The earth is the Lord's... and mine too

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…
I’ve been reading Wendell Berry poetry again letting my soul fill up. This man reminds me of all the men and women I knew growing up for whom the land was both work and play. In my reading this morning one poem called my name.
BELOW
Above the trees and the rooftops
is the range of symbols:
banner, cross, star;
air war, the mode of those
who live by symbols, the pure
abstraction of travel by air.
Here a spire holds up
An angel with trump and wings;
He’s in his element.
Another lifts a hand
with forefinger pointing up
to admonish that all’s not here.
All’s not. But I aspire
downward. Flyers embrace
the air, and I’m a man
who needs something to hug.
All my dawns cross the horizon
and rise, from underfoot.
What I stand for
Is what I stand on.
This week I have stood on fields rowed by golden hay shining in the sun, smelling sweet and clean. Standing on top of the trailer high with hay bales, I see the hillside pasture with bull, horses and donkeys surrounded by pines and briars. Walking to the stable in the early morning dew, the morning mist lingers in the valleys as the sun rises behind a pink rimmed cloud. The spring fed red clay muck sucks my shoes off and I squish my toes in the mud, a guilty pleasure of childhood once again mine. I pull weeds from the flowerbeds gloveless and black dirt rims my fingernails. What I stand for, I do indeed stand on and I give thanks for farm, family and friends.

If I Could Save Time In A Bottle...

If I could save time in a bottle… I would save the smell of new mown hay ruffled across the hills in sunlight. The sound of an old timer’s chuckle and a baby giggle, Appalachian Spring playing and dancers dancing, and Junie B’s good morning nicker would be in my bottle. I would save the smell of babies sweet from their baths frosted with lotion and love. The taste of mama’s fried chicken and Dairy Queen Soft Serve ice cream topped with a chocolate shell, Silver Queen corn on the cob straight from daddy’s garden, the first new potatoes soft and creamy melt in your mouth deliciousness would be in my bottle, too. The feelings of freedom and jubilation that were a part of my baptism, part of my music, part of my sacred dance, part of my art and writing… the times I feel God looking over my shoulder, lifting me up in a leap, guiding and applauding and loving me… These would go in my bottle.
Obituaries are one way we try to keep time in a bottle, I think. Our newspaper no longer provides free obituaries, just a one line death notice. The rise of lengthy obituaries, small short stories, combined with newspapers downsizing community news (no more cooking sections or news from the different small communities in the county, no more pictures of small boys holding up the large mouth bass they caught in Papaw’s pond) is an interesting irony for me. If we cannot have news of our neighbors daily lives that is not murder and mayhem, we can have an obituary that tells the stories of our lives even if we have to pay for it.
The Psalmist sings,” My times are in thy hand…Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love “.God is saving the times of our lives in the bottle of being that surrounds us in grace and mercy all the days of our lives. And when the times of our lives come to an end on earth, the time of our life is just beginning…
Thanks to Jim Croce for the song “If I Could Save Time In A Bottle…