I sat on the porch with Barney and Rufus this morning watching the full moon, wreathed in mist, set over the far mountains. As the moon set, the sun was beginning to rise across another ridge in the east. A moment of mystery and grace, unseen most days of my life, the rising and setting of our two beautiful sources of light in this world, gave my soul joy this morning. Full moon nights keep Barney busy barking and one of us yelling “Barney, dammit” at least once from the bedroom window. But in the quiet hush of night light setting and day light rising, there was only gratitude and joy in the company of Rufus and Barney. They sat on either side, gazing into the mysterious grey half light darkness seeing and hearing what is invisible to me... the stirrings of life in the darkness.
Lent has lingered overlong this year. In the midst of the journey towards the cross, there have been reminders of life’s limits all around. Friends with cancer, friends with old age illness and approaching death, the spreading of a beloved child’s ashes, parents of friends dying, recognition of changes in my own body that signal a new era, all stirrings in the darkness that encompasses the light of life. As I sit on my soul’s front porch, I ponder the workings of God in all darkness and light.
There are days when I wonder how God could be present in a world filled with suffering and loss. Genocide, children starving, wars and rumors of wars, pirates and terrorists fill me with fear and loathing leaving no room for gratitude or grace. Then, I remember an ad I heard with a little girl’s voice saying “Pray your worries.” Instead of lying awake listing all that is wrong or hurtful, pray your worries. So I resolve to give the gifts I have been given and leave the care of the world in God’s hands. I am not God. In spite of all that is wrong, I do believe God is at work in our world today just as God was working in the world through Jesus two thousand years ago.
As I pray my worries, I remember to give thanks for all I have been given and to do so without smearing false guilt over my thank you’s like jelly on bread. When I have given someone a gift, I despise hearing the words “You shouldn’t have...” as if protesting the intentions of the giver make the gift more acceptable. Somehow I think God would prefer songs of thanksgiving instead of a Judas song that says we are wasteful and others have more need than us. I have been given much, all that I need and most of what I want. I am grateful. Stirrings in the darkness...
Easter comes as a liturgical explosion of light, new life, and new beginnings during the season of spring, itself an explosion of color and new life. Like the little sparrow who has built a nest in my grapevine wreath on the porch, I flutter my wings and fuss, not at people who pass by, but at the darkness. I know there is life beyond the light I can see and I want the meanings of the darkness revealed. The mystery remains, though, and I must live with Easter darkness by faith, gazing with the eyes of faith into the night that remains. So I pray for those who suffer, for those who have died or are dying, for those who walk this world without the gifts I have been given. And I give thanks daily for my life and my place here in the midst of plenty... plenty of food, plenty of beauty, plenty of love, plenty of home and plenty of God. Easter darkness, Easter light...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Horse Poop, Easter Egg Hunts and Lent
The farm is ringed round with dark clouds in the distance telling the tale of snow coming soon. The wind makes the tops of the tall oak trees bend and sway, limbs bumping into each other as the winter front roars its way towards us. I walked down to the stables this morning leaning into the wind, enjoying the warmth that remains as the gray clouds begin to cover our skies. As I shoveled out horse poop from the stalls, I began to reflect on yesterday’s Easter Egg Hunt and Lent. Strange combination, perhaps but my mind goes bumpty bump when I am doing physical labor.
Everyday, without fail, I must rake out the old used up sawdust and poop so that fresh bedding is available for Junie B and Dixie Chick. If the dirty sawdust is left in the stalls, it turns rancid and acidic. It hurts the horses hooves and the smell will make them sick. They must be stalled at night in spring time to prevent their overeating the tender spring grass that is so high in sugar. Junie B will eat herself into oblivion if she is not kept in her stall. Too much weight and she will founder, be lame and unable to be ridden. So I shovel poop and think.
I do these same tasks...shovel poop in the stalls, rake and clean the paddock, put out hay, check the water, give the donkeys and horses feed, brush and groom them for a little while each day. If it is morning, I am in the stable tending to the horses and donkeys. In the evening I put them up and give them hay and water for the night. It is a labor of love... love for them and for who I am when I am with them. Why, I wonder, is it so hard for me to do the same for God... to walk down to the place where God lives in my heart, rake out the garbage, tend to my surroundings and feed my soul?
Lent, the liturgical equivalent of stall cleaning, gives me a push to establish (again) a pattern of paying attention to God, feeding and tending my relationship with the One who loves me just because I am, not because of what I do. And yet, what I do matters. So yesterday, the Egg Hunt day, was an opportunity to do something old in a new way. Old patterns are gone. The routine had changed and something new was hatched at Sabbath Rest Farm on this Palm Sunday.
Families came from Cara’s first grade class, children in tow. It didn’t take long for the kids to begin running the length and breadth of the green hills, tumbling like young puppies at play. I met a young father recovering from back surgery, a builder and lover of wood. He grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York. I loved hearing his stories of farm life.
Ganadhi and Natalyia, their three children and Celeste came. Celeste was wearing her daffodil hat and Natalyia brought Moldovan food... wonderful cucumber cabbage dill slaw and stuffed grape leaves and chocolate cookies to die for. Did you know there is a Russian grocery on Patton Avenue? Ganadhi told me how to tell the difference between rooster chicks and hen chicks. Who knew hen feet flop down and rooster feet turn up? At the end of the afternoon, Ganadhi received a phone call telling him of his father’s approaching death far away. He will suffer this great loss far away from his family, unable to return to his birth country of Moldova. Four pre-teens flopped in the hammock, dragging the ground as they tried to swing. The hay ride filled with children and parents squealing and laughing. Neighbors came, some with their grandchildren. Junie B stood patiently as little children climbed on her back only to say, “It’s so high up!” Three of our grandchildren, dressed in look-a-like shirts, carrying their Easter baskets, looking for eggs, mouths smeared with chocolate, fell asleep in the car on their way home to Lewisville, tuckered out from all the excitement.
Michael estimated seventy five or eighty people came and many of them for the first time. What a gift of grace for me yesterday. How could I have not seen the possibilities for relationship with my larger community before? So many from so many different places... so much good food and so much laughter... so much celebration of new life at the end of a hard winter. I am pondering how to continue this new tradition... how to find those who would love to take a Kawasaki mule ride roller coastering up and down hills, sit in warm sun and cloud gaze, go for a creek walk and look for pretty rocks, pet the horses and laugh at the donkeys. Sabbath Rest hospitality for new friends, my hometown, my Easter gift one week early... Thanks be to God. And thanks for those kitchen friends who stayed to help clean up. It looked better after than before!
Everyday, without fail, I must rake out the old used up sawdust and poop so that fresh bedding is available for Junie B and Dixie Chick. If the dirty sawdust is left in the stalls, it turns rancid and acidic. It hurts the horses hooves and the smell will make them sick. They must be stalled at night in spring time to prevent their overeating the tender spring grass that is so high in sugar. Junie B will eat herself into oblivion if she is not kept in her stall. Too much weight and she will founder, be lame and unable to be ridden. So I shovel poop and think.
I do these same tasks...shovel poop in the stalls, rake and clean the paddock, put out hay, check the water, give the donkeys and horses feed, brush and groom them for a little while each day. If it is morning, I am in the stable tending to the horses and donkeys. In the evening I put them up and give them hay and water for the night. It is a labor of love... love for them and for who I am when I am with them. Why, I wonder, is it so hard for me to do the same for God... to walk down to the place where God lives in my heart, rake out the garbage, tend to my surroundings and feed my soul?
Lent, the liturgical equivalent of stall cleaning, gives me a push to establish (again) a pattern of paying attention to God, feeding and tending my relationship with the One who loves me just because I am, not because of what I do. And yet, what I do matters. So yesterday, the Egg Hunt day, was an opportunity to do something old in a new way. Old patterns are gone. The routine had changed and something new was hatched at Sabbath Rest Farm on this Palm Sunday.
Families came from Cara’s first grade class, children in tow. It didn’t take long for the kids to begin running the length and breadth of the green hills, tumbling like young puppies at play. I met a young father recovering from back surgery, a builder and lover of wood. He grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York. I loved hearing his stories of farm life.
Ganadhi and Natalyia, their three children and Celeste came. Celeste was wearing her daffodil hat and Natalyia brought Moldovan food... wonderful cucumber cabbage dill slaw and stuffed grape leaves and chocolate cookies to die for. Did you know there is a Russian grocery on Patton Avenue? Ganadhi told me how to tell the difference between rooster chicks and hen chicks. Who knew hen feet flop down and rooster feet turn up? At the end of the afternoon, Ganadhi received a phone call telling him of his father’s approaching death far away. He will suffer this great loss far away from his family, unable to return to his birth country of Moldova. Four pre-teens flopped in the hammock, dragging the ground as they tried to swing. The hay ride filled with children and parents squealing and laughing. Neighbors came, some with their grandchildren. Junie B stood patiently as little children climbed on her back only to say, “It’s so high up!” Three of our grandchildren, dressed in look-a-like shirts, carrying their Easter baskets, looking for eggs, mouths smeared with chocolate, fell asleep in the car on their way home to Lewisville, tuckered out from all the excitement.
Michael estimated seventy five or eighty people came and many of them for the first time. What a gift of grace for me yesterday. How could I have not seen the possibilities for relationship with my larger community before? So many from so many different places... so much good food and so much laughter... so much celebration of new life at the end of a hard winter. I am pondering how to continue this new tradition... how to find those who would love to take a Kawasaki mule ride roller coastering up and down hills, sit in warm sun and cloud gaze, go for a creek walk and look for pretty rocks, pet the horses and laugh at the donkeys. Sabbath Rest hospitality for new friends, my hometown, my Easter gift one week early... Thanks be to God. And thanks for those kitchen friends who stayed to help clean up. It looked better after than before!
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