Tell me the old, old story...

I grew up spending time on front porches surrounded by story telling adults. “Little pitchers have big ears” was one of my Grandma’s sayings and in my case, that was certainly true. Grandma told stories about her opera singer mother and her visions of the dead. Uncle Harold told stories about Granny Grunt who stole little children, snatched them up under her apron and whisked them away from their home. Daddy told stories about the practical jokes he and the other men played on each other at the paper mill where he worked to support our family and his farm habit. One day Daddy went to pick up his tool box and someone had screwed it to the floor. Story telling, like joke telling, was an art form, highly individual, practiced until the stories became little jewels. Even though you might know what was coming when a story was repeated, it never failed to charm and delight you in the telling.
I am reading a lovely book by Gail Godwin titled “Evensong”. It tells the story of an Episcopal woman priest, her husband, and their various families. One night she is called out to the hospital to be with a woman, a tourist, whose husband has died. She sits with her until the local undertaker comes and then gives the woman a ride back to the inn where they were staying. As they ride, Helen tells some of her story to Margaret, the priest. Helen says she feels lost from God now. Standing next to her husband in church or in life, his faith provided a safe place for her, a God umbrella, and now it was gone. Much to her surprise, Margaret finds herself telling the story of her losses... a miscarriage and a mother who left her when she was six. And then Helen asks a question... “Where do you find God in this?” Margaret replies that in the telling of their stories, she feels changed, names the changes and says she feels God in that process.
In my childhood church we sang “I Love to Tell the Story” (A flat major) and “Tell Me the Old, Old Story” (C major) frequently. We were taught how to tell our faith stories, give our testimony, and exhorted to do so with friends and strangers. As a new Christian at the ripe old age of twelve, I practiced witnessing (telling how I was saved) until I made a pest of myself. Thank God my friends were long suffering and my family was patient.
The Bible is God’s story told by human beings who lived their lives losing and finding their way back to God. I love the stories about those characters... all of them far from perfect, who laughed and loved and sinned and repented, eventually (or not) getting the punchline of the joke or the moral of the story. One of the reasons I love Jesus is the stories he told filled with people I recognized in my own life. Our little church had a Mary Magdalen, a Prodigal Son, a Good Samaritan and we all knew who they were. Those were and still are true stories in every sense of the word.
Writing is for me another way to tell my story, my story and God’s story. I work out my own salvation in the telling and hear from you sometimes pieces of your own stories in response. Margaret was right. We stand on holy ground when we tell our stories to each other and resurrection comes calling in unexpected ways. We all stand under someone else’s God umbrella and stories help us recognize the arms of God in the persons sitting next to us on the front porches of our lives.
Dear One, I never tire of hearing the stories told by your children. They keep me laughing and weeping and learning.Thank you for this most amazing gift of life and love and loss. I am grateful for all the stories I hear and all the stories I tell but most of all, I am grateful for your presence in my life. May it always be so. Amen.

Waiting while being washed in the Blood of the Lamb

As far back as I can remember, my heart has yearned towards God. I began wanting to join the church when I was nine years old. My father would not let me until I was twelve because he wanted me to be sure I knew what I was doing... the age of reason for Baptists. I remember walking the aisle and shaking hands with Brother Kannon, telling him I wanted to become a Christian and join the church. He asked the age old question... Do you believe Jesus died for your sins and are you willing to confess Him as your Lord and Savior? My feeling memory of that time of public confession and baptism is one of rejoicing. My church family welcomed me warmly, my parents were proud and I was on my way in the joy of my salvation, to paraphrase the Psalmist.
That was over fifty years ago and I am so grateful still for a place and a people who taught me about God, loved me into the kingdom of God and helped me identify some of the gifts I had been given by God.
During this Lenten season, I hear old familiar words and my church sings the old “blood” hymns. My heart skips back to my beginnings in the faith and I ponder the new wine skins for the wine I now drink as a Christian. There is still so much depth and richness in the old words for me... sacrifice, death, resurrection. During this holy time, I find myself being washed in the soul cleansing Blood of the Lamb every where I turn.
As I sit with my Gratitude Group, I find myself speaking of this season of my soul as a transition time, a fallow time. I have not been writing or creating art. It is as if I am holding my creative breath...waiting. Good social worker and pastoral counselor that they are, Cannan and Mary ask all the right questions. Are you angry? Depressed? Weary? None of these apply. I am waiting.
Too often we rush from one thing to another. We go from work to home to children to church to work to laundry to work to choir ad infinitum and we forget the value of waiting. Our culture is programmed for instant gratification and we have all bought into the rightness of immediate satisfaction. Lent is a season of waiting much like late winter and early spring. Resurrection does not come quickly or without some struggle.
The wind skips through the clover and leaves waves of multicolored greens in its wake. The time of the robin and bluebird is nigh and the pussy willow buds turn silver grey green. Red bud and pear and peach and apple trees blossom while oaks and maples and beeches stand bleak and barren, anchored in a sea of brilliant green grass. All creation is holding its breath as small signs of the new life coming burst forth into glorious bloom.
I am waiting, Lord, becoming your dwelling place once again as I breathe in the joy of a new salvation. I trust in resurrection, Lord, and I know you are at work in me under the surface of what can be seen. I will wait on you and dream while I am waiting for new life to come. Thanks be to God for the gift of waiting.

I was a stranger...

They arrived late, nearly nine o’clock at night, two strangers who were spending the night with us. They were participants in Dianne’s soul collage card workshop who needed a place to stay since the farmhouse was not available. I teased them as they came in and took their shoes off at the door... “You must have grown up on a farm and been raised right,” I said. Jay smiled as she handed me two bottles of wine as a hostess present. “I was raised on a farm in Vermont and loved it.”
The next morning we ate fresh eggs and sausage for breakfast before the farm tour. Michael tucked them in the Kubota and drove to the Sound of Music Hill to feed the cows. The girls got “slobbered” as they fed the cows bread and a good time was had by all. Feeding the horses, donkeys and chickens was the icing on the cake for them. They came in giggling and happy, ready for the day.
After the workshop, they came back up the hill to gather their things together to leave. As she hugged me, I saw a flash of sadness cross Jay’s face and I wondered... Michael and I stood and waved good by to them, telling them to be careful, come back, we loved having you visit. They drove off on their way back to their lives in another city.
Later I asked Dianne about Jay and the sadness I saw in her face. She is a successful business woman who owns several businesses with her husband. When you first meet her, her bubbly laugh is the first thing you notice about her and yet... Dianne told me she is struggling with caring for her parents, one of them an addict. This farm has become a place of solace for her, a shelter in a time of storm. She will be back for another workshop and a time of healing, no longer a stranger but one who belongs to us.
One of my friends asked if it was scary having complete strangers in our house. I hadn’t even thought of it that way. They had a need I could meet, it was helpful for my friend Dianne with her workshop, and I enjoy having our house full of people. Michael’s dad loved to recite a poem about a man readying his house for a visit from the Master, Jesus. In the busyness of getting ready, he turned away people who came to his door with needs. At the end of the day when the Master had not come, he was confronted with the reality of having turned Jesus away in the form of every person who had come to his door that day.
My house wasn’t spotless but they did have clean sheets and towels. The food was plain, not fancy. The fire was warm, our welcome was genuine and the words by our front door spoke for us. “Let the guest sojourning here know that in this home our life is simple. What we cannot afford, we do not offer, but what good cheer we can give, we give gladly...So while you tarry here with us we would have thee enjoy the blessings of a home, health, love and freedom, and we pray that thou mayst find the final blessing of life... peace.”
I was a stranger and you took me in...

Ferdinand...the Gentle Giant

I had long been dreading this day...

In the morning as I stood at the sink, I would look down at the stable and see Ferdinand stretched out in the sawdust under the run in, his massive head resting on the ground. I would stand and watch him thinking, “This is what he will look like when he is dead. Is he dead?” Then he would stir, lifting his head up, and I could breathe again.
When I went down to do my morning routine at the stable, Ferdie would wait while I fed Bud the Barn Cat first. If I took too long, he would go into his stall and wait for his breakfast. The problem was he was too big for me to get in the stall to feed him. His rump filled the door. So we would do a little dance. I’d rattle the feed bucket, he would ponderously turn and come outside to me, I would slip into the stall and pour out his feed in the corner, wait for him to come in, scratch his ears, pat his back and slip out. I loved that old curly haired red bull.
Twenty one years ago, mama and daddy drove down to Mr. Ragan’s farm in North Florida to buy a bull. Mr. Ragan specialized in English Shorthorns, a multi-purpose breed, that daddy liked. They chose a solid red boy with a long straight back and a curly mophead. For fifty dollars, Mr. Regan and his son Ben delivered him, and Ferdinand the Gentle Bull became a part of our family. Daddy hand fed and petted Ferdinand until he became a gentle giant. Our family picture book has pictures of children sitting on Ferd’s broad back, legs sticking straight out to the side, grinning in nervous disbelief. One of my favorite pictures of daddy has him sitting on his heels, squatting down in front of Ferd, holding the feed bucket while Ferdie eats his fill.
We had moved to Sabbath Rest Farm when daddy found out he had myelofibrosis. It would eventually kill him so he began to make preparations. He sent Ferd and a small band of cows to us as our starter herd. For eight years, Ferdie worked hard and we had a regular crop of calves every year. When he ran out of steam, we brought him up to the horse pasture for retirement. I fed him sweet feed twice a day and he had all the hay he could eat. He was my 2000 pound dog. Tim and Jeannie could see him from their home resting in the pasture nestled up next to the fence under the pine trees. When the weather was bad, he had a stall in the horse barn for shelter.
Yesterday morning, I went out to feed and muck. Ferd had not eaten his supper so I went looking for him. The pasture was empty and a section of the fence was flat on the ground, posts broken. I called Michael to alert him and we began walking the woods looking for Ferd. After an hour or so of searching, we found him stuck in a narrow ravine, unable to move and near death. Sometimes animals sense the approach of death and go off to die alone. Ferdie had never tried to go through the fence before so I am choosing to believe he was answering an invisible call, a signal that his end was near.
As I sat watching old Ferd, tears streaming down my face, I knew he needed help. Our rifle is a twenty two and I feared it would not do the job so a neighbor came bringing a larger caliber gun. I couldn’t bear to be there so Michael and Kenny did what needed to be done. I went to mama’s house, sat with her and told stories about daddy and Ferd. Leisa and Julie came to keep us company in our grief and as women have done for centuries, wept with us.
We will bury our old bull near the leaning barn, in the midst of the comings and goings of cows and humans. His gentle spirit will live on in our hearts. We returned to Mr. Ragan’s farm last November to pick up our next shorthorn bull, Little Ferdinand. I am working with him, gentling and preparing him to live up to his namesake. The evening after Ferd’s death, Fanny went into labor. To everything, there is a season...a time to die and a time to be born. Always, always there is new life, resurrection in the midst of death. Thanks be to God.