I am a home maker... Home, how it looks, how it feels to the family and friends, has always been important to me. Even when we were poor as church mice, I visited wallpaper discount stores, rummaged through bins of fabric, bought returned paint and mixed new colors, sewed curtains and pillows and roman shades, pulled up filthy carpet and polished the wooden floor underneath, used cloth napkins and place mats for everyday meals. I needed the physical surroundings to reflect the home I wanted to come into being.
I have had some wonderful teachers in the art of home making. My mother taught me the basic skill set... how to set a table, how to clean the house, how to wash and iron clothes, how to can and freeze vegetables, how to be a part of a family in one house sharing life together. Mary Lynn, my Cherokee work camp mom, taught me how to cook for a crowd and to always have flowers on the table even if you are only eating beans and franks. Celeste taught me the art of entertaining, making your house and table settings gleam like jewels, providing food and comfort that draws people out of themselves into a safe haven.
Home making as a career choice is not well paid, does not have status or a benefit package. In some circles it is seen as a cop out from the real world. And yet, we all long for home, for what home has meant to us or the dream of home that we did not have. Whether we live in a studio apartment or a palatial house, home is separate from the square footage of our living space.
Last week I spent a morning getting the farmhouse home ready for a gathering of ministers. They will be meeting here once a month for the next year taking time for respite and growth at Sabbath Rest Farm. I moved Diane’s furniture around and added chairs, made dried flower arrangements, placed candles to light. Diane provided welcome and coffee the morning they arrived and they have a home now for their group. One night this week a friend’s visiting family came to our house for dessert and coffee. A fire in the fireplace, candles lit, coffee, tea and a mayonnaise cake made by a family member, conversation around the table, laughter and stories... home away from home flickered into being. This weekend Alison, our daughter, will be bringing some of her young mother’s group from her church in Greensboro home for a weekend retreat, time away from children and chores. Pop will cook his famous Lemon Chicken for supper and pancakes for breakfast. There will be clean sheets on the beds and fresh towels, bubble bath and time for walks, horseback riding and donkey petting, egg gathering and sitting by the fire, hugs enough to go around and firelight, Mexican Train Dominos and nap time if you need it. Home...
Sometimes visitors will say how much they love coming here... it feels like home... it reminds me of going to my grandma’s home to visit...it is such a comfortable place... These words make my heart sing. The housecleaning, cutting the grass, scrubbing the tubs and toilets, arranging the flowers, setting the table and cooking the food, lighting the candles, all that work of preparation has been worth it. They feel the heart of home when they are here, the welcome, the joy, the grace we say over being able to share some of what we have been given.
In Psalms I read, “God gives the desolate a home to dwell in”. And in John I read, “I will not leave you desolate...If you love me, you will keep my word, and my Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you”. If I do the housekeeping, the preparation, get my heart ready, God will come and make himself (and herself) at home with me. I need never leave home to find God. All I have to do is love God enough to provide a welcoming space, a place where the Heart of God can rest... “There is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God”. Today I will hold a quiet loving place of rest in my heart for You, O God. You are welcome and I want You to live in my heart’s home. May we both find home with each other today.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Farm time... short time
All of a sudden, overnight it seems, it is dark in the morning when we wake up...not dark with light around the edges but really dark, like the middle of the night dark. The rooster, Cock a Doodle Doo, is crowing later. I can’t gauge the time by the amount of light spilling over the mountain ridge. This discombobulating process is akin to jet lag and always comes as a surprise to me even though I have seen it happen year after year. Darkness sneaks up on me. It is a part of farm time.
Farm time is different from any other way of measuring time for me. Farm time has a rhythm that is connected to nature and its time schedule. It allows you to stop what you are doing to chat with your neighbor who just drove up while you were outside splitting wood. You spend your time off mowing, teddering, raking and baling hay because your cows will need to eat this winter. Living by farm time gives you moments to set a spell and watch the little band of six does and fawns that walk through your front yard to the hay field to graze. The bear that walks down the road by the farmhouse is living on farm time and the mama duck setting on her eggs has a farm time schedule.
The connection to Nature’s time table keeps me grounded (yes, Thad, I mean that pun) in more ways than one. I do literally stand on hallowed ground, ground made holy by the generations of farmers before us who walked these fields, depended on them for their daily bread. Before them there were the Indians whose lives were lived by the creek that runs through our farm. We still find remnants of their tool making when we plow the ground.
All of those who came before me know what I know. Our time on this piece of God’s earth is limited. We are what my daddy called “short timers”. And as short timers, we need to look around us and savor the wonderful gifts of the land we take for granted. Even if we live in the city, we are surrounded by little miracles we take for granted... the rising and setting of the sun, rain storms and cloud formations, the changing of the seasons.
Most of us live our lives insulated from our outdoors by air conditioners to cool us that require us to keep the doors and windows closed, invisible heat that flows through duct work to keep us warm without having to split wood or build a fire, food that arrives in bags from the grocery store that we neither grew nor preserved, Walt Disney animals that are sanitized for human consumption, light that appears with the flip of a switch. We forget how to live connected to the natural world around us. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that if we were required to live on farm time, outdoors everyday for some work and play time, our lives would change in some fundamental ways.
My life has changed since I began living on farm time. Sara Miles in her book Take This Bread ,speaks of her life as a Eucharistic life, one of gratitude, a good description of how I now live. When we have dusty roads and dry fields, I rejoice in the rain. The bear sitting on Tim and Jeannie’s porch becomes an occasion for the neighbors to gather and wonder about the bear’s life. The barn full of good hay put up with the help of neighbors and other friends causes me to sing a song of thanksgiving. Canned tomatoes, beautiful red jars gleaming in the mason jars, bring visions of winter time soups and I give thanks for the harvest. I, who had a small extended family of origin, now say grace over meals shared with a large family. This family loves and cares for me in ways that take my breath away and I am grateful. My little church community values my gifts and forgives my inadequacies. God is in heaven and even though all is not right in this world, all is well and all shall be made well if we but remember to be grateful in our living.
Farm time... short time... to every thing there is a season the Bible says. So as I enter this season of darkness, I give thanks for the memory of light past and choose to live hopefully knowing the light will come again. Thanks be to God for all time, my time, your time, the times of our lives. Amen.
Farm time is different from any other way of measuring time for me. Farm time has a rhythm that is connected to nature and its time schedule. It allows you to stop what you are doing to chat with your neighbor who just drove up while you were outside splitting wood. You spend your time off mowing, teddering, raking and baling hay because your cows will need to eat this winter. Living by farm time gives you moments to set a spell and watch the little band of six does and fawns that walk through your front yard to the hay field to graze. The bear that walks down the road by the farmhouse is living on farm time and the mama duck setting on her eggs has a farm time schedule.
The connection to Nature’s time table keeps me grounded (yes, Thad, I mean that pun) in more ways than one. I do literally stand on hallowed ground, ground made holy by the generations of farmers before us who walked these fields, depended on them for their daily bread. Before them there were the Indians whose lives were lived by the creek that runs through our farm. We still find remnants of their tool making when we plow the ground.
All of those who came before me know what I know. Our time on this piece of God’s earth is limited. We are what my daddy called “short timers”. And as short timers, we need to look around us and savor the wonderful gifts of the land we take for granted. Even if we live in the city, we are surrounded by little miracles we take for granted... the rising and setting of the sun, rain storms and cloud formations, the changing of the seasons.
Most of us live our lives insulated from our outdoors by air conditioners to cool us that require us to keep the doors and windows closed, invisible heat that flows through duct work to keep us warm without having to split wood or build a fire, food that arrives in bags from the grocery store that we neither grew nor preserved, Walt Disney animals that are sanitized for human consumption, light that appears with the flip of a switch. We forget how to live connected to the natural world around us. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that if we were required to live on farm time, outdoors everyday for some work and play time, our lives would change in some fundamental ways.
My life has changed since I began living on farm time. Sara Miles in her book Take This Bread ,speaks of her life as a Eucharistic life, one of gratitude, a good description of how I now live. When we have dusty roads and dry fields, I rejoice in the rain. The bear sitting on Tim and Jeannie’s porch becomes an occasion for the neighbors to gather and wonder about the bear’s life. The barn full of good hay put up with the help of neighbors and other friends causes me to sing a song of thanksgiving. Canned tomatoes, beautiful red jars gleaming in the mason jars, bring visions of winter time soups and I give thanks for the harvest. I, who had a small extended family of origin, now say grace over meals shared with a large family. This family loves and cares for me in ways that take my breath away and I am grateful. My little church community values my gifts and forgives my inadequacies. God is in heaven and even though all is not right in this world, all is well and all shall be made well if we but remember to be grateful in our living.
Farm time... short time... to every thing there is a season the Bible says. So as I enter this season of darkness, I give thanks for the memory of light past and choose to live hopefully knowing the light will come again. Thanks be to God for all time, my time, your time, the times of our lives. Amen.
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