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Beloved, In spiritual life, thin places refers to locations and experiences in which the curtain between the present and eternal realms seems very thin, transparent even. Birthing rooms are thin places, and dying rooms too ~ where unexpected of glimpses beauty or tragedy happen. In everyday moments of the most ordinary sort the veil can fall away striking me silent with the vastness of it all; vast beauty, vast sadness, vast injustice, vast pain, vast hope, vast loss, vast love, vast peace, vast hunger, vast joy, vast complacency, vastness itself. For that split second, gone before we know we saw it, the absence of the veil reveals what we otherwise know only by faith ~ that God is below and above, surrounding and enveloping all that vastness. Such recall comes more easily in the beautiful than in the broken places. Maybe it’s all these falling leaves and flowers dying back that has me so melancholy this morning. As their life force retreats for winter’s rest, mine also seeks respite and struggles to take my leave with confidence in the goodness of darkness, rest and quiet. Conceiving winter as a thin place is a thought less joyfully borne in me than, say, my garden in full bloom or an ancient Celtic holy site. Retreat and surrender are so easily confused with failure. Confusion gives way to frustration and frustration leaves me tired, terribly tired. “Rest,” says the Creator in the sight, sound and scent of Creation itself, “now is the time to rest.” The trees neither resist nor grieve the present season, but do again as they are told, dropping leaves as vigorously as they bloomed some months ago, with utter trust in winter’s goodness and the spring to come again. ~ peace and prayers, pastor annette
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 Blackberry training, day 1. Beloved:
Autumn was busy as a factory around here yesterday. Cecilia came in the afternoon to help me with yard work. Blackberry and raspberry vines which have done as they please all summer are pruned and tied to the garden fencing, trained as they say. (see photo) We threw the sunflower canes in a pile for birds to eat from this winter. Two hundred plus tulip, daffodil and allium bulbs are snug below ground and within the berry guarded fencing. We moved lavender and hydrangeas. I pulled up a dead peony tree only to find a tiny green shoot on it so I put it back, apologizing profusely. In the morning it was crowded and still wild with summer growth. Now it’s tidy and sparse. In the garden and the woods, energy procurement and storage is Job 1. For peak performance next spring, the bulbs must freeze and get four months of total bed rest. The same for all things deciduous. Oh that the metaphor were so easily applied ~ that we might learn to lose what is no longer useful and take our own long season of rest. But ours is a much tighter energy cycle, clocked by hours instead of months and so easily overidden by wrong thinking. We work on and on, dreaming of the that future season wherein we shall, ‘have time to catch up,’ a phrase with no external reference. The work may or may not suffer for our lack of wisdom, the world either for that matter. The spiritual question is, “Do I? Are there gifts that go with living true to the design of God that I forfeit when I overide that design?" Seems to me it depends on what we want and hope for here and now, today. I pray, O God, to want and hope for life as you designed it for me, clocked in hours that add up to seasons run on daily bread and rest if I am wise enough to take as they are given. Amen. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette  My backyard on Oct. 2, 2012 Beloved:
If I had the patience or believed I had the time, I could look out my window and see leaves turning green to yellow as swiftly as they fall. So suddenly it is fully autumn and seems all the more poetic after the longest of summers. The yard and gardens continue soaking in the rain, never saturated. The lavender has taken off again as lush as early June. Until now, I’ve no memory of autumn coming like a second spring only wearing a different palette. As with so many things spiritual, autumn which follows drought seems more glorious. I expected less, assumed heat and drought had surely sabotaged seasons to come. Yet here it is, just as wild and beautiful as ever. May the ordinary glory of the day refresh your expectations and mine. peace and prayers, pastor annette |
I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
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July 2022
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