Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. ~David Wagoner “Lost”
Our grandchildren — born in Tokyo, adapting to a rural life here — bring within them the serenity of the gardens they visited there, finding respite from worldly worries and sorrows.
We remind them to love such stillness: there is rest after busyness, there is light beyond darkness, there is peace amid chaos, there are smiles after tears, there is quiet within noisiness, there is grace and mercy forever…
…as we who are older give way to the new.
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Autumn begins to be inferred By millinery of the cloud, Or deeper color in the shawl That wraps the everlasting hill. ~Emily Dickinson from “Summer Begins to Have the Look”
The passing of the summer fills again my heart with strange sweet sorrow, and I find the very moments precious in my palm. Each dawn I did not see, each night the stars in spangled pattern shone, unknown to me, are counted out against me by my God, who charges me to see all lovely things… ~Jane Tyson Clement from “The Passing of Summer”
September’s Baccalaureate A combination is Of Crickets — Crows — and Retrospects And a dissembling Breeze That hints without assuming — An Innuendo sear That makes the Heart put up its Fun And turn Philosopher. ~Emily Dickinson“September’s Baccalaureate”
There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones. ~Elinor Wylie from “Wild Peaches”
Summer now is waning and wistful; it has the look of packing up, and moving on without bidding adieu or looking back over its shoulder.
Cooling winds have carried in darkening clouds with a hint of spit from the sky as I gaze upward to see (and smell) the change.
A decent rain is long overdue yet there is temptation to bargain for a little more time. Though we are in need of a good drenching there are still onions and potatoes to pull from the ground, berries to pick before they mold on the vine, tomatoes not yet ripened, corn cobs just too skinny to pick.
I’m not quite ready to wave goodbye to sun-soaked clear skies.
The overhead overcast is heavily burdened with clues of what is coming: earlier dusk, the feel of moisture, the deepening graying hues, the briskness of breezes.
There is no negotiation possible. I need to steel myself and get ready, wrapping myself in the soft shawl of inevitability.
So autumn advances with the clouds, taking up residence where summer has left off. Though there is still clean up of the overabundance left behind, autumn will bring its own unique plans for display of a delicious palette of hues.
The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.
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The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.
So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” John 12: 12-19
On the outskirts of Jerusalem the donkey waited. Not especially brave, or filled with understanding, he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight! How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited. Then he let himself be led away. Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds! And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen. Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave. I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him, as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward. ~Mary Oliver “The Poet thinks about the donkey” from her book Thirst.
As the Book of John now enters the week of Jesus’ passion, we learn of palms and a donkey.
Palm Sunday is a day of dissonance and dichotomy in the church year, very much like the donkey who figured as a central character that day.
Sadly, a donkey gets no respect, then or now – for his plain and awkward hairy looks, for his loud and inharmonious voice, for his apparent lack of strength — yet he was the chosen mode of transportation for an unlikely King riding to His death.
There was a motley parade to Jerusalem: cloaks and palms at the feet of the donkey bearing the Son of God, disorderly shouts of adoration and blessings, the rebuke of the Pharisees to quiet the people.
Jesus’ response was “even the stones will cry out” about what is to come.
But the welcoming crowd waving palm branches, shouting sweet hosannas and laying down their cloaks did not understand the fierce transformation to come, did not know within days they would be a mob shouting words of derision and rejection and condemnation.
The donkey knew because he had been derided, rejected and condemned himself, yet still kept serving. Just as he was given voice and understanding centuries before to protect Balaam from going the wrong way, he could have opened his mouth to tell them, suffering beatings for his effort.
Instead, just as he bore the unborn Jesus to Bethlehem, stood over Him sleeping in the manger, bore a mother and child all the way to Egypt to hide from Herod, the donkey keeps his secret well.
Who, after all, would ever listen to a mere donkey?
Even so, we would do well to pay attention to this braying wisdom.
The donkey knows – he’s a believer.
He bears the burden we have shirked. He treads with heavy heart over the palms and cloaks we lay down as meaningless symbols of honor. He is the ultimate servant to the Servant who laid aside His crown.
A day of dichotomy — of honor and glory laid underfoot only to be stepped on, of blessings and praise turning to curses, of the beginning of the end becoming a new beginning for us all.
And so Jesus wept, knowing all this. I suspect the donkey bearing Him wept as well, in his own simple, plain, and honest way, and I’m quite sure he kept it as his special secret.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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I am a dry man whose thirst is praise of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup. My sweetness is to wake in the night after days of dry heat, hearing the rain. ~Wendell Berry from “Water”
I have had my dream—like others— and it has come to nothing, so that I remain now carelessly with feet planted on the ground and look up at the sky— feeling my clothes about me, the weight of my body in my shoes, the rim of my hat, air passing in and out at my nose—and decide to dream no more. ~William Carlos Williams “Thursday” from Sour Grapes
Open the window, and let the air Freshly blow upon face and hair, And fill the room, as it fills the night, With the breath of the rain’s sweet might.
Not a blink shall burn to-night In my chamber, of sordid light; Nought will I have, not a window-pane, ‘Twixt me and the air and the great good rain, Which ever shall sing me sharp lullabies; And God’s own darkness shall close mine eyes; And I will sleep, with all things blest, In the pure earth-shadow of natural rest. ~James Henry Leigh Hunt from “A Night-Rain in Summer”
We are still waiting for a few late-summer rainy days; each year they are a blissful reminder of God’s intent to refresh and replenish us when we are at our driest, when we are short on sleep and hope and dreams.
How sweet to fall asleep listening in the dark to the patter of raindrops after weeks of drought, waking to damp air, raindrop jewelry, and petrichor.
Perhaps I’ll remember this longing of mine while I grumble and slosh around in the fortieth day of rain this winter.
When will I be satisfied there is just enough but not too much? When will all my dreams seem as real as pulse and breath?
In the meantime, God — let it rain – preferably as I sleep.
Lyrics:
I know your life On earth was troubled And only you could know the pain You weren’t afraid to face the devil You were no stranger to the rain
Go rest high on that mountain Now your work on earth is done Go to heaven a-shoutin’ Love for the Father and the Son
Oh, how we cried the day you left us We gathered ’round your grave to grieve Wish I could see the angels faces When they hear your sweet voice sing
Go to heaven a-shoutin’ Love for the Father and the Son
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The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are… Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. ~Frederick Buechner in “Wishful Thinking and later” in Beyond Words
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed…
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2 Cor 4:8-9, 16-18
I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage …that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky from The Brothers Karamazov
Twenty-five years ago, a day started with bright sun above and ended in tears and bloodshed below.
This is a day for recollection; we live out a remembrance of the torrential red that flowed that day;
A quarter century later, our streets both near and far-away still course with the blood of innocents, so what have we learned from all this?
That terrible day’s edges were so sharp we all bled; still bearing the scars, we need comforting.
So do not be afraid: you are not alone.
We breathe and weep and love as we remember that day, emerging inevitably transformed.
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Day after day, day after still day, The summer has begun to pass away. Starlings at twilight fly clustered and call, And branches bend, and leaves begin to fall. The meadow and the orchard grass are mown, And the meadowlark’s house is cut down.
The little lantern bugs have doused their fires, The swallows sit in rows along the wires. Berry and grape appear among the flowers Tangled against the wall in secret bowers, And cricket now begins to hum the hours Remaining to the passion’s slow procession Down from the high place and the golden session Wherein the sun was sacrificed for us. A failing light, no longer numinous, Now frames the long and solemn afternoons Where butterflies regret their closed cocoons. We reach the place unripe, and made to know As with a sudden knowledge that we go Away forever, all hope of return Cut off, hearing the crackle of the burn- ing blade behind us, and the terminal sound Of apples dropping on the dry ground. ~Howard Nemerov “Summer’s Elegy” from Collected Poems
As far as I can see this autumn haze That spreading in the evening air both ways, Makes the new moon look anything but new, And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, Is all the smoke from one poor house alone With but one chimney it can call its own; So close it will not light an early light, Keeping its life so close and out of sight No one for hours has set a foot outdoors So much as to take care of evening chores. The inmates may be lonely women-folk. I want to tell them that with all this smoke They prudently are spinning their cocoon And anchoring it to an earth and moon From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,— Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it. ~Robert Frost “The Cocoon”
The summer ends, and it is time To face another way. Our theme Reversed, we harvest the last row To store against the cold, undo The garden that will be undone. We grieve under the weakened sun To see all earth’s green fountains dried, And fallen all the works of light. You do not speak, and I regret This downfall of the good we sought As though the fault were mine. I bring The plow to turn the shattering Leaves and bent stems into the dark, From which they may return. At work, I see you leaving our bright land, The last cut flowers in your hand. ~Wendell Berry “The Summer Ends” from A Timbered Choir.
I too regret the closed cocoon, so seemingly safe at the time — once launched before being ready, there is no returning.
In this fading, failing light, I feel undone, weepy at harvest, gathering urgently, not wanting anything to go to waste, trying to memorialize it all as it changes.
I part again from you, Summer – your gifts seemed endless until you yourself ended – a reminder that someday, so must I.
photo by Bob Tjoelker
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Thereis something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man… ~Long time equestrian wisdom attributed to many famous riders
Twenty-five years ago today, two days before the world changed forever, I helped organize a gathering of Haflinger horse owners from western Canada and the United States in our nearby town of Lynden, Washington. We enjoyed an annual meet-up at the local fairgrounds to enjoy our horses together for a few days doing breed demonstrations for the public, riding, jumping, dressage, driving in teams, vaulting – a little of everything with our versatile horses.
We received permission from Lynden City Hall to have a Haflinger parade on a quiet Sunday morning while local folks were worshipping in the many churches in town. We wanted to be sure to begin from the fairgrounds after services had started, do a two mile route through town and back to the fairgrounds before the traffic increased later.
It was a remarkable sunny morning of over ninety Haflingers and their people – some riding, driving, or leading their horses — all enjoying the quiet peace of a Sabbath morning in a friendly little town. Some of the owners and their horses had been in local parades in their home towns, but none had the experience of being an “all Haflingers” troop through a downtown.
It all went smoothly without a hitch. Well, actually there were several “hitches” in the parade: carts and wagons being pulled by our golden friends.
Everyone returned safely home before September 11, 2001. Life hasn’t felt as peaceful or calm in the same way ever since. This 2001 Haflinger parade was the one and only time it happened in our part of the world.
This is to remember those few days we spent together — the insides of us enjoying the outsides of our Haflingers.
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I will wait here in the fields to see how well the rain brings on the grass. In the labor of the fields longer than a man’s life I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.
I will be standing in the woods where the old trees move only with the wind then with the gravity. In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too. ~Wendell Berry “Stay Home” from Collected Poems
A steady silver rain pours out over the gray world on an ordinary morning. Drenching for hours the field, wild flowers, soil and all the birds off somewhere dry in hidden nests, keeping quiet.
And you, too: keep quiet for a few hours, let your thoughts fizz like that silver sheen, shushshushshushshush, ceaseless sheet of velvet, of plenty. Enough to hear, to drink, to soak in, though you hadn’t known how dry you were. ~Joanne Esser “What You Need: (It Doesn’t Have to Be Lightning)” from Nothing is Stationary
Yesterday morning, our county was awakened shortly after 6AM with several thunder crashes after lightning bolts flashed and illuminated our dark bedroom.
Thunder storms are unusual in the Pacific Northwest; even more unusual is an early morning storm with so much drama and subsequent dumping rain.
I was fortunate to be sheltering inside a comfortable home with a good roof — not sitting in a tree.
I was happy,watching it happen without it happening to me.
Then I looked out my kitchen window, where a drenched pine siskin sat trembling on our bird feeder, her breakfast interrupted by the downpour. No doubt she would much rather have been at home quietly sitting in her favorite tree, but as she was unable to fly so soaked by the heavy torrent, she huddled under the little cover of the feeder, trying to ride it out.
Watching her cope with her wet plumage from an unplanned bird bath, I realized I hadn’t known how dry I was.
After twenty minutes, the storm was all over as the sun began peeking out from behind roiling clouds. She shook off the excess drops from her feathers, picked out a few more seeds before launching on her way to parts unknown.
I sat and finished my toast, musing at our brief breakfast alongside one another, each safe under temporary shelter. In her own way, she let me know: In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.
And so I shall…
Lyrics: We all need love and shelter A place where we let go and rest To live secure with one another To be ourselves, not somebody else
Everybody needs respect and dignity Everybody needs love, real love
We all need to know we’re worthy That we are treasure to our core We can tell the truth about our trauma To be believed so we can be restored
Everybody needs love; everybody knows love Is what it takes to make a life So everybody breathe love; everyone receive love It’s how we heal and make things right
We all need confirmation To know that we are seen and heard To live our lives out in freedom Then all our flags of hope can be unfurled
We all need a place to shelter
Lyrics: Whisper truth over me I’m loved eternally Never am I alone, you’re here with me I don’t have to be afraid Faithfulness doesn’t change Unshakable terra firm underneath my need
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I find Your love sustains my life
Whisper grace over me I don’t need to earn your peace Help me surrender now as you carry me When shadows are lengthening I’m sheltered beneath your wings Compassionate arms of love are still underneath
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I find Your love sustains my life
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I’ll find Your love sustains my life
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Silk-thin silver strings woven cleverly into a lair, An intricate entwining of divinest thread… Like strands of magic worked upon the air, The spider spins his enchanted web – His home so eerily, spiraling spreads.
His gossamer so rigid, yet lighter than mist, And like an eight-legged sorcerer – a wizard blest, His lace, like a spell, he conjures and knits; I witnessed such wild ingenuity wrought and finessed, Watching the spider weave a dream from his web. ~Jonathan Platt“A Spider’s Web”
I believed only air stretched between the dogwood
and the barberry: another thoughtless human assumption
sidetracking the best story this furrow spider knew to spin.
And, trying to get the sticky filament off my face, I must look,
to the neighbors, like someone being attacked by his own nervous
system, a man conducting an orchestra of bees. Or maybe it’s only the dance
of human history I’m reenacting: caught in his own careless wreckage,
Not everyone is taking a holiday today on Labor Day. Some are busier than ever, creating a masterpiece nightly, then waiting in hope for that labor to be rewarded.
I too spin elaborate dreams at night: some remembered, some bare fragments, some shattered, some potentially yield a meal.
We work because we are hungry. We work because someone we love is hungry and needs feeding.
Yet the best work is the work of weaving dreams ~out of thin air and gossamer strands~ where nothing existed before, not as a trap or lure or lair but as a work of beauty- a gift as welcome as a breath of fresh air.
Lyrics from E.B.White poem “Natural History” The spider, dropping down from twig Unfolds a plan of her devising A thin premeditated rig To use in rising
And all that journey down through space In cool descent and loyal hearted She spins a ladder to the place From where she started
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do In spider’s web a truth discerning Attach one silken thread to you For my returning
Lyrics
Take the silver thread of a spider’s web And spin, spin, spin Silver wings to fly and sing Upon the wind High above the trees, across the seas And through the sky To the rainbow’s bend, where stories never end And dreams never die
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Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.
The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said,“Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well,because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. John 12: 1-11
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”
I am a man who has hoped, in time, that his life, when poured out at the end, would say ‘good-good-good-good-good!’ like a gallon jug of the prime local spirit. I am a man of losses, regrets, and griefs. I am an old man full of love. I am a man of faith. But faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark. Even a man of faith knows that … we’ve all got to go through enough to kill us. ~Wendell Berry from Jayber Crow
She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Mark 14:8
Last week, it became apparent one warm late summer evening that in the thick bushes lining the front of our farmhouse under our windows, some animal had died.
The stink wafted on the breeze into our bedrooms through our summer-open windows.
The outdoor farm cats and our dog were accounted for, so it must have been a dead squirrel, a raccoon or even a (actually dead) possum, all occasional nighttime visitors to our cat food dish on the nearby front porch.
Trying to find the offending carcass would involve cutting through dense foliage that had been growing over two decades – not an easy task to undertake. So we closed the windows and hoped the smell would dissipate quickly.
Surprisingly, a day later it was mostly gone, much to our relief. It is possible another animal scavenger decided it was worth hauling away. We were most grateful the smell of death was no longer filling our house…
Just the week before this scripture section from the book of John, Martha warned Jesus that opening Lazarus’ tomb would release the inevitable stench of death. Yet when Lazarus was raised, the odor of death was overcome by renewal and restoration.
When Martha’s sister Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with an expensive fragrant oil, normally used in preparation for burial, it fills the entire house with its perfume. Jesus sees it as a harbinger for what is to come in the next week.
His faith in God’s plan means Jesus goes through enough to kill Him.
In this broken world, we live in the smudge and stench of mortal man’s smell of death, yet we are saved by this crushed, dying Savior who pours out a perfume of Himself for us.
Like Mary, let us also do what we can: filling God’s house with His fragrance.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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