Fireworks for the 4th -- the only kind we'll see around here. We're in Colorado for a niece's wedding this weekend and between the drought and the fires Colorado is already fighting, there are burn and fireworks bans everywhere.
We came to Colorado by a round-about route -- driving to Harrisonburg for a Weaver family reunion at Highland Retreat last weekend, spending a few days in Pittsburgh where our daughter lives, and then flying out to Denver. We'll be in Westcliffe for the wedding and then camp for a few days. I hear there are mountains around here, but so far the smoke haze has kept them obscure. Even so, there's sunlight on the fauna and flora, and I'm enjoying the variety.
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The middle school Sunday school class decided to fold cranes for Heidi, and many others joined in over the months, folding and praying. The first Sunday in Lent, I preached on being Broken, Blessed and Beloved. One image from the sermon was that of the sea turtle. At a difficult time in my life, I heard a message from God that yes, the way was not easy, but it served a purpose, just as some kinds of sea turtles need to make the difficult journey across the beach from nest to the ocean in order to be properly oriented to reach the deep sea feeding grounds, and if female, to return years later to the same beach and lay eggs.
I wore a sea turtle pendant that Sunday, and sent it home with Heidi, who was entering the hospital for an experimental treatment that week. This spring I commissioned this little turtle from Wilma Harder, of silver and sweetwater agate. This past week I spent a half day at Karla Kauffmann's Maple Tree Meadows farm, for a Soil and Soul Retreat led by Karla. Karla is a chaplain and spiritual director (and court interpreter and sustainable foods enthusiast and a woman with a hearty laugh and lots of energy) who dreams of creating a contemplative Anabaptist sustainable farm community on the 12 acres she purchased four years ago, a small section of an over-100 year old farm. In addition to the farm house and fields, she has a couple barns and other outbuildings and a healthy crop of barn swallows. Following the Benedictine pattern of study, work, prayer and hospitality, Karla led us first in an hour conversation on a chapter in Ellen Davis' book, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible. Then we had an hour to work in the soil. Cathy and I nearly cleared this small weedy patch near the barn, where Karla plans to have a small garden. I enjoyed the coming and going of swallow shadows on the ground, as the birds flew over us to land on the nearby wires. We dutifully stopped work when the bell rang, moving to a block of solitude -- for prayer, journaling, walking the land or simply resting in the shade. I sat for awhile on the front porch, barely journaling and instead enjoying the shade of a huge old maple and the view of a sunny meadow with flitting butterflies and swooping swallows, before I went exploring. As Karla says, this is a wounded farm that has suffered a lot of neglect and that she is slowing mending. This is the back view of one of the barns, home to an enthusiastic vine and a colony of barn swallows. The window you glimpse through the door is featured in the photo below and was part of the flight pattern for the swallows. I contemplated the swallows in flight as they entered this window and flew on through the barn, and hoped to catch a glimpse of their graceful swoop in a photo, but I was never quick enough. The best I could manage were the two below, who paused in their flight, perhaps taking a mini-retreat of their own. Our retreat ended with a tasty feast of green salad, chicken salad, hard boiled eggs, potato sourdough bread, stir fried garlic scapes, yogurt with strawberries,and iced tea sweetened with maple syrup, prepared by Karla from local foods (including the syrup from her trees). We ate out in the shade of a maple, enjoying the breeze and good conversation with the other participants.
A good day, tending to soil and to soul in beautiful June weather on an old Michigan farm. A lovely 24 hour retreat at the Hermitage last night and today, a gathering of spiritual directors for three sessions led by Marlene Kropf on Into the Silence. And last night we participated in the Hermitage's monthly Taize service. Except for the sessions with Marlene and the worship services, our time was spent in silence. Silence in terms of speech with other humans, that is. I spent an hour last evening, and another this morning, wandering through the woods and fields. It was far from silent. The birds and frogs were greeting this warm spring weather with loud hosannas. I heard, and in many cases, saw chickadees, hairy (or possibly downy) woodpeckers, a red-bellied woodpecker, crows, redwing blackbirds, robins, cardinals, mourning doves, a rooster, nuthatches, and sandhill cranes. A single crane flew low over the retreat center this morning, not far from the bench where I was sitting and watching birds at the feeder. I'd like to share some of the sounds I heard -- the flutter of bird wings at the feeders, or the clatter of the sandhill cranes, or the loud chorus of spring peepers on a nearby pond, but there seems to be some hitch in loading that sort of file. So here instead is a memento of something else I enjoyed - being able to spot last year's bird nests in briar patches and bare branches. I came back home to more warm temperatures, and a tornado watch -- it must be spring. But this same turmoil also makes for some magnificent clouds. I glanced out just before sunset and then had to go outside and watch this light show sail past to the north of us.
March may come in like a lion, but February decided to celebrate Leap Day with a glimpse of spring. Compare these blooms with yesterday's photo of the same flowers. Take a sheltered window well, add a day in the 60's and presto -- instant spring. I went over to Witmer Woods and wandered the woods of my childhood, when we lived on Carter Road, just south of the College Cabin, on the other side of the drainage ditch. All woods were mostly brown and barren, but the moss was looking lush. Think of the tooth work it took to reach the nutmeats in this one. I spent a restful time sitting by the river, listening to the water lapping against the shore, the wind roaring in the branches overhead, and red-wing blackbirds calling in the bushes.
Greens and reds, and flora and fauna (of sorts) from a stroll around the Greencroft pond today. There seems to be a theme of bark-y, green squiggles and red rotundity as well.
A bird story today, but not about this friendly little pair, appropriate though they may be for the holiday. I was a few feet away from them, standing in the kitchen, when I caught a flurry of action out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and saw a large bird pulling itself out of the ninebark bush near my bird feeder. It flew up to the clothesline pole and perched there, straightening the feathers on its ruddy breast. I am guessing a Cooper's hawk, since I know there are some on campus.
Apparently it had gone after one of the small birds at the feeder, who cleverly dashed into the bush and then got away safely. I grabbed the camera and went into my study -- the hawk was perched just outside the study window. But no photo -- it gave itself a good shake and flew off just as I got there. A magnificent sight, though I had mixed feelings about it. A glimpse of the perky black cap of a chickadee or the gray tuft of a titmouse is a always a quick touch of delight, but then all they are eating is sunflower seeds. Okay, a hawk has to eat, just like everything else, cycle of life and all that. But somehow that is easier for me to live with when the food is just seeds, and not the other regular visitors at my feeder. Something to ponder though -- why should a hawk's wings be any less meaningful than an eagle's? Can I see something of God in the soaring flight of a hawk? How about in the strong beak of a woodpecker? Here's another very occasional visitor -- he showed up for a day or two in December, his red head shimmering in the light as he feasted on suet. A red-bellied woodpecker, a name that makes no sense to me, when the only red I see is on his head. A bird in the hand may be better than two in the bush, but I was happy to leave these two where they were, catching a few rays on a frigid day. A flock of geese, a murder of crows -- a conclave of cardinals? There are six or seven that show up regularly at the feeder. Saturday at dusk they were all huddled in these same bushes. I'm thinking about birds as signs of hope today. At our last Gestalt Pastoral Care class, a cardinal flying to and from the feeder was an encouraging sight for one participant, and later, a healing image was the faith imagination brush of feathery wings. We heard two difficult stories as part of our teaching sessions, and as the first one concluded, we spied the bright flash of a bluebird at the feeder. Linda hasn't seen them up near the house before, though I've seen them out at the cabin. And then as the second story concluded, we saw two bluebirds! A delightful sight, and an image to carry with me. Last week was a celebration of color, drawing on photos from my archives, and running through red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet before culminating in several rainbow colored photos. John suggested that white would have been another appropriate culmination. Since we haven't seen as much white as usual this time on year, here are some photos of white things for you.
It was a lovely, sunny day, but due to my schedule there was only a brief time in the late afternoon when I could get out to look for sparks of light. I decided to give myself the challenge of seeing what I could find in the blocks just north of here, where 10th Street runs past a couple factories and the alley runs past parking lots and dilapidated back yards. Not the most scenic area, as you can see above. Still, there were things that caught my eye, like the landing of the small bird on the leftmost wire - something about the bird blithely making itself at home amidst the complexities of the wires tickles my fancy. All God's children got a place in the choir, some sing low, and some sing higher, some sing out loud on the telephone wire. . . (hear a clip of Bill Staines performing the full song) And there were the lines and the light on this stump. An acquaintance came biking past as I took this photo and asked if there was something special I was photographing. "No, I just liked the red ribbons," I told her, and then as she biked away, felt like I should be explaining that it was something about the festive air of the bows decorating a gray fence on the edge of a bland parking lot, not that I'm especially attracted to red plastic bows. But ah, well. Sparks of light came in many forms. I do seem to be drawn to shades of red, whether in the near ground-level berries in the photo above or in this towering, glowing bittersweet vine, or the closeup from the same vine below. |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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