My whippoorwill song... with grasshopper grace notes and butterfly benediction

In the twilight, I miss the sound of the whippoorwill’s song as the faint taste of loss and leaving lingers in my soul. This season, the crossing over from summer into fall, always brings a melancholy that is echoed in that shy bird’s song. As a child we would sit on the porch listening to whippoorwills sing from the woods that edged the pasture. Plaintive, sweet, floating over the heavy summer evening air, he called us home as darkness settled over the land. Gone now from the fields around us, I hope the whippoorwill has found refuge from the mad rush of development in the hills and hollows farther up the mountains. A world without the whippoorwill’s song would be sadly lacking. I sit on my soul’s porch listening to the whippoorwill song in my heart remembering my seasons of good by saying.
School’s beginning was always bittersweet for me as our children crossed another hurdle in the race to grow up. Kindergarten, first grade, first bus ride, middle school, high school, first car, driving off to college, first child to leave home, last child to leave home (the middle child gets a free pass)... all in the fall when the tangy smell of approaching autumn floated through the early morning air. I celebrated their coming of age, their growing into accountability, the sight of their individual personhood, the faint outlines of the grownups they would become emerging from their childhood. And as I celebrated, I mourned the loss of my babies... makes no sense does it?
In the luminous light of summer not yet autumn, I see the ones I have loved who have left this world, loved ones who no longer can come when I call. As I cut grass today on the farm, their faces rested in my heart’s memory and I called them by name. Grandparents, father, sister, husband, friends... their presence in my life was a gift and I honor them by remembering. The day is crisp and clear like my memories and I rest between laughter and tears.
I look down and see my shirt covered with grasshoppers of all sizes and colors, refugees from the mower who have found safety on me. Brown long legged ones, small bright green ones, brown and orange ones... crunchy legs climbing up my shirt towards my face, jumping away when I lift my hand to touch them. As a child I caught and raised grasshoppers in gallon jar terrariums, feeding them until their skins split like a snake as they outgrew their body covering. They fascinated me, and in them I caught my first glimpse of the transformation that comes with growth.
A cloud of butterflies suddenly surround me on the mower up by the high barn. I turn the mower off and sit, soul singing at this beautiful symbol of resurrection. Black and blue butterflies, sitting on the mower, lighting on my arms, resting in the clover... I think God just reached down and tapped my soul on the shoulder. Words come to mind and heart... “Remember to whom you belong. Remember there is more to life than death. Rest in the beauty that surrounds you and give thanks for all that has been and all that is yet to be.”
Tonight Michael and I drove the tractor and the mower down to the barn under the light of a full moon. The last few stragglers of fireflies glowed here and there as I meandered down the hill. Light enough for the journey...beautiful light... beginnings and endings illuminated, glowing with memories and possibilities. It is more than enough. Thanks be to God.

Oh to grace how great a debtor...

All of my life I have prayed the Lord’s Prayer using different words as times have changed... Our Father and Mother instead of just Our Father... but one phrase has remained the same in meaning. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others their trespasses against us... The interpretation of this phrase has remained constant. The quality of forgiveness for ourselves depends upon the forgiveness we extend to others. The gospel story of the man imprisoned for failure to pay his debts who is forgiven by the ruler only to imprison those who owe him is the foundational text for this reading of the prayer.
I am coming to a new hearing of these old words in this most important prayer. Sitting in a new congregation so different from all those I have known before, the Presbyterian version of this prayer startles me every Sunday with the words “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” I almost always stumble through the first part of this phrase catching up on “our debtors”. One Sunday a retired minister stood and said this particular phrase had meaning for Presbyterians because they were in their history shopkeepers and owners who often were called to forgive the debts owed them by those who could not or would not pay.
I sit sometimes in worship after the Prayer contemplating my debts, what I owe, what promissory notes I have signed in my life. I owe my parents for their loving care even when I was unlovely. I owe my children who taught me the dance steps for the circle of life. I owe my grandchildren for the pure unbridled joy they bring to my life. I owe my pastors who have each given me words every Sunday that often caught my God imagination and pushed me closer to my Creator. I owe my husband Michael who has worked to support us financially and keeps me from floating off into the ether of introversion. I owe my friends who continue to gather round for fun and frolic and come when I holler for help. I owe my God for life and sustaining love that will not let me go even when the way is shrouded in darkness.
“Oh to Grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.” Please Lord, bind me and remind me of my debts. Seal me in your heart so that my wanderings will always lead back to you. Amen.

Salty dogs...

We moved to Asheville in 1980 with three small children and a dream. Since no bank in its right mind would loan mortgage money to someone with just a dream, it took all the money from the sale of our Columbia house to purchase the old house we bought on Vineyard Place. The three hundred dollars we had left over bought groceries and the speaking engagement at Fort Jackson paid enough to keep us afloat for a month. Michael launched his dream of being a pastoral counselor in the mountains we loved working first in an office at a church, then at our home in a remodeled basement office.
Upstairs I stripped wallpaper and woodwork, patched plaster and sewed Roman shades, answered the phone and took messages for Michael, ran car pools and was a full time mother and remodeling laborer. Michael’s practice was full in two months and we never looked back. Our children grew. We carved out a place in church and our community at large. The dream became flesh, the call was answered, the gifts were given and life was very good.
Then Southern Seminary called wanting Michael to come help establish a department in Family Ministry. Southern Seminary was Michael’s alma mater, the place where professors had nurtured and challenged him academically and taught him how to do and be a pastoral counselor. It was an agonizing decision but we left for a six year period of time to live in Louisville, Kentucky where he led the Gheens Center for Family Ministry and was a professor giving back some of what had been given to him.
In 1990 after the Baptists went to hell in a handbasket as a denomination, we moved back home to Asheville and Michael resumed his practice as a pastoral counselor. Professors don’t make a whole lot of money so our nest egg was the money we made on our home in Kentucky. Once again no bank wanted to make us a mortgage loan without a regular paycheck so with a hefty down payment, we found an owner willing to finance us for a year until we could get a loan. Our oldest daughter headed off to college after one week in town.
So here we were again... a rented office, a daughter in college with tuition payments, two other children at home, a mortgage payment and nothing but a dream and a call. Twenty years later, the dream has become flesh. Michael is now the counselor for the second and third generations of families he has known since the early eighties. Countless weddings and funerals, preaching and teaching in churches all across our county, tending pastors who need a pastor, his call to be a pastor, first heard as a small boy, has been realized in ways he never dreamed. Now working only three days a week in the office, Michael’s dreams are taking a new shape as he moves into partial retirement... old and new gifts, old and new dreams.
In the gospel of Mark I read... “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” Our lives and Michael’s responses to his calling have salted us with fire at times. It can be scary to launch out into the unknown with little money and many responsibilities. But the fiery salt has brought us new gifts, new ways to be children of God, new ways to be faithful to the One who called us into being. And if the translation in my annotated Bible is correct, having salt in ourselves refers to being true to our gifts and exercising them peacefully. Salty dog Christians... full of flavor that transforms all it touches...
Some days, Lord, I feel like Krazy Jane’s Mixed Up Salt. Help me remember where all my gifts came from. Lead me to the places where my gifts can be given. And when fiery salt rains down on my head, keep me true to you and to myself so that I might live peacefully. Amen.

Horseback riding and soulwork...preparation and possibility

Junie B and I took a little ride yesterday. I am trying to ride her at least three times a week or more for both our sakes. We each need the exercise. Our time together begins with a workout in the ring. We practice “Whoa Stand”, run in circles and backing up. Running the lunge strap up and down her front legs helps her stand still if she should get her legs entangled in something. Good behavior earns pats and hugs. It is sweaty, hot work for us and patience is a virtue that is rewarded. Junie B, like me, does not respond well to yelling but stubborn persistence on my part will eventually get her focused. I wonder if horses have ADD?
And then we leave the pasture for a trip around the farm. Every ride is an adventure... sometimes a sudden spook at a horsefly bite or a trip through the trees with low lying branches. Yesterday we rode through the Sound of Music Hill, the high pasture, the low pasture, the glen and up the hill home. Diane was walking with me and opened gates as we went. Getting up on a horse is not as easy as it looked in those old western movies. My body is a little older than it used to be and I need a mounting aid of some sort. So having a helper for the gates was wonderful.
In every ride there is at least one moment of pure joy...connection between Junie B and me, my body and Junie B’s body...and I remember why I do this. Yesterday I was posting in rhythm with Junie B’s trot on top of the Sound of Music Hill, the far away view of the mountains was crystal clear and the breezes were blowing. My soul laughed out loud with joy. Junie B wanted to trot, I could feel it through the reins, and we went back and forth between Diane and the far edge of the pasture. All the sweaty preliminaries forgotten, I reveled in the pleasure of the moment and let myself feel and be present to the joy.
Junie B got distracted by her companion Dixie’s whinnying from the barn in the high pasture and lost her focus. It is impossible to be out of earshot of her cries when we ride. Soon and very soon she will be coming with us and the two girls can enjoy the pleasure of each others company. Anxious to get home, Junie B stepped up the pace and slowed down only when she had to climb the hill to get to the house. Drenched in sweat, I slid down and stood by Junie B. She leaned her head around and nuzzled me. We stood in silent sweet communion for just a moment before I opened the gate. A bath and a hoof cleaning for Junie B, evening feed for everyone and then it was time for my bath.
My soulwork is akin to my horseback riding. It is composed of hard ring work, the basics... reading my holy book the Bible, other books that stir my thoughts and cause me to spend time sitting and thinking, and stretching my boundaries of belief. Then I begin to move out. I write, I teach, I keep the nursery at church. I meet an inmate and a chaplain from the women’s prison and commit to helping. I live with Michael, my mama and the farm family. And in those practices, sneaky little moments of joy pop up. In the nursery, Darrence and Tarrence grin at me with their identical twin faces. Mama giggles and sounds like the young girl she once was. Michael rings the prayer bowl calling us to grace. I sing a hymn in worship to Miss Winnie’s accompaniment and looking out the window, I see the mountains. Grace notes in a song of thanksgiving and joy... not possible without the preparation so that I might be focused and have eyes to see and ears to hear. It is more than enough for me today and I am grateful. Thanks be to God for preparation and possibility.