May 27, 2014

Beloved:

      Winter was the war they fought.  While other perennials were safe underground, my roses, boxwood and lavender bore every assault of ice, snow and cold.  The roses died back by half.  The boxwood look like a row of startled amputees. At least eighty percent of the lavender was killed.   

      I got very sweaty and a little sad yesterday as I carried load after load of brush to the chicken coop and then to the ravine.  Seven years I’ve been nursing that lavender along, training it to fall over the garden wall just so.  My roses finally reached the top and this was the year they’d start traveling sideways along the fence.  A decent gardener would rip out those ridiculous shrubs.   

      Besides, this isn’t my first harsh winter and I know boxwood.  By summer’s end it will be lush and out of control once more.  Twenty percent of the lavender I had last summer is more than I started out with, and while the flowers are far fewer, the roses have begun to bloom all the same.  

      Yesterday evening I visited another garden where every color of rose was blooming vibrant, fifty varieties at least.  “How do you protect them so well?” I asked.  “Oh, we had a terrible winter,” the gardener replied, “so we replaced all but two. These are all brand new roses.”   

      “That’s cheating,” replied the uncharitable voice inside my head.  

      “They are beautiful,” I said out loud.

      I want my garden to look like his, tailored and finished.  But I have two problems.  One is that I am lazy and cheap. Ripping out those boxwoods will be backbreaking for Carl and Ben.  Secondly, I am inclined to forget that it’s not really a war.  It’s just life, life with it’s constant ebb and flow of death and birth.  You should see my cranesbill geraniums - freakishly huge!  I finally got poppy flowers instead of poppy stems only.  The spanish bluebells have never been better and the bee balm is nearly three feet tall.  We’ve picked asparagus and eat fresh lettuce anytime we want.  The raspberries are coming on strong.  Some days I have nine eggs, some days I have sixteen.  My marriage and my children are healthy and strong. We have jobs and friends and plenty more for which to be grateful.  No doubt there are problems and messes here and there ~ things I’m too lazy or anxious to deal with right now.  My life is untailored and unfinished but lush all the same.    

      I pray you find much contentment in this luscious spring day. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:
    
      Either the puppy sleeps past 6 am these days or I don’t hear her crying until then.  First we go outside for personal business.  The air is shimmery with new light.  This can take a while as many things must be sniffed, tasted or chased. Back inside they eat breakfast and I make coffee.  In another month we’ll have morning devotionals on the porch but it’s still too chilly now so we pile into the bed with coffee, books and dog toys.  “Scout, drop it NOW!” is my most repeated mantra, followed by, “Give me that!” and, “Stop biting me.”  But every so often all three of us go so silent and still, tuned to to the sound and scent of that shimmery light.  

     I’ve taken pilgrimage to the Holy Land and followed the footsteps of Celtic monastics, spiritual experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything, and money well spent. All to learn that spiritual gain can be neither chased nor purchased, only received. Received only by being present and paying attention.  As likely in Bloomington as Bethlehem or Iona.   Whether awakened by ancient church bells or an assault of licky, furry dog love.

     Almost the instant it’s noticed the moment is gone.  Their wrestling makes the bed an earthquake.  I spill my coffee and kick them onto the back deck.  But the moment holds inside me now, a memory to sustain the spirit as a meal sustains the body.  As we live meal to meal, we are sustained moment to moment.  If we expect to thrive we can no more forget to pray than forget to eat.

     I could go on here, waxing poetic and wise, but the puppy pushed closet door open.  She’s been unloading it shoe by shoe for awhile now.  I pray you find a moment to pay attention and receive a gift today.  peace & prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:

    I’ve a tiny great nephew who loves machines; diggers, backhoes, cranes, big trucks. He’d be in heaven at my house this week.  A crew spent all day yesterday searching for an underground path from the street to my house.  It only has to be about three inches in diameter.  Once they find it - they’ll bore a tunnel and pull a length of conduit that will eventually contain the fiber optic cable to deliver the gigabyte of data into my house for internet service.   

    About having real internet at home I figure I’m as excited as when my grandparents first saw electricity coming to their end of the county.  But yesterday didn’t go well.  The crew spent seven hours hovering a sonar device above my driveway and yard, inch by inch, looking for a clear path and constantly finding rock.  They tested two feet and four feet below the surface.  “How did a house even get built here?” they asked each other.  Soaked, filthy, exhausted, frustrated but still amazingly nice to me they gave up at 4:30.  They’ll be back this morning and in my garden, thinking that the path may be there given it was dug out already.  

    They remind me of heart surgeons -  on a bigger scale with lower stakes, yet taking their work just as seriously.  

    They remind me that every job contains unexpected problems and tasks that take a day instead of an hour.  My rocks are delaying my neighbors’ service which promises the crew more stress.  

     They remind me that four men having a terrible time in unpleasant weather can choose to be calm, patient, respectful, creative and kind.   

     They remind me that everywhere all the time people are working hard and doing their best at jobs we don’t see or understand. They are working faithfully through setbacks and poor conditions creating the infrastructure for our way of life.  

      Is it spiritual?  Absolutely.  It makes my soul bigger, more grateful and significantly more humble.  It offers a real time vision of life done patiently with forbearance in difficult circumstances.  These are lessons I cannot do without, be the teacher, a Christian mystic, or construction crew.  

       The sky is promising rain and the crew will be here soon.  Blessings upon them!  peace & prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:

       I’ve been outside with an engineer from the county road department this morning, showing him where the earth is collapsing along the northwest boundary of our property.  Last fall there were two or three places.  Now there are more than a dozen. One crater is nearly four feet deep and big enough for a  picnic table.  Others are long and narrow, like crocodile graves.   The ground is so soft everywhere north of the house walking around there is an adventure. The dogs have learned the terrain and leap the ditches like deer over garden fencing.

        We won’t know how expensive it is until the county decides who’s responsible to fix it.  The engineer seems to think it is a county job but not his own office’s.  He gave me the number of the right department.  I half expect to be redirected until there are no more departments to call and for this game of phone tag to take all summer.   In the meantime I am hoping 1.) my house doesn’t fall into the earth 2.)  we aren’t home when it does.  

      Since I can’t do anything else in this meantime, I’m enjoying the science of it all. The county engineer believes the drainage tile built to carry street water into the ravine has broken completely and now the water has to find it’s own way down the hill and into the creek below our house.  Searching for a route, the water has to skirt rock and tree roots.  Paths cut by all the water since the tile broke weakened the soil above.  The heavy snow and ice this year added weight to the surface. Then it melted, adding even more flowing water.  As the ground dried, the loose dirt collapsed into the ditches cut by the water.  

       Left to itself, water always goes lower, and left to itself, this water will eventually take my house and everything else in it’s path.  Which is all kind of cool to think about, except for losing my house of course.  Because the water doesn’t care. The water is just doing what water has always done.  Water has no conscience, no sense of justice or fairness, no respect for human effort.  So for a thousand generations, engineers have not left water to itself. Instead they captured and carried it where we wanted it to go. Once upon a time they hacked stone cisterns into mountains to catch enough rain for a village for a year.  We’re luckier in that keeping my house upright only requires 200 feet of plastic drainage tile, a backhoe, several truckloads of fill dirt and the engineers who know how to do it.  But I’m under no illusion.  Whatever peace we forge includes no treaty.  The water may stay inside the drain or it may not.  Only time will tell.  I pray this beautiful day allows you time to be outdoors.  ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette



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