Life abundant and free...

The cleomes are a frowsy, stalky jungle in late summer and early fall. Their blooms begin at the bottom and climb to the top leaving a heaping helping of seeds behind. They really should be cut back but I haven’t the heart to do it yet. Every morning when I walk down the back steps to the stable, the remaining blooms are covered with honey bees and bumble bees, and their buzzing song is my morning doxology. 

The women from College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro were at the farm this weekend for a retreat. They are a mixed bag as most church groups are...young and  old, single and married, various colors... and a wonderfully motley crew. At night, Michael and I would lie in bed and listen to the humming and buzzing coming from the living room. Laughter was frequent and food and wine were in abundant supply. 

This morning I listened to a sad and disturbing report about the state of our world...global warming, the death of some species of birds because of the changing climate...and my heart wept for this grand old Mother Earth who is struggling to maintain our home in spite of our carelessness. We have been given so much...bee songs, bird songs, the rain songs on tin roofs, the crickets singing, bullfrog croak songs, donkey heehaws and rooster crowing, windsong in the trees and grasses...life abundant and free surrounds us and we do not seem to see or care to protect this most precious gift. 

It is overwhelming to consider the vastness of the problem and I feel helpless. I am not. I can leave the cleomes until there are no more blooms. I can recycle. I can limit my trips to town. I can hang clothes out to dry. I can turn out lights. I can use cloth napkins. I can open my home and our farm to those who live in cities so they can hear and taste and feel this wonderful creation in a new way. I must remember I am not in charge of the whole earth, just my small part of it. And like pennies in a piggy bank, small acts multiplied can fill the earth with saving graces.

The life of honey and laughter, faith and doubt, joy and sorrow is abundant and free but it will cost a fortune requiring your undivided living in the present. Pay attention. God is right in front of us and we often pass by with our heads tilted downward looking at machines and listening to faraway voices. 

Dear One, thank you for this most amazing gift of life. It is a short span of time but wonderful and terrifying in its abundance. Help me not to take it for granted. Keep me walking in your light so I may see clearly your presence in all that surrounds me. I give thanks for death for it is in endings that new beginnings come. And as winter approaches and life goes underground, keep my memory of abundant life fresh so I may have hope for the new life yet to come. Amen.

Eternal life... Love that will not let you go

The gene pool is a lovely swimming hole for a grandparent. You are a child again in many ways... fun with limited responsibility. This week I have been given glimpses into the eternal life that is passed on from generation to generation. Our oldest daughter and her husband had an oops baby, a girl after three boys, named Maddie. At nearly two, her pictures are eerily reminiscent of her mother’s pictures at that age. She has begun feeling the tags in her clothes, holding onto them as she moves through her day. Her mom felt the tags in her pajamas as she went to sleep at night. Alison, our middle daughter, has my grandmother’s mouth. When you look at a picture of Grandma as a young woman, you can see the likeness. Now Aidan, her oldest son, bears the mark of a great-great-grandmother he never knew. Adam, our son, has two sons and his youngest son seems to have his father’s temperament. When Clancy’s eyes light up and he smiles at me, years fall away and it is Adam smiling at me through the mists of memory.These glimpses of the past paid forward into the future have been a joy and a wonder. 

In spite of all we know about the science of life, there is so much more we do not know. It seems to me we are a many layered creation, designed to surprise God perhaps, much as we are surprised by our children and grandchildren. When one takes the long view, the ever changing nature of humankind is a delight and a worry at the same time. My grandparent’s generation faced challenges and changes that shifted the balance of the world as they knew it. And, they changed in response to world wars, industrialization, horses to cars, telephones and televisions. Yet the basics, the essentials of self, are still being transmitted, passed on down to new creations in children they could only imagine.Along with behavior patterns and look a like characteristics, I wonder what else is passed down through the generations. 

Traditions help keep the past a part of our present in our family...saying grace at meals, lining upon the stairs to come down for Christmas gifts, going to church, farm time, story telling time, birthday celebrations. Each unit in our family has their own interpretation of traditions, a new creation based on their shared past experiences. One thing I hope never changes... the love that calls us together as family, that binds us together in good times and hard times, the love that is connected to the underground river of love that flows through all creation.

Cynthia Bourgeault describes this love beautifully in “The Wisdom Jesus”. “Even with death waiting in the wings, Jesus will allow no separation between God and humans, no separation between humans and humans, because the sap flowing through everything is love itself. In image after image he tries to impart to the disciples his assurance that they can never be cut off from this love, because their very beings are rooted in it.” The Psalmist sings, “For the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” 

I have been wading hip deep in love all my life, Lord, even when I didn’t know it. Thank you for my gift of life that came through the years of others loving. Thank you for the years of loving yet to come in our family. Most of all, thank you for the Love that does not let me go, the Love that endures through all generations. Amen.

Old woman, old donkey, new tricks

I thought I was losing what little mind I had left. Three mornings this week I walked down to the stable to find Shirley standing in the door of the donkey stall. Usually I put her up at night in the stall and leave Kate outside. If I put them both in together, they spend much of the night kicking each other and walking in circles. With Shirley in the stall, Kate stays close by and the problem of all night binge eating is solved… until this week.

 Routine is both savior and hobgoblin for my mind. If I do the same thing the same way every time, I begin to forget whether I have actually done it or not. So I blamed Shirley’s freedom on my absentmindedness until it happened three days in a row. Yesterday, a Eureka moment, I realized Kate had learned a new trick… how to lift the door latch and set Shirley free!  Old donkeys and old women can still learn and what a surprise that is!

Like Kate, I have been learning some new lessons this season. Cleaning out my closet for summer has become a metaphor for my life as I age. Bag after bag of clothing, loved in its time, culled from shelves and hangers, is on its way to a thrift shop. Some of the clothes I kept are old and have meaning beyond covering my body… old overalls, dresses worn to childrens’ weddings, my favorite jeans, a sweater my great-aunt Polly knitted for me… and some just no longer look good on me or I have tired of them. My closet is still full and there is no shortage of choices, but choosing is less complicated when I can see what my choices are.

One of the great gifts of aging for those who choose to welcome the gift, is the exploration of wisdom that comes as we begin to clean out the closets of our lives. We make choices about what has meaning, what suits us, what is no longer necessary, what to keep and what to let go of. I am making choices based on the reality of my limits, not the endless possibilities of youth, and it is exhilarating. Much like Kate learning to set her mother Shirley free, I am learning to set myself free from old patterns and once valuable restraints.

My reading this week has been a book, Wisdom Jesus, written by Cynthia Bourgeault.  One paragraph highlighted a closet keeper of mine, tears. “At any rate, I have often suspected that the most profound product of this world is tears…I mean that tears express that vulnerability in which we can endure having our heart broken and go right on loving. In the tears flows a sweetness not of our own making, which has been known in our tradition as the Divine Mercy. Our jagged and hard-edged earth plane is the realm in which this mercy is the most deeply, excruciatingly, and beautifully released. That’s our business down here. That’s what we’re here for.” One does justice, an action. Mercy, the gift I experience most fully in my relationship with God, is undeserved love and compassion accompanied frequently by tears in the midst of jagged and hard-edged times.

Have mercy on me, God whom I love, as I clean out the clutter that keeps me from seeing you more clearly, loving you more dearly. I am a creature of habit and sometimes my habits keep me in the stall where it is safe and comfortable. Set me free, Lord, to be mercy for myself and mercy for others, your faithful daughter in loving kindness. And if I cry, Lord, at odd times, help me see my tears as your sweetness bubbling up and over. Thank you for all the ways you are present in my life, seen and unseen.

Memorial day...mysteries, mercies and hallelujahs

Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.                       -Mary Oliver

One of the good gifts of being old(er) is being able to look back, while still looking forward, to survey the topographical map of your life.  We all have mountains, hills and valleys, green pastures and rushing waters in our lives along with deserts and dark nights of the soul. Some of us come to trouble and grief earlier than others. Some seem to have more than their fair share of the table set before us all. All of us have choices to make even in the midst of a maze that seems to have no end, or worse, a bad ending.  During my quiet times this week… washing dishes, mucking stalls, sitting in the doctor’s office, driving to town to teach… three words kept circling the drain in my ADD brain… mysteries, mercies and hallelujahs.

My life is full of mysteries. These are not the kind of mysteries you can solve like a murder mystery or a   problem that has a solution. These mysteries come from deep within and without, leaving me with more questions than answers as all good mysteries do. John Jacob Niles’ Christmas carol, I Wonder as I Wander, is a word picture of my life.

 I made Death’s acquaintance early on when my husband was killed in Viet Nam the month I turned twenty one. That mystery, rooted in my childhood and adolescence, ejected me into a world where there were no easy answers.  This world of grief tempered by joy, a world of grace and mercy, was my entry into the reality of lost control. Never before had I needed God and God’s bodies in this world like I needed them then. And, God came. God came weeping, with others who loved Tim and me, the young officer who escorted his body home, Walt and MaryLynn and the work camp family, the words of my favorite hymn…O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. God came in the dark days after the funeral in remembered words from the Bible… Be of good courage, the Comforter will come, fear no evil in the valley of the shadow of death… and again in the Family of God, my aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in the faith who held me in the light as I walked in darkness.

I look back now and see mercies, small and large, surrounded me not only in those days, but all the days of my life. Tim’s death gave me new eyes to see and ears to hear the endless river of grace and mercy flowing through my life. It was that unwanted baptism by fire that shoved me into the waters of life.  I was lifted up by the water wings of love and a new faith, a tender and severe mercy, as I began a life much different from the one I dreamed of. This new life was filled with more mysteries, mercies and hallelujahs.

Only now am I able to see how these mysteries, mercies and hallelujahs are entwined. When I had to accept a world that I could not control, a world that did not revolve around me, my eyes were opened to mystery upon mystery, world without end. None of these could be explained…Why do good people die young? Why does spring lift our hearts at the same time it saddens us? Where do babies really come from?...and it is good not to have all the answers. Having no control, I am forced to recognize the mercies that fill my life… health, Sabbath Rest Farm, family, friends, the sweet smell of newly baled hay, animals I love who love me back… and knowing these are a gift, I give thanks. Gratitude leads to hallelujahs for what good is a gift without an enthusiastic thank you?

 And I am back to the Buechner quote that started me thinking. “Thus you do not solve the mystery, you live the mystery. And you do that not by fully knowing yourself, but by fully being yourself. To say that God is a mystery is to say that you can never nail him down. Even on Christ the nails ultimately proved ineffective.” Hallelujah, amen!

 

Guinea Hens...

GrandMary always knew we were coming before she saw our car. The guinea hens would sound the alarm, running and flying and squawking and raising a loud hullabaloo. It didn’t take much to set them off so they were not always reliable watchbirds.

Guinea hens are beautiful birds... black and white speckled with a touch of red in their combs. But beauty is as beauty does because they set the standard for the definition of birdbrain. Tiny heads, tinier brain...Every year about this time, I consider getting some guinea hens for one reason only... they eat ticks and we have an abundant crop this spring. Then I remember how they sound, the desire fades and I continue to pick ticks off the dogs and myself as usual. Remembering those pesky guinea hens prompted me to think about other watchbirds in my life. I have three guinea hen birds that protect and nourish my soul. 

The first one is reading. I have a passion for words, their meaning, the stories they tell, the source from whence they spring and the wisdom that is contained in all writing. I have read great works and science fiction and mysteries and romance and sacred books. The first book I read in school, “Dick and Jane”, excited me as much as the book I just finished, “The Ecstatic Journey” by Sophy Burnham. Words, flawed and imperfect as they are, have power and possibility for the soul.

The second watchbird is creativity. I was the child who picked flowers for the table, drew endlessly, taught myself to sew so I could sew my own clothes, went back to college in my fifties just to take all the art classes I missed the first time around. Calligraphy, Zentangles, painting, drawing, sewing, writing... all lead me to a holy ground where God waits for me. It is my burning bush.

Hospitality is my third guinea hen. More often than not, God and angels show up when we have company, invited and uninvited. This weekend, children from College Park Baptist church in Greensboro are here with us at Sabbath Rest Farm. They are in awe at the “millions” of tadpoles in the syrup kettle, struck by the utter blackness of a cloudy night in the country, giggling with glee as they see chickens and gather eggs, conquering their fear and letting Junie B and Dixie take treats from their palms, running pell mell down the gravel road shouting their freedom from the usual. As our two very different worlds are shared in this hospitable place, I see and hear God in their joy. It is a lovely hostess gift, this joy, and my heart sings.

The ancient prophet Jeremiah was a watchbird for his people, trying to remind them to whom they belonged and what was required of them. One of my favorite verses, Jeremiah 6:16, says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls.’”

Keep me close, Lord, so I might hear the guinea hens when they sound the alarm that calls me to come see You pass by on the good way. And give me a generous heart, Lord, so that I might share all that I am and have when you come calling as children and guests and unexpected company. I love you. Peggy

Lentangle IV...Are ye able?

The Journey to Jerusalem passage I have been reading this week is the story of sibling rivalry among the disciples. Two of the disciples, brothers, got to talking and decided they deserved to sit on either side of Jesus in his glory. So, they caught Jesus off to the side and asked if he would do something for them. He, like any good parent, asked what it was they wanted before he committed himself to the unknown. They laid their request out and Jesus’ response was …You don’t know what you are talking about… and then a question…Are you able to drink my cup and be baptized as I will be? By then the others caught on to what was happening and got ticked at James and John. Jesus had a family meeting and laid out the rules. Those who would be first or greatest, must be servant to all. No lording it over your brothers and sisters.

One of the old hymns drawn from this passage was a favorite invitation song at Clyattville Baptist Church. “Are ye able, said the Master?” Most of us, myself included, subscribe to the notion that we are indeed able. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, most of the time, I live with the illusion of being in control, able. We live as if our long term care insurance can stave off the fate that awaits us in our old age. Our children will all grow up without struggle or pain to become loving, kind geniuses who will change the world into a better place because we are able parents. My faith will provide all I need in times of trial and I will triumph eventually because I am an able Christian. Tarzan chest thumping accompanied by the proudly spoken words, “I am able” echo James and John’s response to Jesus’ question. And like them, we know not whereof we speak.

One of my Grandma’s favorite sayings was, “Pride goeth before a fall”. Often when all is going well in my life, I hear her voice in my inner ear reminding me not to get too cocky, not to believe in the illusion of my control, not to think I am the master of my fate. Walk humbly, the prophet said, not ably. Walk aware that you are not the center of the universe and have no business lording it over all your brothers and sisters. All of life, trials and tribulations, laughter and joy, accomplishments and failures, are a gift and not a result of our ableness, our abilities, our control.

On this lovely sunny daffy down dilly spring day, my heart leaps in joy, Lord, towards you. In my ignorance and lack of control, I find in you a resting place. You are my final destination, my home, my safety net when I stumble and fall from the tightrope that is my life. Have pity on me, Lord, when I crow like a rooster, proud of what I have done or who I am. I am indeed, unable to live without your abiding presence to sustain and challenge my limited knowledge. I love you. Help me to do you proud. Amen.

Memo to a Mockingbird...

Memo to a Mockingbird…

It was a Monday with all the unscheduled interruptions and unexpected happenings leaving my plan for the day in shambles. Mama’s routine visit to the doctor turned into a trial by needle stick that left her faint and worn out. The tractor tire installation was a two person job so Michael needed my help. When I went to cut grass, the mower had no gas and there was no gas at the shed. I had told Leisa I would come letter her quote on the kitchen wall at the river house and had to call and cancel. My day was bits and pieces leaving me feeling scattered to the four winds. Thank God for the restorative yoga class that knit my frazzled self together in silence and stretching at the end of the day.

Some days… some weeks… some months and years can feel like one damn thing right after another. We all have times when the merry go round won’t stop and let us off. If we aren’t careful, our lives can fly by consumed with trying to keep it all together at the expense of living in the moment. Easier said than done sometimes, to find the balance between responsible living and deadening accountability.

Last night Marley, who takes her duties as a watchdog seriously, refused to come in. She was chasing unseen terrors in the night and arguing with a visitor dog down the hill. In exasperation, I closed the door and left her out, knowing I would have to get up later to let her in. Around two thirty in the morning, she barked at the front door so I let her in to the basement to join the other dogs. As I lay in bed trying to go back to sleep, a mockingbird began to sing.

At first I thought it was an auditory hallucination but it really was a mockingbird just outside our bedroom window singing his entire repertoire with abandon and joy. What kind of bird sings in the darkness of an early, early morning? After internally cursing a bird who could be filled with such joy at such an infernal hour, my sense of the ridiculous holy kicked in. How like the Great Comedian to send a messenger to remind me my frustrations and worries are not the reason for my being… not Balaam’s talking ass but a revved up mockingbird, drunk on joi d’ vivre. My soul shifted gears and while counting blessings to birdsong, I fell asleep full of laughter and a sense of God’s presence.

Thank you, God, for knocking me off balance every now and then. Just when I think I’ve gotten my act together, you let life teach me another lesson about laughter and grace in the midst of trials and tribulations. The mockingbird was a wonderful reminder of your beauty in this world. I will try to find more of you in my day today. Amen.

Going Home

Layer by layer, the years are lifted away. Each transparent page, when lifted, reveals a deeper meaning. This trip to Virginia with mama to spend time with her sister, the aunt for whom I am named, is a journey through time and grief and gladness.

Yesterday we visited Hollywood, the old cemetery in Richmond where my great-grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles are buried in the Fritzsche family plot. This is no Johnny come lately cemetery with rows of level graves laid out in military precision  adorned with sterile silk flowers. It follows the rolling hills up to the bluff that overlooks the James River. Roses, flowering shrubs, pansies, geraniums, and hanging baskets light up the surroundings with scent and color. A large sign proclaims silk flowers are not allowed. Many of the gravestones are accompanied by beautiful sculptures of faithful canine companions and wherever you look, there are stone angels. This silent city contains the graves of Civil War dead along with those who came before and after, loved ones forgotten and remembered gathered together in this one beautiful spot.

Last night at Aunt Peg’s house, I found myself sitting on the couch sandwiched between Ken and Eddie, my two cousins. Once there were four of us grandchildren at Cloverly, troubadors in time gone by who spent summers gilded with gladness at our own Camelot, a farmhouse in King and Queen County in Virginia. I feel my sister’s absence more keenly here than anywhere else and tears lie just beneath the surface, sometimes overflowing when I least expect it. Life has not turned out as we imagined it long ago in those sweet days. The hole left in the space once filled by my sister is now filled with joy and grief in equal measure.

Sunday morning we go to worship at Bruington Baptist Church where my grandparents lived out their life of faith, where my mother grew up and was baptized, and we will hear stories of Aunt Thelma, Uncle Bill, Grandma and Granddaddy, Little Grandma and Big Grandma, all buried in the churchyard with generations of other families whose roots run deep in the swampy Tidewater soil. This dirt is under the fingernails of my soul and it calls to me... you are home... much as my beloved North Carolina mountains do.

Mama and Aunt Peg wear red rose corsages given to them by my husband Michael, an old Mother’s Day tradition. I watch Aunt Peg, 94 years old, stoop to rearrange the flowers on her parents graves. And then the two old sisters walk into the 1831 church building that is so full of memories... the voices of children, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and pastors swirl in the mist of time contained by the old red brick sanctuary. Cousin Lillian Walker plays the prelude and worship begins. Angel wings enfold us as we sit in the straight back pews and I am home.

I am grateful for these two old women, my living links to my “begats list”, who even now continue to tell the stories of homeplace and family. When it is my turn, I want to tell the stories of family and faith and amazing graces with the same sense of wonder and joy and particularity. Perhaps it is my turn even now? For all the stories of faith and family, I give thanks. For the all the laughter and tears, grace and goodness, for family even third cousins once removed, for the Virginia Tidewater dirt where my roots run deep, I sing a song of thanksgiving. For the God who has given me a home in this world and promises me a new home yet to come, I am overflowing with gratitude.  “Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing with thee...”

Lentangle VI... The in-between times...

When you wake up with the birds, you get to hear the concert. This morning’s cantata was sung by turkeys, a rooster, crows, robins, blue birds, mockingbirds and cardinals with the percussion section represented by a pileated woodpecker on the dead locust tree just below our bedroom window. It was glorious. I have noticed these concerts only last for a few minutes as if the first order of the day for birds is to sing before getting down to the nitty gritty of worm pulling… grace before meals. This in-between time…not dark not light… filled with song set me to thinking about other in-between places in my life.

This emerging season of spring has swung back and forth between winter snows and summer heat with a dizzy feel. On Sunday we have sun and heat while Tuesday brings snow and wind. I can’t get settled into either season. Blueberry bushes are in bloom while the thermometer dips below freezing. The weather has mirrored my life. I celebrate and grieve, laugh and cry, dance and stumble my way through the days as I ponder and pray for those I know and love who are facing hard choices, graduating from high school, turning a corner in aging, living with an unpleasant diagnosis, turning into a teenager, recovering from a hard winter or gardening in spite of the weather. It takes faith of a peculiar kind to plant tomatoes in the mountains before Mother’s Day.

I have been re-reading Buechner’s book “Beyond Words” lately. I jumped ahead to read the section on Lent and found a description of this holy season as an in-between time full of questions that demand answers, a sackcloth and ashes time at the start of it, with something like Easter at the end of it. It is a demanding in-between time in the life of faith. At the end of the sackcloth and ashes, as Christians, we are called to celebrate an impossible resurrection, one that flies in the face of our scientific knowledge of how the world works. And yet…

The world around me on the farm is full of resurrection. Daffodils bowed down with snow spring up in the warming heat, blazing yellow mirrors of the sun. Junie B’s shaggy winter coat is shedding in wads as her new sleek, shiny spring blackness emerges. Green grass, emerald green, covers the hills on the farm and the willow tree down by the pond is wearing tiny little yellow green leaves. Bloodroot and Spring Beauties, Redbud and Dogwood, Cherry and Apple, Plum and Blueberry, Daffodils and Creeping Phlox all are blooming at the same time oblivious to the swings in temperature. In the midst of death, we have life but not without death first.

The calling of Lent is to repentance, or as Buechner defines it, to come to your senses. Spring time, ever the changeable season, is the outward and visible sign of undeserved grace for those who are coming to their senses. Thank you, God of grace and glory, for the in-between times where I can catch my breath while I remember to Whom I belong. Remind me that nothing lasts forever save your Love. Keep me walking in the light even as I pass through darkness until I come home to you. Amen.

 

Lentangle II...Learning to See

Lentangle II… I fell in love with art as a child and never quite got over it. Drawing was my first love. If you needed a profile portrait of a young woman with her hair up in a bun, I was the artist for you. Paper dolls complete with wardrobes were a specialty also. In high school, Mr. Goolsby broadened my experiences with art and I learned to love painting. An elongated version of the Madonna rendered in yellows and browns with one red bird perched on her hand still hangs in my studio.  In my fifties, I went back to college to take all those art classes I really wanted to take that were not a part of my degree program. It was an intimidating and exhilarating ride.

Design One and Two, required before you could take any of the fun classes, were black and white, pen and ink, black paint, no eraser can help you art. Your finished product would be set up in front of the class alongside everyone else’s creations for critique. Envy hissed in my ear when I saw others work that seemed so graceful, effortless, just right. I’ve had a love hate relationship with pen and ink since then.

Now I have a new love for pen and ink, Zentangle, a method of meditative drawing that uses patterns to help organize and express your inner self…superdoodling. You start with a three and one half inch square of paper, quality paper, and a Sakura Pigma Micron pen. That’s it. Informed by a book and a website (Zentangle.com), I practice for thirty minutes each day producing one or two little squares. I am reading the story of Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem before I begin drawing and will have a Zentangle for each reading. A visual Lectio divina…

In Mark 10: 46-52, Jesus tells the story of Blind Bartimaeus, the beggar who yelled at him asking for help. As I read and re-read this passage, drawing a Zentangle after each reading, I became more and more frustrated. They didn’t look or feel right. In the not quite sleep not yet awake time, my answers came. Focused on the blindness and sight, eye shapes filled my squares of paper, each of them filled with spring doodles reflecting Bartimaeus’s springing up when Jesus called him Each of them were out of balance, frenetic .

The shapes I was creating reflected what I thought I was seeing when I read this story. The words were cluttering up my vision, floaters in my soul’s eye. I believe anyone can be an artist. Mastery of the tools and processes can be learned. The skill that defeats most of us is learning how to see, really see what we are looking at.

Last night as I walked up from the stables, it was beautifully dark with LED lights of other worlds glowing. When I see the vast night sky ringed by the warm circle of mountains, I try to remember to take time to really see what is there. When I stand in stillness, see the night sky, its beauty and vast domain, the reality of the Mystery takes my breath away. Who am I, a puny little piece of this vastness, to call on God as if I could be heard? And now I see Bartimaeus again…a blind beggar, covered up by the crowd, yelling into the darkness, wanting to be heard, wanting to be helped… and I feel not so alone anymore.

Bartimaeus is my new guide for Lent. We are all blind but some of us don’t know we cannot see. We move through our lives thinking we see clearly, know what is required of us and produce accordingly, never really seeing the darkness of the Mystery that surrounds us. Now maybe I can draw what I feel, what I don’t know and can’t quite see, the reality of little lights in the darkness with the soundtrack of my yelling at God. Are you listening, God?

Lentangle...

Lentangle…

I always loved the stories Jesus told that had to do with farming.  As the child of a farmer, I understood those stories because I saw my daddy go looking for a lost sheep…well, not really. It was a lost sow and the neighbor had called to say if he didn’t come get her out of the cornfield, his family would be eating pork next year.  But, daddy and mama both cared for their cows just like the good shepherd in the Bible cared for his sheep.

 Twice a day at least, daddy would check his cows, feed them, watch over the birthing mothers and if he heard the coyotes call at night, he got up and went to them. Mama tells the story of daddy waking up at midnight, grabbing his rifle, running out the door in his underwear, calling her to drive the truck. As she drove the truck to the barn in the back pasture, he loaded his rifle and rolled down the window (there were no electric windows in our farm truck). They drove towards the barn and coyotes began piling out like clowns in a car. Daddy began firing into the pile and managed to miss every one. Good shepherds do what they have to do to protect their sheep.

Last night was a good shepherd night for us. When we went to bed, we heard a cow bawling. She stopped for awhile so I went to sleep. At midnight, the magic hour, Michael woke me and said the cow was still bawling. He was going to check on her. I turned on the light as he left and waited, listening to the Kubota crawl through the mud, all the cows bawling for a midnight snack, and the plaintive cry of a calf. Michael called saying he needed help. One of the calves was caught behind the fence unable to join his mama Noel. So I threw on a coat over my pajamas, pulled on my muck boots (did I mention it has rained for the past two days?) and drove down to meet Michael at the leaning barn. I drove the Kubota keeping Michael and Noel in the light while he drove her down the fence line. The baby followed mama to an open gate and a joyful reunion ensued, full of milk sucking and nuzzling and licking. What had been an irritating interruption was transformed into a beautiful night.

I forget sometimes as I wade through the muck and mire and darkness of Lent, that I am both the good shepherd and the lost sheep. Not only am I tended to but I am called to tend to others. The darkness I carry within is a part of everyone I meet. When I wade into my dark side, I can choose to have compassion for others who bear the same burden or I can choose to be judge and jury. Like the men who drug that woman caught in adultery to Jesus, stones in hand, ready to kill her, I can rise up in righteous indignation with the best of them. By the way, where was the man? Or, I can choose to be a good shepherd, gentle with myself and others as we all stumble towards the lights of Home.

Dear One, I need your tender care during this season of darkness. Everywhere I turn, I see my shortcomings, my failures, my sins. The mirror of Lent shows every wrinkle and spot on my soul. Don’t let me be too hard on myself or others, Lord. When I get wound up, remind me to bend down and write in the sand, to take time to see the whole picture of me, not just the parts I keep hidden in the dark. I am a Zentangle, great beauty in the midst of tangled shapes, a small part of your wonderful creation. Could you give me a glimpse now and then, Lord, of who I am becoming? It would help.  Love you…

·         Zentangle… a method of meditative drawing on a small card that provides a visual way to enter the quiet space within.

 

Farm work and Lent...Risky business

We put our hay up in round bales now. Old age, general decrepitude and a lack of able bodied friends has made dealing with square bales problematic. While helping Michael load a round bale, I tripped and took a nasty tumble landing on my face and chest, spread eagled on a pallet. I cussed a little at my clumsiness…o.k., I cussed a lot. The only damage was a bone bruise on my sternum so I got off lucky. This was not my first accident on a farm. Cows and horses have stepped on my feet. I have fallen off the hay wagon several times beginning as a child. I have that particular falling technique down pat now…loosen up, roll on impact. Tripping is a specialty of mine as is getting knocked around by cows. It comes with the territory. Farming and Ash Wednesday are both a risky business.

Tonight at six we will gather around the table to begin the forty day journey into the wilderness of Lent. It is a dangerous trip, full of sacrifice, remembrance, grief, repentance, dying and death. It is not a time for the fainthearted or the lukewarm. Pastor Pat will mark our foreheads with those greasy black ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday palms, and out into the world we will go with the outward mark of our inexplicable belief that death is not the final word.

Last year at this time, we were waiting for death to pay a visit. David was doing the work of dying and we were trying to help the best we could. Diane, his wife, was the midwife for David’s death and new life. All of us, including David, were worn out, plumb worn out, from the hard work. We watched as the body we knew as David melted away, destroyed by cancer within. Flashes of the man we knew and loved surfaced occasionally. He would rouse enough to thank his nurses in Hospice for their tender care. Midwestern courtesy and self deprecating humor were the last to go under. And then, he left us. Like a snake splitting his skin, shedding the old, he moved on leaving the worn out body behind. This Lent, I will be looking for what needs to die in me…what is unlike the God I love. Jesus tells us we must be willing to die like a grain of wheat so that new life and fruit can come into being.

This Friday night, the farm family will gather for a soup supper. When darkness falls, we will walk to the sunset deck, carrying the prayer lanterns David and Diane bought last year in Thailand. We will remember ten good things about David, say and write our prayers, sending them skyward with the illuminated lanterns… a little light in the midst of a great darkness.

Lord of Darkness and Light, keep me close to you as I walk this shadowed valley of Lent. Hold me up when I trip and fall. Let me not lose sight of the little light in the darkness that leads me home to you. Amen.

Mardi Gras Parades Past

When I look in the mirror these days, I see pieces of other faces looking back at me. Grandma’s hooded eyes, Aunt Dada’s mouth filled with Mama’s teeth, Daddy’s salt and pepper hair as well as his freckles…I am a living sampler bearing the signs and shapes and sounds of all who have gone before. It is like an unruly Mardi Gras parade of all the characters in my past.  My children and their children carry these same reminders of family they never knew. Sometimes these bits and pieces of the past can reassemble in such a way that someone is said to be a carbon copy of a forbear. Unsettling and reassuring, this embodiment of our past tickles my fancy.

Scientists are delving into the mysteries of the brain. New discoveries will help us understand all sorts of disease as well as explain the biological inner workings of our lumpy grey matter. Our brains, like our bodies and faces, carry the memory of our ancient families and our current ones. Did my instinctive feel for and love of music come from a great-grandmother I never knew who was an opera singer? I wonder if she felt the same rush of emotion I feel when I hear the transcendent sound of voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus.  My children tell me I never cooked like other moms. There was always something new and alarming served at the dinner table. Was that my Great-Aunt Dada, an accomplished cook, trying to be reborn? We are pieces of our past reassembled in a new pattern that is not so new after all.

Some of us are answer seekers. Like Thomas the Doubting Disciple and Bill Nye the Science Guy, we need to know how and why and when and where. This quest for understanding has produced wonderful knowledge… penicillin, rocket ships, telescopes. Question askers of a different sort create art of all kinds as they seek to express the river of new life that runs through their souls. There are those among us who use words to try to capture the mysteries of our Source, to ask the God questions in language. And, there are those who try to experience God through music, meditation, ritual, worship, sweat lodges, whirling to an inner need to feel and taste and touch the Untouchable.  

Whatever our past, however our brains are wired, whoever we are a compilation of, we are all a grand pastiche, a mixed media collage of a God who has no beginning and no end.  What a lovely puzzle this is, one we cannot see entirely put together on the card table, but beautiful nonetheless.  So, I live with the mysteries of how I came to be who I am and how you came to be who you are. I rest in the assurance that we are all kin. Like family all over the world, we are all a little crazy and a little wise, but we belong to each other. Someday we will understand but for now, I am grateful for my family and grateful for all the ways of being in this world.

God, I give thanks for the Mardi Gras parade of my past… all of those whose memories I carry with me, known and unknown.  Most of all though, I am grateful for your memory and your presence in my life’s parade. Love you…

My favorite things...

I woke up at three this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Over the years, I have developed an arsenal of sleep aids for these early morning sleep marches. Sometimes the first round works but last night, it took them all.

First, I pray the prayers of my childhood… God is good, God is great, let us thank him for our food, by his hands we all are fed, thank you, Lord, for our daily bread; Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Gratitude and assurance… gratitude for the gifts of life and assurance that my soul rests in the loving arms of God…sometimes this is all I need to remember to dismiss the sleep stealing night demons.

If that doesn’t work, I move on to memorized Bible verses. The first Bible verse memorized in Beginner Sunday School… Be ye kind… is my favorite. Short and to the point, it offers a wisdom way for living in the world of others. Be ye kind even when you can’t stand the smarty pants girl who jumps rope better than you do. Be ye kind when you are the winner and be ye kind when you are the loser. When you are grown and rearing children, be ye kind. When you are married, be ye kind. When your boss snarls at you, be ye kind. The runner up Bible verse is, “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom then shall I fear?” Life and its perplexing possibilities are always scarier at night for me. I can get caught up in a roller coaster of “what if’s” and scare myself further awake. This memory verse breaks the pattern. Sometimes I will sing the anthem in my head to hear the music of this passage, Psalms 27, and my breathing will shift as I hide away under the Rock in a weary land.

If the Bible verses don’t work, I move on to favorite hymns. “Oh, God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home. Under the shadow of thy throne still may we dwell secure, sufficient is thine arm alone and our defense is sure. Before the hills in order stood or earth received her frame, from everlasting thou art God to endless years the same. Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, be thou our guide while life shall last and our eternal home.” This hymn has been my theme song through trials and tribulations. It is my theological statement of belief and I can sing all the verses.

Then I recite my motto. “Faith is the strength through which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.” These words came from one of my heroes, Helen Keller. If ever a life was shattered, hers was. And if ever darkness gave way to light, her life provides a pattern for me in times of darkness.

Last night, however, required the Alphabet Prayer taught to me by Pitts Hughes. It was her comfort during sleepless night hours. Beginning with the letter A, you name those you know and love whose names begin with A... Adam, Alison, Anna, Aidan… then B and yes, Cara, you are among the C’s. If I make it to the end of the alphabet, there are no X’s, Y’s or Z’s. Sometimes I will start at the end of the alphabet to make sure everyone gets equal time. Remember “Be ye kind”?

So this morning, I am refreshed not by sleep but by the remembrance of all that sustains me, a litany of love. Like the tee shirt says, Life is good… and bad and wonderful and awful and hilarious and sad and above all, a gift without strings attached. Thanks be to God.

Time after time...

I have lived on Sabbath Rest Farm for over ten years. Every day is the same and every day is different. The same daily work…feed the cows, feed and muck the horses and donkeys, feed the barn cats… and the same seasonal work… put up hay, plant a garden, can and freeze produce, birth calves, cut back kudzu and multiflora rose… come around every year. Like housework, farm work repeats itself endlessly. On paper, this might seem boring but this is how I experience it.
Every morning, I get to walk downhill to the stable, sometimes by starlight and sometimes in sunlight, where I am greeted by love. The cats, Smudge and Barn Bud, rub against my ankles giving cat hugs. Before they will eat their food, they insist on being loved back. Katie and Shirley, the donkeys, come stand quietly, waiting for a back rub. Dixie and Junie B welcome me with soft nickers. The hay smells sweet as I lay it out for breakfast. Dixie comes out of her stall kicking up her heels, bucking in sheer delight. Junie B walks by and gives me a shoulder hug. I turn on the radio and muck the stalls to the sound of classical music. The physical exertion raises my heartbeat and I begin to “glow” a little. No true daughter of the South ever sweats… we glow. After dumping out the poop wagon, I walk up the hill, stopping to lay my head on each horse’s shoulder, smelling the lovely horsey smell, and I am at peace. In the evening, I repeat this process as I bed them down for the night.
Going to check on the cows offers the same opportunities. Driving up in the Kubota, the cows see me and come. The calves run with their tails in the air, fleet of foot and full of joy. The old women, Annie and Fanny and Tillie, move slowly now but can still stand their ground at the feed trough. Little Ferd, who is not really very little at all, usually brings up the rear. I dip out the feed in five gallon buckets and carry one bucket to each of the three feeders. As I walk, Biscuit tries to nose her way into the bucket but Sassy pushes her away. I lay out the first bucket and all the cows gather around the feeder allowing me to fill the other feeders in peace. As they eat, I scratch ears, rub backs, talk to them, squat down and eyeball the calves. Their curiosity will pull them to you if you are patient. One of my lasting memories of my father is the sight of him squatting down, surrounded by his herd of cattle, chewing on a grass stem, watching and assessing them. Frozen winter, mucky muddy spring, dry dusty summer, crisp autumn… the routine remains the same but is always different.
Most of us live routine lives, not boring necessarily, just lives that follow a pattern. The pattern can change. Our location can change. Our work can change. Routine, however, remains. How we choose to live our routine can bring depth, richness and joy, or it can bring boredom and whining. The glitterati, the one per cent, the Kardashians and all the other media darlings, have lives that may seem exciting from the outside perspective. I suspect though, they have a routine life underneath the apparent glamour.
Thank you, Dependable One, for the routine of my life and faith. The daily rounds keep me grounded in gratitude as I touch and feel the gifts in my life. The seasons of faith…Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany… give my soul structure as I make my way through the everyday work of becoming more like you. Love you…

I double dog dare you...

As a child, I had measles twice (two different kinds), whooping cough and mumps. I was stung by various winged barbed creatures and received a poultice made of Prince Albert tobacco mixed with the spit of the closest adult. Running barefoot six months of the year, I experienced the agony of de-feet (that one is for you, Thad) when ringworm was treated with a stream of instant freeze. It took mama and daddy to hold me down while they administered the cure. Sandspur spines broken off in my feet often became infected and required puncturing and methiolate. I learned to swim, sort of, in a dark brown tannin rich river. The big boys would swing out over the deep hole on a long rope and let go, creating waves that dunked me as I earnestly practiced the Dead Man’s Float. Cat scratches, falling off bicycles, falling out of trees, falling over tree roots and stubbing my toe, falling off horses… I was free to roam the farm where we lived… free to read lying down by my bucket raised calf, Sukey Lou… free to get my feet stepped on as I hung out with the horses… free to play with poisonous pokeberries making pies and ink and having tea parties… such were the accepted risks of childhood in my day.
Nowadays, I see parents practicing risk free parenting, trying to eliminate all danger from their children’s worlds. Some of this is due to our perception of the world as a dangerous place peopled by perverts, kidnappers and drug dealers. Strangers, not neighbors, live next door to us and we fear exposing our children to the not so tender mercies of the unknown. And, much of our common space is indeed more dangerous than it used to be. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the need to eliminate risk from the childhood experience.
I learned some valuable lessons from my risky childhood. I learned when you come a cropper, you get help. If help isn’t immediately available, you pick yourself up and tend to it yourself. That’s how I learned to put gloves on when pulling sandspurs from my feet. When you fall off the horse running full speed ahead, knocking the breath out of you, you lay in the sand gasping like a beached fish until your lungs work again. You don’t tell because it is a part of growing up, testing limits, learning how to survive. Some of my friends tell wonderful stories of blowing up things with chemistry sets, putting pennies on the train track and watching the train flatten them as it passes by, pea shooters manned in trees shooting into open windows of passing cars startling unsuspecting motorists, riding (or trying to ride) greased pigs in home grown rodeos.
David Steindl-Rast says; “To live is to take risks. It is absolutely central. Courage and risk are essential to aliveness. And aliveness is the thing we all strive for and long for, yet sometimes barricade ourselves against out of fear…even as we are still longing for it. If we are not taking risks, it is for the same reason that people do take risks, namely, we want to be alive. We all want the same thing. I am reminded of the elderly man who lives in a house with a steep wheelchair ramp leading down to the street. There is always a lot of traffic on his street and every morning, my friend sees him going full speed down the ramp in his wheelchair. One day she asked him, ‘Isn’t this dangerous?’ And he said, with sparks in his eyes, laughing, ‘Yesssss,it is!’
Lord of the Unknown, every now and then, would you please double dog dare me to take some new risks? And when I see something that needs doing that I don’t know how to do, or when someone I don’t know needs help and scariest of all, needs my friendship, I want to pick up my sling shot, let the bedsheets down over the walls, speak to strangers and live life as a risky business, going about looking for God in all the wrong places. Love you…

Providence...Sows' ears into silk purses

She is approaching the end of her first death anniversaries. Having survived the holidays, she now marks the first time he went to the hospital, the last family game weekend, the beginning of in-home hospice care, the day he left home for the last time carried by the capable hands of men he thanked for their care. Other moments carved by grief in her heart, known only to her, pass unnoticed by friends and family. From single woman to beloved and loving wife to widow to the as yet unknown… it has been a testament to the healing power of love even when the one you love is absent in body. She still weeps but she can also laugh when remembering him. She is learning to turn the sow’s ear of loss and grief into the silk purse of love and gratitude. It has not been an easy or wished for journey but a rich one, nonetheless.
Being present as her friend during this past year, my own memories of grief have informed my responses to her and to myself. One thing I know… God’s providence provides what we need for our transformation in the midst of pain and suffering. All that is required of us is to do the work that brings new life from death. It is hard, painful, messy work that does not have instant results. Often it can be years before we can see clearly the butterflies that come from the cocoons of grief. The wisdom that comes from this work is hard won and not easily expressed in words.
“Providence is the faith that nothing can prevent us from fulfilling the ultimate meaning of our existence. Providence does not mean a divine planning by which everything is predetermined, as in an efficient machine. Rather, Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by any event.” These words written by Paul Tillich are, I think, what my Grandma meant when she told me not to waste my grief. Own it, work with it, do not waste it, and in partnership with God, your saving possibilities can come into being.
Oh Love that will not let us go, give all those who walk the shadowed valleys of grief, strength and joy in the journey. Help us to find in you the saving possibilities for our lives as we search for new ways to be in a world that is strange and painful. Thank you for providential presence even when we cannot see or feel it. We need your tender care. And may we, with your tender care, transform our sows’ ears into silk purses of lustrous sheen. Amen.

These little lights of mine...

I dug out my SAD light last week. It had been cold and grey outside for too long and I longed for light. Sitting under the fake sunshine, I began remembering all the Bible verses and images I learned as a child that had light as a noun… Arise! Shine, for thy light is come…Don’t hide your light under a bushel basket… Jesus is the Light of the world…This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…Brightly beams our Father’s lighthouse…The Lord is my Light and my salvation… the list ran on and on. My thirty minute substitute sun session ended as the sun peeped over the mountains spreading golden light from the red clouds. The season of decreasing light and increasing darkness has ended. Every morning there is a little more light and the almost invisible journey towards spring and summer has begun.
I have always loved the night darkness. How else could you see the stars? The mystery sounds, the rustles and creakings, the light as a feather sounds of bat wings remind me of all I do not know and cannot see. Sunny blue skies do not spark my God imagination in quite the same way the night sky does. The vast lonely dark upside down sky bowl, punctuated by stars and planets, is beyond my comprehension. The more we learn about our universe, the more we do not know. Like the Psalmist, I am forced to exclaim, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?”
All good mystics, whatever their religious persuasion, know there is a line, or as Paul said, a mirror through which we see darkly. This line, this mirror separates our knowing from our unknowing. Passing over the line, seeing through the mirror frees us from the burden of always having to have an answer. Sometimes there are no answers, just the questions.
Phillip Simmons in his book “Learning to Fall” quotes a distinction learned from the philosopher Gabriel Marcel. Problems are to be solved; true mysteries are not. All the self help books in the world cannot resolve this mystery of life and death, our life and death, in the vast universe. All of us, he says, find our own way to the mystery. And then, we must decide whether to let go and leap into the mystery or back away from the edge of the cliff. Letting go of solutions, he says, is the first lesson of falling and the hardest.
Dearly Beloved, in this season of resolutions and promises, clean calendars and fresh starts, keep me off balance, tilted towards You as I fall into the mystery of another year. Remind me life is too wonderful for words and I cannot have all the answers. I am loving You in the darkness of the season, the darkness of the night, and the darkness of my being. It is more than enough.

Ordinary time...balancing act

When I rode horses as a child, it was about freedom, fun and speed. Why walk when you could run? The exhilaration of leaning into the air rushing past as your horse sped down the dirt road was intoxicating, liberating and nicely scary. The tumbles I took while doing this had no calming effect on me other than concern for the horse. I learned quickly that good balance was a necessity if you wanted to stay in the saddle. Holding on to the saddle horn (nobody rode English style in South Georgia) was an emergency measure, not good for the long haul. Perhaps my daddy was right to be worried about me breaking my neck if he gave me my own horse.
When I began taking riding lessons as an adult, my teacher began with balance, developing a “good seat”. I learned to regulate my weight in the stirrups, how to adjust the saddle by shifting my weight from one side to the other. The reins were to be held with equal pressure on both sides, lightly but firmly, shifting only when I wanted to change direction. When the horse trotted, I practiced “posting”, adjusting my up and down movement in the saddle, a dance with the horse’s movement. My teacher told me if I normally used my right hand, practice with my left… change the side you mount from…test your balance on your least dominant side…scoop poop with your left hand up instead of your right. Shift back and forth to improve your balance. Learn how to fall because you will fall from the horse from time to time. It is a given.
I have been reading “Learning to Fall” by Phillip Simmons. It is a collection of essays written as he comes to a new reality, living while dying with ALS. One of the essays is titled “In Praise of the Imperfect Life”. He tells the story of settling in at the top of a mountain for the perfect meditation. He sat, balanced his breathing, quieted his thoughts and waited on his vision. A tickle, itch slowly climbed his back as he tried to focus and dismiss the distraction. When he could no longer stand it, he scratched and found a small ant had been climbing his back. Years later, he discovered God was not in the extraordinary but in the ordinary, the ants in the world. He became a seeker of the dark way, the hard way.
For me, keeping balanced, poised, open, aware in the midst of hard ways and happy ways is not the challenge. It is easy to see God when the sun shines brightly and all is warm and well. It is easy for me to find God when I am wounded, off balance and in need of Solid Ground. The in-between place, the place of ordinary time, is more difficult for God seeking simply because it is so ordinary. Days filled with farm chores, bill paying, family tending, oil changes for the car, housekeeping and home making slide by and at the end of the day, I am tired. Perhaps I remembered God but often I do not.
Simmons says, “The imperfect is our paradise”. In our ordinary imperfection, lies our redemption, our salvation, our road to glory, our way home. Let me never stop picking myself up, dusting myself off and getting back in the saddle as I live my extraordinary ordinary life with You. Thank you for the wondrous gift of horses who are my teachers and for falling off now and then. It keeps me humble. Love you…

Christmas Presence

It was minus 2 degrees when we woke up this morning at 6:30. The air was the clean crisp stellar air of winter in the mountains. Far away stars seem closer somehow and the animal tracks in the snow hint at the night time mysteries we never see unfold. Walking down to the stable, the sun was bright and there was no wind. Distant mountains are clearly delineated in the overlapping folds of faint colors. Smudge, the black and white barn kitty, and Bud, the tabby old tom, walk up to meet me seemingly none the worse for the cold weather. Katy and Shirley, the donkeys, have left their stall and are standing in the sun, condensed breath icicles hanging from their noses. Dixie leaves the stall with a flourish, kicking her heels up and jumping sideways. Junie B trots to the hay and begins breakfast. All is well.
I stand on the hill up to the house and survey the world around me. It is white, cold and still. Beauty and winter gifts surround me. A wisp of smoke from Julie’s wood stove rises in the air. Snow diamonds blaze in the morning sun. The sight of Mama’s house reminds me how graced I am to have her so near and still present in my life. Old hornet’s nests blow in the tree tops, a reminder of summer long gone… a summer that will come again in good time.
It was a wonderfully wild and wacky Christmas. Children and grandchildren came and went. Some stayed longer than others but all were gathered around the table Christmas Day… seventeen of us, a children’s table for the first time, turkey and ham (for Adam who does not like turkey), laughter, naps, picture taking on the front porch re-creating the poses of years past with our two latest additions, blessed commotion.
My best presents did not come in boxes. They came in people. Grandchildren playing (and fussing), riding the Daddy O to feed cows and taking baths in the whirlpool tub, Maddie in her new silver boots, Clancy’s smile, Matthew standing tall, Mason in Pop’s big yellow headphones, Mead vacuuming, Rowan snuggled up to me as I read a book to him, Aidan sharing Minecraft with me, Colby striding out in his farm boots that reach up to his knees. I watch their parents and remember long ago and far away when it was me being responsible for their baths and behavior. Christmas present and past overlap and I see the present through eyes blurred by tears and a heart full of thanksgiving.
This year I will practice living with the Christmas presence in my daily life. The hope, joy, anticipation and love so clearly evident on Christmas Day will not leave me if I pay attention. Howard Thurman wrote a poem read by my Pastor Pat Sunday in worship. It is named “The Work of Christmas”.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.
Let me not forget the holy joy and the thanksgiving I feel in your Christmas Presence. Help me remember to do the work of Christmas in this new year so I may remain tucked under your wing with a heart full of music. Amen.