moonlight madness morning musings

“And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night.”


It is four twenty in the morning and I am moonstruck. The three quarter moon shone through my bedroom window and I waked to the sounds of Tilly’s yearling son bellowing, and Zeke and Barney carousing in the woods. Phoebe is too deaf and blind to hear much these days so she slept through the outdoor party. I sat on the front porch soaking up the moonlight as I called the dogs home. They came eventually. We sat together enjoying the warm night air, listening to the train passing by down at the river and I was content.
So much happens at night that is invisible, unseen and unheard by my daylight eyes and ears. An alternate parallel universe exists, lives side by side with me and I am mostly unaware of its living, breathing existence... until the dogs insist on my participation. I sit with Barney on one side, Zeke at my feet, and try to see, hear, smell their world. In the woods, I hear rustlings and the dogs sit up, ready to get back to the party. I smell the dusty, dry earth but cannot separate the scents into its different layers. And even though the moonlight is bright, my vision cannot penetrate the night darkness completely. I am a handicapped person in this world, crippled by my physical limitations, unable to maneuver easily in this moonlight madness.
I wish I had the heightened senses of animals so I might see the movement of my spirit, hear the sounds of my soul, smell the presence of God in the wind, follow the invisible tracks of the Holy One in the world around me.



One of the department stores in Louisville used to have Moonlight Madness Sales. The store would stay open until midnight and the bargains were plentiful. Sometimes on our Friday night dates we would stop by Bacon’s on our way home just to check out the sale. You see different people out late at night and you see people differently late at night. A whole night time society exists.... shift workers, nurses, truck drivers, restaurant and hotel staff, police... and most of us never know they are there. It is a world of street lights, quieter voices, empty streets and darkened houses.
I wonder if the people who inhabit the darkness and sleep during the light learn to see more clearly in the night. I wonder if the quieter passages among the sleeping world makes one able to hear God’s voice speaking more distinctly. I wonder if the night time world’s mystery allows God to come for a visit without having to stand in line to be seen or heard.


“There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.”

What is the glory of the moon? A cooler light that never harms, softens the hard edges of bright daylight reality, candlelight of the cosmos, visible in its entirety to the naked eye, mysterious illumination that opens the heart to the unknown, beloved of lovers and poets, a shape changer that shows its full glory in cycles... Moonlight... the stuff of dreams and visions, the blessing of night. Good morning moon.

mercy seat home...

I am a homemaker... a home maker. Some of my most treasured compliments come from people who visit us for the first time and say “This feels like home. Can I come again?” Slipcovers can be washed and the painted coffee table does not need coasters. Under the coffee table are books and games. The two most important games are Chinese Checkers and the Trouble game. Our children played Trouble with their grandma and our grandchildren play Trouble with us. When they are old enough, I will teach them Chinese Checkers just as my grandma taught me. The wood floor can be mopped and the rugs are inexpensive rag and shag. The front door squeaks and the wooden walls like me, not quite perfect. It is a little cluttered with treasures from the past and the furniture all has a story. Our families are remembered in many of the items our rolling stone lives have collected... the huge grain scythe and cradle that Daddy began using as a twelve year old boy hangs in our great room, the blacksmith anvil from Michael’s blacksmith granddaddy sits on our hearth, the friendship quilt created by his grandmother’s girlfriends for her wedding hangs over the dining table, my great-grandfather’s brass fireplace fender sits in front of the fireplace, my grandma’s cut crystal bowl sparkles in the light in the kitchen glass cabinet. And our treasures... the first furniture we bought, an old round table and chairs, sits in the dining room... the old bank clock with Westminster chimes still sings the hours and quarter hours thirty nine years after we bought it... the old upright piano that I had as a child... these tell some of our story of home.
This past week I have been clearing out winter and ushering in spring to our home. I folded all the wool comforters and stored them. Cotton coverlets now wait to be used on the sofa and chairs. Candles have been relocated and renewed. The color yellow, the color of sunshine and butter (two of my favorite things) pops up all around the room in pillows, flowers and flower pots, lemons in bowls. The slipcovers have been changed and some of the rugs removed. Barefoot time is coming and cool wooden floors feel so good to my feet. Soon we will remove the glass panels from the back porch and put in the screens. Windows will be open even though our furnace man cringes at the thought of the humidity and pollen that will come in. It is the only way we can hear the bird song in the morning and smell the crab apple blossoms in the spring. I need to hear and smell and see and taste and touch spring in as many ways as I can. I know how to gather home together, how to gather those who need home, how to make home for my heart and for the hearts of others.
The old hymns we sang...The Home Over There, I Will Sing You a Song... told of faraway homes for the soul. One old hymn, From Every Stormy Wind, has two verses that are my vision of home here on earth. “ From every stormy wind that blows, from every swelling tide of woes, There is a calm, a sure retreat; ‘Tis found beneath the mercy seat. There is a place where spirits blend, where friend holds fellowship with friend, Tho’ sundered far, by faith they meet around one common mercy seat.”
In Exodus 22 I read the description of the mercy seat on the top of the Ark. It was beautiful. Gold cherubim surrounded the mercy seat on the ark of the testimony where God would come to meet with the people. Theologically it was also a place of atonement ( at-one-ness because of recognition and repentance) as well as a place of communion between God and priest. You were safe while God was in the mercy seat. All was known, all was forgiven, all was well. A mercy seat, a place of grace, a place and space in time where one can meet God, meet one’s friends and family, home, sweet home... I am a home maker. I am a mercy seat... a place where God can come rest, speak to me and I can rest and speak to him.

Love Divine and the kitchen sink...

I miss the old hymns. The language, the images, like poetry from another time and place in our Christian history, can be both memory and inspiration. One of my favorites, Love Divine, written by Charles Wesley, was a favorite of our song director Mrs. Morris at Clayattville Baptist Church. It was a little high in spots for most of us but we loved hearing her clear sweet soprano voice hit that e flat. As a child I understood most of the words, all the important ones, and it remains one of the theme songs for my life.
“Love divine, all love excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down!” That exclamation point sets the tone for the whole hymn. Everything that really matters to me is contained in that one phrase. God, who is love beyond our understanding, joy of heaven, came to earth and is still coming to earth. Each of the verses that follow, like a good paragraph, begins with a topic phrase. “Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast!... Come Almighty to deliver, let us all thy life receive;...Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be...”The breath we breathe can become the loving Spirit of God. We can receive new life in love, become a finished new creation, pure and spotless.
The old timers had no problem with asking God’s help, naming how God could help, believing God would help and it was personal. “Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.” Every morning I need to pray this prayer. Like Paul what I would do, I do not do. What I ought to do, I don’t. Those things I shouldn’t do, I do them every time! The deliciousness of doing good and the equal tastiness of doing what I shouldn’t...what a contradiction in being!
Sin is a four letter word for most of us these days but no other word works for me in naming how I fall short of the glory of God. It is a curious paradox that recognition of myself as a sinner sets me free. I do not have to try to be perfect, get it all done, get it all done right, save the world and myself and all the generations to come. I do my part, small though it might be, and leave perfection, perfect Love, up to God. And in letting go of the dream of the perfect me, of being in control of me, I find the beginning and the end of my faith, Alpha and Omega. A heart set at liberty can sing a song of praise and thanksgiving for the wonderful complicated mysterious gift of life.
I think I’ll go play the piano and sing for awhile... let the dishes sit in the sink while I remember where I came from and where I am going.