Labor Day meditation... Magic is hard work!

I love seeing children visit the farm. It is a magical place for them. Watching Caleb run to the bench, climb up to pet the donkeys, seeing Kate nibble his rubber farm boots, listening to Abby and Caleb chatter as they swing in the hammock chair, dodging them as they run in the yard from place to place in joy... it makes me laugh. Grown ups come to visit and magic happens for them, too. Some have always lived in cities and never seen the full array of stars at night. Going to sleep in darkness without streetlights and waking to sunrise light is a new way of viewing the world. Sitting on the sunset deck at night hearing the not really quiet silence of katydids and screech owls and train whistles down on the river settles souls and calms interior churning. Taking a morning walk in dew laden grass with spider webs glistening and turkeys surprised at breakfast sets a frame around the day. This magical God filled place appears to just happen, to be there for the taking like an apple hanging on a tree. Tisn’t so, though.
Before sitting on the deck there is work to be done. Hay to bale, bush hogging fields to keep weeds out of the pastures, feeding the cows and the chickens and the horses and the donkeys and the cats and the dogs and the ducks, stalls to clean and sawdust to shovel, eggs to gather, fences to mend and grass to cut, hornet nests to be sprayed, spraying the cows and horses for flies, tractor to be serviced and weed eating to be done, new blades to be put on the mower, roads to be scraped level, everywhere you look there is work waiting to be done. Like a ducks feet paddling quickly underwater while floating serenely on top of the water, a farm requires great effort to support the pastoral life. It doesn’t just happen.
Untended fields grow up in locust trees and weeds quickly. Clean pastures feed cows, horses, deer and turkeys. Unmended fences let cows and horses roam. Tractors that do not have the oil changed and the filters replaced break down. Lawn mowers with dull blades cut grass unevenly and we have a lot of grass. Animals need daily care or they suffer. Winter is coming and hay will be needed to feed animals. If you don’t love the work and can’t afford to pay hired help, don’t move to a farm. We love the work that supports the farm, helps the magic happen for children and grown-ups because there are too few places like this anymore. Being able to live surrounded by God’s creation is a gift and a stewardship responsibility. We take care of the farm and we share it because we have been given much.
And so it is with the life of the spirit. Those who seem to be keepers of the flame, those who appear to have been given the gift of faith and the inner knowledge of God’s presence, are hard workers who devote their time and energy to cultivate their gifts, grow a spirit filled crop of godliness. They feed and mend and service and tend the life they have been given as an offering to their Creator. It isn’t magic or a gift just some of us can have. It is a gift we all have been given but few of us are willing to do the work. Our American activist style leads us to do good works (Be ye doers of the word....)but often we do not do the work of the spirit needed to support
the busyness. One without the other leaves us limping along unable to stand up straight.
Michael used this prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick in worship yesterday and it is a prayer I pray for myself as I live and work in the sanctuary of Sabbath Rest Farm. “Eternal God, high above all, your children gather in your sanctuary to worship you. You fill heaven and the earth so that none can hide where you cannot not see. Through all the universe You flow like blood through our bodies. Yet there is one spot where we feel the pulse, where putting the finger, we know the heart is beating. Let your sanctuary be that for us this day. O God who fills all things, here let us feel the beating of the Eternal Heart. Amen.” Wherever your sanctuaries are, I pray you take the time and do the work to feel the beating of the Eternal Heart.

Murder mysteries and the Mystery

I am a murder mystery addict. As far as I know there is no twelve step program for murder mystery addicts so we learn coping mechanisms on our own. Second hand bookstores help us keep our reading on a budget by providing a place to recycle and renew our stash. Libraries are our home away from home. Reading murder mysteries has evolved into a spiritual practice for me. I know many of you are scratching your heads wondering how this can be... murder and mayhem a spiritual practice? Here is how it works for me.
Every mystery contains darkness, evil, sin. I am confronted with the age old conundrum of our inhumanity towards each other, the dark beast that lurks under our surface. If I am honest with myself, I am a murderer, a killer. Sometimes I am a passive killer who just turns my back on life and my call to live as a Christian bringing new life to my little piece of the world. Or I might kill with my sharp tongue, my impatience with those who are not like me, my need to be in charge that smothers the spirit of others. There are many ways I can kill heart, mind and spirit in others as well as myself. Like the killers in my mysteries, I can be a life draining force.
Murder mysteries offer resolution, salvation of sorts, when the puzzle is solved, the killer identified and justice is served. The end of the book provides all the clues that lead to the solution. My life and its problem puzzles seldom are so neatly packaged. When I find myself lost in the maze of draining depression, suppressed rage or loss of meaning, it is not easy to find the clues that will lead me back to my whole self. And, there is no handy detective leaning over my shoulder whispering in my ear suggesting what to do or where to look. Then I need God and God’s faces in the world to help solve my own mystery of the moment.
A series of mysteries written by Peter Tremayne has Celtic religion in ancient Ireland as the setting with Sister Fidelma as the heroine. Through these books, I have become acquainted with Christianity as practiced many years ago in a tradition separate from the Roman tradition. The culture and faith, closely connected to the earth, honored women and men, allowed each to excel and was not patriarchal. My curiosity was piqued and I have been exploring this faith world both ancient and modern. Like all faith systems, there is an orthodox tradition that claims the “right worship” and a new age pattern that is only loosely connected to the beginnings of Celtic faith. I find myself on a journey looking for clues to a faith that is a part of my father’s family heritage.
In the middle of all the mish mash of Celtic orthodoxy and new age Celtic loosey goosey, I see little glimmers, like the iridescent trail left by a snail crawling on the ground. As I read, sit with the words, contemplate the mystery of this tradition and what it has to teach me, I remember the joy of my salvation and feel drawn to this way of knowing God. The words and melody of one of my favorite hymns surface and I remember it is an old Irish hymn. Translated in the eighteen hundreds, set to a traditional Irish melody, it has been a part of my faith sound track for years. It is my prayer for today. In one of life’s little miracles, the hymn begins to play on my radio as I write these words. The singer, with Irish bagpipes and drums, sings in English and Gaelic, and I feel a stirring in my soul as I search for the Heart of mine own heart.
“Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; naught be all else to me save that Thou art; Thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my true word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; Thou my great father and I Thy true son, Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one. Riches I heed not or man’s empty praise, Thou mine inheritance now and always; Thou and Thou only first in my heart, High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art. High King of Heaven, my victory won, May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun! Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.”

A time for every purpose...

To everything, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die...

One of my life lessons has been learning the art of celebration... not having fun, that is a different proposition, but how to celebrate. Celebration is a rich paradoxical experience that lives on the breaking wave, balanced between life and death, joy and sorrow, grace and judgement. It is laughter with tears. Celebration is joy with a ritual. I celebrate with eyes that see the other side of light, with ears that hear the sound of weeping, a mouth that sings a glad song and a soul that knows all is well in the purpose of this moment. My weekend was filled with celebration.
Michael and I drove to Charlotte to visit with our son Adam and his wife Michelle. They have just learned they are expecting their first child and we wanted to put our arms around them in blessing. We spent time celebrating the hard work they have done on their new house, talking about babies and family, cleaning furnace filters and checking out wiring. Adam’s birthday is in September so his present was a trip to IKEA for some baby furniture. There is a new purpose under heaven for Adam and Michelle, a new life coming into being that will be a part of each of them. This miraculous affirmation of life is both commonplace and unique, but sheer joy always takes my breath away as I watch my children bear children. Now we enter the time of grateful waiting as our next grandchild grows and gets ready to join the family.
In the middle of the IKEA store, the phone rings. Jeannie is calling to tell us Vince is close to death. We made a pact that Vince would not be left alone as he died. His wife, Tina, had just left and Jeannie was staying with him. An hour later, the news comes that Vince has died, quietly and with Jeannie by his side, five days after he entered Solace. Laughter with tears, gratitude with grief, a beginning and an ending... a true celebration of life in the most unlikely of places...
So today we will be cooking food for the family as they gather. Diane is bringing chicken and dessert, Jeanie a salad, mama is fixing potatoes, I am bringing creamed corn and tuna salad. The eggs in the tuna salad come from the chickens living in the last project Vince designed for us. Too sick by then to help build it, he drew the chicken house and came to see it under construction. This food is one way to say thank you for the gift of your presence in our lives, one more way we can honor Vince and care for those he loved. We will gather in the log barn chapel that he helped put together, sit on the puncheon log benches he made, laugh and cry as we tell stories remembering the man who worked with his hands and built with joy.
A time to be born and a time to die... Thanks be to God for the gift of Vince Snyder in our lives and for the new life he has entered into with his Maker. Thanks be to God for the new life coming into being with Adam and Michelle. I pray for health and happiness for our new baby. The celebration of season and purpose gives me strength and joy, Lord, and I am grateful. Amen.

Vince...

The past few weeks have been painfully sad for the farm family. We have gathered round Vince and Tina in the last days of his life on earth, standing in for blood kin, monitoring medicines, meeting with nurses and social workers, changing wet beds, shaving Vince, listening to Tina, doing what needs to be done to see that Vince dies with dignity and grace.
Most of us will not have this experience until our parents die. It didn’t used to be this way. As a child, I remember watching my great-aunt Nina come to live with my grandparents as she died with cancer. A special bed was set up in the front room for her next to my grandma. Grandma brought her meals to her as she slowly slipped away from us that summer. We weren’t sheltered or set apart from what was happening. Grandma gave it to us straight... “Aunt Nina is sick and will die. She is here so I can help her. She would like to see you now and then but I need for you not to make too much noise in the front hall.” It seemed natural, right and good that this should be happening at home.
As an adult who has seen death several times over now, I know now how hard that summer was for my grandma and her sister. Walking through the dark valley of death is not easy physically or emotionally. Watching someone you love hurt, lose their connections to you and this world, change into a person in-between this life and the next, can be overwhelming. And it can be the sweetest time of life, taking your breath away with little glimpses of glory.
I sat by Vince, my feet up on the bed, talking about our grandchildren who love him and whom he loves. I told him about Matthew’s remembrance of him in that morning’s phone call. Matthew wondered if they went fishing together again, would Vince feel better. We talked about building our house together, all the times he growled at me or someone else because we weren’t doing it “right”, the lunches shared sitting under the shade trees while we watched our house come alive. We laughed a lot and when the drugs took him off to the pain free Land of Nod, I sat awhile longer giving thanks for this unlikely friend.
Vince has moved to Solace, our hospice home for those who are actively dying. The pain of bone cancer requires medical skills we do not have. We go and sit, hold his hand, talk and laugh, tell stories and wait... wait for this last job of Vince’s to be completed. And in the waiting, God sits with us all, holding us in the love that does not let us go even in the shadow of death. Life, life and death, life in death... Thanks be to God for the mercies and grace that flow like the rivers of life when we die. In all things, life and death, I am content.