Zeke, Shirley T and Kate... wells of salvation

Zeke died yesterday... my basset hound traveling companion in the Kawasaki mule. He was my loud mouth buddy who could always make me laugh at the same time I was cussing him out for poor behavior. He was an incessant conversationalist who insisted on the last word. He was always glad to see me even if I wasn’t worth seeing at the time. Life at the farm will not be the same without my big footed big mouth friend.
Last night the neighbors gathered to help us lay Zeke to rest. Gary dug the grave with the tractor as Leisa, mama, Jeannie and Dianne stood and wiped away our tears for Zeke. Michael had given him his last mule ride before we placed his body in the ground. Barney paced and sniffed and watched his friend be buried. Junie B hung her head over the fence and listened as we told Zeke stories. The red setting sun bathed us in its glow as Michael gave thanks for the life of our faithful friend.
As we walked up the hill, our new friends Shirley T and Black Nosed Kate were grazing calmly by the stable. They are sweet Jerusalem donkeys with the cross on their backs, mother and daughter, who came to live at the farm on Sunday. Shirley and Kate are getting acquainted with Junie B and that has been a hoot to watch. Junie B got a bloody nose when she got a little pushy with Shirley. Donkeys can kick with both feet and are swift on the draw. Barney had dreams of new chasing buddies but Shirley laid her ears back and headed towards him head down. Barney was the chasee not the chaser. They come to you, nibble you with their lips, stand and wait for you to scratch ears, follow you like dogs just because they like you.
Old friend laid to rest, new friends moving in... life often seems to be a painful joyful juxtaposition of laughter and tears, endings and beginnings. The past few years of my life have been full of these moments in time, overlapping heartshifting soulshaping moments in time that take me to higher ground. Sometimes I feel like I am free floating through space as I wait for the new roots to grow and other times I am instantly planted in rich soil. In a strange way, this time in my spiritual life reminds me of my adolescence. Not only is my body changing but my soul is changing too.
I am detached from many of the roots of my past. I have no children living at home. I am barely involved in the church. I find joy in teaching and watching folks come alive to the possibilities of creation within their souls. I am outdoors a goodly portion of every day and am grateful for the place and time in which I live. Friends who are family surround me in this life and the life yet to come. As I wait and watch for the what lies beyond this bend in the road, like Isaiah I can say, “With joy I will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Wells of salvation... I am blessed with many of those wells. Pitts calls and we talk about hard bumps in the road. Toni, my psychic friend who somehow always knows just when I need her, calls. Barney comes and lays his head in my lap. Junie B speaks to me when I walk out the back door. My Bible reading gives me words of wisdom and solace for my soul. Neighbors who are true neighbors show up at the door. Worship happens for me in the middle of communion shared with my small group, at dawn watching the sun rise in multicolored glory, at night as the fireflies lightdance in the trees, listening to the Bob Whites call to each other, seeing deer leaping and running up the hills, holding hands with loved ones and praying for a good old dog whose body gave out. It is more than enough. I am grateful.

Phoebe and me... barking in the night

Phoebe barks from memory now. Fourteen years old, sight fading and hearing almost gone, she remembers nights past and barks because she has always barked to warn, to answer, to play. Last night at 2:30 she was walking under our open bedroom windows barking at nothing she could hear, but at the possibilities. When I went down to put her up, the faint sounds of coyotes and other dogs barking floated over the hills and ridges to the east of us. Unheard by Phoebe but nevertheless present.
Michael’s ninety five year old father lives in an assisted living home in Millbrook, Alabama. We spent last weekend with him, tending to some of his basic physical needs and listening in the long silences of his dementia for memories to surface. We had been out to eat at a favorite local fish restaurant and were driving back to Autumn Place. At a routine traffic stop, the officer leaned in the window to look at Michael’s license. As we began to drive away, H.O. spoke in a gravely frail voice, “I’ve been a preacher for seventy five years.” Barking in the long night of dementia, remembering the central truth of his life, he spoke both memory and faith as he named his role in life. Laughing through tears, we drove on back to Millbrook.
In these long, hot, dry summer days of my faith, I hold these images close as I try to remember who I am and to Whom I belong. The drought on the farm mirrors the drought in my soul. I am barking from memory... Hymns and covenants, creeds and scripture give me words and songs that hold my soul’s backbone straight even though I feel drained and dry. They are my memory, my barking in the night.
Sitting at the raggedy piano in Autumn Place, I played through the Broadman hymnal. All the old hymns whose words are in my heart memory were sweet reminders of times gone by... Lead Me Gently Home, Father, Ring the Bells of Heaven, When the Morning Comes, Just As I Am, Blessed Assurance, Amazing Grace. As I played and sang, the healing waters washed over my dusty soul and joy came and sat on my shoulder. I turned and saw old Mrs. Hunter, Grandpa Martin, Mickey, Roberta, B.J. sitting, listening, lost in memories of their own. Mrs. Hunter thanked me in her Alabama to the manor born brogue for the beautiful music and we shared a hug.
Isaiah 35 tells me “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom like a crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing... For waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water...” The desert and drought will give way to the overflowing rush of the Everlasting Water and I will stand in the midst of joy and singing once again.
Saturday night as we left H.O. in his room, Grandpa Martin was watching John Wayne movies across the hall, sitting in his recliner. We smiled. The volume was deafening because he was deaf. Sometimes it seemed that H.O. and Grandpa Martin had the dueling t.v.’s... each of them deaf, each of them listening to their televisions night and day. Sunday morning we walked into Autumn Place to find B.J. and Tammy standing, waiting, in tears. Grandpa Martin had gone to sleep watching John Wayne and slept his way home to Jesus. That tall, ninety five year old man who wore red suspenders to hold up his jeans, had slipped away in the night, led gently home to the One who waits for us all.
Memories that sustain the present and give hope for the future... old benedictions that hold us close, bless us as our mothers and fathers were blessed, remind us that even as former things pass away, God remains. “And now may the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, and may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, rest upon you and remain with you now and forevermore. Amen.”

What's love but a secondhand emotion????

There I stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. I looked out the window and saw Junie B looking back at me through her stall window... a moment of pure joy... made possible by my husband’s hard work, a gift of love. Months of planning and building were now at an end as we began the final push. All day Friday Michael worked to clean up the building trash, scanning the area for nails that might hurt Junie B’s hooves, picking up and cleaning up, finishing up the last little building chores. And there she was, moved in and looking at me while I was looking at her. A long held, fiercely cherished dream had come true. Someone else ( Michael), had out of love, made my dream his dream too, and worked to make it real.
Yesterday we baled and gathered hay, beginning the process of collecting food for the next winter. Our crew was motley but sterling... friends, some old and some new. One of the crew, a Kenyan named Janue, had graduated from a Chicago seminary, made his way to Johnson City, Tennessee to study clinical pastoral education with our friend James Pollard. He has no money, literally came on faith, so James is finding him work and being his transportation source. Tad brought daughter Hannah so Pam could work on another project. I was Nana for the afternoon. As Hannah and I sat with our feet in the mountain stream, cooling off after helping clean out the old hay in the barn, she looked at me and said... “Peggy, this makes me feel like I am a part of your farm family.” Another continuing dream, children coming to this place and feeling a part of it and of us, came true yesterday.
And last night I cooked supper for the crew of ten. Janue is a vegetarian so I added some extra vegetables to the table at the last minute. He pulled me aside and said quietly, “Do not do anything extra for me, please.” James told him to relax and enjoy himself because it gave me pleasure to care for him, to let me give him the gift of hospitality. We sat around the table, laughing, eating, telling stories, easing our aches and pains for a little while before the final push to pick up the last few bales. A home full of friends and food and laughter and gratitude is a gift of love.
After the remaining bales of hay had been picked up, a few remained to sit on the deck to watch the sunset. As the red glow faded from the sky, we felt scattered drops of rain. It felt so good. We sat there enjoying the cool wet shower for a little while then moved to the front porch. As we sat in the swing and rocking chairs, the rain continued to fall, singing a song on the tin roof. It was a beautiful benediction for the day.
Love is a second hand emotion. Not used and discarded, but an emotion that becomes our own out of love for someone else. Michael felt my love and need for a horse of my own and worked hard to give me that gift. Our friends know how we love this farm and give us the gift of sharing in that love... helping with the hay, barn raisings, tree clearing, fence building. I love having friends and family gather around our table so I cook for the multitudes. Hospitality is more than a Southern tradition for me.
God knew we needed to know Love. So Jesus came to live with us, a secondhand expression of Love. God’s love is so overwhelming and powerful we could not bear to feel the fullness of that emotion. Jesus became our Lover, our connection to God and God’s connection to us. We can love because we have been loved. When nailed down to name the most important commandment Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” Tina Turner’s hit song asks, “What’s love got to do with it? What’s love but a secondhand emotion?” Love has everything to do with it. Today I will make someone else’s dream my own out of love. I will love because I have been loved. Thanks be to the One who first loved me.

Doing the Word Freestyle...

“But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only...” James 1:22
On the surface my daddy’s life looked pretty ordinary. A child during the Depression, he grew up in a poor farm family with an abusive father. Hard work began for him when he was a small child, responsible for tending the family’s cows. Their food depended upon his work. His escape from the pain of his world was education and reading. He was a college graduate who discovered he was not suited for the work he had prepared for as a county agent. At a crucial point in his life, he decided to buy a farm instead of returning to graduate school. His work life was spent in a paper mill with a band of brothers who worked and retired from the same mill. He was a faithful husband and father to one wife and two daughters. His fundamental faith was both a comfort and a thorn in his side. We could, and often did, debate/argue what we each believed about God and the Bible. Daddy did love to argue. He never volunteered in any programs for the poor or sick. He never signed a petition. When it was his turn to serve as a soldier in World War Two, he went without protest and never second guessed his decision. There was nothing in his life that looked like he was a doer of the Word beyond his church attendance and giving money to various institutions. This man turned down the request to be a deacon because he felt he could not meet the requirements to be a good deacon.
At his funeral, mama and I began to discover how daddy had been a doer of the Word. One man came to us, crying as he told the story of daddy lending him the money to give his daughter a special wedding. Another man told how daddy had loaned him the down payment for a new home. A Mennonite couple told of his financial support for their church’s missions. Nieces who had been sent to college with his financial support, brothers and sisters who had always called on Tom when times got hard, friends who knew he was a friend in want and plenty alike, all rose up and blessed his name.
Much of what he had done was unknown to mama, gifts given with no strings attached. He could do this because he and mama separated the bills with each of them paying their part from their own accounts. Mama’s work check and his were separate and each had freedom to do as they would with what was leftover after the bills were paid. An ordinary life with an ordinary paycheck lived in an extraordinary fashion... freestyle doing of the Word with no need for recognition of the doing. He believed so he did in the one way he could. He gave money.
I think about daddy now and then in this age of activism. Everywhere I look I see people celebrated for doing good. And, I am glad for that. It helps to know that so many care so much and are passionately involved in doing what they believe. Churches and church people, clubs and schools, corporations and cities, all jumping on the public bandwagon of doing good. The positive energy that comes from this is life saving. And yet... I remember daddy and wonder about all the quiet doers of the Word, those who give and do everyday without recognition or praise. The African American man I met who is sponsoring a gathering place for kids who want to play jazz, buying furniture at Habitat (where we met), providing as a father would for kids who need one... our neighbor who is truly a neighbor in deed and relationship... my friend Ethel who felt called to teach fourth grade Sunday School for thirty years because she loved children that age... so many people doing ordinary good in extraordinary ways... surely God must be pleased.
I need to be more aware of doing ordinary good, living and doing the Word in all things great and small. I think my ordinary life lived in ordinary times can be transformed by simply doing good when I can. I do not have to match anyone else’s style of doing the Word, just be steadfast and present to possibilities that abound all around me. Today I will do one act of goodness and give thanks for the opportunity to do what I believe.