With a Final Heartbeat

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head for love is passing by

Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live

Now your burden’s lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain

So sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live

And like a new born baby
Don’t be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk sometimes we fall

So fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain

Then cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live

Ohh, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can’t contain your joy inside

Then dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on glory’s side

And fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live

Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live
~Chris Rice “Untitled Hymn”  (click link to hear this hymn which was sung at Linda’s funeral)

Our little church family lost one of its own last weekend.  Linda wasn’t in her usual seat last Sunday morning, which was notable.  When a family member later couldn’t reach her on the phone,  it was discovered she had slept all the way to heaven sometime in the night.

Hers had been a final heartbeat that only God knew would happen, and when.

We miss our sister in Christ and she was missed again this morning as we sang and prayed and heard God’s Word to us; we miss her gentle smile and her ready willingness to help whenever needed.  We miss her dedication to a Savior who, by His grace,  reshaped her life from self to selfless service and sacrifice.   We miss her love and caring for the rest of us who worshiped alongside her.

Yet we are comforted by what she has left behind: the flower gardens around our church that Linda tended faithfully for years, the crocus and tulip bulbs we know will come up next spring as they will continue to do, to remind us of renewal and resurrection.  Linda got down on her knees to work the soil to create beauty, falling on her knees in gratitude for forgiveness she had known and been shown.  She cried, she sang, she danced, and now, now she has flown to Jesus long before we were ready for her to leave.

We raise our tearful faces to see her love passing by.

Go in peace, Linda.  You have found joy on glory’s side.

To Be Carried Away — The One Thousandth

photo by Hilary Mulhern

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.
~ Frederick Buechner

It is fitting that my one thousandth blog post pictures the four people who exist at the center of all my reflections here.  I began writing regularly 12 years ago to consider more deeply my time left on this earth and what my family meant to me, here and now, and for eternity.

Family is carried inside the words I write without my often writing about them directly.  They inspire and challenge me, they love and stretch me, and as our children have now gone out into the world,  I am assured they are sustained by what they have carried away from this home.

Life is not just about living in the world but what world you carry deep inside.   We can never really be lonely;  our hearts will never be empty.  We have each other forever, even miles and miles and lifetimes apart.

I sustain myself with the love of family.
― Maya Angelou

Breathe Normally

Thunderhead from above over western Washington

There’ll be turbulence. You’ll drop
your book to hold your
water bottle steady. Your
mind, mind has mountains, cliffs of fall
may who ne’er hung there let him
watch the movie. The plane’s
supposed to shudder, shoulder on
like this. It’s built to do that. You’re
designed to tremble too. Else break
Higher you climb, trouble in mind
lungs labor, heights hurl vistas
Oxygen hangs ready
overhead. In the event put on
the child’s mask first. Breathe normally
~Adrienne Rich -from Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, 2011 National Book Award Finalist

We just got off a very turbulent flight from Chicago to Seattle due to thunderstorms much of the way, particularly in the northwest. The brief times when there wasn’t shuddering and bouncing and metal trembling were gifts. I could breathe normally for awhile, not gripping the chair arm, gritting my teeth and silently praying.

I’ve become less and less brave about flying. I know all the statistics about safety but they don’t reassure me in the clinch when hanging at 35,000 feet as if on a thin bungee cord.

Now safely on the ground, I wonder about the next flight, and the next. Like the stomach sinking drops that life can inflict unexpectedly, I know there is nothing to be done but endure what is uncertain. I can’t pedal fast enough to keep a plane in the air so I depend on others who build and maintain and fly planes to do that for me. I can’t prevent bad things from happening in life, but I can depend on the truth that goodness will prevail. I must trust solely in grace given as a gift and never earned.

I must put my oxygen mask on first and breathe normally. Then and only then can I help save others.

Mt. Baker from above. Usually we admire it from the ground from our Whatcom County back yard

 

The Chopping Block

photo by Josh Scholten

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.
~Annie Dillard from The Writing Life

Almost a year ago, I decided to aim for the block daily on this website of reflections, as if words were wood and pictures were kindling.  I have ended up with a quite a pile of almost 1000 blog posts strewn about my feet due to my random chopping, having been drenched in sweat at times, and garnered my share of splinters.

The reason for writing daily came after I learned that a well-respected publisher’s interest in printing a collection of my work had fizzled with dwindling resources for creating hard copy books, particularly for new authors.  There needs to be assurance of selling at least 3000 copies of a book for a publisher to break even.

I could offer no such assurance.  This blog, on a “good” day, gets 120 visitors.

So I’ve started storing up the wood of words and pictures, chopping away every day in case I’ll need this storehouse of fuel in the future.  It is not that the world needs another blog post but that I need to keep aiming, keep chopping and keep my eye on the block, cutting through and past the wood.  This is something I do because I feel better when I do it, like the redemption of aching muscles after a work out.

My ax needs constant sharpening and I keep my aim focused.   The days are shortening.

Tip-toe Wings

Here are sweet-peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
~John Keats

I grew up watching sweet peas climb a trellis in our family garden. Their delicate tendrils did wrap clinging fingers around anything they could reach and grasp. The blossoms were too ephemeral to bring indoors for a vase on the table — the petals would droop and then drop within a day or so. They were meant to be appreciated right where they grew, so I would visit them regularly, breathe deeply with my nose in their midst to capture and keep their lovely scent with me as I went on about my day, leaving them waving their vines in my wake.

Some things are better left undisturbed, to flourish right where they have taken hold. In the case of sweet peas, if I had stood beside them long enough, the finger-like tendrils would have reached out and grasped me as well, climbing up my frame and wrapping their blooming fragrance around me, truly changing me forever.

And so it will be in heaven someday: we will be grasped and clung to with the sweet scent of everlasting love, never to be let go, and never again to be what we once were.

Grander Than The Sky

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
― Victor Hugo in Les Misérables

We are on a cross-country road trip to take our daughter back to college, with no time for stopping and taking good focused photos. I apologize these are taken in Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota through a buggy-mess windshield at 70 mph.

The expanse of sky stretching seemingly to infinity never fails to awe me on these trips.

As high and broad and endless the sky appears, so much more so are our souls deep within us. We are created everlasting; instead, in our Fall and brokenness, we face the limitations of our bodies. We feel so finite yet our souls are anything but — they are the image and reflection of our Creator.

When we look up– at the clouds, at the stars, at the moon and sun, we are reminded to look within and acknowledge in deep humility — we are His. Bugs and all, even when we are speeding along through our God-given life, too busy to notice the grandeur around us and in us.

He notices.

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The Tears of Summer

The grasses in the field have toppled,

and in places it seems that a large, now

absent, animal must have passed the night.

The hay will right itself if the day

turns dry.

I miss you steadily, painfully

~Jane Kenyon from “Heavy Summer Rain”

The sun returns
and the tears will dry.

The impression left on my heart
still twinges with every beat.

Eventually, though trampled and toppled,
I right myself to face the rain again.

The truth is, I need it, can’t live without it.

photo by Nate Gibson

The Floating Clouds

Blue mountains lie beyond the north wall;
Round the city’s eastern side flows the white water.
Here we part, friend, once forever.

Oh, the floating clouds and the thoughts of a wanderer!
Oh, the sunset and the longing of an old friend!
We ride away from each other, waving our hands,
While our horses neigh softly, softly . . . .
~Li Po from “Taking Leave of a Friend”

Weep For Wonder

photo by Nate Gibson

photo by Nate Gibson

Sure on this shining night
Of star-made shadows round
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground

The late year lies down the north,
All is healed, all is health
High summer holds the earth,
Hearts all whole

Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder
Wandr’ing far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
~James Agee “Sure on this Shining Night”

See this beautiful poem sung in a choral setting,  interpreted by Morten Lauridsen here and by Jay Giallombardo  here

It is high summer holding the earth now; our hearts whole and healed.
Our family come together, now parted,
and I weep for wonder that we had this time,
at this place, under these stars.
May we live sure that another shining night,
we will be together again.
Amen and Amen.

photo by Nate Gibson

photo by Nate Gibson

photo by Nate Gibson

Always Summer

The serene philosophy of the pink rose is steadying.  It fragrant, delicate petals open fully and are ready to fall, without regret or disillusion, after only a day in the sun.  It is so every summer.  One can almost hear their pink, fragrant murmur as they settle down upon the grass: “Summer, summer, it will always be summer.”
~ Rachel Peden

And so it always will be summer when one lets go in the midst of brightness when all is glorious.  No cold winds, no unending days of rain, no mildew, no iced walkways, no 18 hours of night every day, no turning brown with rot.

Serene and steadying — with so much brevity.

Let me be strong and serene through all seasons rather than letting go at the height of delicate beauty.  Let me thrive steady through the hard times rather than withering at my peak.  Let me age, let me turn gray, let me wrinkle.

It may always be summer — someday — but not yet.  Not here. Not now.