The face among the flowers was not a face but a flower that blurred the edge of comprehension until everything became a face, everything had eyes, everything had a mind with secret thoughts inside, and so the barn with its smudged windows stood aware of impatience and time, and the trowel with its small head in the dirt plotted how not to be found, and the old dog, who of course had her own old grey face, came to have another one, and shifted and sighed on her rug while thinking about philosophy and the stillness of God, and then the depths of the afternoons she had passed alone crossed into my heart, and the ants climbing the table stopped and looked up, and I fell away blind into a softer knowing as if into the flowers who took me as one of their own. ~Annie Lighthart, “Fluency” from Pax
Newborn babies, despite their hazy vision, will lock their gaze onto a face, and begin to smile back within a few weeks of life. They reciprocate because they are wired to respond, which reinforces a parent to smile back at their adoring and adorable baby.
So it is no wonder we see faces in all sorts of places as we seek reassurance for ourselves, that yes — we belong here. In fact, we are created to reflect God’s image. He knows us and recognizes us.
We naturally hope the rest of the world will smile back at us.
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Perhaps as a child you had the chicken pox and your mother, to soothe you in your fever or to help you fall asleep, came into your room and read to you from some favorite book, Charlotte’s Web or Little House on the Prairie, a long story that she quietly took you through until your eyes became magnets for your shuttering lids and she saw your breathing go slow. And then she read on, this time silently and to herself, not because she didn’t know the story, it seemed to her that there had never been a time when she didn’t know this story—the young girl and her benevolence, the young girl in her sod house— but because she did not yet want to leave your side though she knew there was nothing more she could do for you. And you, not asleep but simply weak, listened to her turn the pages, still feeling the lamp warm against one cheek, knowing the shape of the rocking chair’s shadow as it slid across your chest. So that now, these many years later, when you are clenched in the damp fist of a hospital bed, or signing the papers that say you won’t love him anymore, when you are bent at your son’s gravesite or haunted by a war that makes you wake with the gun cocked in your hand, you would like to believe that such generosity comes from God, too, who now, when you have the strength to ask, might begin the story again, just as your mother would, from the place where you have both left off. ~Keetje Kuipers “Prayer” from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy,Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days … ~E.B. White (Charlotte talking to Wilbur) from Charlotte’s Web
Each passing moment is precious, as time flows relentlessly.
We, on a linear trajectory from birth to death, bear witness to the cycling of the seasons while earth spins and orbits through space.
The story of me, and the story of you, is not yet finished. While our heads nod, our eyelids become heavy, the Author is turning the pages, reading resonant Words that define our days.
We pick up where we left off, wanting to hear the next unknowable chapter. We try to stay awake, eager to see what comes next.
We aren’t quite ready to fall asleep, not yet. Not yet…
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It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. ~Mary Oliver “Blue Iris”
Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest, Who, armed with golden rod And winged with the celestial azure, bearest The message of some God. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Flower-de-Luce
To plunge headlong into the heart of a blossom, its amber eyes inscrutably focusing on your own, magnified by a lens of dew. Whose scent, invisible, drowns you in opulence, and for which you can find nothing adequate to say.
You sense that you are loved wholly, yet are quite unable to understand why. But then, you lift your face, creased with the ordinary, to a heaven that is breaking into blue, and find your contentment utterly beyond telling, unspeakable, uncontained. ~Luci Shaw from “Speechless” from Sea Glass
May your blooms be floriferous and in good form, Distinctive, with good substance, flare, and airborne, With standards and falls that endure, never torn. May you display many buds and blooms sublime, In graceful proportion on strong stalks each day, Gently floating above the fans and the fray. May you too reach toward the moon and stars, Bloom after bloom, many seasons in the sun, Enjoying your life, health, and each loved one, Until your living days are artfully done. ~Georgia Gudykunst“An Iris Blessing”
Whenever I allow my eye to peer into an iris, it takes all my attention: I need a flotation device and depth finder. I’m likely to get lost, sweeping and swooning through inner space of tunnels, canyons and corners, coming up for air and diving in again to journey into exotic locales draped in silken hues ~this fairy land on a stem~ Patching a few words together, I’m immersed in the possibilities, blessed by such an impossible blossom.
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Not much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there’s been a shower of rain And hedge-birds whistle gay, I know my lad that’s out in France With fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glance At our white hawthorn tree.
. . . .
Not much to me is yonder lane Where he so longs to tread: But when there’s been a shower of rain I think I’ll never weep again Until I’ve heard he’s dead. ~Siegfried Sassoon“The Hawthorn Tree”
I drove West in the season between seasons. I left behind suburban gardens. Lawnmowers. Small talk.
Under low skies, past splashes of coltsfoot, I assumed the hard shyness of Atlantic light and the superstitious aura of hawthorn.
All I wanted then was to fill my arms with sharp flowers, to seem from a distance, to be part of that ivory, downhill rush. But I knew,
I had always known, the custom was not to touch hawthorn. Not to bring it indoors for the sake of
the luck such constraint would forfeit– a child might die, perhaps, or an unexplained fever speckle heifers. So I left it
stirring on those hills with a fluency only water has. And, like water, able to redefine land. And free to seem to be–
The bird-sowed hawthorn bush along the lane to our back field has suddenly become a blooming tree, staking out its place alongside the trail the horses follow to their pasture. This May, it is a white flame against the dark woods.
Though we didn’t intend for it to be there, we’ll leave it be. Hawthorns are great bird habitat and a haven for honeybees. They are found in most hedge rows in the United Kingdom, impenetrable due to their fierce thorns and criss-cross network of branches, a historic symbol of the toughness and persistence of the Celtic people. Though we don’t need a hedge row here, I appreciate the tree’s reminder it has a place in myth and lore.
It will never be a hospitable tree like the lone fir tree that graces our hill, or the big leaf maple where children climb, or the black walnut whose branches support the treehouse. But it will be a white beacon every May, portending the summer to come, and if it bears fruit, it will feed the birds that nest in its interior.
And like the poem written by WWI soldier/poet Sassoon, it will be a bittersweet reminder of the familiar comfort of home, even though sharp thorns abound among the blossoms. Those thorns are nothing compared to the despair found in the fearsome trenches of warfare.
along fair Arran’s shores the swans sing soft of tale of yore, of a young love taken to sea
the two were hand in glove like sparrows bound in sacred love a tune that only they can sing
a tree of unity they planted by the green eyed sea the branch would hold their love through time
a sailor lad was he he said,”dont cry my lovely, mhari before the moon is full i’ll return”
I’ll wait for thee and she sang to him
the moon shone full and bright and home he sailed mid-summers night the tree so young and blossoming
they slept among the green the world was light and dreams serene the fires in their hearts burned bright
Where moss-grown boulders stand, he took her by the lily hand and there they wed at break of day
the seas know not of hearts and once again the two must part. “it wont be long, i swear to thee.
please wait for me.” and she sang to him
The hawthorn tree has grown, 10 years she walked shores alone, she hears his whisper in the leaves
Home is the sailor lad, home in the sea, forever plaid, Under the wide and starry sky
Yes, I will wait for thee, By mountain, sea and tree; And on the wind you’ll hear my love,
for at the fall of day Beneath the leaves where once we lay I’ll sit and sing i’ll wait for thee
come back to me…. music and lyrics by Fae Wiedenhoeft
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What does it feel like to be alive? Living, you stand under a waterfall… It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation’s short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.
I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world’s surface, and exit through it. ~Annie Dillard from An American Childhood
I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet. ~Ada Limón from “The Raincoat”
Mothering can be like standing under a waterfall, impacted breathless by the incredible 24/7 responsibility of birthing and raising children. And a mother does whatever she must to protect her children from also getting soaked in the barrage of each drop of time, knowing they too can feel overwhelmed by the rapid passage of life.
As I tried my best to keep my children covered and dry until it was their turn to raise kids and stand under the same waterfall, my own rough edges have been impacted, smoothed and soothed by the flow of time.
I’m well aware rough edges still surface, unbidden and unwarranted, ready to cut a hole in the world for an escape hatch from troubles. So my children and grandchildren polish me even as I still try to protect them from inevitable downpours.
No longer is my reach enough nor must it be.
Life keeps pounding away, but oh so gentler on grandmothers. I know it is still ruffing and buffing me — each drop of time passing over me becomes a mixed blessing.
Each moment so precious, never to come again, yet leaving me forever and wonderfully changed.
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But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, With rosy lustre purpled o’er the lawn. ~Homer from the Odyssey
Aurora is the effort Of the Celestial Face Unconsciousness of Perfectness To simulate, to Us. ~Emily Dickinson
…for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Luke 23:45
It felt appropriate to whoop and holler when the lights began to shimmer and shift above us.
Yet as the colors deepened and danced, what struck me most was the sense of how the heavens and earth had found a “thin place” where the space between God and us had narrowed and we were being summoned to communion with Him.
Just as the curtain barring us from the holy of holies in the temple was torn in two at Christ’s moment of death, the curtain between heaven and earth was pulled apart last night.
We are no longer separated from God. He bids us to join Him and see His face.
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Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. ~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray
Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still! ~William Wordsworth from “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”
Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves. ~Leonora Carrington
Looking for God is the first thing and the last, but in between so much trouble, so much pain. ~Jane Kenyon from “With the Dog at Sunrise”
In the moments before dawn when glow gently tints the inside of horizon’s eyelids, the black of midnight wanes to mere shadow, the fear of night forgotten.
Gloaming dusk transposed to gleaming dawn, its backlit silhouettes stark as a dark hurting earth slowly opens her eyes to greet a new and glorious morn.
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A hundred thousand birds salute the day:– One solitary bird salutes the night: Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away, And tunes our weary watches to delight; It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say, To know and sing them, and to set them right; Until we feel once more that May is May, And hope some buds may bloom without a blight. This solitary bird outweighs, outvies, The hundred thousand merry-making birds Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise Would we but follow when they bid us rise, Would we but set their notes of praise to words And launch our hearts up with them to the skies. ~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”
Birds afloat in air’s current, sacred breath? No, not breath of God, it seems, but God the air enveloping the whole globe of being. It’s we who breathe, in, out, in, the sacred, leaves astir, our wings rising, ruffled—but only saints take flight… But storm or still, numb or poised in attention, we inhale, exhale, inhale, encompassed, encompassed. ~Denise Levertov from “In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being”from The Stream and the Sapphire
As if reluctant to let go the setting sun last night, one lone bird still sang a twilight song, long after the others fell asleep, their heads tucked neatly under their wings.
This lone bird had not yet finished with the day, breathing in and out its plaintive melody, articulating my thoughts I could not say.
And before a hint of light this May morning, I am swept from my dreams by a full chorus singing from the same perch, no longer a lone voice, but hundreds.
My day is launched by the warbling songs, but I cannot forget twilight’s one reluctant bird who fought the impending darkness using only its voice.
I too fight back the darkness with what I write here, if I can keep it at bay: inhaling, exhaling, encompassed in Breath. I want to sing out light to Light and live light in Light.
No darkness here.
I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I see the river flowing water running by I’d like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything
I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins
I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light I know the silence as the world begins to wake I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks
He doesn’t know the world at all Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out. He doesn’t know what birds know best Nor what I sing about, Nor what I sing about, Nor what sing about: That the world is full of loveliness.
When dew-drops sparkle in the grass And earth is aflood with morning light. light A blackbird sings upon a bush To greet the dawning after night, the dawning after night, the dawning after night. Then I know how fine it is to live.
Hey, try to open your heart to beauty; Go to the woods someday And weave a wreath of memory there. Then if tears obscure your way You’ll know how wonderful it is To be alive. ~Paul Read
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready to break my heart as the sun rises, as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open — pools of lace, white and pink —
and all day under the shifty wind, as in a dance to the great wedding,
the flowers bend their bright bodies, and tip their fragrance to the air, and rise, their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness gladly and lightly, and there it is again — beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open. Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,
with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever? ~Mary Oliver fromNew And Selected Poems
The peonies, too heavy with their beauty, slump to the ground. I had hoped they would live forever but ever so slowly day by day they’re becoming the soil of their birth with a faint tang of deliquescence around them. Next June they’ll somehow remember to come alive again, a little trick we have or have not learned. ~Jim Harrison “Peonies” from In Search of Small Gods
Later this month, I will bring our peonies to the graves of those from whom I came, to lay one after another exuberant floral head upon each headstone, a moment of connection between those in the ground and me standing above, acknowledging its thin space when one more humble and silky life shatters, its petals slowly scatter, lush and trembling, to the wind.
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I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time — waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God — it changes me. ~attributed to C.S. Lewis in “Shadowlands”
Last week, on May 1, I found a surprise hanging on our front door – a little May Day basket full of little perennial blooms, along with a cheery message and a rainbow sticker. It hung from the door handle as a symbol of spring renewal, as well as a bit of a mystery – the flowers came with no hint of who had left them.
So I did a little sleuthing (actually A LOT of sleuthing) and found out they were delivered by our nearby neighbor Faye, who turned 11 just last week. She has a very special history some of you may remember:
Nine years ago, on this Barnstorming blog, I wrote about our little neighbor, two year old Faye, sickened by E.Coli 0157 infection/toxin to the point of becoming critically ill with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (plummeting cell counts and renal failure requiring dialysis to keep her alive). My original post about her illness is found here. I asked for your prayers on her (and others’) behalf.
At the worst point of her hospitalization at Seattle Children’s, when the doctors were sounding very worried on her behalf, Faye’s mother Danyale, in the midst of her helplessness, wrote to our Wiser Lake Chapel Pastor Bert Hitchcock with a plea for prayers from our church.
Here is how Pastor Bert responded to Danyale and her husband Jesse who remained at home, caring for their four other children:
“I understand that Faye (and everyone dealing with her) is fighting for her life. And that’s the way I am praying: that God in his merciful power, would deliver her, even if her condition looks hopeless.
If you were able to be in church this morning, you might hear my sense of urgency, for I have chosen this benediction, with which to close the service — and I give it to you right now, from the mouth of our Lord:
Jesus said: “Do not be afraid, Danyale! I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One. I died, but look – I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.
Neither you nor I know how this will turn out — the possibilities are terrifying. But we do know who holds the keys of life and health and death; He is the Life-giver, who heals all our diseases — nothing can rip our lives (or little Faye’s life) out of His hands. And, when He does allow these bodies to give out, He promises to give us glorious new life, safe forever in His presence. These are not pious platitudes; these are the rock-hard promises of the one who loves us more than life, and who is absolutely in control of what is happening today.
Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast; There by His love o’ershaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest.
I’m praying for you all; and your Chapel Family will be praying this morning, as we gather in the Lord’s presence.
Love you, and yours, Danyale, Pastor Bert Hitchcock
That week, Faye’s renal failure reversed itself. She was able to return home with normal kidney function and improved cell counts, having also survived a bout with pneumonia.
Here is what her mother wrote to share with you all once she came home:
“Dear Friends and readers of Barnstorming,
Some of you we know, but so many of you we do not. Whichever the case, Emily tells me you have prayed for our little girl, Faye, throughout her sickness and into her recovery. What can parents say when people–many of whom we may never be privileged to meet in this life–have come alongside us to beseech the Lord for our daughter’s life and pray for her healing? Thank you. Thank you!
Faye is doing so well; stronger every day, more and more herself! It is wonderful to see.
This week we head back down to Seattle Children’s for a check up–we’ll get to say hello to the good folks who saw her through her sickness. A special stop will be made on the dialysis unit to see Nurse Kathy, a favorite of Faye’s. We anticipate a good report!
Thanks again for your love and support, far and wide. Truly astounding. Danyale and Jesse, for Faye, too
—————————————
Now Faye is a delightful, healthy eleven year old girl who secretly blessed me with a basket of May Day flowers. She doesn’t remember the crisis that nearly took her from us nine years ago, but she does know about God’s rainbow promises. And she certainly knows about the power of prayer in the face of helplessness.
As Pastor Bert said: our faith in an unchanging and steadfast God who loves and holds us, can change us – forever.