A Bounteous Harvest: A Midwest Musing

This is the time of year I love living in the Midwest, more than summer, spring or winter, which each have their own charm. But fall has a particular beauty. The landscape is alive with wonderful color, and I don’t just mean the trees in places like hilly, forested Brown County, Indiana. I mean the fields and woods that adorn the countryside.

The sunlight is softer, this time of year. And this softer light is golden, transforming the ordinary into extraordinary, helping me see the richness of life around me.

That’s why I love taking Nancy for rides around Indiana at this time of year. We get in our pick-up and drive and watch the light play across the countryside – field stubble casting shadows along the dirt, bare black tree limbs silhouetted against a royal blue sky, clouds puffy and white floating serenely along. .

I feel a sense of connectedness with the land and that sense grows stronger every year. I was born and raised in the city and I often proclaim the wonders of that existence compared to that of my country cousins. But the fact is I loved visiting the farms of our rural families. And my father was a tramper of fields and forests. We often were out and about.

That’s one reason I am happy about where I live. Seventeen years ago, the home site was a tangle of briars, thorn trees, and poison ivy all tangled in old fences. My dad, my sons-in-law, and I began clearing all that Thanksgiving weekend, getting ready for building. We worked in the rain and mud and cold and snow. We cut, we sawed, we pulled bushes out with the tractor. All through that work, I smelled the scents of farm and field – clumps of mud clinging to boots, wood smoke from burning limbs.

Then, as the house was being built, I’d hike back and work, watching the seasons move through – budding spring, humid summer. Now we’re sixteen years in the house, and watching fall ebb, knowing winter is coming.

I love it. And more than that, this move and this time of year helps me remember that I am connected to God’s good earth all the time – from witnessing it’s visual beauty to partaking of its sustenance with every mouthful of food I eat.

God’s faithfulness, to me, is evident in the changing seasons. Crops are planted, grown, and harvested. The soil rests over winter. Though the face of the earth changes, God does not. God watches over it all, and has for eons, and is faithful.

I question that at times. Sometimes when life is good, I imagine that it is good solely from the sweat of my brow or my own efforts. After all, I cut those trees and mowed the field for the view – not God – forgetting that all I have comes by the grace of God in the first place.

Sometimes I question it, out of my troubles, like Job. Like in this time of COVID. I wonder if it is true and try to understand the mind of God. Then I read God’s questions to Job – “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone -- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges?… Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.”

God asked Job these questions because it was important for Job to remember that God was not his enemy. This encounter with the Lord was not to say why Job was suffering, but to learn, by faith, that God was his Creator, Sustainer, and Friend.

This is something I forget, but the Psalmist continually reminds me that the earth does not. “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;” the psalmist sings, “let them say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!’ Let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them! Then the trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Singing trees, jubilant fields – these things we take as poetic language. Things that don’t really happen. Or do they? Could it be that the golden light that transforms field trash into something of beauty is a way the fields are being jubilant, reflecting God’s light back to him? Could the graceful, waving naked limbs of trees be hands uplifted in praise to God? Maybe that’s all bit a mystical, yet I can always use a bit more of the mystery in my lives, for my truest encounters with God are more than slightly mysterious.


Of course, what makes the countryside beautiful and rich are the memories it evokes. And inevitably entwined in those memories are people. The people in whose woods I walked. The families whose haylofts I played in – and fell out of. The folks, past and present, who molded my life. I remember Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma Bill, Uncle Johnny, Uncle Burt, Aunt Orie, cousin Ernie, and on and on. A parade of Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders, and pastors also march past. As do people from the present. Not a farmer myself, the seasons of my life have been blessed by a rich bounty of people, not crops. And I am richer for them all. They have been the jubilant fields and singing trees, singing “for joy before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.” They planted the seeds of faith in my life and watered them and watched them grow. Some of them – too many of them, for me -- have sung the song of harvest home. Some I get to see daily. Regardless, they all continue to bless me. They speak to me in the deepest parts of my soul.


For me, God’s land and God’s people are intricately interwoven. Even those of us who rarely venture outside the city limits are tied to the earth by strong bonds and a bounty of people. And this season is about giving thanks for that bounty to the gracious God who loves us more than we can imagine.

I came across a thanksgiving poem the other day that expresses that thought better than I am able. It’s by Max Coots and says:

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and, though they grow like weeds and wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.
Let us give thanks; For generous friends ... with hearts ... and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

For friends as unpretentious as cabbage, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts, and witherings;

And, finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;

For all these we give thanks.

 May I give thanks, this holiday time, for golden light, good friends, and God’s graciousness. May I open our eyes to jubilant fields and singing trees. Soaring clouds, be they white or gray with rain. Winds warm or chilled by the north. People who are made in God’s own image. Let me give thanks and “sing for joy before the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Baseless: A Brief Book Review

 Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act by Nicholson Baker

Right off I have to confess that Nicholson Baker is one of my favorite writers, both of fiction and non-fiction. I first encountered his writing when I read the astonishing Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization. The research that went into the making of that book and how he constructed it amazed me and drew me in. I've given numerous copies of it to friends. Traveling Sprinkler is my favorite novel of his (so far). 

So when I heard Baseless was going to be released, I pre-ordered a copy. And I looked forward to its arrival. I wasn't disappointed. 

Like Human Smoke, the research here is mind-blowing -- Baker's dedication to getting to the heart of the matter and keeping it all in an order that makes an eminently readable book. That is no easy task -- to take pages upon pages after request after request via the Freedom of Information Act, many of those pages heavily redacted, but still filled with clues or hints that needed to followed, and written in government intelligence and military jargon and distill them into clear, clean, precise prose. Further, Baker makes it both compelling and interesting.

One way he keeps it interesting is by interweaving bits of his daily life into the narrative. Organized chronologically beginning March 9 through May 18, 2019, he presents a daily chronicle of his life as he writes this book (I was disappointed that there was no entry for my May birth date, though). That personalizes this material in a way that makes the information he presents from his research both less and more horrible at the same time. 

The title for this work comes from "Project Baseless," a project begun in the early 50s by the Pentagon to develop and achieve deliverability by the US Air Force chemical and biological weapons. As Baker's research reveals, this was not just an idea, but a project where millions of dollars were spent on such weapons and how to deliver them on targets such as Korea, China, the USSR, and more (including in Central America!). Of course, the cost was more than just financial -- there was also a huge animal and human costs. Thousands, if not millions, of mice, rats, cats, dogs, monkeys and more were sacrificed in testing the viability of these weapons. Some humans may have been, too, as wind drift and poor delivery systems scattered spores and the like places they weren't supposed to go. Other humans, notably the scientists and other workers on this project, suffered all sorts of issues -- physical, emotional, and mental. More than a handful committed suicide. 

The horror is staggering. Made all the more so by my reading it during the current pandemic. The power of a virus is an amazing, terrifying thing. And to think that my government (supposedly for the people and by the people) secretly developed and deployed such weapons is amazing and terrifying. 

And the silliness of the people involved, too, is amazing and terrifying. The list of participants is a who's who of US Cold War warriors. And they play this, at times, as if it's a game. The code names and acronyms remind of my early 60s childhood games with the guys in my neighborhood -- or a Monty Python skit gone terribly wrong.  REDSOX and AEROSOL are relatively benign, if silly, but then there's BGFIEND, KMWAAHOOLAND, DYCLAVIER, PLAYDON, and on and on. It would be funny if the destruction of whole countries crops and other food sources, resulting in mass civilian starvation, wasn't the goal. 

I usually read Nicholson Baker books fairly quickly. By the end of the week they arrive, I've finished them. Not so with Baseless. The writing was beautiful and eloquent, but the material was not to be rushed through. I needed time to absorb the horror of what I was learning before moving on to even more horror. And I admit, the more read, the more ashamed I was that our country participated in this projects, with support from presidents of both parties. It makes me wonder what else I don't know that my country has done in my name ... and with my money, even. 

Father, forgive me. 

 Midwest

by Stephen Dunn

After the paintings
of David Ahlsted

We have lived in this town,
have disappeared
on this prairie. The church

always was smaller
than the grain elevator,
though we pretended otherwise.
The houses were similar

because few of us wanted
to be different
or estranged. And the sky

would never forgive us,
no matter how many times
we guessed upwards
in the dark.

The sky was the prairie's
double, immense,
kaleidoscopic, cold.

The town was where
and how we huddled
against such forces,
and the old abandoned

pickup on the edge
of town was how we knew
we had gone too far,
or had returned.

People? Now we can see them,
invisible in their houses
or in their stores.

Except for one man
lounging on his porch,
they are part of the buildings,

they have determined
every stubborn shape, the size
of each room. The trailer home
with the broken window

is somebody's life.
One thing always is
more important than another,

this empty street, this vanishing
point. The good eye knows
no democracy. Shadows follow

sunlight as they should,
as none of us can prevent.
Everything is conspicuous
and is not.

Of Cats, Presidential Language, and Discouragement: A Midwest Musing

The day is breaking grey and chilly. Some leaves are still clinging to the trees. They rustle back and forth in the light wind. Persimmons are ripening on the branches out by the prairie. Hopefully, we’ll get some of them before the deer eat them all. Squirrels are busy stashing walnuts and hazelnuts and acorns. 

I walked out onto the back deck to feed the Ebony, Bamboo, and Gracie (the farm cats) and they greeted me with great meowings and fell to their food as if they hadn’t had been fed in days. As if I didn’t know they’d been out mousing or chipmunking or birding in the prairie and had probably feasted well. Still, they mad me feel welcome in their catlike way – which is to say, like a politician who just found out he had my vote and then turned away in search of another. 

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, as I climbed out of the shower and was drying off, I saw Gracie heading out to the prairie to resume the hunt.

Despite all this goodness around me, I’m feeling a little discouraged this morning. Last night I did something I guess I knew I probably shouldn’t have done while doing it – I posted the following on Facebook:

President Trump in Arizona today called a news network, “You dumb bastards." Regardless of your political leanings, is this appropriate language for the President of the United States to be using in public?

Ah, the furor it provoked -- a political rugby scrum, including justifications for such language.  Sorry, but I don't find any such justification for such language at a public rally -- regardless of party. 

I remember the first time I said "bastard" in public and the reaction it got. I was in fifth or sixth grade, sitting on the floor of our dining room on Eureka Avenue in Columbus, Ohio watching tv. Back then our television set, a mammoth, humming thing, was in the dining room. Mom didn't like to have a tv in the living room and the family room hadn't been added onto the back of the house yet. 

As I said, I was sitting on the floor watching tv. A dinosaur movie was on. Dad was sitting in his place at the dining room table reading the sports pages. He looked at me and sighed. I'm certain he wanted to watch the sports news. He'd even prefer Jimmy Crum, of whom he was less than fond, than a dinosaur movie. At any rate, at one point in the flick, one dino grabbed another by the neck and wash thrashing him and I, excited by the fight, yelled out "Kill the bastard."

Bad move. 

I knew my dad was fast. I'd seen him play shortstop, second base, basketball, and football for years. But I didn't he was that fast. I found myself scooped up and this red faced old guy (he would have been around 33) holding me by my shirt collar and demanding, "What did you say??" and telling my sisters to go find mom. "Kill the bastard," I whispered, wondering why he was so upset. "Where did you learn that word?" he asked. "What word?" "Bastard!" 

I honestly couldn't remember. It probably was on the playground of John Burroughs Elementary School three blocks away. I had no idea what it mean -- it just sounded like a cool word. Reminded me of "dastardly," which I had heard in other movies, television shows, and overheard adult conversations. So I thought I'd try it out.

Dad then gave me a very brief and direct lesson of the etymology of that word. And that if he heard me ever say it again, I faced dire consequences. 

I never wanted to face Dad's dire consequences, believe you me.

Now, to be fully transparent, I have said that word since. And some other bad words, too. There may be members of my family or certain friends who have a tape or memory of me blurting something out -- but never whilst giving a public speech, teaching a class, preaching a sermon, or...  Even when I rolled the John Deere tractor down a hill, I refrained lest the cows in the field across the road might hear me -- or because I was too scared to say anything. 

When I awoke this morning and read the vitriol in response to the post, I decided to delete it. And I renewed my promise to myself to not post anything about that man on social media. No matter how hard it is when he is so outrageous and crude and mean. It discourages me to see the support his behavior gets.  

So, today, to help battle my discouragement, I'm going to try to stay centered on the things mentioned in the first few paragraphs. Things that represent goodness and life that continues, even in the midst of this horrid pandemic and political season. And then, when it warms up a bit, I’m going to go up to the garage attic. My plan will be to organize my stash of Brent Bill for sale books, straighten things up so I have a place to put my golf clubs and the deck furniture for the winter, and the like. I don’t know how much I’ll get done as I know I’ll come across stuff that Dad put up there. I'll look at it and remember that good man. I'll probably uncover other things that bring to mind good people who have passed. 

And while I will mourn them, I will also find joy in remembering their love and basic integrity and decency.

Harvest and Election Signs: A Midwest Pick-em-up Truck Drive Musing

 Yesterday, after spending most of the week in Zoom meetings for board's I serve on, I needed to get out from in front of a computer screen. So I told Nancy I was going to fire up the pick-up truck and head out for a ride. "Wanna go with?" She did and so off we went on the backroads -- Gasburg Road, Joppa Road, Bunker Hill Road, and many more.

We didn't talk much -- mostly just looked at fields that had been harvested, that needed harvesting, and were being harvested. We saw big combines working their way across cornfields, trailing clouds of dust and spewing field trash. We witnessed other combines, their wide corn or bean heads removed, maneuvering along the narrow country roads, cars and trucks scooting as far over as they could without tumbling into a ditch, as they moved from one field to the next.

We also saw the risings and fallings of the supposedly flat Indiana farmland that was revealed in the freshly picked fields. We drove through woods being stripped of leaves by cooler temps and the yesterday's blustery winds. The yellow, gold, and red leaves that once adorned the trees now spread like a carpet at their feet, while their arm-like limbs reached up into the sky.

Around every bend, we encountered yard signs promoting this candidate or that one. Looking at them, I remembered something that our granddaughter Alexis posted recently. According to her poll of yard signs, Joe Biden was going to place third in the Hoosier state's voting for president behind Trump and Firewood for Sale.

That was a good joke, I thought. And from our informal survey on our drive, looked to be true. 

The election will be over shortly, one way or another. And I, for one, will be happy to see the signs (regardless of candidate) come down. I will be even more glad to see the political ads disappear from the airwaves and interwebs. People send me, via messages and posts and tweets, things that vilify the candidate they don't like. I'm sick of it. I'm also weary of the increasingly negative attacks of candidates on each other. If I wasn't a pacifistic Quaker, after watching the ads and reading the memes, I'd be for taking all these horrible people out and shooting them. After all, according to the ads and memes there is not one good person running for office. And where these used to mostly be about higher offices (which is odd) now they've trickled down to the state, county, and city offices. Yesterday there was an ad on television saying how Peorgie Tirebinder, who is running for county dogcatcher, had been taking kickbacks from Purina Pet Chow and Pet Armor Flea and Tick Treatment to finance his condo in Florida.

Okay, I made that last little bit up.

As I sat in silence in Quaker worship this morning, I thought about some of what I've just written. Not a good way to center down into listening for God's voice -- except it was. Because I did hear a voice reminding me that on November 4, the signs and ads will be gone -- except for the "Firewood For Sale" ones. And that's a good sign. It connects us with the daily that goes on and on. Firewood, for some people will still be needed -- and it will be available. Those signs are a constant in rural Indiana ... and other states.

I was also reminded that there is another constant. The God of grace and God of glory. The God who is transcendent and immanent. The God who is Light, and Love, and Truth, and who promises never leave or forsake us. The God who is the Great Lover of Our Souls and warms them with a holy fire and lights our way forward. 

We could use a few signs for that. 

Election 2020 Musings From the Midwest

First, let me say that for the past four years I have been completely disturbed and horrified by many of the words and actions of President Donald J. Trump. And that's the last time you'll see his name in this blog post.

However, as voting is going on now and through November 3rd, I cannot be silent about policies, words, and actions I find contrary to my understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am committed to working against these things which I feel are harming the country I live in and am grateful to live in. 

No politician is perfect. All have their faults. That's been true in the past and is true now. Yet many, I believe, acted in what they thought were the best interests of our country as a whole. I do not feel that way about many of the current occupants of public office. 

Here is what I looked for in the candidates for which I voted in 2020 (yes, my ballot has been cast). I looked for people that, imperfect as they are, came close to supporting ideas that congruent with my understanding of Christian faith. People that are for:

• a country and government that respects all people regardless of ethnicity, gender-identification, sexual orientation, religion (or choosing to have no religion), and so forth.
• an administration and government that exists to serve all under their care and which recognize that diversity of color, lifestyle, opinion, religion, and more enrich our country.
• a nation that guarantees and equally protects the rights of all its residents -- again regardless of ethnicity, gender-identification, sexual orientation, religion (or choosing to have no religion), and so forth.
• a country that emphasizes peace in its actions and spending.
• a nation that works to ensure that all its residents have the best healthcare, education, housing, worthy work, and food possible. I don't just mean "access to" -- I mean, have these things -- regardless of ethnicity, gender-identification, sexual orientation, religion (or choosing to have no religion), and so forth.
• a government that encourages civil discourse and acts and speaks with care and respect.
• civil discourse among peoples of differing views so we can learn from each other.
• a country that is known for its mercy and justice toward all peoples everywhere.

I am for these things as a person of faith.

I need to speak about what I'm for, rather than what I'm against, for my own spirit's sake. Being for instead of against helps me to be humble and exhibit (as best I am able) love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

These times are fraught with peril. They are also times that are filled with possibility. May you vote prayerfully and carefully.

God bless us. Every one. 

Thistles and the Prairie

After walking through the slowly fading, quickly browning prairie yesterday and observing the various seeds -- including the fluffy thistle ones -- I read this poem on The Writer's Almanac. 

Why There Will Always Be Thistle
by Maxine Kumin

Sheep will not eat it
nor horses nor cattle
unless they are starving.
Unchecked, it will sprawl over
pasture and meadow
choking the sweet grass
defeating the clover
until you are driven
to take arms against it
but if unthinking
you grasp it barehanded
you will need tweezers
to pick out the stickers.

Outlawed in most Northern
states of the Union
still it jumps borders.
Its taproot runs deeper
than underground rivers
and once it’s been severed
by breadknife or shovel
—two popular methods
employed by the desperate—
the bits that remain will
spring up like dragons’ teeth
a field full of soldiers
their spines at the ready. Bright little bursts of
chrome yellow explode from
the thistle in autumn
when goldfinches gorge on
the seeds of its flower.
The ones left uneaten
dry up and pop open
and parachutes carry
their procreant power
to disparate venues
in each hemisphere
which is why there will always
be thistle next year.


“Why There Will Always Be Thistle” by Maxine Kumin from The Long Marriage. © W.W. Norton, 2003.

Dad and Mom, A Dog, Deer, Killdeer, and Rocks: A Midwest Meditation

 Waking up yesterday morning after watching the debacle that was called the Presidential Debate, I decided I wanted to do something useful. Fortunately, living on almost fifty acres, there's always some thing that needs doing.

The first task I set for myself was to head out to the prairie and locate the spot where my parents' ashes are spread and Bonnie the dog of wonder is buried. The events of spring had overtaken me and I didn't keep the little path to that plot mowed. Soon the prairie grasses, wildflowers, and other flora had taken over and the place was now surrounded by green.  As I stepped out the porch door, I startled three young deer munching vegetation in the front yard. They looked up, stood stock still, and then bounded away, across the yard, the harvested bean field, and down into the woods. 

Lovely. Graceful.

Then it was retrieve my old trail mower for its assistance in finding the memorial area. 

From all its hard work on trails lined with thorn trees, the tires have endless punctures and so I had to put some tire sealer in them and pump them off. Then we went putt-putting out to the prairie. 

I parked where I thought the rock marking Bonnie's resting place might be and heading through the 6 and 7 foot tall prairies grasses and the stalks of fading wildflowers. It was tough going and I was quickly winded and covered with seeds from various plants. In my wandering search, also was assailed by briars, which I've been battling there for years. My search was for naught. I made my way back out and in through another area. Still nothing.

I was pretty certain where the grave should be, but the vegetation was so dense -- especially the briars -- I decide to put the mower to use. Off into the flora towering over us Traily and I went, deck set high, mower blade whirring. After the third pass in the small area where I believed the sought for space was, the left tractor lifted a good bit. I backed up, climbed off the mower, and there was Bonnie's memorial rock. I cleaned around it and then uncovered the sitting stumps (made from a tree I'd cut up) next to it where Mom and Dad's ashes were scattered in 2018. 

After a few more minutes work of clearing and mowing and rearranging,  the area was nice and neat with a winding trail leading to it. 

Satisfaction. Just in time for what would have been Mom and Dad's 71st anniversary today. 

After lunch, I got the little utility cart out. It's basically a heavy duty golf cart with a hydraulic dump bed on the back. While lots of folks around here have larger John Deere Gators and the like, this size is perfect for me. I found Mom & Dad's and Bonnie's "official" memorial markers in the garage. I had taken them in prior to doing a prescribed burn last autumn. I cleaned them up and then Nancy and I went out to place them. We drove the cart down my freshly mowed path -- after Nancy's stroke she is too unsteady for unstable ground. I climbed down and placed them. Then we just sat, surrounded by a wall of tall grass and sounds of crickets and birds. And then a meow. One of the farm cats, Gracie, had made her way through the jungle. She jumped up onto the cart seat between us, wanting attention.

After resting there, lost in memories of "Bonnie, the best dog ever" as her plaque says and John and JoAnn, we headed out. 

"Want to drive across the field," I asked Nancy. I knew she did. So, going at the speed we would normally walk, we bounced and jostled our way across the recently harvested field. Every now and again she'd spot a rock brought to the surface by rains, snows, and harvest. I'd stop and pick it up and hand it to her for inspection.

Nancy loves rocks and as long as I've known her has used them for garden ornaments. She also uses them to hid the concrete foundation wall of our our house. So we spent an hour driving back and forth across a 30 acre field, me picking up rocks. The sky was a deep autumn blue. Killdeer scavenging in the former been field tweeted their displeasure at our intrusion. Leaves rained down in the wind. Trees already stripped of foliage raised their hands into the air, either seeking the warmth of the sun or praising God. 

Or both.

I did, too.

Spiderwebs On My Face: Another Midwest Musing

 

Almost every day, sometimes twice a day, Nancy and I climb into our utility cart and go for a ride on the trails around and through our woods and prairie. We used to go for walks, but since Nancy's stroke last March that's just not possible anymore. Yet, she enjoys and wants to experience the trees, the tall grasses, the wildflowers, the glimpses of wild turkeys, deer, coyotes, beaver, groundhogs, coyotes, and more. 

So I help her up into the cart and off we go at a pace similar to that we used to walk. Up and down paths wide and narrow, bumpy and smooth. Always watching for a new seasonal wildflower, a hawk, a scurrying skunk.

One thing we always forget to watch for -- and indeed is hard to watch for -- are spiderwebs.

I hate spiders. Have since I was little kid. It's must be a genetic hate -- Grandma Bill hated them, too. With a passionate hate. One time she called my grandad to come get rid of one in their bedroom. He'd been at the kitchen table cleaning his pump action 12 gauge shotgun and arrived in their room carrying it. "Lew, get rid of that spider!" grandma demanded. "How?" "You have a gun," she shouted. "Use it if you must." And then stormed out the room. 

Of course, he didn't. Use the gun that is. But it's always made a good family story.

But back to spiderwebs and utility cart rides. 

At least once on every ride, we run, usually face first (our cart is pretty simple -- no windshield) into a spider web. Nancy is generally pretty calm and just wipes it away. I am frantic, certain that the spider, probably a black widow or brown recluse, has scampered off the web and is at that very moment working its way down the collar of my shirt and under my t-shirt looking for a place to bite me. Probably my fat belly.

After the brushing and me smacking areas on my shirt where I think the poisonous pest might have taken up residence, I step on the accelerator and we inch off down the trail. And run into another web.

Sigh.

These head on collisions with spiderwebs have left me pondering though the persistence of these creatures. I can imagine, sort of, making a web that is goes across a six foot wide windy path in the woods, but bridging one that is twelve to fifteen feet wide? How do they do that? 

Now I don't really care what the answer is -- learning how they do that is not that important to me. What is important is that they do it at all and the work that goes into it. And the ancillary fact that the same place I drive through today and run into a spiderweb may find another there tomorrow. Ambitious little arachnids -- God's creations doing what they were created to do. In the face of politics, division, war, pandemic. Oh wait, could that stuff only matter to us people who seem too often to do that which is other than what we were created to do.

In the midst of my musings, I picked up a book of Jane Tyson Clement's poems. And, in the mysterious ways the Divine teaches me, came across her poem "The Spider"

I watch the spider fling

its most improbable thread ―
from aspen limb to birch
and back again.

 

So do we fling our faith

from star to star
and under God’s eternal, watching care
the perfect orb
will come.

Now I'm still no big fan of spiders. But I'm happy for the lesson they are teaching me -- to be true to my nature as one of God's beloved creatures. 

To do the work I'm called to do. 

To trust in the Lord. 

To know it will be enough. 

The Presence in Our Midst: Christ in Commonlife

"And she gave birth to her first born son..." Luke 2:7
(top photo)
"Is this not the carpenter..." Mark 6:3
(bottom photo)

When I was in seminary, I continued my interest in photography by incorporating into various theology or Bible classes. One project I developed, in lieu of a formal paper, was for a class on the gospel of John. Based on John 1:14-18 (And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. RSV, italics mine) it was a presentation on the life of Jesus as incarnate in God's people today using scripture, music, and slides projected on a screen.

That then morphed into the idea of a book project that never materialized, but which I came across the other day while cleaning out an old file cabinet. It's working title was Christ in Commonlife and was going to combine photography with scripture and some meditative thoughts. The photographs, two contact prints of which are on this post, were ones I took of people I  encountered in daily like -- including family. Like the two here -- the top one is of my son Benjamin a day after he was born and the bottom one is of my dad building his garage behind the house where I grew up.

As I wrote in the book proposal

The central concept of Christ in Commonlife is that it is in every day encounters we me Jesus. Imagination is imperative since many of the photographs contain no specific Christ figure. To find Christ -- in these images as in life, you must allow your imagination free reign. Become a dreamer. Just as you used to be, before you put away dreaming and other such childish things. It is my hope that in the uniting of word and image, you will be open to really seeing again -- and in that awakened state you will find yourself encountering Christ in places and faces fresh and new. And ordinary. Like these photographs. Like life.

Jesus rides the subways today -- and the county school bus. He puts in his time in factories, office buildings, farms, and homes across the planet. He is wherever people are -- doing the things they do; eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, working, living, dying. 

Well, as I said, the project never came to fruition as a published book. But still it helped me to put into daily practice the Quaker concept of looking for that of God in every person that I encounter. Some days I'm better at it that others. But still, I try.

The book was to end with a poem. Now I've never claimed to be a poet -- I know my limitations. But this one still feels good and true and seeking to me:

Looking into faces

young or old

we catch glimpses of

ourselves, or

the people we could be.

Then we

stop, reflecting on

the beauty that lies

within.

Wonderment.

It may be

We should spend more

moments

gazing at

God in

us all. Finally

free. Ourselves. Are

you there,

Jesus?

 

Cleaning House and Enjoying It: Another Midwest Musing

 
Today I cleaned my office. Since the pandemic hit, it has gotten dustier and more cluttered than I usually let it get. Books on the floor. Notebooks leaning again the baseboard. CDs strewn across the desk. Yikes!

So today was the time to bring some order to this space where I spend so much time. It is a lovely place to be -- up on the second floor of our house, looking out over the woods that overlooks the prairie. And when it's neater and cleaner, I enjoy it more because I am sort of a neat freak. 

What I enjoyed most, though, beside the lack of dust and newly restored order, was looking over the eclectic collection that fills this room.

There are the books, of course, as evidenced by the photos. And some of them are ones I didn't write. Ha. There are books of poetry, humor, history, theology, fiction, comic books (old -- and I mean old! -- Mad magazines and DC comics), and more. 

There's a whole collection of ancient Wittenburg Doors. There's a whole section of shelves containing autographed books by friends and authors I've met over the years. 

But the shelves also hold a bottles of Winomycin Elixir (looks a lot like Sutter Home Chardonnay) prescribed to me by my late friend Dr. Phil Ball and some wild Guatemalan booze sent by Donna Higgins Smith. There's my collection of "Jesus Junk" ("Jeez-It's" sticky notes, "Messiah Mints -- Save Your Breath", etc.) and Quaker Crap (Fighting Quaker Puppet, Quaker Boy Moose Mate Call, Old Quaker Wiskey, and so on), along with assorted other goofy things. And memorabilia from my misspent youth in Columbus, Ohio. Oh, and a screaming flying monkey that soars across the room. 

Sitting on the shelves are various Snoopys, models I've built of British sportscars (including a replica of the 1966 Austin-Healey Sprite I once owned), awards I've won exhibiting my 1955 MGTF 1500 at various car shows, and old cameras -- including my dad's 35mm Vivitar and its lenses. Unlikely for a Quaker, there are also old cast iron tanks, a cannon, and a grenade cigarette light -- relics of time I spent with my beloved great-uncle Johnny Clemmens. Some of his Army medals hang on a wall.

The walls are covered with all sorts of photos and certificates. The old Ohio title to the MG from when 

dad gave it to me, a leaf from an early 17th John Bill Bible (a printer relative of mine), a 1973 National Lampoon Map of the World (very unpollitically correct, framed book covers, a painting of Quaker Mary Dyer by my friend Lil Copan. 

In the corner, tucked alongside two file cabinets topped by my dad's old chart chest, is my desk. I had it made almost 20 years ago and still love its aging oak patina. It hold my large format photo printer, laser printer, scanner, stereo speakers and computer. It's where I do almost all of my writing and thinking. 

When I was a kid growing up in Columbus, I dreamt of being a writer and having a space like this. I also was intrigued by the collections various adults in my life had -- Dad and his stuff, including fake business cards that said things such as "If I give you a going away present, will you go away?", Uncle Johnny and his model tanks and record collections, Mom and her books and boxes of family photos. For the past almost 20 years, I've been lucky to have had the writing space I always dreamed of and a place to put my weird collection of stuff. It's been a haven -- a little bit of normal (or abnormal in my case) -- in this scary, dangerous time. 

And a place to further reinforce their grandfather's craziness to my grandchildren. Though they do seem to enjoy playing with the toy cars, Woodstock and Snoopy, the marshmallow shooting air gun, et al. 

"See you 'round like a donut," they say when they leave. Wonder where they got that?

Time of the Signs: More Midwest Musings

Yesterday morning dawned sunny and coolish for a day when later it turned 90 and humid. So, I thought, I'd better get out and do some work around the farm early.  

My first task was replace the old farm sign. Sixteen years ago, I had a nice handmade wooden sign welcoming people to Ploughshares Farm, the name of our place. Originally, it was a nice stained piece of wood with letting and a picture of a ploughshare on it. Over the years the finish wore off and the wood began to age in not good ways, so we painted the background, repainted the lettering and logo, and edged it in green. 

That worked well for a while, but time, weather, and some wood chewing insects took their toll and as you can see from the top photo the sign was falling apart. Pieces fell off it it regularly and had to propped back into place. So the time came for a new sign. 

I picked the new sign, done by a local shop, up earlier in the week. I loaded up my tools and new the sign in my little utility cart and headed out to the road. Removing the old rotted sign was easy at first. Pieces fell off. But the sign's mounting board proved a bit more difficult. I'd mounted that sign with four 4" deck screws. And they were still holding tight. Besides that, they didn't want to let go. One battery on the drill/screwdriver went dead on the top screw. And some doofus had failed to charge the back up battery. Doh. So I took the batteries back to garage to charge, and picked up a screw driver to get the screws out. 

Twenty minutes and a few breaks later (old men with heart conditions take lots of breaks) the four screws were finally free. And one of the batteries was charged just in time to install the new sign. I figured, after measuring twice (my father's voice in my head) that 3" screws would be plenty long enough. A few more measurements and pencil marks and use of a level, the new sign (bottom picture) was up.

A vast improvement. As I stood there, I looked down the long lane admiring my work and also the work of others at Ploughshares Farm over the years. The east side tree line along the lane had once been a scrum of bushes and trees and old farm fence that my dad, son-in-law Michael, son Tim, and I had chain sawed, hand sawed, and more to clean out and leave about 30 good trees (it's a long lane!). On the west side I saw another almost 30 trees and bushes -- these all planted by Nancy and me fourteen years ago, except two maple trees that had sprouted in Dad and Mom's flower garden. Dad dug them up and brought them 210 miles to our place and planted them. They're now over twenty feet tall. 

The two tree lines form a nice canopy over the lane, a shady (most of the time), pleasant view that leads back into another woods (the lane takes a sharp eastward turn toward our house a third of a mile away. The house can't been seen from the main part of the lane). Though a lot of human labor went into that view, mostly it was nature at work. Trees and bushes did what trees and bushes should do and grew and grew. And I was the beneficiary of their work that day. And, indeed, I am almost every day.  

While I was sad to take the pieces of the old sign down to the burn pile, I was grateful for the way it stood as welcome for a decade and half. It was an invitation to many folks to visit the farm, stay awhile, see its transformation from farmland to prairie and woodland, and enjoy the trails and wildflowers and tall grasses and butterflies and birds and occasional fox, wild turkeys, bunnies, and deer. What they may not have seen is the slow transformation of my soul and life that comes from living and working here. And ike that old sign, I'm older, too. And falling apart a bit more each day -- at least physically. 

But I'm not quite ready for the burn pile!

Now a new stands out by the road. The invitation is still there -- just a bit easier to see with its new paint. It's an invitation I hope you'll take advantage of if you're ever out this way.
 

Celebrating a "Recital of Love"

Today is the release of Recital of Love by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt. I've been enjoying my advance review copy of this wonderful book. I thought you might enjoy these thoughts about the book from Keren, a true modern day mystic. 

******

People have been asking me lately about where my new book, Recital of Love, came from. Thinking about this, I have to conclude that it has its roots in failure, sickness, and purposelessness. As Christians, we are not always told that good can come from such things, but given to God, any kind of suffering can bring about wonders. Just as a rosebush needs a good layer of manure to feed it, maybe sometimes we don’t come into full bloom until we’ve spent a while on the dungheap. That’s certainly true of my life.

Twenty-five years ago I got very sick with myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) and had to stop working. My whole life fell apart and the faith which had been little more than a kind of emergency prop for some years (at least on the surface) suddenly had a great deal of work to do to keep me afloat.

This neurological illness plays havoc with all physical systems and damages your ability to produce energy. The more I pushed against it, the worse I got. The more I fought, the less I had left to fight with. I ended up using a wheelchair, relying on caregivers, and spending most of the day resting in bed. I still do, all this time later. For the last two years I’ve simply not had the strength to leave the house and my wonderful husband Rowan takes care of me.

This illness has put me in a cell. At first, it felt like a prison cell, but over the years, I developed a deeper prayer practice, and it has come to often feel more like a monastic cell. I felt God calling me to spend more and more time with him, and as many loved ones distanced themselves, and more physical function left me, well, let’s just say there wasn’t really much else I was able to do. God was waiting for me in the gap created by loss.

I began to practice daily contemplation. Stillness and silence gradually became precious to me and once I’d learnt to let my busy mind chatter away above the more important things that were taking place in my spirit, I found God taking me to new places and showing me new things, and even speaking wonderful words into my heart.

I wrote them down in my journals, and a few years later, started to collate them into documents on the computer. I had no idea then, of these things becoming a book, but rather, wanted to keep a record for myself of the time God and I were spending together, and the dear things he was showing me.

And then, nine years ago, before I was housebound, my parents bought me a few days’ retreat at Aylesford Priory for my fortieth birthday. Whilst I was there, I sat in the Relic Chapel, in awe at the sense of God’s presence that manifested through the prayerful atmosphere, and through the beautiful ceramics, woodwork and stained glass. God spoke to my heart very clearly. He told me he was commissioning me to be a writer.

From that point on I set myself to the task of making the gifts I was being given into pieces that would bless others. There has been an outpouring of understandings, seeings, poems and stories, as well as of artwork. My hope is that as I continue to share this flow of creativity, readers will be drawn into deeper relationship with God, who is love, and all that I weave with God’s help and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, will be an encouragement and joy to my fellow Christians, and perhaps even to those who have yet to be still, and begin to know God.

Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a contemplative in the Christian tradition. She writes to encourage others, to know the Lord more intimately, and to share the poetic ponderings of her heart. She lives in southeast England with her husband.

Copyright ©2020 by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt. Shared by permission.

Recital of Love: Sacred Receivings by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
ISBN 978-1-64060-406-3│September 8, 2020│Hardcover│$16.99

 

Midwest Morning Musings

 A young deer leapt out onto the two lane road that stretched out before me. I applied the pickup truck brakes, slowly bringing the truck to a complete stop. The deer was lit with mid-morning sun that was behind me. It just looked at me. I looked down the road -- no cars were were coming from the other direction. I checked my mirror. No vehicles were approaching from behind. I inched forward, willing the little deer to move. It did, so that it was right in front of me. And then another appeared from the same direction the first had come and the both scampered across the road and down the sloping roadside into the woods. I eased off the brake and resumed my meandering drive through west Central Ohio.

I hadn't been to my home state since January. On March 1, Nancy had a stroke and then shortly after that the pandemic shut everything down. Now things were well enough all the way around that I could make a quick trip and visit some family and enjoy being back in Ohio. Mys sister Linda is selling her house and had my mother's small secretary desk and rocking chair from the home we grew up in on Eureka Avenue in Columbus, Ohio for me to bring back to Indiana. So I gassed up my little GMC and headed east on the interstate early on Friday morning.

After a nice lunch with Linda and my sister Kathleen and her husband Paul, I loaded the truck with the desk and rocker, along with some boxes of tools that were Dad's, and some other miscellaneous memorabilia. Then Linda, Kathleen, Paul, and I retired to Linda's screen porch and chatted for hours. Sister Julie called from her home on top of a mesa in Colorado. It was a wonderful time of memories and family.

At 8:15 Saturday morning, I fired up the Canyon and headed out. It was a crisp, cool almost autumn morn, so I decided to take backroads at least part of the way home. I turned onto Orange Road, which when I was a kid on the Hilltop area of Columbus seemed terribly far away when we would travel up to Orange Road Friends Church for Quarterly Meeting or other services. It's all of twenty miles. Orange Road now is lined by houses and tall trees and was very peaceful with the shade covering the road. Then north on Liberty Road, west on Herriott, south on Ohio 42, southwest on 161, southwest on 4. "I know Ohio like the back of my hand," to quote a line from a song by Over the Rhine. 

I reveled in the feel of familiar roads under the truck tires. Roads I'd traveled over many times since I was child. Towns, small and smaller. New California. Plain City. Irwin. Mechanicsburg. Winding byways, gentle hills, woods, farmsteads, soybeans starting their change from deep green to yellow, cornstalks likewise losing their vibrant green. The sun taking on a more autumnal slant, lengthening the shadows. And me, tooling along in my truck, my payload of family in the bed.

I looked in the mirror and saw the rocker, on its side, safely bungeed in the back. I thought of all us kids, and grandkids, and great-grandkids who had rocked in it. How Kathleen had stood on one of the runners and broken it and how careful craftsman hands had crafted an identical runner that has now been a part of the rocker for so long you can't tell (well, we kids can because we remember) which is original and which is the "new" one. I wondered who in the family would have it and Mom's desk after me. 

I also thought of our old MG that Dad and Mom had driven over some of those roads. Just out for a ride. It was resting in my garage in Indiana -- a 1955 (the same age as the MG) Ohio road map in the glove box. The roads I was driving were all on that map. Not so for the interstates I traveled over yesterday.

As I drove, the sun rising, the pale fullish moon fading in the western sky, the country smells wafting in through the slightly open window, I was at peace. Grateful. For young deer who caused me to stop. For family that embraces me physically and emotionally. For roads to wander and enjoy. For being a person of this place. A Midwestern man.  

Black Day in May

I have watched what I'll call the murder of George Floyd a number of times and my anger and sadness continue to grow. This should not happen "in the land of free." Just three years ago in the same metro area, Philando Castile was shot, while sitting in his car after being stopped, and killed by a police officer. I could list a number of other names of men of color who died at the hands of the police.

Such behavior by some police officers (notice I said some, not all) cannot be tolerated. It must be stopped. Why the other police officers did not tell Officer Derek Chauvin to remove his knee for George Floyd's neck, when he was in obvious distress (and already restrained) is beyond me. Such actions should be prosecuted. If I did to anybody what Officer Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd, I would be in jail.

I understand the rage that people of color in Minneapolis feel at this killing. I don't condone the violence, but that's me writing from my white Quaker perspective. I believe in non-violent protest as the best, most productive way. But I do understand that such oppressive actions such as the killing of George Floyd can cause righteous anger to boil over and erupt.

I'm old enough to remember the "long hot summer" of 1967 when almost 160 race riots happened across the United States. For a white sixteen year old, it was a scary, bewildering time. For the many African Americans I went to high school with I imagine it was less bewildering and even scarier. And here I am at age 69. I'm not bewildered. I'm scared... but for my friends and other people of color. And sad for a country that seems to be sliding further back into racial polarization than I could imagine. And so the violence does not bewilder me.

After the summer of 1967, Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot wrote "Black Day In July" with a jarring arrangement much different than his usual gentler songs and these lyrics:

Black day in July
Motor City madness has touched the countryside
And through the smoke and cinders
You can hear it far and wide
The doors are quickly bolted
And the children locked inside

Black day in July
Black day in July

And the soul of Motor City is bared across the land
As the book of law and order is taken in the hands
Of the sons of the fathers who were carried to this land

Black day in July
Black day in July

In the streets of Motor City is a deadly silent sound
And the body of a dead youth lies stretched upon the ground
Upon the filthy pavement
No reason can be found

Black day in July
Black day in July

Motor City madness has touched the countryside
And the people rise in anger
And the streets begin to fill
And there's gunfire from the rooftops
And the blood begins to spill

Black day in July

In the mansion of the governor
There's nothing that is known for sure
The telephone is ringing
And the pendulum is swinging
And they wonder how it happened
And they really know the reason
And it wasn't just the temperature
And it wasn't just the season

Black day in July
Black day in July

Motor City's burning and the flames are running wild
They reflect upon the waters of the river and the lake
And everyone is listening
And everyone's awake

Black day in July
Black day in July

The printing press is turning
And the news is quickly flashed
And you read your morning paper
And you sip your cup of tea
And you wonder just in passing
Is it him or is it me

Black day in July

In the office of the President
The deed is done the troops are sent
There's really not much choice you see
It looks to us like anarchy
And then the tanks go rolling in
To patch things up as best they can
There is no time to hesitate
The speech is made the dues can wait

Black day in July
Black day in July

The streets of Motor City now are quiet and serene
But the shapes of gutted buildings
Strike terror to the heart
And you say how did it happen
And you say how did it start
Why can't we all be brothers
Why can't we live in peace
But the hands of the have-nots
Keep falling out of reach

Black day in July
Black day in July

Motor City madness has touched the countryside
And through the smoke and cinders
You can hear it far and wide
The doors are quickly bolted
And the children locked inside

Two sections of those lyrics especially haunt me:

"And they wonder how it happened
And they really know the reason"

"And you say how did it happen
And you say how did it start
Why can't we all be brothers
Why can't we live in peace
But the hands of the have-nots
Keep falling out of reach"

We do know how it happened. We do know how it started.

Justice must be served. Injustice must end.

God help us.

Caregiving Resources_Trailer

West Newton Friends Meeting for Worship 5 3 20