Laurie Klein, Scribe

immerse in God, emerge refreshed

IF

by 13 Chiming In

If only . . . it hadn’t happened.

Today, I wake up grieved by Wednesday’s violence in our nation’s capitol—only to be further dismayed by the media’s name-calling in the guise of news.

When epic troubles escalate, how do we resist the downward spiral of resignation? How do we nurture fresh reasons to hope?

Earlier this week I splurged on a pot of hyacinth bulbs. Buds closed tightly as raised fists lined three fleshy stalks.

This morning, bloom after star-like bloom perfumes the house.

When bulbs are responsibly “forced,”
the wild, greening wellsprings
that infuse creation
surge upward and outward: Now,
marvel transfuses my spirit, triggers
awe, releases a whiff of poetry.

My outlook shifts,
from grainy, film noir desolation
to hi-def, hyper-spectrum joy—each stem
redolent with modest glories. It reminds me
we’re all fiercely loved
by One who makes all things beautiful
in their time—even when growing entails
unspeakable suffering.

For God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

So, I am scouting evidence of order. Implicit design. Metaphor and deeper meaning.

I am seeking Love quietly lavished in merciful ways around me so that I might go and do likewise.

It’s a plan, albeit a small one . . .

If I do say so myself.

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What’s rekindling your experience of beauty? Truth? Humor?

This “IF” quotation made me laugh:

“If I could go to dinner with one person, dead or alive, I think I would choose alive.” — B. J. Novak

If of thy mortal goods . . .

You might also enjoy: Hai*Pho — No, it’s not a new entree . . .

And here’s a famous poem about hyacinths:

Own a Better View

by 16 Chiming In

Beyond the bay window, night wanes.

the new view, pre-dawn

God, behind the scenes, is producing this unused, never-before-seen, free-for-the-living day:

“Light, on your mark . . . good, very good . . . fade in sky and fields.”

(And to the mist) “Ready? Get rolling!”

own the new view
Mt. Spokane, pre-sunrise

For the first time in 25 years I clearly see Mt. Spokane from my place at our table. It rises, cool and distant, the stone-washed blue of rain over a lake.

Recently felled trees exposed this view, a vista I want to claim. Can a human own a view?

With the silent hoist of invisible pulleys, up comes the sun. I stroll up the driveway and witness washes of color altering landscape. I pass the fallen bodies of giants.

Mt. Spokane, the new view

The news

Our trees are dying. In a word: beetles.

We sought advice from experts. Here’s who weighed in.

  • Spokane County Extension fire inspector
  • District 4 Fire Department
  • Department of National Resources
  • Thinning contractors

Restoring our woods will cost an arm and a leg—actually, unnumbered limbs. Trunks, too. Many exceed the jaws of the chipper, and debris must be burned ASAP, or trucked away, to avoid worse infestation. Survivors need to be thinned and lopped of dead growth, 12′ from the ground.

Trunk girths indicate no one has tended these woods. Nor have we. We’ve loved them but left them wild. Until now.

But the hours. The expense. The labor. It’s overwhelming.

And yet

I see the mountain. See it from the place I study and pray. Modest in size, it’s still a mountain.

My view through the gap left behind by death makes me think of Good Friday. And visions. Kernels of wheat. Who but God would conceive such a process—downfall and disease ushering in unforeseen beauty. Surprise.

Yes, we are facing loss. And cost. And something more.

Have you read this famous haiku by Mizuta Masahide?

Since my house burned down
I now own a better view
of the rising moon

Looking back, looking ahead

We moved here after re-affirming our marriage vows. Things had been crashing down around us and friends sensed our need, prayed us through the pain. We know about doing hard things.

Now it’s time again to “own a better view.” At least, metaphorically. Ancient Israel lost her great forests to marauding enemies. Yet scripture also describes the trees rejoicing.

We will care for our little forest. We’ll watch for each view that opens up, even as trees go down.

Some scientists now believe bark beetles can hear the sound of imploding tissue in drought-stressed trees. Native people have likely always known this, as evidenced by this quote from a Pueblo Indian elder.

The beetles come when the trees begin to cry.

Laurie Klein, Scribe

Who, or what, in your life cries out for tending? Is there a new way to view this?

 

Mizuta Masahide (水田 正秀, 1657–1723) was a Japanese poet and samurai. —Wikipedia

Exposed to Truth, Its Beautiful Sting

by 3 Chiming In

Held still much lately? Wish you could more often? I do. It’s an abiding passion of mine. And a challenge.

I was the tomboy sentenced to regular “sitting lessons” on my father’s lap. Gripped in Dad’s brawny, freckled arms, a featherweight could only flail so long.

Now I see enforced waiting was meant as a gift. Dad’s discipline established a baseline for social poise through quieter physicality, leaving my mind free to swing through the trees of imagination. To this day my thoughts flit, like the butterfly in overdrive hunting nectar or the rebound of that next silken petal, bobbing under its weight.

So here’s to the mercurial, slightly out-of-focus moment, not so long ago, when something intensely alive alighted on my hand:

butterfly

My breath stuttered. The fingers inching my camera closer trembled, body on high alert . . .

as if each sense was a radar dish, registering color, weight, movement. Texture. And something else, harder to name, and as fleeting as the shadow of an antennae across my belly (which I would only see later, on playback, after the creature had risen and wafted aloft).

In a moment like this, surroundings dim, attention telescopes on sensation. Have you felt it?

butterfly legs

Six multi-jointed legs the size of an eyelash taste with their feet, and when they traverse the human palm, they stab, like a mosquito, or Tom Thumb plying a micro-jeweler’s saw against the skin.

By comparison, I’m huge. How is it that something weighing in at less than one-fifth of an ounce has the muscle to alter my day? My outlook?

Even now, looking back on the photo of that brief encounter, I can ignore how old and homely my hands look; relive, instead, being “tasted,” tattooed by the wild.

“How many are your works, O Lord!” the Psalmist wrote. “In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures . . . living things both large and small” (Ps. 104:24, 25b).

The sudden sting of truth: arresting. Evanescent. On that day, beauty sought me out. My part was to sit quietly, take it in.

Making It Personal:
What might alight if you pause today?