Hounded by magnificence

As I dozed in the early light of dawn this morning, my eyes popped open suddenly because I smelled Spring. Nothing was melting that early in the day, so I don’t know what scent drifted in through the plastic covered-windows, but there was no need to understand. My skin understood, and my belly understood, and my heart understood and jumped in my chest like a horse stamping to be free from its stall. I could not go back to sleep.

Every time I was outside today, I heard voices. As I walked from my back door to the truck, I could tell that the snow was singing, the cool air was singing, and the tips of the trees were singing. It was like being serenaded by an elfin chorus. I did not stop to listen. I had a migraine all day. I had so much work to do.

Now there’s a full moon, and the trees are casting straight shadows on the snow. A great number of voices are singing now, and that they will not sing together for long. Something will tip, and the most ethereal tones will disappear along with the pink tones of twilight reflected on the snow. Soon we will smell damp earth, and its voice will rise loud and powerful, and it will guide the song. Already it is with us, sending out a rhythm below the tune. All times are holy, of course, but I can feel the holiness of this time especially well. I can hear God in the midst of all the singing.

I read in Testament of Devotion today that we don’t devote ourselves to God as fully as we ought to because we do not experience enough joyful love for God. I’m not sure what to think about that. Today I was tired, I was hurting, and I was trying so hard to do what was expected of me. Mustering up joyful love sounded too ambitious, but I was hounded by magnificence even so. I could’ve experienced so much more.

Help from a friend

After writing my last post, I decided that it was not right to avoid parts of my house. If I start making little accommodations for fear, it grows and acts like it owns the place. So, I started working up my nerve to go down and clean the basement litterbox when my eyes fell on my most cuddly cat, curled up on a quilt. I picked her up, and the fur on her right side was especially warm because she'd been lying on it for a long time. I carried her down stairs on my shoulder, rubbing my cheek against that warm fur, and I noticed that my little companion was not at all upset by the landing that I disliked so much. When I set her down on the cold basement floor and started to clean the litter box, she stalked away with a sense of indignation. Testily, I reminded her that if it were not for her and her comrades, I would not be visiting the basement at all that night. I cleaned the litter box quickly while my cat made her slow, dignified way through the basement and towards the stairs. As soon as I was done, I raced through the basement to catch up with her, and we ran up the stairs together.

Ghosts

Our old house in Minneapolis was very lovingly haunted. During the eight years that I lived there, I regularly had the sense of feminine delight. Something in our house approved of us, even loved us, and I think it tried to keep us safe. Although I have loved all of my homes passionately, none of them has returned my affection with so much warmth. The only downside of the haunting is that it sometimes disturbed my sleep. I regularly woke up in the night feeling that a woman was watching me. It never made me afraid, only restless as I hovered at the edge of sleep, slipping off into random dreams and then coming back to the awareness that I was being observed. It was especially awkward in the summer when it was hot because I wanted to kick the covers off of me, but I would wake up feeling that I was being immodest, not because of my sleeping husband, but because of the unseen presence in the bedroom. All in all, this did not bother me much because it infused my house with greater joy and security. I was thankful for that.

I was aware of the spirit in my old home almost as soon as I moved into it, but I am still not certain what I am dealing with in my new house. There is more grief in this house, and more complexity. I am not aware of anything taking great delight in my family here, but I am also not aware of being watched while sleeping. One fall evening, as I sat by myself on the deck after the children were in bed, I could feel the presence of a farmer. I could almost smell hay, and I sensed softness under his feet and the earthiness of his movement. He was curious but somewhat disapproving of what he saw in me. I hugged my knees and told myself several times that I was imagining things, but I was not imagining anything. I just knew. I stayed there in the dark for a while until I felt ready to go back inside. This presence wants to see what we will do with the land, and we could earn its respect by farming well. I will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. We are too green, and even if we gather enough expertise, I doubt that this presence will ever give us glowing approval, just as my Swedish grandpa never did. The highest praise my grandpa ever heaped on anyone was to say, “It’s all right, I guess.” Still I would be thrilled beyond measure to have that kind of approval—from my grandpa or from anyone like him.

I am also terrified of something on the basement stairs. To get to our basement, you walk down the five steps and find yourself on landing in front of the metal door that leads to the side yard. You have to turn to your left and go down the rest of the stairs into the basement. There are some really unfortunate similarities between that landing and another landing where I tried unsuccessfully to prevent a murder many years ago. This is probably why I have a feeling of terror whenever I need to go find a tool or change the cat litter in the basement. I hope that is the case, because if it is not, then it means that there is something scary in our house.

I have considered inviting some Friends over to have a meeting for worship on the basement stairs. It might help, but they are not here tonight. Tonight, I am the only grown-up in the house and I still need to change the cat litter before going to bed. I think I will skip the basement litterbox. The cats don’t use that one very much anyway. It is late at night, and I am not going to go down those stairs.

Not what I pictured doing

Trying to become a farmer is forcing me to do things I never would’ve dreamed of doing. Tomorrow, for example, I’m going to become certified as a Pilates instructor. This is new territory to me. I have never considered myself to be athletic and I have never played a sport in my whole life. However, I really want to be a farmer, and to do that without hurting myself, I need to get stronger.

My health could easily stop me from farming. Four years ago, when my son was just a baby, I got repetitive stress injuries in my arms from working as a writer, and they got so bad that by the time my son was two, I could not do much with my arms at all. It is almost impossible to go anywhere with a two-year-old without using one’s arms. On two separate occasions, when I was away from home, I walked up to strangers and asked them to carry my child for me. If I had not done that, I would’ve been stranded. I did not go out much. Staying at home was no picnic either because I could not do the dishes. Some days I could not pick the clutter off the floor. I learned how to sing.

Several doctors told me that I was not a good candidate for surgery, and I did not feel like pushing the issue, so I worked with an osteopath, learned Alexander technique, and slowly got better. I have still not recovered enough to type, so I write my blog with voice recognition software, which is temperamental. It is working now, but yesterday, when I was working on another piece, I had to spell out every word, waiting patiently for each letter to appear on the screen before saying another one.

If typing is still beyond me, at least I have been able to lift heavy things again. At the end of last summer, I loaded up all our chickens in crates, hoisted those heavy crates into our pickup, and took them to the processors. My arms held up! My husband, bless his heart, made smaller wooden crates than his plan suggested because he wanted to make them easier for me to carry. Even the small ones were very heavy when they were filled with chickens, though. My wrists were a little sore after that work, which told me that I am not so far away from injuring myself again and putting our dreams of farming in danger.

Pilates is supposed to help prevent injuries. With that in mind, I picked up VHS tape of Pilates for Dummies at the thrift store, and I started doing the exercises. Then, last fall, when I was offering a prenatal class at the YMCA, the Pilates teacher whose class followed mine had sick children two weeks in a row. She asked if I might be able to cover her class. Some part of me griped, “You’ve got to be kidding! You’re going to make a fool out of yourself!” but I decided I could not afford to listen to that. I taught the classes, and I think they went really well. Last month, the senior center needed a Pilates teacher, so I started teaching there as well. As I think about getting certified as a teacher tomorrow, that same part of me is cringing and complaining again, but I’m not going to listen to it. I think the day will go fine, and if it doesn’t, I will try again.

Doing things that I had never imagined doing makes me feel closer to God. I hope this is because I am acting out of faith, but I can’t even be certain of that. I feel certain however, that the right thing for me to do in this situation is to pray. I am praying for guidance that I can understand. I am praying for a willingness to change. I am praying that I will not limit myself by deciding what I can and cannot do. I am praying for humility. I am praying for good health.

Scared of my soup

I like to make chicken stock from scratch, letting it simmer for a whole day while the house fills with its delicious smell. Chicken feet are supposed to make soup broth nutritious and tasty, so when we had our own birds processed, I requested that the feet be saved. There they were when I went to pick up my chickens – about 90 chicken feet divided between two clear plastic bags.

It was not obvious what I should do with them next. Popping them in the freezer would not work because they were tangled together in a frozen mass, and I would never be able to extricate a few feet to throw my soup. I decided to let one bag thaw, to wash the feet, and then divide them into more manageable portions before putting them back in the freezer. The second bag could wait until later.

Washing the chicken feet was one of the creepiest jobs I’ve ever done in my life. Instead of being bright yellow, as they were when my chickens were alive, these feet were a pale fleshy color, not too different from the color of my own hands. In fact, they looked very much like human hands, complete with fleshy palms, except they had sharp, bird-like claws and only three digits. The claws were daunting. I heard that a friend of mine clipped nails off his chicken feet before throwing them in the stock, but after that experience, he decided that he could make fine stock without feet.

Each foot was amazingly expressive. They were frozen in evocative gestures, and being the daughter of actors I found myself analyzing the emotional impact of each shape and wondering how a performer might use it. Some feet gracefully fanned their toes out like a dancer’s hands, but more of them had pensive shapes, with the toes drawn together yet reaching purposefully. One toe pointed backwards on the last joint, and I shuddered to think that in spite of my good intentions and gentle handling, one of my chickens suffered a broken toe on its last journey. As I held each foot under running water and slid my thumbs over every rise and crevice to remove the dirt, I was performing an intensely personal ritual. Each foot reproached me.

Now the chicken feet have been in my freezer for more than three months. I add some to my crockpot whenever I make chicken broth, but I am grateful that we no longer have a clear top for that pot. When I have peeked under the metal lid, I have seen the feet float to the top and occasionally roll around there, stirred by the bubbling water. I feel like I am in the presence of something ancient and not altogether friendly. I replace the lid and let the broth simmer until feet have released their nutrients and lost their shape.

The broth is absolutely delicious. It tastes too nurturing to have been bought with money. But when my family and I eat that broth for dinner, I know that by eating, am taking part in a mysterious spiritual act.

Cuddly, contented possum

Last night, my son picked out Possum’s Harvest Moon as his bedtime book. It is a sweet story of a darling possum that goes around inviting all kinds of animals to a moonlit party. I couldn’t stand it. I suggested another book, but my son was really excited about that one, so I drew in a deep breath and read in a calm and cheerful voice. Every page included the word “possum,” which I often substituted with the word “he,” because I couldn’t bear saying “possum” over and over again.

When we had reached the last page, I did not linger on the drawing of the cuddly, contented possum settling in for a long winter’s nap. I shut the book, took another deep breath, and congratulated myself on getting the job done.

Well, probably not

I was telling my mother again about the microbes that live in soil, because really, who does not enjoy chatting on the phone about the germs that live in dirt? Microbes help plants draw nutrition they need from the soil and they protect plants from disease, I said. When those microbes are dead, then the plants growing in that soil need a lot of chemicals because their natural way of going about things doesn’t work so well anymore. That is why it takes so long to transition from conventional to organic agriculture. The soil has to heal, and the microbes have to come back before the plants can thrive.

In the interest of a balanced argument, my mom interjected, “Certainly, when people started using these chemicals they thought it was a good idea.”

“Oh yes!” I answered. “Many of them still think it is a very good idea!” I launched into the controversy about whether organic agriculture can produce enough food to feed the world. A lot of us believe that it can. Research that came out of the University of Michigan in 2007 suggests that in developed countries, intensive organic agriculture can produce about as much food as conventional agriculture, but in developing countries, it can produce up to three times as much food. “A lot of people disagree,” I continued. “They are concerned that widespread use of organic agriculture could result in mass starvation.”

There was a pause of the other end of the phone line. “What did you say?” Mom asked. I repeated myself, and Mom was relieved. She heard me say people worry that organic agriculture could result in masturbation.

On a slope

On Saturday, at about 5:20 PM my family and I were making our halting way from the truck towards the back door, when I noticed that the sky was still full of light, which it would not have been a month ago. I stopped by our back door and looked out towards the West, and I could feel some kind of balance changing. It took my breath away. Light swelled against night as though the brightness had built up behind some kind of dam and was ready to break through. I felt as though we were on a slope that would send us all sliding into spring, and it made me want to shout as though I were at the highest point of a roller coaster.

I did not shout; I just stood there, full of awe, and smiled.

How we got here

It was more than a year ago now when we first saw our farm. As Linne, our realtor, worked to open the battered door, we could hear a fire alarm screeching away inside the empty house. It blared the entire time we were there, and it continued after we left. The temperature inside hovered at about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, at the empty rooms were full of shadows because there were no working lights. Orange stickers decorated the sinks and toilets to say that they had been filled with anti-freeze, and that pipes were missing. As we all stood in the frigid basement, Linne reassured our children that it feels funny to be in a house that is so dark and cold, but if our family lived here, we would have heat and lights and running water.

When we looked out the windows of what is now our bedroom, I saw trees at the end of a field – the same kind I saw in my heart during the silence of Quaker worship for more than a decade. Before we left, my husband chased the children in a shrieking, giggling circle through the kitchen, dining room and living room, and it looked like the place could be home. The children and I sat inside the car with the heater blasting during the last part of our visit as Ian romped around a little bit to check out the land around the house.

In some ways, our lives were uprooted on that day, and I expect that months or years will go by before it feels like we are really settled again.

We ended up with the farm purely through Grace. After making our first offer to buy the place, my husband became very worried about the finances and about the dangers of buying a foreclosed property, and we withdrew the offer. My mother- and father-in-law offered some financial help, and we tried to put our offer back in, but another offer had already been accepted. The next weeks were miserable as my husband struggled so mightily with regrets that they turned to serious depression and almost everything else in life came to a halt. His mother flew out from the East Coast to offer moral support and give extra attention to the children. It was a scary time, and I felt like I needed to decide what I would do if I had to choose between my husband and my dream of going to the fields. It was clear that I would choose my husband.

My husband was barely on his feet again one Sunday a few weeks later, and I was putting on the children’s coats to go to worship when Linne called. The other family that was trying to buy the farm had an emergency and needed to pull out of the deal. I’m so grateful that the call came just before worship because we were able to hold the news in prayer with the help of our beloved worship group. It felt then, and it feels now, like God opened the way for us to buy the farm, and along with that gift came responsibility of moving to the country and doing our best to be faithful there.

The drama was not completely over. When banks to sell foreclosed homes, they can be unresponsive and quirky right up to closing. Our loan also fell through without warning as the company that was lending money to us was purchased by another company that did not make loans for farms. Everything worked out though. After years of imagining how hard it would be to leave the beautiful life that we built in Minneapolis, I felt uncharacteristically matter-of-fact about the whole situation. I guess I felt more like a technician, doing the work that needed to be done, but feeling like the big decisions were in the hands of my boss.

I think I will look back on the purchase of the farm the same way I sometimes look back on my courtship with my husband. (Our courtship was much more fun than trying to buy the farm, thank goodness!) In the thick of a relationship, or in the ups and downs of trying to start a farm, people can forget why they are there in the first place. In my relationship with my husband, I never forget for long, and I always turn again to orient myself steadily and gratefully towards love. I pray that the same will be true in our relationship with this land. Whether we live here for the rest of our lives, or for only a few years, I pray that we will always be focused on the movement of the Spirit, and that we will be able to follow faithfully.