Gestation Days

I don't remember how many times stainless needles poked about her blue veins in attempt to drain in another IV bag. You lose count in a storm of hyperemesis gravidarum that pounds relentlessly, leaving one limp and hanging over a toilet bowl. The days, weeks, months of wooziness, churning smells, swirling green nausea, it all eroded away at joy.

But when a whisper of fingers wrapped close yesterday....

"Wasn't that worth every single day of it?" The words are soft. No one speaks loud on holy ground. I search my sister's eyes.

She smiles, looks down into those gleaming black jewels just opening.

"Entirely." She strokes that heaven-fresh cheek. "If you only knew... had a window ahead to see... then you'd know for all those days where you just want to give up. It is more than worth it."

A stretching yawn captivates. Smitten, we laugh.

"It's like heaven, isn't it?" I watch Little Ana sigh, purse her lip, bubble. "If we just had a window ahead... We'd know these hard days are worth it."

Quiet settles and we let it, eyes only for this miracle bundled. I smell her whisp of black hair, kiss her forehead.

And then... after a bit, the realization comes slowly.

"You know....," my eyes don't leave that flawless face. "We did know. We had a window ahead of why it was worth it: her three sisters."

My sister sadly nods. "True."

And through the twilight home, I can only speculate about all the windows ahead He opens, faintest glimpses of heaven's glory, that I miss, ignore.

Today I pray to wake. To wake to this endless stream of assurances He gives.

For all around He writes that heaven's coming wonder will be worth these long gestation days.

Lord, wake me to the windows of the soon-to-be that open into now. Let us bask in the rays of light, warmth to carry us through the weariness of gestation. Oh, the delivery coming!

Photo: Ana and I meeting

A Dwelling Place

It’s the slow, heaving pant on the other end of the line that wakes me. No words in the receiver, just this heavy, exaggerated exhale of a body.

My brow crinkles. I don't open eyes, searching for a way out of dreams, to figure out who, why.

And then a voice, hardly audible:

“I think it is today.”

Today?

It registers.

My sister’s voice.

And today. The Saturday before Mother’s Day.

I know this place, familiar and worn. I been here before.

Thirteen years ago on the eve of Mother’s Day, that was my labored breathing, the muscles of my abdomen contracting taut and iron hard, me riding wave after cresting wave.

I don’t open my eyes to the grey mingling of dark and dawn, just inhale and exhale too. I remember words for this in between place.

“In Him, you can do this, sister.” I press the phone closer, wanting her to hear, get this.

“Just stay fluid, lean back into it. Let it come. The more you tense, the more it intensifies. Let it all flow through you. Channels only.”

They are close, handy, those phrases that coached through our six births. And too, I guess what is true of labor is true of the work of life. Stay fluid, let His current take you, don’t rail. Channels only.

“You think I can do this?” Her teeth are chattering now, nerves jangled, scared.

“Lay back into Him, and let it all just come. Don’t fight it. Then yes, you can definitely do this.”
She answers with long, methodical breathing. I nod, smiling into dark lighting.

“Enjoy this fullness,” I whisper. “You know not if you pass this way again.”

We both know it’s time and she has to go and I step into new day coming. I stretch covers up over sleeping places, comb out Little Girl’s dream knots, set bowls out and around for their coming in from barn and chores and early morning air. But prayers linger on lips, always prayers.

Hope-girl and I, we dress for a Mother-daughter garden tea at the chapel this morning, this Saturday before Mother’s Day. She wears flashing pink and I wear safe black and I don’t know what my mother would have wore, for now she cannot come. Mama will collect my nieces close while my sister lets go of curled child within.

At garden gathering, we choose a table draped in yellow, Hope-girl and I, finger the violet petals strewn about, and listen to this chatting, laughing, weaving of lives together, shuttle slipping back and forth. I am there, surrounded by daughters, mothers, grandmothers, but I am not there, a loose string. Talk of recipes, sipping of cups, but my thoughts are in the same hospital I was in thirteen years ago on the cusp of my first Mother’s Day.

I am with a uterus emptying.

Sometimes I catch myself, this laying a hand on my flatness, over that still cavity, and feeling the pulse of ache’s echoing howl. A woman’s body and soul is hollowed out to create, to weave, to knit in the private spaces. And so the longings come, yearnings to fill, to carry, to deliver.

I remember where I was when Husband looked into these seeking eyes and tenderly agreed, “It is true. The barren womb never is satisfied” (Prov. 30: 15-16). If only he really knew how it can scald...

And yet, I have come to think, does the womb need a seed, an unfurling, embryonic soul? Can any soul fill the void? While not necessarily with child, perhaps we may be with abandoned, with elder, with needy. The barren and deserted may become the dwelling place, the fertile home, of souls seeking mother-care.

“The barren has borne…” (1 Sam. 2:5).

Hope-girl beside me, she brushes up against my arm, yogurt-dipped strawberry kissing her lips. She's laughing with her friends. How did that babe I once enveloped in watery womb, unfold into this long lissome dreamer? She grows and I lay fallow. And yet…

We are hardly through home’s door when the phone rings, her voice again, her breathing now undetectable.

“Already?” I glance up at the clock over the table.

“She’s here.” Her voice is light, wearily happy. “We have four.” I shake my head at the wonder of those four sisters laughing and weaving old together.

“Ana… after you.” My breath catches. Words scatter, leaving me stilled.

“Ana Jordan… Jordan cried when we told her. Who knows? Jordan may never marry or have children. And there is always this little one to love.”

The barren has borne. Both of us.

And I realize: We never cease to be with child. Those of us who have birthed, and those of us who never have. We may make spaces within us for all of humanity, for their dreams, their stories, their hurts, their lives. Do we not, over the years, line our lives with the stretchmarks of love?

The privilege of carrying a soul is always ours. We may choose to never let our wombs languish empty. Always we may open and welcome another person to find nourishment and comfort within the empty places we have made just for them.

Somewhere under this night pinned up with stars, Ana Jordan sleeps near her mother’s face, her warm breath falling, her fists clenched tight. And we of empty uteruses still swell, making ourselves homes.

It’s my last act on this Saturday before Mother’s Day. To fold a card and write a haiku of feelings for my own who loves and harbors yet:

Silver-crowned mama
Still you swell, full with child, an
Always dwelling place.

Lord, show me today how I can make space in my life to be a womb...

Related:
On Mothering
In Mama's Honor

Light

The words in my pocket today...

Truly the light is sweet,

And a pleasant thing it is

For the eyes to behold the sun...

~Ecc. 11:7

Father, today I pray for eyes to behold the radiance of

Him who is our only Light....

(A morning filled with singular adoration.

Later, Mother's Day words and reflections...)

Of Criticism's Heat and Water Flowing Down

The criticism comes early in the day, burning.

Apparently, I had botched it. Muddled it all. Truth for the speaker, a genuine experience that I needed to hear, attend to. Still, the words singed this heart.

I let the words raze through the layers, smolder for hours, pieces of me blowing away, papery ash. It’s long and painful, this replay of searing words. The words keep reverberating, endlessly stoking the fire.

Yet in His grace, He stirs me too, gives me eyes to see. Yes, the flame of criticism scorches the wooden frame of me, true. I grieve that I am not hard, indestructible stone refusing to be charred.

But if I look closely, touch this wood on fire, I see the grain, still wet, sizzling with water. The heat of the judgment draws out wood’s water.

I cup hands close and the water drips, pools, into the hollow of me. I am soothed with its wet. This, the simple act of taking the blistering words as the cup that He gives. Taking the words as water meant to be collected, brought to lips, drank. I let reproach’s fire wring out water and give thanks with a whispered prayer:

"Thank you. I give thanks too for this criticism, food You give to nourish soul humility.”

If I truly believe myself to be unworthy, should I not also want others to have a realistic perception of who I am too?

Why be wounded, discouraged, when others find the efforts of these hands, this life, to fall short? For it’s true. I do fall short. It’s the essence of who I am. It’s why I cling to wood that won’t burn, wood surging up from the core of the universe, the Wood of Calvary.

“You would be a hypocrite to think lowly of yourself, but then expect others to think highly of you,” wrote the theologian and chaplain Jeremy Taylor over three hundred years ago. “Remember, no one can undervalue you if you know that you are unworthy. Once you know that, no amount of contempt from another person will be able to hurt.”

It does not hurt water to flow to the lowest places. It’s what water does. Always seeking, searching, hunting for ways to go lower, to trickle further downward. We live parched, thirsty. But we will not find drink for our soul on the heights, on the peaks. For the water’s running down, calling us to come too. To take His cup, to be quenched, we too must go lower and lower.

I am learning to live the Eucharist, to give thanks not only for that which delights, but for that which hurts… and finding it joy too.

Lord, the Refiner's Fire burns the water out of this wood. Will I drink the cup You give? O, let me flow low.

Uprighting the Earth

I've known she's been dying for quiet some time and (dare I confess?) no remorse has gnawed away at these insides, no aching sadness slowly draining. Just a happy relief washes over me when I think of it. Frankly, she needed to go, her demise long overdue.

Rest in peace, my Drama Queen. You who listened to the news and ranted and raved. You who dove into online theological polemics, internally wrangling wildly, blood pressure rising. You who fell captive to crisis and commotion. Adieu. I do not mourn your passing.

For I discovered your impotence. Your absolute and utter inability to effect change. You held me rapt too long, riveting my attention horizontally, on those around me. All your fuss, your finger-pointing, your flapping about, distracted me from a vertical perspective. From Him who Reigns over all.

As you, eristical one, laggardly expire, I quiet. Peace comes softly. Old rankled skin molting, new contented life emerging, I'm discovering deep, universal change comes in surprising, unexpected ways.

Not in criticism, negativity, sensationalism. But in praise.

"May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. Then the
land will yield its harvest...." ~ Ps. 67:5-6

Our land will yield a good crop when the people praise. Our culture will produce bounty when we give thanks. Our nations will bear fruit when we exalt.

So will this heart.

But does gratitude, praise, worship capture anyone's imagination, vision, life? Why do we find the good, the lovely, the beautiful so... insipid? Why do we thirst for the bad, the ugly, the contentious.... and spew out the glory-worthy as bland?

Couldn't anyone use a little good news today?

Rod Dreher, a popular conservative columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons," recently wrote (in the comments of this post),

"I blog about negative stuff for the same reason that newspapers aren't filled with good news: because *usually* (though not always), "good news" isn't that interesting to talk about."

I understand. I relate. It's a common consensus. Who can market gratitude, praise, good news?It is so: Good News often seems less than compelling. I too have often brushed it aside, apathetic. I pray for grace to learn new ways:

"For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work..." ~Ro.1:16

Good news, praise, thanksgiving, exalting, this is the power of God at work. This is what will change our hearts. This is what will prosper our land, bless us with yield, bounty, harvest.

And, really, why wouldn't it? Because when we think on the lovely, the noble, the right, "whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (Phil. 4:8) ... we are thinking on very God Himself:

"Sing praises to His name, for it is lovely." ~Ps. 135:3

He is lovely and all that is lovely in this cosmos reflects but the substance of Him. To think on the good is to think on God.

Yet we live in an upside-down, inverted world. We reject the praiseworthy as vapid and unremarkable. Boring. Juvenile.

And that which is scandalous, disagreeable, we find fascinating, intriguing, worthy of attention. Meriting discussion. An engagement for the intellects, the pundits. The lovely? Dismissed.

So it has always been:

"And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men..." ~Isa.53:2-3

We rejected Him once. Forbid we would again.

No, no grief as I bury my negativity. I'm done with my addiction to criticism, with my drama queen.

I whisper praise, this tongue's new language, and feel the land beneath my feet swell with abundance, the earth uprighted.

Loveliness, God, embraced.

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The Endless Praise continues....

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spongy hearts discovered in woods grace Nature Shelf

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Mama's silver hair in golden light leading little hands to

pin, stitch, sew blanket

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delicate petals carefully sketched, eyes slowing to see

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tilling loamy earth, burying seeds, family care

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Joy! Smile-to-smile, face-to-face!

Years of words on screens winnow a path for us to meet!

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The Perfect Ps! They effused exuberance, warmth, vibrancy.

I couldn't soak them up enough.

:::

(Photos of Tonia and family courtesy of a very talented photographer)

In need of joy's elixir? Take a moment and click through the Gratitude Community in the sidebar's blogroll. You'll be blessed. Nothing changes the world like giving thanks.



Have you considered establishing gratitude as a personal soul fixture? Just grab a scrap of paper lying around and begin counting the blessings, with your own 1000 Endless Gifts:

Why begin your own One Thousand Gift List --(drop me a line if you do, and I'll add you to the "1000 Endless Gifts" blogroll in the sidebar-- we invite you to join the Gratitude Community! Scroll to the bottom of this post for details on how to begin and join the community)

Read the listing of the endless Gifts

Shaped

I flew west to think about words, to meet women who write. That felt awkward, strange. For what do I know about words? I simply scratch in the dark, an act on the fringe hours of which I never speak. The thing I do, must do, that embarrasses me.

It's all new to me, this trying to grow comfortable in my own skin. This breathing deep and saying, "It's okay." Why is it excruciatingly hard to accept how He's formed us? The Potter must grieve over stiff, stubborn clay.

I keep returning to this long ago journal entry:






I picked a vase full of sunflowers, the final act in this Day of Preparation for Lord’s Day. The floors are done, the windows not, and I am tired. Indifferent to the lateness of the hour or the weariness of the body, I need to come and sit here, press these keys and watch letters shuffle into words on the screen. It is my streak across space, falling into words and landing softly.

I tell no one of these rendezvous with 26 letters. Like the Perseids, this act of dancing with curves and lines occurs in the out-of-the way hours, unbeknownst to they who call me daughter, friend. Day dawns, the bell tolls, and I slip away home.

Every apprentice knows, painfully so, of the chasm to be crossed in the journey towards skill. Loose and awkward, my knitting of words is not something to be paraded. And who would understand?

“You are the mother of six---you don’t think your life full enough? And writing? Maybe gardening, baking, quilting…but writing? What kind of a product is that?”

But it is not about product. This writing is about process.

“Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive.

The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write.

To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.” — Henri Nouwen

This scratching, trying and difficult, probes new, tender spaces within. No, I know not the destination, but I know the direction: the essence of me.

Gentle questions muse in my inbox: how do you mother, educate, keep home…and clumsily work at casting on rows of words?

My whispered, tentative answer: And how do I breathe? Some soothe with rocking while needles click. I settle with the pattering, however maladroitly, of keys. You make time, no matter. To enrich and under gird the rest of time. Breathing hangs in the balance.

And sometimes I simply do all of it, the job of me, rather poorly:

“Indeed, the great paradox of [the life of one who writes] is how much time he spends alone trying to connect with other people.” ~ Betsy Lerner

But this, all of this, is about learning. And when it matters, we become good studies.

A star shoots across the inky night draped outside my window, skimming the drowsy sunflowers.

Like Perseids, I am His handiwork, made this way.

And it's okay.

Lord, You formed each clump of clay uniquely. What can I do today to accept how You shaped me, a work of Your hands?

Get You a Roof

Though I have never been there, I have heard it said that in Africa the proverb goes, "The beginning of wisdom is to get you a roof."

And I guess, wherever you live, it makes sense: best to hammer some rafters, bake a paddy of bricks, wrap the corrugated cardboard close. Make an abode in which to abide. Life necessitates shelter.

Both of us, this man to whom I covenanted and I, our lives of breathing began down the same hospital hall. We birthed our children too, a few decades later, in those very same starch white rooms. My sister says we'll all likely die here.

We're content with here. Here where we went to school with our dental hygenist who attends the same church as my sister-in-law, the same church as my hairdresser, who's a sister to our family doctor's nurse. It's comfortable, this shelter of a place where you know and are known.

Like a roof that's grown moss. A long shelter.

I have heard it said, and, yes, fervently believe, that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." And so it is.

Get you a roof.

One Who has sheltered the expanse of space before the winding up of time. A long shelter, weathered and worn and still bearing strong. One you can intimately know and by Whom you are deeply known.

Move in and watch the moss grow.

Aged velvet absorbing millenia of rains pelting down.

"
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High...." Ps. 91:1

Lord, storms beat. Pull me under Your trusses. Be my roof.

Related: Moving In
Glad Refugees

Photo: mossy roofs of Shannon Woodward's outbuildings... the plane took the farm girl far west

Support System

Turbulence shakes his balance, and his hand flashes for steadying,
something sure, like a seatback,
but my shoulder, curved and strong too, will do.

Never turning or noticing the feel of bone, he presses hard, and I know purpose,

a body made like a staff.

Lord, who today would You have me undergird, uphold?

(Photo: collecting luggage, cluster of thoughts, in Detroit airport)

I left on a jet plane... and am back again, the bags unpacked, mind settling. Now to collect thoughts, offer thanks for the grace ... grow. Thoughts from the journey....

Mixing in Thanks...

"The great painter boasted that he mixed all his colours with brains,

and the great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks.

All goods look better when they look like gifts."

--G.K. Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi

And isn't that what it all is? Gifts, good gifts, from His hand. I'm learning to mix my simple life with thanks.

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ground beef turnovers, wrapped while steaming, ready for the field

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Joshua volunteering to wash up the dishes while I pack meals

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farmers eating food on field's hem, resting for a moment from planting food

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dirt and kids and fed husband and that warm feeling of being alive

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looking at life in the rearview mirror

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barren fields ready to swell with seeds, life, yield

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cluck of a rooster and hens, children clucking too

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speckled feathers, stone-flecked barn

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Sunday morning coming down,

Little Girl waiting in light for Daddy, shoes, church

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living in Light, shoes on,

pilgrimaging towards Father, Heaven, Home.

:::

In need of joy's elixir? Take a moment and click through the Gratitude Community in the sidebar's blogroll. You'll be blessed. Nothing revives a heart like giving thanks.

Have you considered establishing gratitude as a personal soul fixture? Just grab a scrap of paper lying around and begin counting the blessings, with your own 1000 Endless Gifts:

Why begin your own One Thousand Gift List --(drop me a line if you do, and I'll add you to the "1000 Endless Gifts" blogroll in the sidebar-- we invite you to join the Gratitude Community!)

Read the listing of the endless Gifts

(Make Way for Ducklings)

(If your family's copy of this book is as worn and loved as our copy, gather the children and check out the video link in the sidebar, under "Web Thoughts that have Stuck".. or click here. We are sitting here smiling, smiling. Real life imitates story on busy Seattle interstate...)

Beauty Mirrors

She curls up on my lap in the early morning light, and whispers, "Rub my back?" And I do, and stroke her hair, and her cheek too, and as she drowses back into sleep, I sit here, looking into her face, thinking about how beauty isn't something we can touch, or apply, or purchase. It is the inner work of a soul.

We simply reflect His, mirrors.






A Poem by Sam Levenson, oft-recited by Audrey Hepburn :

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen from her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.

It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows.

The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.

~Sam Levenson

Lord, today let me reflect the only true beauty. Yours.

Related:
Best Beauty Tip
Radiate Beauty
Best Beauty Tip Proven

Hat Tip: Laura in IL

Living into a Good Story

I am not there in the kitchen when she spills the ink bottle across the counter, there to see it run down her arms, splatter cupboard fronts, pool on planks of trees under her bare toes.

She calls for rescue and, after slight gasp, weak smile, feeble rebuke (for, really, had I been there?), I wipe up smearing black, return cap to smudged bottle, the grooves of these fingertips stained with word paint.

Little Girl and I, we scrub, soap lathering thick, foam piling. All to no avail. Today, we wear ink. And somehow it feels right.

For I bleed stories, and these stories that we live mark, permeate, me. And I wonder as I measure salt, sift flour, make bread: Do the stories come from without or within? And maybe both, simultaneously. The stories of our days saturate us, soak into our pores. And we leak our stories. One, we are.

I scoop dough from stainless steel bowl, knead out its warm softness on countertop. I touch tentatively, hesitating. Will these inky fingertips of mine sully bread dough? I smile at the thought, understanding: doesn’t story nourish us, feed us?

I was four and they were old, skin wrinkled soft, and I’d climb in between them both, toes under flannel sheets, and ask, “Tell me stories of when Dad was a little boy?”

And Grandpa, wearing cotton undershirt, would lace gnarled fingers behind his head and start slow. “Did I ever tell you about his dog, Sandy?” Although he had, I’d only say, “Tell me that one!” and Grandma would chuckle and together they’d take me back too.

I was twelve and he was ageless, and while the school bus careened with talk of Teen Magazine, Michael J. Fox, and what hairstyle to wear with dangly earrings, I wrote down the stories Great-Uncle Elmer told us all over porridge bowls and sunrises and honey-sodden tea biscuits.

Great-Grandpa Joe tracking bees to trees full of the sweet stuff, he and cousins nabbing foxes down in the fence bottoms, Bill Chambers’ team of horses carefully backing up, wagon and all, over railroad tracks too, when Uncle Bill stepped out door of the mill and whistled for the chestnut pair. Great-Uncle Elmer dipped biscuits into porridge and we dipped too into stories from before that became the stories of now, of us, explaining who we are, how we’ve traveled here. I can still hear his voice, time-rusty, see his eyes, transparent as water, letting me see that which once was.

I knead these stories, this ink, into live dough rising. As Ezekiel heard from God, “‘Eat this book’” (Ezekiel 3:2), so we too will eat our words, the words we speak, read, listen to. Like Ezekiel, we too will open our mouths and eat stories. Words, living and rich, nourish.

The first words spoken into the cold expanse of the cosmos are words meant to reassure: “In the beginning…” It is all story. We live in narrative; the epic of existence is His story. And it is His story: “In the beginning, God….” God is the central character. His story flashes with Him. Our stories are not our own, not even really about us, but spotlight His heart. I forget that, listening to my story, these days, to know more about me instead of Him. How often had I missed the point of the story?

I wash dough off my hands, indelible ink stubborn, permanent. It won’t come off, dyed into being. Isn’t that way with love stories, the passion bathing you? He’s writing a romance. The bridegroom woos: "And when I passed by again, I saw that you were old enough for love. So I wrapped my cloak around you to cover your nakedness and declared my marriage vows. I made a covenant with you, says the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine" (Eze. 16:8).

In the late morning light, bread rising, I trace fingertips black with ink and know how this story ends. In Him, there are only happy endings, lovers united. No, I don’t know how the middle chapters will read. Yes, with embarrassing frequency fear strangles me and I wrangle against turning the page. Regardless of angst, the next scene comes. But this is a story I can trust, an Author I can believe in. He’s writing a story with a beginning, an ending---this middle must make sense. Will I remember when the anxieties loom, bear down: I can trust His storyline.

Our lives are not random, haphazard, absurd. The story has a Storyteller Who is making meaning of these moments. Nor do I have to slip a peek at the last page. He’s already told us the words inked there: "I have plans for you... plans to prosper you..plans to give you a hope and future Jer. 29:11 ... I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am John 14:3... No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him 1 Cor. 2:9."

My hands are stained with the ink of a good story.

Because The Word came, His hands stained red.

Seed Bed

She’s laid bare, exposed and waiting. We, all of us, watch as he stands on her tilled edge, opening bags, preparing to fill soil’s barrenness. Something about the sound of ripping out stitched string, hope and promised unsealed.

The open seed bags line the tailgate, ready. The truck bed sags under the heaviness of seeds, millions of diminutive, near-weightless-in-my-hand seeds. Across the field, edging toward us, the tractor with planter behind, seems to enlarge, grow up out of the dirt. Engine drones louder, closer. That horsepower’s filling earth’s emptiness with seeds, 16 rows drilling 29,500 embryos of life into every acre of naked ground.

Farmer Husband kneels down into land already planted. Like a prayer, he scrapes back the surface, searches.



“Found one.” The wind carries his voice to us sitting in the ditch’s grass. “We’ve got the depth, the spacing. Looks good!” His grease-creased hands move slowly, carefully, folding the seed back into its dark earth slumber.

Granules, sediment, is all she looks like. Dirt. Kick a foot at her, and she flies away, a cloud of dust. But beneath her, still and hidden, lies millions of seeds about to awaken, stir, burgeon, swell with life.

Farmer Husband’s brother backs up tractor and this planter empty of seed. Time to refill. These brothers, whose blood comes from a land far across the Atlantic Ocean, heft seed bags and pour into planter hoppers.

Little Girl stands beside me watching her daddy work, her cheeks full of apple, her hair riding wind. She’s standing on dirt I stood on as a little girl, watching my own Daddy pour seed to fill this farm with.

Seeds and dirt. Isn’t that what we are, really? Seeds planted deep into loam, growing, living, dying, dust returning to dust, new seeds planted. Seeds as many as the stars in the sky.

I reach down and touch her silken hair, touch all the children within her to come, and think of Abraham and Levi before Levi even yet was… and yet he was:

“Because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor,” reads Hebrews 7:10. The New Living Translation offers,“For although Levi wasn’t born yet, the seed from which he came was in Abraham’s body...”

Inside the frames, the bodies, the souls of our children, reside the children still to come. And the children then still to come. Like nestled dolls, future generations dwell within the child whose eyes I now look into, whose hands I now touch.

Stars in the sky, seeds in the earth.

We parent not one child, or even a few children, but every day, we parent innumerable, countless children. When I raise my voice, frustrated with a child, I speak to generations of children. When I wipe away a tear, comfort, listen, I honor centuries of children.

When we meet our children, children we will not live to meet on this earth, are, in very real ways, met, shaped, formed. Parented.

She bites again into white apple flesh, looks up with smiling eyes.

Face of clay, she is. Made of the dust of the ground. But, oh, the seeds within.

The planter drops back down into seedbed, heads across earth, and I take her hand and whisper a prayer.

God, give grace to tend her well.

Sunday Worship

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!


~Charles Wesley: And can it be that I should gain?

Photo: Forget-me-not... oh, that we might not forget...

Broken

Rain coming today, so the radar screen says. And we've got 29,500 seeds of corn tucked into every acre of this black dirt. Let the rain fall...

I'm thinking much lately on what us working here together does to the spalling places, the chipped places... the broken places. From the archives:


We broke up the earth, tearing her asunder, steel ripping deep, and she wept not.

Then the hydraulic hose on the teeth ripping machine blew apart, again.

When the men came up that long lane, dirt-crusted and splattered with oil, Mama, baking cookies, dropped the spoon in the batter. She gathered up grandbabies under her watch and then took that oil dripping hose down the backroads over to McGavin’s for a new hose. Yes, she'd inform them that they mustn't have crimped it right after it blew apart last night and it was, again, costing us downtime.

Later, sun further over in that blue sky, Mama drove up to field’s edge with fixed part, children drooping in drowsy slumber about her. Men snapped in repaired hose, and dropped those teeth again into soil, rending earth’s crust.

All of which somehow draws this broken family back together again.

Repaired.

Lord, let this working together work towards fixing us.

Genesis 3:17-19

"...getting food from the ground

Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;

you'll be working in pain all your life long.

The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,

you'll get your food the hard way,

Planting and tilling and harvesting,

sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,

Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;

you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

Change in the air....

Notes to inbox and around the Gratitude Community... Trees are budding, tulips swelling, exploding in color... change is in the air.



"A wonderful writer, teacher and friend taught the Sunday school class at our church last week. She taught about Miriam and one of her points was about how Miriam led the women in praise. She encouraged us that this one of our goals as women - to lead those around us in good things to the glory of God. She used your blog as an example.

When she was describing the 1000 gifts list, I knew I had to do this. Not because its a fun web trend or an interesting project, but because I need to do this. I'm one of those women who easily sees what everyone else has that I'm missing out on. When, in reality I have so much to be thankful for.

My heart needs to change. My mindset needs to be changed. I need to lead my daughters in thankfulness and praise. Not in grumbling and bitterness. So here goes.

Thanks to my Sunday school teacher and to you - I'm changing." ~Jackie at Redeemed

:::

"Actually, I started doing this a number of years ago, listing things I'm grateful for. I have a journal that is specifically for this purpose. A place where I have written the outflowing of a heart of pure gratefulness. How good it is to revisit these pages, my old friends.

With a heavy sigh I realize, I have grown away from this habit. I am realizing as I read these entries that not only does my attitude change but so does my focus of life. ~ The Patchwork Heart

:::

"So many gifts come our way unnoticed. It is our "awareness" of the gifts that brings us joy, peace of heart, and thankfulness." ~Nadie at My Dance of Life

:::

"I love to read and re-read about gratefulness and have been meditating on these Scripture thoughts, "Because your love is better than life...my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods... The earth is filled with his unfailing love." I was struck by all this as I rode my bicycle to work through a trail next to a river the other day. The sun was casting a warm yet hazy glow over the earth and I was FILLED. ~ Tiffany

:::

Have you considered establishing gratitude as a permanent soul fixture? Just grab a scrap of paper lying around and begin counting the blessings, with your own 1000 Endless Gifts:

Why begin your own One Thousand Gift List --(drop me a line if you do, and I'll add you to the "1000 Endless Gifts" blogroll in the sidebar-- we invite you to join the Gratitude Community!)

Read the listing of the endless Gifts

More that Dies....

“As soon as you open the door, it hits you. ‘Ah, spring in the country!’ “ She laughs and offers her tousled red-haired daughter another cookie.

“Well, it’s like I was telling Emily on the way over here. There isn’t a block in the whole county that doesn’t reek today.”

The two friends chuckle and I nod and smile too, us this cluster of community at the back of a country church on a Wednesday night. The children’s club closing program has concluded and the church is all a bustle with happy kids nibbling on treats from the refreshment table, mothers talking of tilling up gardens, the fathers who are there and not on the seats of tractors, making plans for the work bee to reroof the church come Saturday morning. A toddler needs a refilling of pink juice so I take her hand and we weave through the crowd.

In the midst of the milieu of swirling children, I pour juice and revisit a scene, words, from earlier in our day.

On the headland of a dusty two hundred acres, I stood waiting for him. Tractor roars down the field, cultivator working up earth behind him. The wind flaps about skirt hem and the apron I forgot to slip off in my haste to get the meal to the field and his empty stomach. Are fields all over the countryside dotted with waiting farm wives, aprons flying on spring winds, arms full of food for work-worn men? The tractor looms, rumbles to an idling halt. He swings open the cab door. Large rocks he’s gathered from the last few passes across the field line the steps up to the cab. One by one, he tosses them off into a pile in the ditch, and I step close with his lunch basket.

Instead of raising his voice over the engine, he motions to his dirty shirt, my dress, explaining with hands why he thinks it best not to offer a hug. I laugh, him joining too, and he leans in to kiss this forehead. We rest there for a moment, lingering touch on the edge of a wind-blown field on an afternoon in late April.

Another tractor whirling down the gravel road in a cloud of dust, manure spreader behind, interrupts us. He steps back, adjusts his cap. “You know,” I raise my voice, “I was thinking of this on the way to the field. The fragrance of spring’s new life is that of rot and decay.” I nod towards the passing manure spreader.

Farmer Husband presses in close, his soft voice competing with the tractors. “True.” He points towards last year’s corn stalks wrapped around the teeth of the cultivator that he’s been pulling across this field all day. “Manure yes, but the more debris and dying matter from last year’s crop too, the richer the soil bed for this year’s crop.”

I look across the dirt stretching towards the horizon. We've spread manure over this land already, beginning of the week.

“Yes, more that dies, more that lives.”

He takes the lunch basket from my hand, brushes with a kiss again, and hauls back up into that tractor cab and waiting steering wheel.

But his words echo through the rest of my day, revisiting me here tonight in a full country church, us womenfolk talking of hanging out lines of laundry, working up sleepy gardens, and the countryside wafting with the smell of sweet manure.

“More that dies, more that lives.”

Out into the falling dusk, these church folks slowly spill, frogs of the church pond filling the night with their croaky chorus. And we all mingle under the shy stars twinkling, the air pungent with death, and I look at these people, a body of believers, a people called to live new life.

But the daily death comes first. The more that dies.....

The more He lives.



Scripture Drink:

"Could it be any clearer?
Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ,
a decisive end to that sin-miserable life...

What we believe is this:
If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death,
we also get included in his life-saving resurrection."

Ro 6:6-11 MSG

Lord, my dying today may not smell pretty. But it is necessary for the new life You want to grow in me. Where can I die today? The more I die.... the more You live.

Last Breaths...

Thoughts I keep returning to as I breathe; as I offer up prayers of thanks... and what convicts me when, too often, I don't. What will be left of this soul come its last days on earth? What will all my days amount to? In the end, what will I have become?

Oh God, give grace to live in prayer, to steep long in Your Word, so when all is stripped away, this is what is left....



“Those of us who had gathered around her bed [as she was dying] noticed that she was almost constantly saying short prayers in a rhythmic... fashion:

'You are the way, You are the truth, You are the life. Bless the poor. Have mercy.'

The prayers could not have come from a level of consciousness but had to have come from some deeper level of the unconscious and imagination.

At the deepest level of her being, she had been shaped by the Word of God.

She was breathing from God and for God and with God. She had become a prayer.”

~Mary Jo Leddy

Lord, till my last breath, form me in Your Word. Make me a prayer.

Breathe

I stand in the dark of a house lulled to sleep, just standing there on quiet floor planks, before a stretch of black glass, the only glow that of the yard light at the corner of the barn spilling its milky pool of white.

Last light’s out. I’m ready for a pillow, to call it a day. All’s, finally, almost, still. Somewhere far over our heads and this roof and these fields, and further than this spinning orb’s atmosphere, a night-drenched canvas drips stars. But what rivets me to this place under the heavens is the call of her breathing. Yes, the call.

With every inhaling breath, she whistles, faintly, softly. I stand motionless, waiting, listening, just to be sure: yes, she breathes and whistles. A beckoning siren to come. She lies on her sleigh bed, stitched patches of powder blue, dusty yellow, stretching over her lengthening frame, willowy and strong, and from deep in slumber her every filling of lungs is a summons.

I want to answer, come, but I realize: the call is not for me. This whistled sleep-breathing is not of this earth. It is like deep calling unto deep.

In the shadows of farm kitchen I hear her breath calling to Him whence every breath comes.
And then, after a moment, I hear it too: heavy exhale. Breath returned to Him who comes. Circle complete. “For from Him and to Him and through Him are all things.” (Ro. 11:36)

I read it once, and think of it often, and the thought revisits on a still country night, standing here in a lightless house:

“The letters of the name of God in Hebrew are yod, hay, vav, and hay. They are infrequently pronounced Yahweh. But in truth they are inutterable….

“This word is the sound of breathing. The holiest name in the world, the Name of Creator, is the sound of your own breathing. That these letters are unpronounceable is no accident. Just as it is no accident that they are also the root letters of the Hebrew verb ‘to be’… God’s name is name of Being itself.”

~Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

She inhales, soft whistle breath calling Him, her very existence an unceasing invitation for Him to come. She exhales, breath returned to Him, a circular ventilation of the soul. Tonight in a soundless house surrounded by soundless fields, she simply is, breath after breath. And in this state of breathing, being, she utters the name of her Maker, YHWH.

Inhale: YWHW.

Exhale: YWHW.

We breathe…. And call His name.

In the soul-quiet of a tranquil farm night, I listen to the sound of breathing and feel how close He comes.

He’s as close as the sound of your every breath.

Lord, every breath is Your name. Come.

Praise the Lord in the Assembly

If Monday morning feels heavy, a large week looming, take a moment and click a few blogs from the Gratitude Community blogroll. You'll laugh, you'll cry with the wonder of it all, you'll warm and smile and feel the heaviness slip away. Praise does that.

Thank you to those standing in the great congregation giving Him praise --- you bless and my heart sings, a spring flower blooming after a long winter...

Notes from those jotting down the Gifts:

Seeing the Abundant Giver

"This gift list has transformed the way I think and view life. Suddenly, I am thankful for dirty dishes as they are an indication of a well-fed family. The insignificant has become compelling. Beauty abounds all around. The Giver imparts abundantly and extravagantly if we but have eyes to see. ~ Angie @ Sonflower

Reality Thinking

"I’m practicing the discipline (and joy) of giving thanks in times of stress.

There was a time when I would have dismissed this idea and would have simply chalked up the practice to being nothing more than ‘positive thinking’, in a new-agey-sort-of-way. But I’ve come to see that truth be told, it’s not so much about ‘positive thinking’ as it is about ‘reality thinking.’

Recognizing the gifts from God that ooze out around us is simply facing reality isn’t it? Seeing reality. Honest to goodness I feel like for the 1st time in my life I am beginning to see things clearly. ‘Open my eyes that I may see..’" ~ Chris in Edmonton

Abiding in Christ

"After 17 years as a Christian I think I have finally understood a glimmer of what it means to abide in Christ.

This week I [studied] Col. 3:1-2...especially what it means to seek things above and set our minds on things above. I realized that all these long years that I have been battling my anger issues I have focused my thoughts and efforts on the anger...not on Christ.

Even though I knew I needed to abide in Christ and that he abides in me I didn't really understand what that meant... Well, now I do.

I need to fix my mind on HIM continually and seek those things above.

Now, I am trying to focus on blessings every time I feel frustation. I created this homekeeping/gratitude journal...I leave it out on my kitchen desk so that I don't get too busy to notice it.

I have been inspired, challenge, convicted and enlightened." ~ Laura in CA

~~
So give me the details: is there anything to do besides copy the graphic and start my list? Do I need to link to your list? ~Heather

A few simple thoughts to begin the 1000 Gift List:

1. Pray that He may open the eyes of our hearts

2. Begin giving thanks for the daily washing in His fountain of Gifts--just on a scrap piece of paper or in a journal--- notice and write down from the obvious to little... and begin to feel more joy, less stress, better health, more connected in your relationships, and more delight in your everyday life. Praise is what we are made for!

3. If you'd like to blog your list, feel free to use the 1000 Gifts graphic. No need to link back to this quiet place. If, however, you'd like to encourage others to join the Gratitude Community, or invite othersto boost mental and soul health by reading the chorus of praise in the Gratitude Community, you may link back to here and the Gratitude Community Blogroll.

4. If you'd like to add your blog to the Gratitude Community, we'd love to hear from you! Email me a link to your blog, and your worship will edify the body of believers.

5. If you'd prefer to quietly jot your list down in a journal, you are still warmly invited to join the community-- drop a line, and we'll just add your first name to the list, and we'll feel one with you in thanksgiving.

6. Count the endless blessings!

Have you considered establishing gratitude as a permanent soul fixture? Just grab a scrap of paper lying around and begin counting the blessings, with your own 1000 Endless Gifts:

Why begin your own One Thousand Gift List --(drop me a line if you do, and I'll add you to the "1000 Endless Gifts" blogroll in the sidebar-- we invite you to join the Gratitude Community!)

Read the listing of the endless Gifts