The Brave Ones

It is yet too cold for gardening
or the turning of the soil 
or planting the seeds that are readily at hand
on my kitchen counter.
The earth's surface is still
encrusted with crystallized shards of ice
that will leave their tiny footprints
as they evaporate or melt into the ground
in a few hours.

The hellebores are pouting after a night
well below freezing 
and the golden ragwort's leaves are
adorned with frozen lace,
as if dressed for a ball.

But the intrepid ones, those 
early blooming bulbs,
brave botanical souls who laughingly
defy late winter and raise their
faces to the dawn,
they impart the courage I need
to trust that winter is receding and
warmth will come.

Later today, when the sun has
warmed the land, 
I will plant peas.

 

Certainty

The changes are subtle and
easy to miss.
Raspberry canes reddening,
willow twigs yellowing,
the almost invisible
purple points of skunk cabbage,
breaking through the forest floor,
exactly the same color
as the muck from which
they emerge.

Not yet the season for courtship,
a new voice has joined the winter throng.
Energetic song sparrows singing their certainty,
proclaiming to the wide world
their confidence
that the time for mating will
not delay.

Like a baby sleepily stretching towards consciousness
unconvinced the time is right for opening its eyes,
like the thaw that teases before
the cold refreezes the earth,
transformation comes fitfully, 
confusingly,
erratically,
unpredictable but incessant.
For this we wait,
offering ourselves to Love's warming,
unable to speed the process, 
unable to shake off winter, 
unable to hasten spring.

Our promise is
the earth's promise.
Growth wins out
as surely as buds break and
fruit forms and
trees reach their branches
ever farther towards
the sky.

The Work of My Hands

 The referenced prayer below is from the Northumbria Community's Mid-Day Prayer liturgy.

The work of my hands is 
the work of my life.
Not in halls of academia,
nor business, nor healing, 
nor ministry, but 
in the earthy dealings of
the everyday.
Hands that have long labored,
often when no one was watching, 
at the myriad, ordinary, sometimes-dirty,
consecrated tasks, 
to which I have
been called.

Holding my babies.
And theirs.
Guiding bewildered newborns'
tiny mouths to
their mother's milk.
Turning, feeding, washing, dressing
gentle souls who could 
no longer
care for themselves,
work demeaned by others,
caring for the least of these.

Milking sixty cows.
Or one.
Caring for goats and sheep,
and chickens and turkeys,
an unpredictable donkey, two pigs,
and a couple of geese.
Feeding, mucking stalls,
stacking hay, carrying water, 
collecting eggs,
stringing fences that contained the beef herd,
cradling a just-born calf as its life faded
away into the snow.

Decades of plants,
decades of gardens,
digging, planting, weeding, harvesting 
to sustain humans, 
body, soul and spirit.
Returning to the land its
glad abundance and inviting
the wild ones to dine,
one small, 
or sometimes large,
plot at a time. 

Hands on the latch,
opening the door
to God and to
those who come
seeking,
creating spaces of safety,
spaces of welcome,
spaces of
communion.

These hands are no longer young,
nor beautiful.
They are worn and sometimes rough,
slowly becoming misshapen,
often tired,
yet eager, still, 
to take up the work
yet before
them.

And so, gratefully,
I pray, 
"Let the beauty of the Lord be upon me.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands."

 

What the Pictures Don't Depict

Most of the Nativity scenes we have come to know,
those pictures of Mary looking rested,
confident and clean,
serene and smiling,
looking comfortable...
They don't depict the weariness,
the immobilizing exhaustion of
hard labor,
nor the
all-consuming effort
it takes
to push a baby out into this world,
nor the blood and
amniotic fluid,
nor the expelled placenta 
that needed to be cleaned up
after the birth.

Those scenes the artists render of
spotless robes and a 
tidy stable (or cave) with cozy light...
They don't depict the manure on the floor,
nor livestock urinating into their bedding,
nor the interior's darkness illumined only
by candle light,
nor the possibility of being stepped on
during and after
giving birth.
Surely there were mice in the straw.
Were there rats?
Did Mary nervously notice 
every sound of scurrying
around her? 
How did she ever sleep?

Of course the baby would be laid 
in the feeding trough.
Where else?
Set up off the floor, the safest
and cleanest spot
available.
Were there cows?
Did they amble over
to the manger,
as cows are prone to do,
to sniff, and lick,
and welcome Jesus
as the new baby in their midst.
Did Joseph's role include
keeping
a wary eye on
the attending animals'
curious attention
to his
newly-born son?

This historic birth was
far more miraculous than we
might readily imagine.
Jesus survived.
So did Mary.
And all the detail not depicted
in the artists' renditions
makes Mary 
one of us.

And makes Jesus, whom she bore
by the sweat of her brow,
one of us.
One with us.
Emmanuel.

Hidden Gifts

Today has not been the loveliest of days.
Freezing rain, sleet and slippery slush
coat every visible surface and do not invite
the lingering contemplation of 
surrounding fields.
And yet...
How could I not notice the sheen
on the twigs,

their interlacing design
and the beauty so often obscured
by the humdrum everyday.

And by what I expect to see.

Christmas cactuses don't look like much

when they aren't blooming,
(which is most of the year.)
Just a tangle of dull green, toothed
fleshy leaves, almost not
worth a second glance.
And yet...
during this darkling season of cold,
of shorter days and longer nights 
they suddenly surprise
with buds and blooms.

Patience comes hard in these bleak days
of grays and browns.
And yet...
there lurks, 
or beckons,
the always-present invitation towards 

the goodness that was poured into
the world at its beginning. 

And into all of us
at ours.

Detritus

Castoffs,
no longer wanted, 
abandoned, discarded,
littering the forest floor. 
One can step on them without
even noticing,
without valuing, or honoring,
or savoring
their former lives.
Bits of shell and seeds, an acorn cap, 
dried leaves and withering berries,
a hodgepodge of evidence
that life and purpose thrived here,
a season ago.

Now, 
amid what was scattered,
a promise of 
nothing wasted. 
The makings of a whole new woodland
lie dormant,
resting, waiting 
to sprout and grow.
New from the old,
refashioned from the 
detritus of what was, 
once upon a time. 

Incense

 

Following my nose this time of year, I 
participate in the ongoing,
sometimes melancholy,
annual transition.

Familiar scents of fallen leaves and the crumbly
duff they are becoming, 
of damp earth and mists 
that drift across the fields like
apparitions, 
of yellow chrysanthemums, still blooming,
and ripened apples in the nearby orchards.

Pungent fragrance of sluggish black-swallowtail caterpillars
still clinging to the parsley, and 
the dried basil I have yet to cut down,
of garlic cloves now buried in the soft soil, and 
drooping marigolds, and the spent tomato plants
I brush against as I pass
through the muted vegetable patch.
Another harvest complete.

At this sacred moment,
at the turning of the season,
this nostalgic incense holds the memories
of every autumn I have ever known.

Who am I to complain at the passing of

autumn's glory? 
Let me behold and
enter willingly,
gladly,
gratefully,
into the 
Sabbath of the land.