Beauty is God's handwriting...

Beauty is God’s handwriting. Welcome it in every fair face, every fair day, every fair flower.
Charles Kingsley


I grew up in South Georgia, a place not known for the beauty of its landscape. It is flat, hot, with a population of gnats and mosquitoes that surpasses the human body count. And yet there are those who see a beauty there that speaks to their souls... the ponds with old cypress tree centers, technicolor sunsets all year long, tall pine forests, farm fields emerald green with rye grass in the winter time, mile after mile of family farms with abandoned tall tobacco barns standing in the middle of cotton fields, night starscapes that glisten unimpeded by light pollution.

I have lived in Texas, central Texas not the hill country, and learned to see the beauty there. The huge empty spaces mirror a generous spirit that seems to be peculiarly Texan, open and welcoming to strangers. Wild flowers blooming in bright primary colors in riotous abandon by highways and in fields, the wind that always seems to blowing through and around you, the clarity of light in Texas, hot and dry, green ribbons that follow the waterways winding through a dun summer landscape... all beautiful in ways that differ from South Georgia.

In Kentucky, the lush green tall trees and rolling hills, black painted barn, rock fences, the city of Louisville with its night lights and large parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the smell of sour mash in the air and the sight of graceful, powerful thoroughbred horses running at Churchill Downs, neighborhoods with their distinct personalities, Germantown Octoberfest and Saint James Art Fair, the Ohio river flowing on the edge of the city separating Kentucky and Indiana... its beauty both urban and rural.

South Carolina... humid, hot, lush deep South with Spanish moss and azaleas and camellias, old oaks and tall pines, sandy soil with a carpet of pine needles, beaches and the smell of the sea, the sound of air conditioners running heard on evening walks, gentle winters with brief springs and brutal summers, a culture still strongly connected to its past, soft edged light that is warm and moist... Its beauty envelopes you like a warm fog and provides a soft cushion upon which you can rest.

The North Carolina mountains... rounded green mother like shaped mountains that have been calling me home since childhood, damp with the flow of rock filled streams and rivers, ancient trees and rocks from the birth of time, the earth folds seen most clearly in winter time when all the trees are stripped bare, home to those who have survived the influx of outlanders for generations and still hold dear the speech and values of their ancestors, four distinct seasons each with their own beauty... I am at home in these mountains and their beauty speaks to me of God all the days of my life.

In this place that is hallowed for me, today I will look for God’s handwriting in the snow frosting the fields, the birds on the feeders, the silver fox in the front yard, the garlic’s green leaves and the beech tree still holding its leaves hostage until spring comes, the rusty roof on the high barn that peeks through the trees, the line of dark green pines that marches down the fence line separating our farm from others farms, a gray skylight that seems to be holding its breath waiting for a sliver of blue sky and bright sun, a pair of hawks flying high calling to each other, the gathering of those whom I love, fireplace warmed laughter filled joy making evenings with farm family... I am surrounded by beauty. God has made everything beautiful in its time and I yearn not only to see and know the beauty that surrounds me but to be beautiful, too. Write on the tablets of my heart making me beautiful in my time, please God.

Winter wonderland...yeah, right!

It has been a winter season of a different sort this year. Every weekend it seems, we have a storm of some kind... snow, ice, rain... and now we have snow coming at the first of this week. I know folks think the mountains always have snow but in actuality, our snows have been few and far between in the past ten years. Even when our weather patterns were relatively normal, snowstorms were followed by a week or two of sunny cold weather, not endless days of gray light punctuated by bursts of precipitation. The wear and tear of dealing with this winter weather is showing up in people and animals alike.
When I went to the stable this morning, Junie B met me with her ears laid back, no pretense of civility at all. Kate and Shirley, the donkeys, came out snarling and kicking at each other, quarreling over who got to stand where at the hay net. Dixie roared out in full gallop mode striking out over the muddy hill slipping and sliding her way through the pasture. Bud the Barn Cat was the only animal (and that includes me) who seemed to have a decent disposition this morning.
The cow barn is awash in hock deep mud and manure. The mule, in four wheel drive with all the power at its disposal, nearly got stuck in red clay mud when I tried to take hay to the outdoor manger. We can’t take them to the back pasture because the road to it is impassable and we would be unable to feed them there. The trees felled by the first snowstorm just before Christmas, lie along side our road waiting for drier weather so they can be cleaned up. There was a major rock and mud slide on the road we take to get to Weaverville, our little town close by. I drove by thirty minutes before the slide on my way home from teaching. On the farm, we do not have sewers to carry away our excess rain. The streams rise and overflow the bridge. Mud becomes a fact of life and good muck boots are more than a fashion accessory.
None of this is life threatening or irreversible. It is a pain in the neck ( and other regions of our anatomy) that leaves us feeling truly under the weather. Michael was bold enough to suggest this was a spiritual discipline, an opportunity to practice patience. He was almost mauled by those of us who are teetering on the edge of sanity. And yet...
Daddy often said snow was poor man’s fertilizer, nitrogen rich. Our hay fields, assuming they don’t slide off the top of the hills, will be the better for all this snow. In June and July when we are sweltering while putting up hay, I will remember these seemingly endless days of ice, rain and snow and give thanks for the passing of the seasons, each with its own spiritual gifts to give.
“The bliss of the animals lies in this, that on their lower level, they shadow the bliss of those-few at any moment on the earth- who do not ‘look before and after and pine for what is not’ but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now.” George Macdonald There are the words I need, the prayer I can pray, during these winter days and nights. Help me, Father, to live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now. Give me grace enough for clear eyed vision so that I may see the gifts of winter and live without pining for what is not. And when summer heat does come, may I still be living with a thankful heart for all the gifts I have been given in this wonderfully messy untidy world of such heartbreaking beauty. Amen.

Liminal Living

I woke up in the night, my pillow wet with tears shed in my dream. And in that liminal moment between sleep and waking, I felt the shift of time between the unseen river that runs through my unconscious and the exposed everyday self seen and known by others. Liminal moments, the small slice of time between shifts in time is a holy sacred often unacknowledged sacrament. When one something stops and another something begins... the moment between a baby’s birth and its first crying breath, dreaming to waking, life to death, the moment your youngest child leaves home, the sliver of time between the last sight of the setting sun and dusk, the shift in the liturgical seasons, the moment you step outside your front door after a hard winter and smell the damp warm breath of spring... is a call to lay down your cares for a moment and be present to the Holy One who lives there.
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,-
The rest sit around and pick blackberries.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Keep me from just picking blackberries today, Lord. Help me see the burning bushes, feel when your presence sets my soul afire, know your sustaining loving care as I live the liminal moments of this day. Amen.

Thanks to Lake Shore Baptist Church and their online newsletter that never fails to provide light for the journey... and to Jim Nogalski, a member of Lake Shore, whose program of original music entitled Liminal Light set me to thinking

Watch Night 2010

Baptist churches in my childhood had an option for the godly on New Year’s Eve night. Instead of attending parties where we might be tempted to partake of an alcoholic concoction, we could attend a Watch Night Service that lasted until midnight. Safe in the company of other Christians, we would usher the New Year in with hymn singing, praying and preaching. The custom has died out for obvious reasons. Not only is it hard to compete with New Year revelry but nursery care for babies and toddlers is the equivalent of combat duty. Even at that, I miss some of the qualities of Watch Night.
We would gather for a pot luck supper first with all the necessary food... three or four different kinds of deviled eggs, ham and fried chicken, potato salads of all sorts, green beans and real creamed corn, fruit salads, biscuits and yeast rolls, coconut and chocolate cakes with icing so deep you could sink your finger in it, lemon meringue and sweet potato pies. No one ever brought fast food chicken or slaw from the grocery store. Only your best recipes and the best of what you prepared was offered to the church family. The unveiling of the food, setting up the sweet tea station, laying out the dessert table, gathering for the blessing, trying to keep the children corralled until the blessing was finished, letting the very old and the very young start the line down the laden eight foot tables piled high with beautiful food prepared by loving hands. It was a celebration of more than enough. In our church there were some who struggled to have enough but this time together was a time set apart for wallowing in the goodness of the God who had called us together. After a time of fellowship for the adults and game playing for the children, we walked over to the sanctuary.
In our little church, the pastor read the story in the gospel about the disciples falling asleep while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gesthemane. The story of the bridesmaids waiting on the groom, some who were prepared with enough oil for their lamps and others who were caught short, was a crowd pleaser, too. The punch line was always the same. Don’t just sit there... be prepared for you never know when Jesus is coming again... be ready... take stock and change what needs changing in order to be ready... don’t fall asleep at the switch. Gathered in that white concrete block building, children asleep with their heads in mamas’ laps, we did the best we could to look back and look forward, trying to be faithful to God’s call in our lives.
My New Year’s Eve came and went in a haze. We were still recovering from the trip to Alabama and H.O.’s funeral. A good friend got married in another state and we were on the road for his wedding that weekend. Now that the dust has settled a little, I am going to spend some time in reflection and preparation for the New Year that is already here. One month is almost gone and time flies now that I am sixty three. The sense of urgency Brother Kannon used to invoke in his Watch Night sermons has become a part of my sense of life’s fleeting quality. I don’t want to waste any of this precious gift of life now that I am in the last part of my time here.
Wendell Berry says it best. “We are alive within mystery, by miracle. ‘Life,’ wrote Erwin Chargaff, ‘is the continual intervention of the inexplicable.’ We have more than we can know. We know more than we can say... Finally, we live beyond words, as we also live beyond computation and theory.” My Watch Night prayer, couched in words that do not begin to capture the deepest longing of my heart, is to live nearer to God this year. Taking an inventory of all I have done that I wish I had not done, surveying all the good that is in me and seeing all that still needs transformation, giving thanks for this most miraculous gift of life and love, I remain a follower of Jesus. Thanks be to God.