinations, led through dark shadows and bright sunlight. Always, always, God has been there. When I could not see or feel the Presence on the path, God was there. I am never alone.
The old hymn says "Sweetly, Lord, have we heard thee calling, Come follow me! And we see where thy footprints falling lead us to thee. Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow. We will follow the steps of Jesus where’er they go." I follow paths created by my brother Jesus and others who have gone before me. And sometimes I find myself on a path of my own creating, carving new patterns into the landscape surrounding my faith. I am often walking through the unknown dark places but I am never alone. Jesus’ footsteps glow in the path I have chosen and I give thanks.
"I will lead the blind in a way they know not, in paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Begin the Begats
My Bible fell open to a series of "begats" this morning. The book is full of family history recited in names. I always wondered why it was so important to record the names of those who had lived and died, one after another. Name after name marches through the pages tracing the history of a people.
Some of those passages provided entertaining reading material back when parents wouldn’t let you take any book but the Bible to church. Did you know Ephraim’s daughter Sheerah built on both Lower and Upper Bethhoron and Uzzensheerah? In the middle of the listing of all the sons and fathers, mothers, daughters and concubine names can be found. All those names, all those families, contain memories of a people’s journey towards God.
Reading the list of begats reminds me that families haven’t changed much through the centuries. Some prospered. Some didn’t. Reuben was the firstborn of Israel but he polluted his father’s couch (isn’t that an interesting detail) so his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph. Some were carried away into exile and others came home. Seled and Jether died childless and Sheshan had only daughters. Jabez, so named because his mother said she bore him in pain, was more honorable than his brothers. There it all is, the good, the bad and the ugly, the story of a family, my family of faith.
I sit here this morning contemplating the list of names for my family and the stories that go with them. We will not be listed in a book read by millions of people nor will our stories survive through thousands of years. My family stories are unique and the same... a paradox that is true for all our family stories. When I tell my children the story of my Grandma’s second sight or how I hated the night time walk to the outhouse, it is my story. You have stories, too, just as interesting and special.
The institutional church, at its best, gives us a place to tell our story. We can be seen and heard, valued for our own special brand of creation. We want to think we are a cut above, someone who stands out in the crowd. Like Jabez, we want to be remembered as more than. The truth is we are also reminded we are not alone or much different from all those who sit beside us in the pews. All of us, even the ones who seem to lead charmed lives free from struggle, have more in common than we know. Some crosses are invisible to the naked eye.
Pauline, the opera singer, and Max, who started an ether factory, begat Irene, Carl, Alvina, Grace and Pauline. Irene, who went to college and became a teacher, and Stuart, a gentle man, begat Margaret, Alvin, his twin who died at birth, and Shirley. Shirley, who worked on the eighth floor in downtown Richmond, married Tommy, a Navy boy from Georgia, and they begat Peggy and Gayle. Peggy, who grew up Baptist, and Michael, a Baptist preacher’s son, begat Megan, Alison and Adam. And the beat goes on... the stories of lives lived well... lives lived with pain and suffering, joy and laughter, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, cousins to the third degree, loss and gain. Who knew the Bible was so southern? It does matter who your people are. We need to tell their story for by so doing, we tell our story too.
Some of those passages provided entertaining reading material back when parents wouldn’t let you take any book but the Bible to church. Did you know Ephraim’s daughter Sheerah built on both Lower and Upper Bethhoron and Uzzensheerah? In the middle of the listing of all the sons and fathers, mothers, daughters and concubine names can be found. All those names, all those families, contain memories of a people’s journey towards God.
Reading the list of begats reminds me that families haven’t changed much through the centuries. Some prospered. Some didn’t. Reuben was the firstborn of Israel but he polluted his father’s couch (isn’t that an interesting detail) so his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph. Some were carried away into exile and others came home. Seled and Jether died childless and Sheshan had only daughters. Jabez, so named because his mother said she bore him in pain, was more honorable than his brothers. There it all is, the good, the bad and the ugly, the story of a family, my family of faith.
I sit here this morning contemplating the list of names for my family and the stories that go with them. We will not be listed in a book read by millions of people nor will our stories survive through thousands of years. My family stories are unique and the same... a paradox that is true for all our family stories. When I tell my children the story of my Grandma’s second sight or how I hated the night time walk to the outhouse, it is my story. You have stories, too, just as interesting and special.
The institutional church, at its best, gives us a place to tell our story. We can be seen and heard, valued for our own special brand of creation. We want to think we are a cut above, someone who stands out in the crowd. Like Jabez, we want to be remembered as more than. The truth is we are also reminded we are not alone or much different from all those who sit beside us in the pews. All of us, even the ones who seem to lead charmed lives free from struggle, have more in common than we know. Some crosses are invisible to the naked eye.
Pauline, the opera singer, and Max, who started an ether factory, begat Irene, Carl, Alvina, Grace and Pauline. Irene, who went to college and became a teacher, and Stuart, a gentle man, begat Margaret, Alvin, his twin who died at birth, and Shirley. Shirley, who worked on the eighth floor in downtown Richmond, married Tommy, a Navy boy from Georgia, and they begat Peggy and Gayle. Peggy, who grew up Baptist, and Michael, a Baptist preacher’s son, begat Megan, Alison and Adam. And the beat goes on... the stories of lives lived well... lives lived with pain and suffering, joy and laughter, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, cousins to the third degree, loss and gain. Who knew the Bible was so southern? It does matter who your people are. We need to tell their story for by so doing, we tell our story too.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Limping towards the Resurrection...
The two sisters stood side by side, once dark hair now moonlight white. They watched as the casket was moved to the grave, both now widows. They had met their husbands during the War, married and lived lives in different states but their sisterhood remained strong. The cousins, Eddie and Ken, whose father had died, and I lined up behind them. There was an empty space, a hole where my sister should have been standing. The four of us had been playmates at Cloverly our beloved grandparents home. The family of my childhood has been diminished in numbers by death.
Aunt Peg, Eddie, Ken, and the grandsons moved to the chairs and the graveside service began. It was simple. There is no room for "theologizing" standing by a grave. The open grave is a stark reminder of the death that awaits all who live. It is as much a part of life as birth. My grandma told me that as we stood by my granddaddy’s casket when I was in my teens. Life lived with other deaths that have come has taught me the truth of her words.
I watched as Mama and Aunt Peg leaned into their sisterhood, remembering good days and hard times long ago, telling each other what to do as sisters will. Aunt Peg, the older sister, loves to worry about her baby sister. And, mama, the baby sister, loves to worry about her older sister. Daily phone calls keep the connection strong and they depend on each other for the ties that bind. I watch them and am swept with grief as I miss my sister. We will not have the sweetness of shared old age memories.
When I woke this morning, my dark bedroom was flooded with moonlight. The full moon was setting in the west, giving light as it settled down behind the mountains. I sat and watched, waiting for my soul to settle with the moon. And as I waited, I remembered the story of Jacob wrestling with the strange man.
Jacob was traveling to meet the brother he had cheated out of a blessing years ago. When they got close to home, he got news that Esau, his brother, was coming to meet him with four hundred men. That scared him a little so he divided his family and possessions so all would not die if Esau was still spoiling for a fight. The night before they were to meet, Jacob couldn’t sleep. He had sent his family away to safety and he was alone. A stranger shows up and somehow they get into a wrestling match. Like so many Bible stories, details are sketchy about how things happen but the outcome of the match is clear. Even after the stranger dislocates his hip, Jacob holds on for dear life and refuses to let the man go without a blessing. Finally the stranger asks his name and delivers a stunning message. "You shall be called Israel because you have striven with God and men and have prevailed." Jacob says, "I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved." As he limped off, here came Esau and the unexpected happy reunion began.
Like Jacob, I am limping a little this morning after struggling with the angel in Richmond this weekend. Like Jacob, glad reunion in the midst of loss balances the scales of life. Like Jacob, I can say I have seen God face to face and my life is not just preserved but I am prepared, made ready for all that is yet to come. Death and life, life and death... both are necessary and cause for rejoicing. In my endings are my beginnings. Nothing can separate me from the God who is Love. I may be limping a little this morning but like Jacob, I am holding on, refusing to let go until I am blessed, on my way to Resurrection.
Aunt Peg, Eddie, Ken, and the grandsons moved to the chairs and the graveside service began. It was simple. There is no room for "theologizing" standing by a grave. The open grave is a stark reminder of the death that awaits all who live. It is as much a part of life as birth. My grandma told me that as we stood by my granddaddy’s casket when I was in my teens. Life lived with other deaths that have come has taught me the truth of her words.
I watched as Mama and Aunt Peg leaned into their sisterhood, remembering good days and hard times long ago, telling each other what to do as sisters will. Aunt Peg, the older sister, loves to worry about her baby sister. And, mama, the baby sister, loves to worry about her older sister. Daily phone calls keep the connection strong and they depend on each other for the ties that bind. I watch them and am swept with grief as I miss my sister. We will not have the sweetness of shared old age memories.
When I woke this morning, my dark bedroom was flooded with moonlight. The full moon was setting in the west, giving light as it settled down behind the mountains. I sat and watched, waiting for my soul to settle with the moon. And as I waited, I remembered the story of Jacob wrestling with the strange man.
Jacob was traveling to meet the brother he had cheated out of a blessing years ago. When they got close to home, he got news that Esau, his brother, was coming to meet him with four hundred men. That scared him a little so he divided his family and possessions so all would not die if Esau was still spoiling for a fight. The night before they were to meet, Jacob couldn’t sleep. He had sent his family away to safety and he was alone. A stranger shows up and somehow they get into a wrestling match. Like so many Bible stories, details are sketchy about how things happen but the outcome of the match is clear. Even after the stranger dislocates his hip, Jacob holds on for dear life and refuses to let the man go without a blessing. Finally the stranger asks his name and delivers a stunning message. "You shall be called Israel because you have striven with God and men and have prevailed." Jacob says, "I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved." As he limped off, here came Esau and the unexpected happy reunion began.
Like Jacob, I am limping a little this morning after struggling with the angel in Richmond this weekend. Like Jacob, glad reunion in the midst of loss balances the scales of life. Like Jacob, I can say I have seen God face to face and my life is not just preserved but I am prepared, made ready for all that is yet to come. Death and life, life and death... both are necessary and cause for rejoicing. In my endings are my beginnings. Nothing can separate me from the God who is Love. I may be limping a little this morning but like Jacob, I am holding on, refusing to let go until I am blessed, on my way to Resurrection.
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