harvest

When we were younger, and my Farmer and I would garden together, he would laugh at my hearty hoeing, correctly predicting that I wouldn't last long at that rate.  I tried to pace myself, but "medium" is not one of my factory settings, and I'd soon tire, marveling (red-faced) at my Farmer's ability to keep going, and going, and going, the tortoise to my hare.

So it's really no surprise that after fifteen years and four children, I've grown weary.

"Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season

we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  Galatians 6:9

Back when facebook allotted a small box for a quotation next to my profile photo, I posted this verse, so that it would inspire me whenever I visited my own page (which was rarely, as it turned out, once I discovered the newsfeed).  Frankly, though, I grew weary not only of doing good, but of seeing the verse, for it seemed that "due season" would never come.

But at last, my friends, a harvest is in sight:

Yesterday morning, when they overheard me say I needed to bake & ice my Farmer's cake, all three daughters immediately piped up: "can I help?!"  And when the cake was cooled and the icing whipped smooth, and I still needed to cook the rest of supper, I asked Spice to ice the cake, and Sugar to decorate.  They smilingly consented.

When the cake was nearly done, and it was time to pick some corn & husk it, but I was still stirring the white sauce for the stroganoff, I asked Spice to go down to the garden for a dozen ears.  Nice begged to be allowed to pick some, too.  And when she came back with a sample ear for my inspection, and was told that it passed and she would be promoted to official corn-picker, she grinned with satisfaction and pride.

I've done a lot wrong in my life, made lots of mistakes, hurt people I loved, and lost sight of what's important.  I've missed a lot of lessons God wanted to teach me.  But yesterday as we prepared my Farmer's birthday feast, I realized - this I have done right:

I have (at least, when too overwhelmed & under-energized to do it all myself) allowed my children to solve their own problems, attempt things that might be too hard for them, try their hands at things I would have rather done myself.  And they have succeeded, beyond my wildest expectations (which were, after all, rather tame).

I have somehow managed to raise children who, despite my own failings in this area, are eager to do meaningful work, take pride in a job well-done, rise to meet the need (of which I'm sure I provide plenty) and git 'er done.  (Probably only my parents will understand the scope of this miracle!)

Most of this you will see I am not responsible for at all.  It's grace, and the outrageous gift of a spent body that positions me to receive these unexpected blessings.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however,

it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

Hebrews 12:11

I don't expect uninterrupted days of righteousness & peace from now until Heaven, but when moments of harvest shine through the rubble of weary despair, it seems worth noting, don't you think?

a miracle

Today, 

an undisclosed

(but very distinguished)

number of years ago,

a tiny boy was born 

2 months prematurely.

He developed

a serious case

of hydrocephalus

and the doctors weren't at all sure

he would survive

to be normal. 

Happily,

they were right,

but not in a way they expected:

my Farmer

is anything

but normal,

and I am so pleased

to be his wife

and the mother of his children

into whom 

he so tenderly

pours himself.

Happy Birthday, my beloved!

my Farmer at his farm, with his banjo & the produce he so capably grows

what's in a name?

[from Nov. 2011 .... something I still wonder about]

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Last night I sat at a pottery wheel and spun some clay.  I picked up tools and dug in pots to make designs.  I drew.  I cut.  I smoothed out seams with fingers.  I pulled a handle and fastened it to make a mug, a pitcher. For inspiration, I used the images in my head and in my sketchbook.

I am an amateur, unprofessional, a hobbyist.  I am a mother with a BA in English and a TESL minor, raising children, and throwing pots for fun.  I pay for the privilege of instruction.  I sit under people who earn (at least part of) their living from their art.  Any dreams I have of making pottery "for a living" are very faint indeed, dimmed by my very real and present duties of cooking and cleaning and loving, and pulled out only on weekend retreats.

My classmates, fellow hopefuls who have tried their hands at this for years, complimented everything I did last night, ooh-ing and ahh-ing with abandon.

Feeling dishonest with my "thank-you's", my discomfort reached a tipping point when one of them spied my sketchbook left open, full of chicken scratch, attempts to capture beauty with a pen to help my memory.  More exclamations, and then,

"Are you an artist?"

I thought how I should answer.  "I am a mom," I said.  "I have an English degree and I like to make pottery - a lot.  Does that  make me an artist?"

She looked back in my book.  "You're an artist."  Her voice was firm, authoritative from her decades of teaching school.

What's in a name?  What separates the amateur from the artist?  As much as I'd like to believe her, and as much as I appreciate the encouragement, I think she's wrong.  The admiration of amateurs does not determine art, but the acceptance of those who have already gained acceptance from those who have already gained acceptance from .... the public.  Hmmm.  Perhaps I have created a circular argument.

Either that or my brain is just limp with hearing Nice playing with Lil' Snip, my ears held hostage to that piercing voice reserved for the hard-of-hearing, foreigners, and small children.

But feel free to point me in the right direction - what is your criteria for defining art?

hidden

Something else about the chrysalis
(another swallowtail flew free this morning):
it happens, hidden.  

Isolated,
enrobed in green,
out of sight,
the changes happen.

In darkness,
may be.

Outside our observation.
Beyond prediction,
were I the caterpillar.

Plump green fat-footed body
exchanged
for delicate black-winged velvet beauty,
curling, unfurling proboscis,
tentative touching antennae.

Plodding gravity-bound being
Transformed for flight.

Me?
Improbable.
But, true!

You?


And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  II Corinthians 3:18

[more on caterpillars and metamorphosis:  here, here, here, here, and here.]

the farmer takes a wife

Remembering this evening, first posted two years ago ... my children still astonish me, and leave me amazed that a subdivision-raised girl like me could have daughters (and a son) so confidently knowledgeable about things I am only now discovering, both about the natural world and myself.  May God Himself sustain their faith and make it sure.

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This evening, after supper, I walked with my Farmer (who carried our son) and three daughters, back behind the barn and along the ridge through the cornfields to the neighbor's pig barn to watch giant tractors bring their manure-spreaders in to be filled.

One was green (John Deere).  The other was red (Case IH).  The green one had huge double wheels.  The red one was hinged in the middle ("articulated", to those in the know).  Both pulled 7300-gallon tanks of liquid manure, the weight spread over three sets of tires (the front two could be lifted free from the ground).

My daughters held their noses and exclaimed over how big the tractors' wheels were.  My son, ears covered by his fleece cap but his little legs sticking out, chilly, where his pantlegs had ridden up, just gazed around in wonder at the wide, wide world.

I watched them, my children.  I am their mother - these offspring so foreign to me, sometimes.  They know so much about tractors, growing things, and manure.

We drove out to buy milk from a neighbor's dairy this morning.  We spotted some new calves and day-dreamed about having one at our house.  Sugar, in her 9-year-old wisdom,  said we couldn't keep it in the barn, though, or it might get hoof disease.  Hoof disease?!  Was that in the science curriculum somewhere that I missed?

On the way home,  I admired the green growing in a field and Sugar said it was probably rye.  

After we (well, I) had marveled long enough at the giant tractors, we headed back home over the cornfields.  Sugar and Spice ran ahead, hair flying brilliant in the setting sun.  Nice stayed with me, hanging on to my arm and telling me what a nice mommy I was.  Lil' Snip bounced along on Daddy's arm and just looked and looked and looked.

I wonder what he was thinking ....