Theophostic Prayer for Me

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Phil and I talked at length,
Trying to figure out
Direction for the farm.
What do we invest in?
What would allow the boys to learn?
To earn?

In the end, I grew too agitated
To continue the talk,
Overwhelmed with the ways
This farming life has disappointed.

While Phil took the boys to hike the land,
I went out into the brisk midday
And sat for a time in peace,
And dealt with God.

“I feel like you brought us here
And then left us alone.”

My child, I will never leave you
Or forsake you.

While my eyes stayed shut,
Then came a breeze,
And what came to mind was,
A line from the gospel of John and
“You cannot see the wind,
Only the effects of the wind.”

Then I opened my eyes
And my entire vision was captured
By falling leaves
In the sunshine and shadow of the forest floor.

But into this transcendence
I thought again of all the failures,
And I sobbed with all the sorrow
Of year after year of trial and failure.
“We are idiots! Nothing has come out
Anything like the books claim!”

I am teaching you things you can’t learn in books.
Like: how to listen to me.
You have been amply provided for.

All of this is true.

And if it isn’t precise direction for the future,
It is solace for the frustrations of the past.

Thanks be to God.

Two Marriages

God tells Hosea to marry Gomer.
She’s a prostitute.
She bears children.
She leaves him to ply her trade.
Were the sons even his?
Probably not.
He goes after her and brings her back,
Unfaithful woman that she is,
A crazy picture of the love of God
For his people.

There is one other instance in the Bible
Of God telling a man to marry.

Mary was pregnant, not by Joseph.
God told him to marry her anyway.
So he does. And Jesus comes.
A crazy picture of the love of God
For all people.

Reprieve

Sometime after the boys were abed,
Presumed asleep,
We heard a crash and investigated.

The ceiling fan light cover had smashed.
We heard rumor of a son kicking the fan….
This has never, of course, been allowed.

We cleaned up the glass.
Told said son he would pay for the damage.
And Phil told of his growing years,

When he, too, was long on intelligence
And short on common sense.
The disaster ended as well as could be hoped.

And when I went to order a replacement,
Beyond all hope, the glass is covered under warranty.
Free.

Jane Austen

Two novels I know well,
The most beloved Pride and Prejudice
And the ever delightful Emma.

The other four I have heard, read with a British accent,
As I worked in the kitchen these last two months.
They are not at all similar.

Northanger Abbey is a spoof on Gothic novels,
Beginning with the narrator’s good-natured surprise that
Catherine Morland could be a heroine, as she was never locked in a dungeon.

It is a frothy novel, a coming-of-age,
As the naïf falls in with some nasty social-climbers
And yet finds her way to an intelligent and cheerful young man.

Mansfield Park, lengthy, the only novel named for a house,
With a heroine a bit less likeable than most, weak and shy Fanny Price,
Who nevertheless shows more character than any other,

And avoids seduction by a coxcomb,
And, as with all of Jane Austen’s heroines,
Manages to marry far better than one might expect.

Persuasion, written the year of the author’s death,
Shows Anne Elliot, nearly thirty and unmarried,
Thrown together again with the man she was persuaded to reject

Eight years before. The weight of meaning
In a single glance; the constant dance of social convention:
What a drama around such meager interactions.

And Sense and Sensibility, one I heartily disliked
The one time I read it, with Eleanor Dashwood
Attempting always to act upright,

In a world of incredibly nasty people on all sides.
She seeks to be true to the one she loves,
Even if that means they will not marry.

I am astonished each day by the moral gravity,
The beauty of the language,
The incredible tension in the plots.

Marketing

Phil spent a week, crafting a brochure
To sell our beef.

It was well thought-out, with smaller boxes of meats,
Very competitively priced.

Out of our entire contact list,
We have orders for forty-five pounds.

We are gratified by the three friends
Who have expressed interest.

But we wanted to process six cows this year,
And we do not have freezer space until more moves.

We wonder again:
Just what is it that God is doing here?

Nate the Great

I remember reading these early reader
Detective stories when I was a girl,
And Abraham and I plug away at them,
Day by day,

As Nate the Great seeks for a lost weed
Or a missing birthday surprise
Or a stolen beach bag
Or a missing picture.

He asked me today if, perhaps,
When he has finished the series,
He could read a graphic novel
Or another early reader,

And I assured him that he could read them
Now, as he desires,
Indeed, could read as much as he might wish
For the rest of his life.

This is the blessing of being literate.

The Kitchen Sink

Within the first month of my new sink,
I inadvertently left some onion skins in
Overnight. Permanent stain.

For two years now, the stains have accumulated,
Until the bottom of the sink turned brown,
Even when wiped clean.

Buried in a drawer of warranties and instructions,
Today I came across the sink’s cleaning instructions:
Use a powdered cleanser and a scotch brite pad.

I would never have considered the scotch brite;
I assumed it would scratch.
So, expecting nothing, I put down the powder and scrubbed.

I wish now that I had before and after photos.
My sink has some scratches. Metal pans will do that, I suppose.
But the stains have vanished.

My sink is as white as it was the first month we had it.
Every time I walk by, I have a thrill of surprise.
My sink is no longer just a workhorse, but a showpiece.

Civilized

The degree to which you successfully govern yourself and your circumstance determines your dignity and what honors are requisite to it.

I have resisted the idea
That an orderly environment is needed
For successful self-government.
Most days, it seemed enough simply to survive.

For some months now,
I have been gradually ordering my environment.

New clothes for the boys, for myself.
Gradual recording of all books, why I like them.

A complete overview of the kitchen:
The standard items,
The unusual; the cookbooks and devices.

I am not done yet.

But I looked out my bedroom door today
And saw nothing on the counter. It surprised me.

I am working towards personal good governance.

A Mystery Paragraph

The room was vast and echoing, and the colossal ceiling was vaulted, which made it look like it was built and inhabited by beings unhuman. The windows were lofty; they had arches at the very peaks that made them look like a hole through which the eye of the sun peered, casting light of red and gold. The floor was oak, but by the corners, the light did not reach, possibly disguising pitfalls. Curtains hung at the dreary windows. The furniture in the room looked like ramparts to keep out invaders.

A school assignment:
Take this mediocre descriptive paragraph
And transform it into the beginning of a mystery.

I laughed in delight, reading what my young teen wrote,
And went about my day
Happy to be in the company of such a creative.

The Dishes

It is easy, when living together,
To add up petty irritations,
To know who didn’t do their dishes.

My friend chose to do the dishes of her roommates,
Rather than hold their slackness against them.
In this, she chose the way of peace.

Watch and Pray

My friend’s mother came from out of town
And visited Supper Fellowship
While we were away.

We try to have a time of listening prayer,
And she had a beautiful vision,
A prophetic word for our part of Christ’s body.

This last night, she awoke and heard for us:
Watch and pray.
Which is good advice always, but in this case

For our relationship with God,
For our relationship with each other,
And for our own selves. Watch and pray.

Meatloaf in Bulk

Ever since we got five pound packages
Of ground beef,
I have been trying to figure out
What to do with them.

Today I figured I would make meatloaf in bulk,
Ready to feed the ravening hordes
When they came to supper.
Except the hordes didn’t come.

This felt like a let-down.
Without a microwave,
Leftover meatloaf isn’t overly appealing.
And I spent so much of my day preparing food.

So I sent food home with all I could.
And in a few hours, got a note from a friend.
Several had come in the intervening time,
Dealing with traumas great and small.

None had eaten.
Now they had.
Even my miscalculation
Turned out for God’s glory.

Thanks be to God.

Startled

Phil was clearing fence line
With the chainsaw.
He had ear muffs on to protect his hearing.
Nothing had crossed his peripheral.

Suddenly
A light tap on the shoulder.

He shrieked “like a little girl,”
Astonished by how unprotected he felt,
And turned to find two young sons,
Laughing hysterically.

They had come to see what he was doing.
They had not sneaked up,
Had no intention of startling him.

But, since it happened,
They manage to get a belly laugh about it
Every day since.

One Word

Jadon described the men in our family
Using one word each.

Phil: logical.
Isaiah: inquisitive.
Abraham: imagery.
Jonadab: goofball.
Caleb: helpful.

And himself?
Jadon: perfect.

And then he laughed.

I Gasped All Day Long

There were places in Maine
That were stunningly beautiful.

I returned to the oranges and yellows
Of Virginia, abashed by the paucity of the reds,

Shaking my head over what passes for Fall here.
It is not, I thought, very special.

Now I wonder if our leaves had simply delayed,
For every time I glanced out the window today,

I gasped. All day long.
Yes, yellows all round our clearing. But there!

And when I peaked in the woods:
There were reds. And driving up my road: reds more.

I shall not despise the Fall transformation here.
I can rejoice in beauty wherever it is found.

Quiet

A popular book about the power of introverts
Pops up periodically in conversation.

I have never thought I was an extrovert,
Though I have wondered if I was an ambivert,

That versatile personality that is equally happy
With people or alone.

So I was surprised, on taking the unscientific quiz,
How forcefully I came up as an introvert.

It makes me think that I should make sure
I have some quiet time to process each day.

Haircut Ruminations

Today I got a haircut. I thought, a lovely thing about getting older is seeing these hints of people that you have loved in the mirror. I thought, I am lucky to have loved my grandparents, my great aunts and uncles. I had never expected that in the sagging chin and widening cheeks I would see little bits of my grandmother, my mother, my grandpa that make me beam. A beautiful memory is a very warm and wonderful thing. It just wasn't what I was expecting to see in the crow’s feet around my eyes.

The last few haircuts I have had,
I rail silently against the paleness and aging of my face
Under the harsh lights.

I don’t usually think much about how I look,
But sitting with plastered-down hair, immovable …
I am distressed by my appearance.

Behold, how great the contrast between my petty thoughts
And the beautiful meditation of my friend.

Blackberry Jam

We buy jam from France. Ridiculous, but
Desirable not only for the variety of flavors,
Pineapple mango and raspberry pomegranate,
Besides the more standard strawberry,

But also because it is sugar-free,
A recipe that uses only grape juice
With apples as the natural pectin.
I can’t duplicate this at home.

All jam recipes I’ve seen call for
A pound of sugar to a pound of berries,
Which makes the whole so insipidly sweet
As to be thoroughly undesirable.

Recently, though, a new pectin came to market,
Allowing a quarter of the sugar usually called for.
Anxious to empty my freezers,
I made a batch today.

We taste-tested traditional blackberry jam from a friend
With Lykosh farm berries, made with low-sugar.
Our blackberry jam almost made me cry,
The blackberry flavor was so much more punchy.

And I thought of the sun-dried tomatoes,
The dehydrated garlic,
The canned tomatoes that turned bad,
The applesauce that none of us eat,

The crabapple jelly that is sugar in a jar,
The spelt and oat grains unhusked and unused,
The milking that produced small quantities for a short time.
So many Lykosh farm products I’ve tried and failed.

At last … a farm-raised product
I made in my kitchen
That I am excited to make again,
That we will actually use.

Samson

His parents were told
That he would deliver his people.

He wasn’t the godly young man
Any proud mother would be happy to claim.

And yet God’s purpose went forth.
He delivered his people.

Wicked

For Christmas last year,
I asked for a book by an author I enjoyed.
It was far longer than I expected,
And so I got the audible version to enjoy.

After a half hour listening, I stopped for a week.
Perhaps that should have been a clue.
I pressed on another half hour today,
Until the barrage of unpleasantness, malice, hatred
Overwhelmed me,
And I returned the audible version
And put the book in the giveaway pile
With great rejoicing.

One less thing to do in my life.

Puzzles on the Floor

For nigh on three hours tonight,
I read aloud from Fields of Home,
The end of the story of how Ralph goes to his grandfather’s
And they turn a worn out farm around.

One man and three boys did puzzles on the floor
As they listened.
The fourth boy listened,
And the fifth walked over the puzzles or sat in my lap.

All of us together
As the time grew late and later,

And we all went to bed satisfied.

Crock Pot

Six years now, the six-gallon buckets
Of beans have sat in the barn.
Old and older, I tried, occasionally,
To soak them and cook them into softness,
Usually giving up after twenty-four hours.

I would furtively add canned beans to the grocery list,
And Phil would buy them with a sense of defeat.

Incredibly, despite occasional exposure to the humid climate,
The beans remained mold-free,
Appearing only more desiccated as the years passed.

Fifteen years now, I have had a crock pot.
It went from too big to be practical
To too small to feed us all,
And I distrusted the appliance almost immediately
After a disastrous broccoli-tuna casserole experience.
As if that even sounds appealing.

So imagine my delight when
A random line
In a Mexican cookbook caught my eye,
That crock pots cook beans perfectly.

I have tried this statement and found it true.
Black beans: I no longer wonder if I would crack a tooth.
Garbanzos: Incredibly, two hours to cook to perfection.

My buckets of beans have been restored to me!
The shame of misplaced purchases has been replaced
With joy.

Victory

We have an old bachelor friend.
When asked how he is, he always says the same thing:
“Victory.”

Can anyone have unending victory?

This response seemed facile.

Until we considered that perhaps
He is speaking from the reality of the believer,
Not the changing emotions of the moment.

The Dance

We went to a wedding.
As I stood, shortly before we left,
I watched the dance floor.

Children, by birth and grafted in.
Two of my college mentors.
The couple who mentored them.

The only couple we regularly double-dated.
Two children I babysat, now grown and married.
The couple they loved, who loved the family well.

The man who married us.
The couple who arrived first the day we miscarried.
The beautiful young wife of Phil’s first young mentor.

And I was overwhelmed with the layers
Of faithful followers who have passed on what they have received,
Overwhelmed with the surpassing joy of that moment,

Until I could hardly keep from weeping.
My heart overflowed with the love of God,
And I understood what it is to be overpowered by love.

This collection of beautiful children of God
I will see again in the coming Kingdom.
I wait in eager expectation and sure hope.

Names of God

A professor of biblical studies
Asks his students not to call him
“Dr. Lamb.” It is a struggle for them.
When they use his first name,
He feels they have crossed into
A new frontier of friendship.

How interesting, then,
That the Bible uses God’s name,
“Yahweh,” in the Old Testament,
And God’s name,
“Jesus,” in the New Testament,
More than any other attribution.

Perhaps we could consider
Using God’s given names,
And crossing into such a new frontier.

Uzzah

Touched the ark,
Struck dead,
Poor Uzzah!

Until you think:

The ark was meant to be carried on a litter,
Respect due honorable dignitary or king,
Not set in the back of a cart
Like some object needing hauling.

Their enemies choose this method of transport.
Why imitate the enemies, rather than obey their God?

We don’t handle radioactive material
Without proper gear.

We understand being struck dead
For an imprudent touch,
Unjust though it may seem.

They got it right three months later.

Discipline

When Phil asked a son
To get his ear protection from the barn,
The son delayed.

When asked again,
He dallied on the way.
This was not good.

Rather than losing his temper,
Once the ear protection arrived,
We had the son run up the drive and back

Three times. With me.
I had forgotten how steep the driveway is.
I hope this will be memorable; the obedience, lasting.

Benefits Beyond

I do my best to plan vacations well.

This trip, though, surpassed my skill,
As if God took my meager efforts and
Magnified them.

Not only the weather, which could not be more perfect.

But that I hadn’t registered for a trip the first day:
The seas were so choppy, it wouldn’t have happened anyway,
But who needs the stress?

But that the first excursion we took,
Not only took us to an unexpected treat,
“The only fjord on the East Coast”
(though it is really a “fjard,” lacking steep sides),
But also so thoroughly explained all the islands
And landmarks in Frenchman Bay,
We received the benefit the rest of the week.

But that the sea kayaking, the day we went,
Had perfect tides for us to circle Bar Island,
That those who went enjoyed it so thoroughly.

But that we had a good number of activities,
And that by letting the family self-select
Which ones they wanted to do,
Everyone was happy almost all of the week.

But that we reached the little train five minutes before it left,
But that we reached the observatory and had a short wait,
But that between us all we found take-out food,
But that we made our flight with five minutes to spare,
But that tempers stayed calm and cousins played well,
But that the amusements we brought were sufficient and fun.

For these, and more that I am surely forgetting,
I give thanks.

Weather

Two days before we landed in Portland,
The city flooded; people abandoned their cars.
We arrived and drove under clear skies, on clear roads.

The forecast had predicted a week of rain.
The hurricane turned aside, then,
And if the weather was a bit cold initially,

It meant we got out of one boat ride too many,
That we were extra thankful for the warm food to eat,
And that we were impressed all the days it was fine.

Which, actually, was every day,
Each day more glorious than the last,
Until the day we needed to move on.

That day was grey, and rained from
The start of our drive, a steady rain that
Would have been miserable, had we been outside.

But on the morrow, a day of traipsing about,
We once again enjoyed clear skies,
We yet still felt the graciousness of God in our travels.

Potty Training, or Something

With no one home but me,
Caleb stripped naked and wandered around the house.
I called to him at intervals,
Asking if he wanted to go potty.

Finally I heard the eager footsteps run to the right room,
And I followed,
Only to find that he was running out again,
A tiny swatch of toilet paper in his hand,
Eager to help mop up
The puddle
On the chair,
Running down onto the floor.

Wasabi

Isaiah, on eating sushi:

“If you get too much wasabi, it’s like
A volcano exploding
In your nasal cavity!”

I glanced around Whole Foods
To see if anyone else had heard
This display of vocabulary dexterity.

Re-Entry

Back well after dark,
Phil went first thing next morn to view his environs.
He found all land and animals well.

As he left the quiet barn,
He wondered, randomly, if the freezer was working.
It was not.

Accidentally unplugged,
All meat thawed. Not spoiled.
The shape of my day changed.

I cooked and shredded all roasts.
The steaks and ground beef we refroze.
And we rejoice for the provision of prompting.

And some say there's no God.

Light

The sunrise is a gift.
Intensifying yellows and pinks,
Culminating in the sight of our star.

And I thought, as we all turned back to our cars,
Ready to avoid the wind and get home
For breakfast or a nap,

How easy to forget that the day
Is also a gift,
As the grey of twilight becomes the colors of dawn.

Undoubtedly a man born blind
Would appreciate the sunrise.
But I suspect he would appreciate
The persistent colors of day more.

Sun's Rise

I have seen the sun rise several times in my life,
And always I am surprised by how quickly
The light leaps up,
From line to ball,
So bright as to be quickly painful.

Astonished also, my father wondered if that is actually
The sun’s pace across the sky: how can it leap up so fast?

Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

Incredibly, we know where
Sunlight strikes the continental United States
First.

From March to October 6, northern Maine sees these rays,
But from October 7 to March,
The highest mountain on the North Atlantic seaboard—
Though, at 1530 feet, no more than a hill to those from the
Blue Ridge, let alone the Rockies—
For these months, the sunlight hits
Cadillac Mountain
First.

We got up early October 7, the intrepid nine, ready to see
The first light to fall on our nation.
And though we watched the sky lightening in the east
Before we left our driveway,
And though the sky was a pastel pink as we turned
Away from the coast,
By the time we reached the summit,
And felt the biting wind,
We had no regret that we were not earlier,
Hoping only to survive the next half hour or so.

It was beautiful.
Bar Island below.
And the Porcupine Islands,
Sheep, Burnt, Long, Bald.
The lighthouse at Egg Rock, flashing red.
The small smuggler’s island, now flush with seaglass.
All these spots on Frenchman Bay we now knew and loved,
As we looked out toward the cold waters of the Bay of Maine.

And the grey faded and the pink intensified.
The imperceptible horizon became clear
As the brightening gradually focused.

The rays of the sun lit the clouds above,
And still the sky brightened,
The colors intensified, until

Suddenly

What was simply bright transitioned
To a line of sun,
And the line rapidly thickened.

Garbage Can Lid

When Grandpa took out the trash,
The lid fell off as he went out the door.
Upset, Caleb tried to bring it to him,
But it was dark and cold and I stopped him.
And so he stood, waiting for Grandpa’s return.

After some minutes, he realized he was thirsty,
And when Grandpa returned, mid-swallow,
He ran to him and lifted the lid,
Eager to contribute, wanting to serve,
In whatever way a newly-two can do.

The Art Museum

I have a son who draws for hours every day.
His cartoons pour out of him.
Yet, when faced with the option of art museum or movie,
He would probably have opted for movie.
Except that I’ve been waiting to take him to a museum for years,
So to a museum we went.

And I had the baby in a carrier, so we couldn’t stay long,
Admiring (or not) the works of Maine artists,
The Rodin sculptures and the mobile by Calder,
The pots by Picasso and the paintings by Renoir.
I love art history, and I can talk my way through a museum.

A trumpet flower, three feet long,
Made, improbably, of enormous warped nails.
“What does this make you think of, son?”
“A whirlwind.”

A painting that looked something like a wire mesh,
With sections distorted by grabbing, as mesh does.
“Look at this closely—that’s one of the pleasures of a museum.
Son, see how the artist painted the canvas with a blue wash,
Then painstakingly painted each square or warped shape white?”
“Okay, I guess that’s pretty cool.”

A painted portrait of two children.
On the next wall, a photorealism painting of a room.
“I realize you walked by this quickly, but this is actually not a photograph.
This is a painting.”
The alacrity of attention then: the right response.

Sons from Afar

Six of the Tillerman Cycle I had read.
This last, a Christmas present two years back,
I had skimmed, and found indifferent,
And put on the shelf of “someday, maybe” books.

But vacation is not a good time for pretentious reading,
So I grabbed this book and found myself
So entirely engrossed, I hardly wanted to pull away
And interact with my beloved family.

The luminous title
The beauty of the writing
The hunt for the deadbeat dad
The subtle and pervasive character development

Except, there was nothing he could do.
Except, of course, there was.

You can make a choice to change.
Restoration is possible.

Maine

The colors had not changed in earnest,
But the last day, we rounded a corner
And came across the vista of a lake,
One I had seen before, only a few days prior.

But now the swath of scarlet,
Reflected on placid water of the beaver pond,
Was so striking,
My heart ached with its beauty
And tears rose,
Unbidden.