The water in the cisterns for the cows has begun to dry up. Yesterday Michael had to pump water from the creek to fill them up so the cows could have water to drink. Tonight we will open the gate to let the cows drink from the stream. For the past eight years we have kept the cows out of the stream to prevent pollution but our backs are to the wall. When your ox is in the ditch, you have to work on the Sabbath. And when your livestock is thirsty, you have to find water.
Our well is struggling. The water pressure is very low, too low to run the dishwasher. I fill the washing machine with clothes regardless of colors. We are restricting flushing the toilets and capturing as much grey water as possible for outdoor watering. I lie awake at night and worry about what we would do if our well fails completely.
The flowers in my yard are dying. The grass is dead and the trees we planted are showing signs of stress. My grandson Matthew wanted to see a black snake while he was at the farm but there are no snakes, turtles or frogs to be found. A dry wind blows and the cloudless sky mocks our fruitless searching for rain. The French Broad River, which runs close to our farm, is at its lowest point in over one hundred years.
And in an ironic twist, the city of Asheville has more water than they need because industrial demands have decreased as plants have shut down. We no longer have much of an industrial base (no jobs either for regular folks) and are a tourist/retirement center. Water surrounds us and yet we are dying of thirst. Beautiful, crisp, cool sunny days... awful, arid, dog days of summer...
My soul shrivels even as the grass withers in the drought. I find my mouth full of dust and my feet perpetually dirty from the pulverized ground. At night my face is covered with a thin film of dirt and I cry out, “How long, Oh Lord, must I wait for the refreshing rains to fall from the heavens? How long must I wait for the soft soothing rains of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control to water my soul again? I am as dry as the ground I live on and I pray to be led to the still waters that will restore my soul.”
At Clare’s baptism last night we stood on the banks of a creek where people have been baptized for one hundred years. As the clear cold rushing water flowed around Michael and Clare, I gave thanks for this ritual, this immersion in water. It is a grace filled connection to the Living Water that quenches our thirst. As Michael read the story of Jesus’ baptism, I gave thanks for all the wet places in my spiritual life, places where the rivers run full and fast. I watched Michael lower Clare under the water and bring her up, both of them wet and dripping, running over with the Water of Life. And I am grateful. My soul is restored and the still waters bubble up with the movement of the Holy Spirit. I can lay my burdens down and let them rest on the banks of a river that never runs dry.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Leaving home...
Leaving home...My friend Clare is leaving home next week headed to college. She and her mother Janet have been getting ready for the move... anticipating the bittersweet pain of separation that is confirmation of a job well done. After seventeen years of living in the same space, sharing the joys and sorrows, accomplishments and disappointments, being family under the same roof, a shift is under way in the bedrock of her family definition.
My father was unable to let go gracefully of his children. When it was time for me to go to college, daddy told me he would pay for me to attend college in our hometown as long as I lived at home. Being the compliant (most of the time) older daughter, I knuckled under, stayed home and went to Valdosta State College. My dream had been to attend William and Mary in Virginia near my mother’s family, but I did not have the resources in money or backbone to pull that off. My experience of college life was constrained since transportation was limited to riding with my mother when she went to work. Any night classes or social opportunities had to be planned in advance. My sister, who had more get up and go than I did, defied Daddy and paid her way to live in the dorm by working at Sears. I officially left home when I married Tim, driving away to Fort Rucker, Alabama poorly equipped to stand on my own two feet.
Leaving home has been a life long process. I spent some time wandering in the wilderness, angry at my father and his fathering. I chose to distance myself as a way to avoid facing the part I had played in the leaving home drama. As I remarried, had children, watched my parents age and my sister die, leaving home helped me come home. Somewhere, some how, I came to know my parents as people... two people who had their own stories to tell... not just as one dimensional parents who weren’t perfect. And in coming home, I found myself
I have left many homes since I first drove away from my parents home. I left my home state of Georgia to move to a large city where I knew two people. I left my home church world for the wider world of seminary education. I left the eastern part of our country and moved to Texas where they call shrubs trees and creeks rivers. I left the first home we bought and moved across the country to a demolition derby house that I remodeled while Michael was in graduate school. I have left church homes sometimes in grief, twice in anger, always feeling the wrench of letting go of something dear and deep. I have watched our children leave home, one by one, moving out into the world beyond all they have known growing up, letting go of the home we had created with children and moving on to a different kind of homeplace. I have felt the pain of seeing my childhood home empty without my father’s welcoming presence...leaving home not by choice but by necessity.
And yet in leaving I have found new homes, new places and people who become family and church and community for me. In the leaving is a new beginning. Loss can make room for life to flourish and flower. Coming home makes leaving home worth it. Without truly leaving home, I could not have found solid ground for my faith and my life. Without coming home, I could not have honored those who birthed me, raised me, loved me and let me go.
My church families have given me a sense of the Holy, a language of Love, an assurance of my worth as a creation of God that had very little to do with the version of the Bible they read or the theology preached from the pulpit. In every church home of mine, there have been people who were the face of God for me, the loving arms of Jesus for me, and the invisible Holy Spirit made visible in those who pushed, prodded and pricked my settler instincts. This family of God is like Joseph’s coat of many colors... a Baptist Student Union Director who saw something in me I did not know was there, Texas women who helped me birth my first baby in our first church, a pastor who brought comfort and solace when my soul was sore with grief, seminary friends scattered around the country who remember me when, women friends who shared church pews and helped raise my children and me, old ladies and young women, men and boys, all a part of my Joseph’s Coat family of faith. I give thanks for them.
So remember, Clare, you have to leave home. It is a necessary part of growing into who you were created to be. It is necessary for your parents as they grow into who they have been created to be. Leaving home will give you room to fall on your face and pick yourself up. Leaving home will give you new eyes to see and new ears to hear. Leaving home is a grand adventure. You cannot come home unless you leave home. And coming home is worth all the struggles and separation and pain of leaving.
“If a person loves me, they will keep my word and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” John 14:23 My prayer for you is that wherever you may be in your going out and your coming back, God will always be at home with you and you at home with God. I love you. I am praying for you. Go with God.
My father was unable to let go gracefully of his children. When it was time for me to go to college, daddy told me he would pay for me to attend college in our hometown as long as I lived at home. Being the compliant (most of the time) older daughter, I knuckled under, stayed home and went to Valdosta State College. My dream had been to attend William and Mary in Virginia near my mother’s family, but I did not have the resources in money or backbone to pull that off. My experience of college life was constrained since transportation was limited to riding with my mother when she went to work. Any night classes or social opportunities had to be planned in advance. My sister, who had more get up and go than I did, defied Daddy and paid her way to live in the dorm by working at Sears. I officially left home when I married Tim, driving away to Fort Rucker, Alabama poorly equipped to stand on my own two feet.
Leaving home has been a life long process. I spent some time wandering in the wilderness, angry at my father and his fathering. I chose to distance myself as a way to avoid facing the part I had played in the leaving home drama. As I remarried, had children, watched my parents age and my sister die, leaving home helped me come home. Somewhere, some how, I came to know my parents as people... two people who had their own stories to tell... not just as one dimensional parents who weren’t perfect. And in coming home, I found myself
I have left many homes since I first drove away from my parents home. I left my home state of Georgia to move to a large city where I knew two people. I left my home church world for the wider world of seminary education. I left the eastern part of our country and moved to Texas where they call shrubs trees and creeks rivers. I left the first home we bought and moved across the country to a demolition derby house that I remodeled while Michael was in graduate school. I have left church homes sometimes in grief, twice in anger, always feeling the wrench of letting go of something dear and deep. I have watched our children leave home, one by one, moving out into the world beyond all they have known growing up, letting go of the home we had created with children and moving on to a different kind of homeplace. I have felt the pain of seeing my childhood home empty without my father’s welcoming presence...leaving home not by choice but by necessity.
And yet in leaving I have found new homes, new places and people who become family and church and community for me. In the leaving is a new beginning. Loss can make room for life to flourish and flower. Coming home makes leaving home worth it. Without truly leaving home, I could not have found solid ground for my faith and my life. Without coming home, I could not have honored those who birthed me, raised me, loved me and let me go.
My church families have given me a sense of the Holy, a language of Love, an assurance of my worth as a creation of God that had very little to do with the version of the Bible they read or the theology preached from the pulpit. In every church home of mine, there have been people who were the face of God for me, the loving arms of Jesus for me, and the invisible Holy Spirit made visible in those who pushed, prodded and pricked my settler instincts. This family of God is like Joseph’s coat of many colors... a Baptist Student Union Director who saw something in me I did not know was there, Texas women who helped me birth my first baby in our first church, a pastor who brought comfort and solace when my soul was sore with grief, seminary friends scattered around the country who remember me when, women friends who shared church pews and helped raise my children and me, old ladies and young women, men and boys, all a part of my Joseph’s Coat family of faith. I give thanks for them.
So remember, Clare, you have to leave home. It is a necessary part of growing into who you were created to be. It is necessary for your parents as they grow into who they have been created to be. Leaving home will give you room to fall on your face and pick yourself up. Leaving home will give you new eyes to see and new ears to hear. Leaving home is a grand adventure. You cannot come home unless you leave home. And coming home is worth all the struggles and separation and pain of leaving.
“If a person loves me, they will keep my word and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” John 14:23 My prayer for you is that wherever you may be in your going out and your coming back, God will always be at home with you and you at home with God. I love you. I am praying for you. Go with God.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
the tune for dancing is in its place...
I had a hard time settling to sleep last night. I got to gnawing on the bone of a painful decision and couldn’t put it down. Somewhere in the gnawing time, I remember wondering how other people make difficult decisions. Eventually I was able to let go of this particular bone and slip off to sleep.
In the Bible, folks cast lots to make decisions. That seems random and left to chance to us in this day and age. From their perspective, God controlled the decision so I imagine there was a relief in letting go of the responsibility to decide. Heads, I win... tails, I lose. Eeeny meeny miny moe...
Friends of mine formed a clearness committee when faced with a thorny decision that seemed to have no way through the tangle of what ifs. With the help of a few trusted people, they came to a moment of clarity and a way opened up through what had seemed to be an impenetrable impossible impassive problem.
Michael is fond of pro-con lists. In the process of writing down the opposites, often he finds the decision being made as the concrete words pile up. The pro list measured against the con list helps him consider all the facets of the decision. Every now and then, though, a problem presents itself as a choice between two goods or two evils and then the list isn’t much help.
And then there is my decision making process... Some might call it decision by default but I choose to call it waiting on the Lord. When there is no clear easy answer to a question, I go to the wilderness and wait. The wilderness used to be a scary place for me but it has become a familiar resting place for my soul as I sit with the silence and wait.
When I read the stories of Moses going up on the mountain to wait for God’s revelation I am reminded that I need to remove myself from the daily grinding and chewing on the decision. Like Jesus I can choose to enter the wilderness, be still, trust that guidance will come and it will. The wilderness is a state of mind I can visit as many times as I need to in the course of my daily living. While I muck stalls, I can let my heart and mind rest in the wilderness. As I wash clothes and mop floors, I can climb the mountain and listen for the voice of the Lord. When I am teaching, my soul can feel the First Creator all around me helping me create a new place to be.
It is a dance in my life moving from engagement to withdrawal. In both places I find traces of God’s presence. The difficulty lies in knowing when to grab hold and when to let go. In the waltz, one of my favorite dances, the process seems deceptively simple. The graceful bending sweeping circling turning holding close letting go dance is how I want live with God. Like Iris DeMent’s song, I find it difficult to “make the melody sweet but when I lay down the hours, leaving not a trace, the tune for the dancing is in its place. Sweet is the melody and so hard to come by, its so hard to make each note sound just right, but the tune for dancing is in its place”... The dance floor awaits... All I have to do is listen to the music and step out on the dance floor.
In the Bible, folks cast lots to make decisions. That seems random and left to chance to us in this day and age. From their perspective, God controlled the decision so I imagine there was a relief in letting go of the responsibility to decide. Heads, I win... tails, I lose. Eeeny meeny miny moe...
Friends of mine formed a clearness committee when faced with a thorny decision that seemed to have no way through the tangle of what ifs. With the help of a few trusted people, they came to a moment of clarity and a way opened up through what had seemed to be an impenetrable impossible impassive problem.
Michael is fond of pro-con lists. In the process of writing down the opposites, often he finds the decision being made as the concrete words pile up. The pro list measured against the con list helps him consider all the facets of the decision. Every now and then, though, a problem presents itself as a choice between two goods or two evils and then the list isn’t much help.
And then there is my decision making process... Some might call it decision by default but I choose to call it waiting on the Lord. When there is no clear easy answer to a question, I go to the wilderness and wait. The wilderness used to be a scary place for me but it has become a familiar resting place for my soul as I sit with the silence and wait.
When I read the stories of Moses going up on the mountain to wait for God’s revelation I am reminded that I need to remove myself from the daily grinding and chewing on the decision. Like Jesus I can choose to enter the wilderness, be still, trust that guidance will come and it will. The wilderness is a state of mind I can visit as many times as I need to in the course of my daily living. While I muck stalls, I can let my heart and mind rest in the wilderness. As I wash clothes and mop floors, I can climb the mountain and listen for the voice of the Lord. When I am teaching, my soul can feel the First Creator all around me helping me create a new place to be.
It is a dance in my life moving from engagement to withdrawal. In both places I find traces of God’s presence. The difficulty lies in knowing when to grab hold and when to let go. In the waltz, one of my favorite dances, the process seems deceptively simple. The graceful bending sweeping circling turning holding close letting go dance is how I want live with God. Like Iris DeMent’s song, I find it difficult to “make the melody sweet but when I lay down the hours, leaving not a trace, the tune for the dancing is in its place. Sweet is the melody and so hard to come by, its so hard to make each note sound just right, but the tune for dancing is in its place”... The dance floor awaits... All I have to do is listen to the music and step out on the dance floor.
Monday, July 28, 2008
an Iris DeMent frame of mind....
I am in an Iris DeMent frame of mind. Bleached blue hot dried out sky... brown dying pasture that provides a soundtrack when you walk over it... no rain to speak of in a month and the earth is baked as hard as a potter’s bowl... no more hay to be cut this season because the drought is sucking the life from our wells, rivers, streams and farms. So I put on a cd, turn the music up loud and sing along, weep along, laugh along with Iris DeMent as she sings what my soul is feeling.
The cd is titled “My Life” and was a favorite of our friend Gary as he faced his death and lived well in spite of it. “No Time to Cry, Troublesome Waters, Easy’s Getting Harder Everyday, I’m Gonna Dance the Shores of Jordan, My Life” ... The words and melodies remind me, prick my heart, send me reeling down the highways and dirt roads of my past until I find my prayers trickling down my cheeks.
This music would have been wasted on me in my twenties and thirties. I had not lived long enough to know the truths of life. No tear is wasted. People die fairly and unfairly. Life is never easy. I can choose to dance on the shores of Jordan until the angels come to carry me or I can sit in sackcloth and ashes, wailing and moaning. My life is just a part of a much larger reality but I did give my mother and father joy, make my lover smile, see new life come into being and catch a glimpse of life beyond this life. I have loved and been loved. I am grateful for all I have been given. The pain and the joy in my life are but a two sided mirror reflecting the fullness of a creation that holds drought and rain, noisy wind and peaceful silence, light and dark.
I, like God’s earth, am never just one or the other but am always suspended between opposites. Living in this creative suspension can be hard for me when I am faced with a decision I need to make, a choice, some life changing options that are not marked with a blazing pillar that leads me to the “right” way. I want answers, clear guides. Waiting, watching, praying, and listening is not easy when I feel like shaking God until I get some response Easy does get harder every day.
For all those who were in worship Sunday morning at the Unitarian church in Knoxville, confronted with sudden harsh senseless for no good reason death and dying in the midst of life and laughter, troublesome waters are swirling around their heads. For those of us who saw the scenes on screens... wild haired assailant who hates liberals... weeping women and men... bewildered children... teenaged girl holding flower bouquet... we swim in the same swirling waters.
Our choice as Christians is a simple one. “So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and those who fear are not perfected in love. We love because God first loved us.” 1John 4:16-19
This day I can choose to live embraced by that Perfect Love and cast my fears aside. Drought and rain, life and death, joy and sorrow are all laid to rest in the loving arms that hold me close. It is more than enough.
The cd is titled “My Life” and was a favorite of our friend Gary as he faced his death and lived well in spite of it. “No Time to Cry, Troublesome Waters, Easy’s Getting Harder Everyday, I’m Gonna Dance the Shores of Jordan, My Life” ... The words and melodies remind me, prick my heart, send me reeling down the highways and dirt roads of my past until I find my prayers trickling down my cheeks.
This music would have been wasted on me in my twenties and thirties. I had not lived long enough to know the truths of life. No tear is wasted. People die fairly and unfairly. Life is never easy. I can choose to dance on the shores of Jordan until the angels come to carry me or I can sit in sackcloth and ashes, wailing and moaning. My life is just a part of a much larger reality but I did give my mother and father joy, make my lover smile, see new life come into being and catch a glimpse of life beyond this life. I have loved and been loved. I am grateful for all I have been given. The pain and the joy in my life are but a two sided mirror reflecting the fullness of a creation that holds drought and rain, noisy wind and peaceful silence, light and dark.
I, like God’s earth, am never just one or the other but am always suspended between opposites. Living in this creative suspension can be hard for me when I am faced with a decision I need to make, a choice, some life changing options that are not marked with a blazing pillar that leads me to the “right” way. I want answers, clear guides. Waiting, watching, praying, and listening is not easy when I feel like shaking God until I get some response Easy does get harder every day.
For all those who were in worship Sunday morning at the Unitarian church in Knoxville, confronted with sudden harsh senseless for no good reason death and dying in the midst of life and laughter, troublesome waters are swirling around their heads. For those of us who saw the scenes on screens... wild haired assailant who hates liberals... weeping women and men... bewildered children... teenaged girl holding flower bouquet... we swim in the same swirling waters.
Our choice as Christians is a simple one. “So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and those who fear are not perfected in love. We love because God first loved us.” 1John 4:16-19
This day I can choose to live embraced by that Perfect Love and cast my fears aside. Drought and rain, life and death, joy and sorrow are all laid to rest in the loving arms that hold me close. It is more than enough.
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