a day at Sabbath Rest Farm...

I walked out to the gate headed down to the stable and smelled the sharp tang of wood smoke hanging heavy in the air. The air was cold, crisp and clear. The ground was white with frost. A cloud lay in the valley below blotting out the sight of the other houses on the farm. Junie B spoke to me and the donkeys complained about my being too slow. I fed Bud the Barn Cat, put out morning hay, set the captives free and mucked out the stalls. When I walked back up to the house, the cloud was slowly fading away as the sun rose in the valley. Like the musical Brigadoon, a little community was coming into view wrapped in soft edges. I stood for a moment and savored the beginning of my day, gave thanks for the beauty that surrounds me, went in to cook breakfast for Michael... some of his eggs fresh from his hens.
It was hay baling day, the last of this season...freeze dried by now after several days of frost and warm sun. Little Michael was back from his time in Winston-Salem with his new used pick up truck ready to work. His exuberant greeting and hearty hug set the mood for the day’s work. We did stable work, traded out the screens on the side porch for the winter glass panels, he and Michael did some fence work, and it was lunch time. Soup for lunch and short naps... time to bale hay.
It wasn’t much hay, just 140 bales or so, dry and light mostly. I stacked alone since Diane’s hip is out, and Leisa drove the truck and trailer. That is no small job since you have all the men telling you where to go next and how to get there. The men, whom God blessed with more upper body strength and am I glad, tossed the bales into the trailer and we stacked them five rows high for the drive home. After unloading the hay in Gary’s barn, we three went to eat supper at mama’s. She had cooked for us... roast beef, her famous mashed potatoes, rutabagas, peas, beans and cake. It is such a good gift to come home to a meal made ready for you after work in the fields. We gave thanks and ate like we meant it.
We drove up to our house and I got out to go stable the horses and feed them. I stepped out of the Kawasaki mule and looked up at the night sky. It took my breath away. Clear, dark night with more stars than my eye could count, light from far away in time and space, bathing my upturned face in their shining blessing. I got lost in the otherness of the sky world that is beyond my understanding and sang my evening blessing... “Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows of the evening, steal across the sky. Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet repose; with thy tenderest blessing, may our eyelids close. When the morning wakens, then may I arise pure, and fresh, and sinless in they holy eyes.” It was a good day, a very good day and I did rejoice in it.

Thank you note living...

We have been getting thank you notes in the mail from Alison’s friends who came to spend a weekend with us as a retreat time. Written by hand on lovely cards, expressing gratitude for their time here, they lift my spirit when I see them on my desk. Going to the mailbox was an adventure in thanksgiving as they began to arrive. Snail mail still matters. My mama would say they were “raised right” because they took the time and made the effort to send a concrete expression of gratitude.
Our daughters have worked with our grandchildren to teach them the basic words of politeness... please and thank you. Every time they ask for something, the word “please” must be used and when they receive something, thank you is required. On birthdays and holidays, thank you notes come from them emblazoned with drawings and words and scribbles. They are learning the fine art of thanksgiving. It is an art that only requires a grateful heart and the will to express it concretely.
My niece Genny sent us several thank you notes for our help with her wedding. The most fun ones were the picture postcards from their honeymoon in Hawaii. We felt that what we had given really was important to her and that we mattered enough to take the time to include us in her life. I am astounded to hear how many brides and grooms never send thank you notes for wedding largesse.
A few Sundays ago, Hannah and I made origami books for our small congregation and stuffed them with slips of paper. We handed them out at the end of worship and asked folks to keep a record of what they were grateful for during the next week. I didn’t have any presents that week wrapped in gift wrap but I found so much to be thankful for. The horses and donkeys making me laugh with their morning antics, the taste of fresh eggs scrambled with cheese, the sunlight on bright fall leaves after days of rain, a new (to me) car that is fun to drive, hot tub bath in an old cast iron tub that is just right for soaking and reading, riding Junie B even when she is cranky, a baby calf that scrambles to find his mama, the shape of graceful deer wreathed in early morning mist at the edge of our front yard...These were on my thank you note to God that week.
John Claypool’s sermon Sunday on gratitude and generosity has echoed through my spirit as I try to get my self together for this week. Paying bills... more bills than money this week, worrying about a friend who has been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, trying to figure out a way to help Tina, doing fall cleaning, looking for a home for Beagle Bailey who is driving me mad, changing summer clothes to fall and winter with a Goodwill bag collection... how can these be transformed into thank you notes?
Paying bills... We are not rich in money but we have more than enough even when we have to rob Peter to pay Paul. My sick friend... Walt and Mary Lynn were my best adult friends in college. Walt was my Baptist Student Union Director and he and Mary Lynn lived in an apartment in the center. They modeled another way to be married than the one I knew from my parents. Walt kicked my brain into gear with my faith, challenged my simple beliefs and loved me through an awkward transition to adulthood. When Tim was killed, he and Mary Lynn came when I needed them most to give me a day off from grief and anger. I am grateful to have them for friends. Trying to help Tina has been a tar baby. I keep getting stuck, pulled in feeling responsible for a woman I sometimes don’t like very much. Helping someone who is not like you can open windows into your soul and shine light in your internal darkness. What I see is not always very Christian. I think I am grateful for that. Fall cleaning... I have a house to clean when others have no home at all. Closet cleaning... I have more than enough clothes, enough to give away. Haven’t come up with a thank you for Beagle Bailey yet. Will have to keep working on that one. In all things, give thanks, the Bible says. This week I will continue to work on transforming gripes into gratitude believing God needs my thank you notes as much as I need to write them. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Amen.

Tomato Soup Saints...

We sat at the table eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches Megan had prepared for lunch. Conversation was random, enthusiastic and loud as it often is when you eat with three boys ages seven and under. Mason asked for seconds of the soup and enjoyed it down to the last drop. I watched as he put the shallow mug to his face, held it there for several minutes before he put it down. As he lowered the mug to the table, he grinned, a large red ring circling his happy mouth. “I licked it clean!” he announced. And so he had... love of tomato soup led him not to waste any of the remains in his mug.
I thought of Mason this morning in worship as we celebrated All Saints Sunday. Our worship table held pictures, books and other reminders of those who are saints to us. We told our saint stories about teachers, grandparents, therapists, friends, aunts, and others who were the face of God for us. A sermon preached by John Claypool (thanks to the wizardry of modern technology) helped me understand a new meaning for saints in my life.
His sermon focused on two bedrock attitudes and behavior for a Christian lifestyle, gratitude and generosity. John spoke of Jesus’ gratitude for what he had been given. There was no sense of entitlement nor complaining about the cards he had been dealt in the game of life, only a profound sense of thanksgiving for the gift of life. And because he had been given much, his sharing of all he had and all of who he was, flowed like a healing river over all he met and loved. There was a recognition of the gift that life is and an equal desire to share the whole of it with others.
So I began remembering many of the saints I have loved in my life, none of whom were perfect. But, many of them shared these two important characteristics of a transformed Christian, dare I say saved by grace? Like Mason and the tomato soup, they drank deeply from the well of living water and loved the life they had been given even with its limitations. They lived with joy and thanksgiving even when life was difficult and the cup only half full. Whatever life brought to them, they licked up the last drops and were grateful for what had been and what was yet to come. In their sacramental approach to living, all they had and all they were, were gifts to be shared with open hearts and hands.
Mr. Reem, the best ever church custodian, who made care taking of the church building an art that cared for the ministers as well... Miss Panos, the daughter of Greek immigrants, who taught American history in my high school and ignited a love of freedom in our little redneck hearts... my grandma and Aunt Thelma who modeled constancy as members of the same church for all their adult lives... ministers I have known who spent their lives in small churches that never made it big in any way but in the ways of a loving Jesus... Mason’s school teachers who lay down their lives every day so that the children in their class can celebrate the gift of their lives... I am surrounded by saints and I give thanks for the gifts of their lives and the generosity of their spirits.
On this All Saints Sunday, I pray that we might be saints for one another, helping one another hold on to gratitude and generosity when life does not turn out as we hoped and planned. We are called to pass on the gifts we have been given, to share with thanksgiving as we live out our days on this earth knowing that our life was created in joyful relationship. Springing from One who was lonely in the Garden, we were created in God’s image and if we are true to our family heritage, we will pass on the gifts we have been given to those around us.
C.S. Lewis said “Nothing is ours until we share it”. So let me share, dear Lord, this week, the gifts from the saints I have known and loved. Let me be a saint and open my eyes and heart that I may see all the saints who surround me, that great cloud of witnesses, who are my kin people in the faith. Help me drain my life’s mug and let me lick it clean with enjoyment and enthusiasm and gratitude. Amen.

Ladies Aid to the Rescue...

We are continually borne by others. Therefore, willingly or unwillingly, we are perpetually in debt to God and to the whole creation. Mary Shiedler

I was miserable... lonely and lost, in Louisville. We had moved from a place I loved dearly and Michael was immersed in his new job as a professor at the seminary. He was starting a new center for family ministry as well as teaching. His days were filled with meaningful work and travel. I was at home with three children, one of whom was a depressed and angry teen. Our home was lovely, our neighborhood was full of nice people and lots of children, we rejoined the church where we met and were married, I volunteered in the schools, worked in the church, did part time work, went to therapy to work on my mixed up self and still felt lonely.
Michael was feeling lonely, too, so as a present for him, I gave him a Brotherhood. I called a group of men together at our house for an evening of food, fun and fellowship. I introduced the evening, served the food and then said, “You are on your own. If you want to keep this going, plan it yourselves.” They did. All the time we lived in Louisville, they met every month at the same restaurant (the same one frequented by Thomas Merton) creating the ties that bind and sustain.
I created a Ladies Aid for myself... five women whom I had known for years, some better than others. We were dedicated to eating in every restaurant on Bardstown Road at least once. Over shared meals, soaking in Eleanor’s hot tub one snowy evening, sharing the bread and wine of true communion, we shared one another’s burdens. One in our group was a widow trying to find her way back to a new kind of life. One was a contemporary gospel music performer who had moved to Louisville so her husband could teach at the seminary. Another was a professor at the medical school and a social worker rounded out the lot of us. Three of us had children still at home. All of us were members of the same church. Two of us were married on the same day, years apart. None of us had a perfect life and all of us had burdens we were bearing. It took awhile for the shields to drop but when they did, it was a relief to discover someone was standing beside us helping to hold us up.
Yesterday was my birthday and I gave myself the present of another Ladies Aid. Last night we met at a local restaurant in West Asheville. Gathered around the table, we began the getting to know you dance. We have known each other for years but not on a regular basis. The Vermont Rules were our guiding light... no talking about work, children, money or parents after the first ten minutes. Once members of the same church, we are now scattered with some still at the same church where we met. It doesn’t matter. What I need is a place to be with women who matter to me and to whom I matter. I don’t know how this group will come together. Maybe a few more will join and a few will drop out. Over the long haul, with the passage of time, a center will emerge and will hold us together like the gravity that plants our feet on the ground. Our roots will sink deep into one another’s lives and our branches will intertwine holding us up during storms.
One of my daughters has her version of a Ladies Aid group in her church. They came to the farm for a weekend retreat recently. I loved listening to them laugh, tell church stories, talk about their lives and watched as they took a break from their work-a-day worlds together. They go to movies, take road trips, eat out, work together, care for one another’s children and live their lives knowing there is a group of friends who will drop everything to come to their aid.
We are continually borne by others even if we appear to be self sufficient. Our outward selves rarely reflect the whole of who we are underneath. Only when we are in a safe place, a place where we know we loved no matter what, can we find traces of God as we let our masks drop to the floor, revealing the terrible awful wonder and need of being fully human. It is a gift and a crucifixion all bound up together. Listening and loving one who is different from me, who makes choices I would not make, who struggles with life situations that are foreign to me, trying to hear the soul speaking through the mouth of the woman who sits at my table not just the words... this is the hard work of being Christian, called to love others as I love God and myself. And if I show up, make myself available, do the work, I will find love and life and laughter in abundance as I am freed and free others to become their own true creation.
We are meeting again in two weeks to help Mary Beth put her Christmas Village (metropolis, actually) together for the holidays. We may try her crustless pizza recipe for our communion meal.Holler if you want to come.