My mother says that after decades of feeling troubled by other people's opinions, she has reached an age of freedom and no longer really cares what they think. I have not reached that state yet, I told her, but I hope I will someday. Right now, I am feeling painfully awkward about the last message I delivered in Quaker worship.
Mom, a self-proclaimed agnostic who has never attended a meeting for worship, listened supportively as I told the story. In silent worship a few days ago, I felt a sense of something rising all around me. It was flowing from the floor to the ceiling with the power of a river. “Maybe this has something to do with the ascension,” I told myself, but that did not feel right at all. “Maybe I am supposed to stand up and deliver a message,” I thought, and this felt right, but I sat testing the feeling for a very long time with my heart pounding before I let that wild river carry me up slowly to standing.
When I got up there, I had nothing to say, but I let my hands keep rising up. Then I stood there moving my arms along with the motion that I felt around us. It seemed like I did this for a very long time, and I feared that I heard someone sigh impatiently. I started to shake, and tears started falling down my cheeks, and I wished fervently for some words. Finally I recieved some words of thanks and praise and devotion, but after they were delivered, I was not certain that the message was really done. I moved my hands some more and finally sat down.
Instead of feeling excruciatingly awkward when I think back on this, I wish I could say to myself: “I had a powerful and mysterious experience with the Spirit in worship this week, and I tried very earnestly to be faithful to it. What a blessing!”
“There!” my mom responded. “You said it! See? That’s great. Just let it go at that now.”
“But Mom!” I said. “Nobody else does that kind of thing!”
“Well, then!” said my mom. “Maybe it's high time somebody did.”
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The blizzard and the willow
During the blizzard on Saturday afternoon, my husband and son started pulling on jackets and acting as though they were going to go outside.
"I'd better go with you," I said. "I am supposed to go out to the fields."
"I don't think you're going to get to the fields," my husband said. He was right. Standing on the deck felt like enough of a wilderness experience to me. The snow was falling hard, and each flake made a quiet, sharp sound as it hit the hood of my jacket. The wind was so cold that it hurt bits of bare skin around my eyes that I had not been able to cover up. It rushed between our parked vehicles and made huge snowdrifts in front of our cars and trucks. White plumes came whistling off the peak of each drift.
My son crouched down and busily started digging paths through the snow. He was joyfully engrossed, and eventually headed out for his fort behind the garage, but we called him back because we did not want him to disappear from our sight. As a child I used to be able to entertain myself like that outside, but it does not come as easily to me now, and so I busied myself carrying boxes into the house from one of our cars. Like my son, I wanted to be doing something purposeful while I spent more time outside.
Carrying those boxes was tough. I had to lift up my legs high to trudge through the deep snow, and the wind had turned deadly cold. It hissed ominously through the trees to my north. With the last box in my hands, I thought disapprovingly, "This is really overdone. This clearly goes beyond the limits of good taste.” Right away, I was shocked by my arrogance. It doesn't seem right to take a superior attitude with a blizzard.
At that point, I felt what I can best describe as a change in pressure just to the east. Instinctively, I looked in that direction and saw the huge weeping willow tree that stands just outside my kitchen window. I waited there with a box in my arms, and I understood that I was being asked go to that tree. After setting the last box inside, I trudged around the house and found a place for myself just inside the fringes of the willow's swinging branches.
I have wanted to feel a connection with this enormous tree since we moved to this house a year and a half ago. Late in the summer, I allowed the power company to remove some of the willow's branches, and I felt uneasy with the tree for months. Throughout the fall, I talked to it, stood with it, and even rested with my arms wrapped halfway around its trunk, but I only felt anger and shame. Not knowing whether this was coming from me or coming from the tree, I finally asked a friend to drive out from Minneapolis and stand beside it in with me. This friend of mine has a very loving heart and has been willing to stand by trees with me before. On the couple of occasions, I have experienced a very clear feeling that the trees appreciate her presence. I appreciate it too.
On the day my friend came, I had a migraine, and so she stood outside alone. She eventually came back into my living room and reported that although she does not often experience these things, she felt a special warmth at the end of her time with the willow. A couple of days later, my attention was drawn by the sound of the wind in the leaves of the willow, and as I looked up into its branches, I felt a wildness and a powerful pull from the ground to the sky. It was magnificent. I believed that the tree was speaking to me in its way.
Standing beneath the willow in the blizzard, I heard an intimacy between the wildness of the tree and the wildness of the blizzard. The storm was not a stranger but a relative, and something of it would remain with the tree long after the snow passed. I believe the tree wanted me to understand this. I stood listening to the sound of the ice flakes and wind hitting dry leaves that still cling to the yellow willow whips. I noticed the snow drift near my house, evidence that the tree had slowed the North wind before it hit my home. Before I was satisfied that I had heard everything that I was meant to hear, I trudged back through the house and went inside.
My husband greeted me as I peeled off my jacket. “I was worried about you!" he exclaimed. “Did you go to the fields?”
"I'd better go with you," I said. "I am supposed to go out to the fields."
"I don't think you're going to get to the fields," my husband said. He was right. Standing on the deck felt like enough of a wilderness experience to me. The snow was falling hard, and each flake made a quiet, sharp sound as it hit the hood of my jacket. The wind was so cold that it hurt bits of bare skin around my eyes that I had not been able to cover up. It rushed between our parked vehicles and made huge snowdrifts in front of our cars and trucks. White plumes came whistling off the peak of each drift.
My son crouched down and busily started digging paths through the snow. He was joyfully engrossed, and eventually headed out for his fort behind the garage, but we called him back because we did not want him to disappear from our sight. As a child I used to be able to entertain myself like that outside, but it does not come as easily to me now, and so I busied myself carrying boxes into the house from one of our cars. Like my son, I wanted to be doing something purposeful while I spent more time outside.
Carrying those boxes was tough. I had to lift up my legs high to trudge through the deep snow, and the wind had turned deadly cold. It hissed ominously through the trees to my north. With the last box in my hands, I thought disapprovingly, "This is really overdone. This clearly goes beyond the limits of good taste.” Right away, I was shocked by my arrogance. It doesn't seem right to take a superior attitude with a blizzard.
At that point, I felt what I can best describe as a change in pressure just to the east. Instinctively, I looked in that direction and saw the huge weeping willow tree that stands just outside my kitchen window. I waited there with a box in my arms, and I understood that I was being asked go to that tree. After setting the last box inside, I trudged around the house and found a place for myself just inside the fringes of the willow's swinging branches.
I have wanted to feel a connection with this enormous tree since we moved to this house a year and a half ago. Late in the summer, I allowed the power company to remove some of the willow's branches, and I felt uneasy with the tree for months. Throughout the fall, I talked to it, stood with it, and even rested with my arms wrapped halfway around its trunk, but I only felt anger and shame. Not knowing whether this was coming from me or coming from the tree, I finally asked a friend to drive out from Minneapolis and stand beside it in with me. This friend of mine has a very loving heart and has been willing to stand by trees with me before. On the couple of occasions, I have experienced a very clear feeling that the trees appreciate her presence. I appreciate it too.
On the day my friend came, I had a migraine, and so she stood outside alone. She eventually came back into my living room and reported that although she does not often experience these things, she felt a special warmth at the end of her time with the willow. A couple of days later, my attention was drawn by the sound of the wind in the leaves of the willow, and as I looked up into its branches, I felt a wildness and a powerful pull from the ground to the sky. It was magnificent. I believed that the tree was speaking to me in its way.
Standing beneath the willow in the blizzard, I heard an intimacy between the wildness of the tree and the wildness of the blizzard. The storm was not a stranger but a relative, and something of it would remain with the tree long after the snow passed. I believe the tree wanted me to understand this. I stood listening to the sound of the ice flakes and wind hitting dry leaves that still cling to the yellow willow whips. I noticed the snow drift near my house, evidence that the tree had slowed the North wind before it hit my home. Before I was satisfied that I had heard everything that I was meant to hear, I trudged back through the house and went inside.
My husband greeted me as I peeled off my jacket. “I was worried about you!" he exclaimed. “Did you go to the fields?”
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Blizzard
There is a blizzard warning in the Rice County, where we live. Early this morning, our neighbor's field of tall, brown corn stalks appeared to be last thing on earth before the white oblivion of the bare, snow-covered fields farther south. Throughout the morning, our world shrank. Gradually, a veil of white slowly drew closer to the house as heavily falling snow hid all but the closest rows of corn. Now the corn is a blurry shadow, and I cannot see the woods that stand across the street. Snow piling up against my window is striated with layers of dark and light, recording the different qualities of the snow, the changing moods of this storm, which lie beyond my understanding.
Everything we had planned for the day has mercifully been canceled, except for my plans to bake Lucia buns. Our children will get up in the darkness tomorrow morning, and speaking in whispers, they will put on special clothes and assemble a tray of Lucia buns and hot drinks. Then, lit only by my daughter’s crown of candles, they will slowly walk in and serve us breakfast. In past years, I have struggled between wanting to watch them approach and wanting to open my eyes when they are beside the bed because they are always afraid we will wake up before the appointed moment.
Last night, we celebrated Santa Lucia day in Northfield, and drove home just as the snow was beginning to fall. Dozens of children in white robes filed into the darkened room, glowing with the candles they carried, and singing the familiar Swedish song about light coming into the darkness. The song began to rise from the whole room as the adults joined in, until the whole space was filled with gentle, haunting melody. My mother-in-law, sitting beside me, said that if her father had been there, tears would have been running down his face. I could barely answer her because I thought that a sob might come out instead of words. I believe, in a special way, my children's great-grandparents were there, along with many others.
After all the children had delivered cookies and filed out again, someone flipped on the lights, and we began to sing Swedish carols. First, we listened patiently as a lady explained the translation of the lyrics. As soon as we heard each tune, my mother-in-law and I looked at each other with round eyes and exclaimed with delight, “Oh! It’s that one!” We knew them all. By the time folks were dancing around the Christmas tree, I was singing with unbridled gusto.
My heart still feels full from all that beauty. Like grief, deep joy can make it difficult for me to understand how the world can continue blithely on with all of its regular details. Today, my world can't carry on. Today, because of the blizzard, my world has stopped in awe and delicacy.
Just as I thought I finished this essay, my daughter called out for help with a terrible headache, so it only seems fair to add that some parts of my life are clearly carrying on as usual. That is okay. My cup runs over.
Everything we had planned for the day has mercifully been canceled, except for my plans to bake Lucia buns. Our children will get up in the darkness tomorrow morning, and speaking in whispers, they will put on special clothes and assemble a tray of Lucia buns and hot drinks. Then, lit only by my daughter’s crown of candles, they will slowly walk in and serve us breakfast. In past years, I have struggled between wanting to watch them approach and wanting to open my eyes when they are beside the bed because they are always afraid we will wake up before the appointed moment.
Last night, we celebrated Santa Lucia day in Northfield, and drove home just as the snow was beginning to fall. Dozens of children in white robes filed into the darkened room, glowing with the candles they carried, and singing the familiar Swedish song about light coming into the darkness. The song began to rise from the whole room as the adults joined in, until the whole space was filled with gentle, haunting melody. My mother-in-law, sitting beside me, said that if her father had been there, tears would have been running down his face. I could barely answer her because I thought that a sob might come out instead of words. I believe, in a special way, my children's great-grandparents were there, along with many others.
After all the children had delivered cookies and filed out again, someone flipped on the lights, and we began to sing Swedish carols. First, we listened patiently as a lady explained the translation of the lyrics. As soon as we heard each tune, my mother-in-law and I looked at each other with round eyes and exclaimed with delight, “Oh! It’s that one!” We knew them all. By the time folks were dancing around the Christmas tree, I was singing with unbridled gusto.
My heart still feels full from all that beauty. Like grief, deep joy can make it difficult for me to understand how the world can continue blithely on with all of its regular details. Today, my world can't carry on. Today, because of the blizzard, my world has stopped in awe and delicacy.
Just as I thought I finished this essay, my daughter called out for help with a terrible headache, so it only seems fair to add that some parts of my life are clearly carrying on as usual. That is okay. My cup runs over.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Going to the fields and coming home fast
During the last couple of weeks, I have been asking God how I should be spending my time. Should I be doing the laundry? Drawing up a budget for raising beef cattle? Teaching more exercise classes?
The only clear answer that I have felt in my heart has been, “Go to the fields.” I have heard this call periodically for over a decade, and I am never sure what to do about it. On Saturday, when I heard it again, I asked follow-up questions. “So, God, should I work on the beef budget because that has something to do with fields? Should I should turn down the invitation to teach another exercise class?” My follow-up questions are usually unproductive, but on Saturday, I heard an unsatisfying answer. It was something like, “You are making this way too complicated. Just go outside and hang out in your fields.”
That afternoon, I climbed a maple on the west edge of our shelter belt. The wind was strong on my back, and I draped myself along the length of a long, arched branch. I smelled the melting snow in the dried leaves and tried to soak in the mysterious evening colors of the winter sky. I told myself that I was soaking in some kind of light that might grow inside me to help light the world.
For the next three days I stayed inside, marveling at how easy it is to dismiss the quiet promptings of the Spirit. If someone asked me what I would want from heaven, I would tell them that I wanted a chance to stand surrounded by fields and trees and to listen with my soul to the music that rises up from them. Even with God asking me to do just that, I filled my days with "more important" work and stayed inside.
Late Wednesday night, I went out again, carrying a bucket of compost as if my mission were purely practical. After emptying the bucket, I strolled across our dark southern field to our property line, where the neighbor's corn still stands. I expect he will harvest it in the spring, as is his custom. The crunchy snow sparkled like the stars in the sky, and I stood in it waiting for my second sense of hearing to kick in. My second sense of hearing lets me listen to the song of trees, and plants and fields. Sometimes I have to wait for a while before I am blessed with it, and sometimes I wait for it in vain.
A gentle breeze from the west began to rustle in the dry corn. It sounded as though the whole field were suddenly alive and moving, and as my second sense of hearing kicked in, I became aware that the corn harbored no warm feelings for me. It wasn't exactly hostile; it was just wild and focused on other things. My heart started beating fast.
At that point, a coyote howled, and it didn't sound too far away. I sprinted towards the house, forgetting that I was running over the earth that Ian had plowed up for next year's garden. Our clay soil was turned in ridges that were frozen as hard as concrete. I tripped and went sailing into the air before crashing down with my thumb squashed underneath me. As I wriggled around on the ground in pain, several more coyotes joined the eerie song. I scrambled to my feet again as and limped to our back door. Standing safely in the doorway, I listened to the wild yipping and moaning and howling, trying to appreciate it. I couldn't. I know coyotes are God's creatures, and they wouldn't hurt a person, but they scare me beyond reason.
Inside, I found that my thumb was basically okay, but my shin and knee were impressively bloody. Looking around my quiet family room, I found more compassion for myself for spending the last few days inside. When God asks me to do something, even the simplest thing, I can never predict what lies ahead. It is not in my control, and it is not really about me. Staying inside, surrounded by my illusion of personal power, feels much more comfortable.
It lacks glory, though.
The only clear answer that I have felt in my heart has been, “Go to the fields.” I have heard this call periodically for over a decade, and I am never sure what to do about it. On Saturday, when I heard it again, I asked follow-up questions. “So, God, should I work on the beef budget because that has something to do with fields? Should I should turn down the invitation to teach another exercise class?” My follow-up questions are usually unproductive, but on Saturday, I heard an unsatisfying answer. It was something like, “You are making this way too complicated. Just go outside and hang out in your fields.”
That afternoon, I climbed a maple on the west edge of our shelter belt. The wind was strong on my back, and I draped myself along the length of a long, arched branch. I smelled the melting snow in the dried leaves and tried to soak in the mysterious evening colors of the winter sky. I told myself that I was soaking in some kind of light that might grow inside me to help light the world.
For the next three days I stayed inside, marveling at how easy it is to dismiss the quiet promptings of the Spirit. If someone asked me what I would want from heaven, I would tell them that I wanted a chance to stand surrounded by fields and trees and to listen with my soul to the music that rises up from them. Even with God asking me to do just that, I filled my days with "more important" work and stayed inside.
Late Wednesday night, I went out again, carrying a bucket of compost as if my mission were purely practical. After emptying the bucket, I strolled across our dark southern field to our property line, where the neighbor's corn still stands. I expect he will harvest it in the spring, as is his custom. The crunchy snow sparkled like the stars in the sky, and I stood in it waiting for my second sense of hearing to kick in. My second sense of hearing lets me listen to the song of trees, and plants and fields. Sometimes I have to wait for a while before I am blessed with it, and sometimes I wait for it in vain.
A gentle breeze from the west began to rustle in the dry corn. It sounded as though the whole field were suddenly alive and moving, and as my second sense of hearing kicked in, I became aware that the corn harbored no warm feelings for me. It wasn't exactly hostile; it was just wild and focused on other things. My heart started beating fast.
At that point, a coyote howled, and it didn't sound too far away. I sprinted towards the house, forgetting that I was running over the earth that Ian had plowed up for next year's garden. Our clay soil was turned in ridges that were frozen as hard as concrete. I tripped and went sailing into the air before crashing down with my thumb squashed underneath me. As I wriggled around on the ground in pain, several more coyotes joined the eerie song. I scrambled to my feet again as and limped to our back door. Standing safely in the doorway, I listened to the wild yipping and moaning and howling, trying to appreciate it. I couldn't. I know coyotes are God's creatures, and they wouldn't hurt a person, but they scare me beyond reason.
Inside, I found that my thumb was basically okay, but my shin and knee were impressively bloody. Looking around my quiet family room, I found more compassion for myself for spending the last few days inside. When God asks me to do something, even the simplest thing, I can never predict what lies ahead. It is not in my control, and it is not really about me. Staying inside, surrounded by my illusion of personal power, feels much more comfortable.
It lacks glory, though.
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