ELEVEN!

It's Lunasdal Eve, 2012.

Lunasdal, (a.k.a. Lughnasadh or Lammas), the old Celtic feast of the grain harvest, has been my mini-New Year for these last eleven years, ever since I boarded a plane in Scotland and ended up in Maine on August 1st to begin my post-seminary life on a new coast. Each year at this time, I do my own bit of in-gathering as I consider the harvest the past twelve months have brought.

I hardly remember that first year, except for the waves of grief and despair that washed over me and lapped at the edges of every small, anxious attempt to explore new ways of working, thinking, loving and being. Just prior to my month-long Trip of a Lifetime in Scotland, I'd been told by the pastor of my home church that my gifts were not evident and my vocation to Christian ministry was unwelcome. Just prior to that, I'd graduated from seminary with honours in a beautiful ceremony that abounded with signs of grace, welcome, and radical inclusion. The pastor's words were a spiritual sucker-punch from which it took years to thaw out, heal, and recover.

The Scotland trip passed in a blur, my intended joyful adventure lost in a fog of pain and betrayal. How I'd love to go back and experience those things while fully alive, fully engaged, fully awake! Still, it was a good gift and I tried to make the most of it, intellectually if not emotionally. There was a week at Ceolas, the traditional Scottish arts school on the isle of South Uist. The Piper and her two sons travelled with me. During the days, I studied traditional singing with Margaret Stewart while The Piper and her eldest son studied with Allan Macdonald and other tradition-bearers. There was a week at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the isle of Skye, where I took an immersion class in intermediate Scottish Gaelic with Muriel Fisher. There were wonderful rambles up and down and around the Highlands and Islands, with stops in Lewis, Harris, Mallaig and Oban. Finally, there was a week on Iona, place of dream-pilgrimage, heart-home of Celtic Christians the world over.

When I returned to the States, my head was buzzing with cultural riches and vocational longings, neither of which had any apparent outlet. I had only one firm plan in place: get to Maine and find a small place just big enough for my and my shadow to set up housekeeping. Essentially, I went underground, hoping that the old promises of seed and harvest would still prove true, hoping that time wrapped in darkness would one day lead to emergence and fruition.

It was not the darkness of death. My Piper lived only one town away, and her constancy kept the darkness warm and rich and full of earthy promises. Slowly, slowly, I began to put down roots. Slowly, slowly, my new life began to unfurl. The string of hand-to-mouth jobs included barista, deli worker, house-cleaner, nanny, farm-sitter, craftswoman, Gaelic teacher, concert promoter, and "educational technician." Yet there were also days spent tending The Piper's garden and talking together of how we might create a shared life, a shared farm. There were nights among friends, singing our hearts out and playing centuries-old tunes into the "wee smas." While my seminary colleagues were out serving churches, raising families, and organizing labour unions, I was arduously seeking my place in the grand scheme, listening for the sometimes faint, but always present, whispers of guidance from a loving Cosmos.

Many days, my conversations with God felt like the Burnistoun elevator sketch, where two office workers in Glasgow try to direct an elevator's voice-recognition system to reach floor number eleven. (Watch it here. Note: contains a smattering of terms common to frustrated Glaswegians.) There were so many things I wanted to share, wanted to give, wanted to offer up to my community and the world beyond, but I no longer trusted myself to communicate in ways that would reach others or be recognized. And then, one day, I found myself in church again--not the denomination I'd grown up in, but a different one, where I'd heard that all people were actively welcomed. Four years later, I have now passed my Ecclesiastical Council and Examination for Ordination in the United Church of Christ, and I'm now in the process of seeking a church to serve as a local part-time pastor. Yeeeeee-haaaaaaw!!!

Eleven years: eleven season-cycles of fallow time, planting, growth, and harvest. In that time, I've planted fruit trees and watched them bear, taught students and watched them thrive, served churches and felt the Spirit move in our midst. (In between, there have been plenty of failures, plenty of frustration, plenty of hand-wringing and exhaustion!) I've come to understand that my vocation to ministry includes this history-rich, nutrient-poor parcel of land on which The Piper and I have created our farm. Here, rooted in this place, surrounded by love and all the challenges and joys of our rural community, my spirit has been nurtured and restored. Other travellers have found their way here for a weekend, a fortnight, a season...and they have been restored and nourished too. Their paths toward wisdom have varied widely and rarely matched mine. This, too, has been a source of richness!

Eleven years--and was it really two years ago that we bought the farm, after all those years of agonizing? Last year, we bought a Highland bull, a Tamworth boar, and a Devon sow. This year, with the help of friends and WWOOF volunteers, we've raised two greenhouses and an artisanal outhouse. We've welcomed a new heifer calf (born at Bealtuinn/Beltane) and Welsummer hens. A friend stopped by for a music session a few weeks ago, sized up the new greenhouses, and said, approvingly, "You know, this place is really shapin' up to look like a farm."

Happy Lunasdal, Y'all. May your own hardscrabble efforts blossom and bear. May you be blessed with the riches of harvest, joyfully welcomed and safely gathered in.

Crackpot Jesus and the Bottle-Diggin' Pig

Sermon for the First Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 10, 2012

(copyright Mainecelt 2012, based on Mark 3:20-34 & 2 Cor. 4:7-5:1)

Bridie, like most pigs, is a great digger. Ever since we expanded her fencing, our one-year-old Devon sow has been exploring her new digs—literally. Where once there was green lawn, there's now a lovely patch of dark, upturned earth punctuated by the portly form of a very happy pig.

The first day or two she was mostly concerned with digging up the sod. But midway through the week, one of our farmhands found her chewing on something that was definitely not a proper pig chew-toy, something that went “screek!” and “clink” against her sharp piggy teeth. We managed to distract her with some two-day-old baked goods and took the object inside and rinsed it off. It turned out to be a sixty-odd-year-old broken glass bottle, the words “Casco bottling company” still clear on the scratched and dirt-filled glass.

We were surprised—and we weren't surprised. Like most old farms, our land is littered with the detritus of generations. Each time we turn up new soil, we find all manner of broken bits and artifacts. Mostly, we find old leather soles from children's shoes—the legacy of the eleven Edwards orphans who ran the farm in the fifties,hardscrabble to the extreme. The next two most common discoveries are broken crockery—mostly bean-pots—and the glass shards of old bleach bottles.

The Edwards children became orphans during a hurricane, when their parents drove out through the storm and the floods to get some food. With the water over the road, they couldn't see that the bridge wasn't just covered with water. The bridge wasn't even there. Eleven children, motherless and fatherless, the secure structures of their family suddenly broken apart, and in the midst of their grief, forced to work the land all on their own, to feed eleven hungry mouths... sometimes we just stop and look around our land, our thoughts heavy with the memory of all that suffering.

Jesus understood what it's like when the strong walls, earthen vessel of family, begin to crack. In fact, his family had strong views about this idea as well, as we see in our Gospel lesson. Jesus is out there with the crowd, doing his thing, and his mother and brothers show up to bring him home and pound some sense into his fool head. They're pretty sure, based on reports through the local grapevine,that he's gone right off the deep end. One translation says, “they heard he was beside himself.” And the scribes who'd come down from Jerusalem—a group with a tendency to leap to conclusions—claimed Jesus was possessed by the Prince of Demons.

Basically, the word on the street was that Jesus was an absolute crackpot, and his family was determined to haul him home, even if they had to resort to hog-tying and carrying:

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside,asking for you." And he replied, "Who are my mother and

my brothers?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said,"Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

They must have been some upset. There they were, trying to get their crackpot relative out of the public eye before he brought shame on the whole household, and what did he do when they called him out? Well, he turned right around and returned the favour, saying he wasn't much pleased to have them as kinfolk either.

See,the household was what they called the “primary social and economic unit” of the first-century Middle East. There was no escaping it. The household you were born into determined everything that happened to you for the rest of your life: your social position, your choices for work, the approved vocabulary of your speech, the cut of your clothes, the way you wore your hair, and—especially--the other sorts of people you could spend time with, who all had to be from the same sort of household as yours.

Now,on the surface, it's easy to take this story as the standard sharp-tongued retort of any rebellious young man. Nobody likes their mother—or their siblings—to embarrass them in public. We get that—and, if we don't, our young people are quick to remind us. But Jesus says something new, something different—something that proves to his birth family that he's a crackpot for sure. He redefines, completely, what a family can be.

For Jesus, a true family is not the household into which you're born, but a community of people united by the love of God, a community of shared purpose, dedicated to seeking and doing the will of God in the world. It is a gathering of cracked pots, people united by an awareness that the world is broken—and WE are broken—and God wants something different and more wonderful than anything the world's rules and powers have ever offered up.

It's a bit like the old story of the water-bearer:

Once upon a time, in a village in India, there was a man whose job was to bring water from the river to his Master's house. It had been his father's job, too, and his father before him—for he came from a servant class that was expected to spend their lives doing just this sort of heavy, repetitive labour. Now, this man, like his father and his father before him, was very poor. He had very little in the world besides the clothes on his back and the work-gear his father had left him: two clay water jars and a wooden yoke from which they hung, so he could carry them from the river to his master's house,over and over.

One of the clay pots was perfect in every way for its purpose. The other pot had once been just like the first one, but on the day the water-bearer's father died—when his old heart had stopped in the middle of his journey—the pot had fallen against a stone and developed a crack. Now, though the water-bearer had tried to patch it, the fact was: that pot leaked.

It leaked so badly, in fact, that no matter how the water-bearer hurried from the river to his master's house each day, he never successfully arrived with that pot more than half-full of the precious water on which the whole household relied. He couldn't run too much faster,or he might spill the water from both jars. So every day he worked as hard as he could, making trip after trip, always with the fear that his master might decide he was unfit and hire another water-bearer for the job. Every night he lay down, bone-tired, and worried. He was miserable.

Finally,one day, he mustered up his courage and went to his master. "Master,” he said, “I am so very sorry. I work hard, hard as I can. Yet, because one of my pots is cracked, I've only been able to deliver a portion of the water to your household, and you don't get all you deserve from my poor efforts."

The Master smiled at the water bearer, and invited him to go for a walk down to the river. “I know you work hard.” said the Master. “And because you try to make every step count, I know you watch the ground beneath your feet as you carry water to my house each day. Now, as we walk back from the river, I want you to lift your head. See what a beautiful place this is? People say my estate is like an oasis. Look around. Notice the lush greenery, the fragrant flowers."

Indeed, as they climbed the path from the river to the Master's house the water-bearer took notice of the sunlight touching the beautiful flowers along the side of the path, and he noticed how the winds were softened by the leaves of young fruit trees. But when they reached their destination, his sadness returned. "Master, thank you for the honour of your presence and for sharing the beauty of your estate,” he said, "But I still must apologize for my failure."

The Master said, "Dear water-bearer, you haven't understood what I was trying to show you. Did you notice that the flowers and trees only grew on one side of the path? That's because of your cracked pot. I planted flower seeds and saplings on that side of the path,and everyday as you walked from the river the water that leaks from your pot has watered them. I could have hired a new water-bearer, but I preferred to grow flowers and trees. With those flowers, I have perfumed and decorated many rooms, and these last few seasons the fruit of those trees has graced many tables."

We are all gathered into this community of faith as earthen vessels,each with our own rough edges, our chips and our cracks. As Paul says, in his letter to the Christians at Corinth,

... We have this treasure in clay jars ...We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

“Yes,”he says, “we're all cracked pots.” We carry, in our fragile human bodies, both the death and the life of Jesus, and it shines through every crack and broken edge. For our lives, in faith, are formed from clay and fire, into something beautiful and broken that God can use for Glory.

So,this is how we show ourselves as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. We root around. We find the shards and jagged edges, the chipped and broken vessels, and we wonder whether they have any use in this world. And then we open ourselves in prayer, inviting God to use all this brokenness, inviting God's healing spirit to bless it and use it to make something beautiful.

We are all cracked pots, and we follow a crackpot Savior who challenged the structures of his day, busted the bonds of death and cracked open the gates of heaven. We are his family, each one of us broken, each one of us holy. Praise be to God!

(Thanks to Rev. Peter Heinrichs, from whom I learned the story of the water-bearer--and thanks to our WWOOF volunteers, who keep our livestock safe from sharp objects!)

Toast a Stove, Bake a Flower?

This morning I woke up hungry for muffins--steamy, moist, full-of-yummy-bits muffins, fresh out of the oven. There's only one problem: We don't have an oven.

Remember Hurricane Irene? Well, during our four-day power loss, (which involved two freezers full of chicken and lots of escaped pigs), our Helpful Neighbors offered the use of their Really Big Generator for a few hours each day to keep our freezers from thawing. It was a very generous offer and we were pretty worried about losing so much meat. We were also pretty exhausted from chasing six pigs around, since they'd discovered their fence was entirely uncharged. So, when the neighbors offered, we didn't think everything through. We just said yes.

Helpful Neighbor--a contractor by trade--ran some nifty wires into our electrical panel and told us to unplug everything we didn't need before he switched the power on. We don't have a lot of electrical appliances that draw much power, so I figured I wouldn't have to unplug much. I unplugged the toaster oven and the coffee maker and a couple of nearby lamps. Then I paused a moment to ponder what else I should unplug. Helpful neighbor mistook this for a pose of completion and flipped the generator on...followed a second later by the sickening *pop* of two lightbulbs exploding, then another louder *POP* and a puff of smoke rising from the Piper's desktop computer. Our little farmhouse had apparently just been hit by a power surge that fried every solenoid and microchip on the premises. That included all our clocks and radios, our CD and record player, our rechargeable drill, and--oh dear--the digital panel that controls the oven portion of our gas cookstove. The range still works just fine, but the only way to turn the oven on is with that little panel, which--according to our extensive post-*POP* research, is no longer made and cannot be replaced.

Sooooo, we've been without a regular oven since the first week of September. We could surely find a used cookstove for under $100, but the cost to unhook the old one and hook up the new one would be an unavoidable $200 extra, and that's not in the budget. But, hey--we're creative, resourceful farm women, aye? We can manage, 'cause we still have this toaster oven...

We can cook almost anything without the big oven, except for muffins or popovers (the tins don't fit) and large roasts. So, what's a woman to do when she wakes up dreaming of muffins? Ah: make healthy oatmeal cookies instead, 'cause cookies will fit on that tiny baking sheet in that wee toaster oven just fine.

I started with a basic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe. Then I started playing, in that lovely way an early morning baker can play before the Inner Critic wakes up and kicks in. I imagined a cookie full of floral notes, something elegant and uplifting but not overly rich or cloying. I pulled out a bottle of this and a jar of that, got out a wooden spoon and the big blue-and-white mixing bowl, and commenced to play with my food.

Here's the result:

CHOCOLATE FLOWER COOKIES

1 and 1/2 cup sucanat (unrefined cane sugar granules)
2 very fresh eggs (gathered from the henhouse the day before)
2 sticks salted butter (you can use unsalted ones if you like)
1 cup or so rolled oats (not too thick--"quick oats" work well)
1 cup or so ground or slivered almonds (I toasted mine first)
1 and 1/2 tsp orange flower water
2 and 1/2 cups unbleached wheat flour (or gluten-free alternative)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt (adjust to your preference)
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
3/4 cup each semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips

Set butter near stove while you cook scrambled eggs for "breakfast, part one" so the heat from the skillet softens it up a bit. Measure the sucanat into a nice big ceramic mixing bowl, add the butter, and stir with a wooden spoon until blended. Remind yourself that this method burns calories, uses no electricity and produces almost no noise, so you can make cookies early in the morning without anyone else waking up and catching on.

Preheat oven (hopefully bigger than ours) to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Add the eggs, one at a time, working the first egg in thoroughly before adding the second one. Blend thoroughly with wooden spoon. Good job: you're burning more calories. Think about your grandmothers. Next, add the orange flower water. Dab a little on your wrists for good measure. My, don't you smell nice!

Fold in the almonds and rolled oats. Consider whether to stop at this point and just call it breakfast. Decide cookies will be worth the extra effort. In a fine-meshed sieve over the mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Shake mixture onto wet ingredients, then fold gently but thoroughly together until fairly well-blended.

Line metal baking sheet with parchment paper and drop spoonfuls of dough so that there's about an inch between the dollops. Bake for 10-20 minutes, depending on the vagaries of your oven and your preferred level of done-ness. Remove from oven and admire with all available senses. Remind yourself that three cookies is probably enough for breakfast. Wake the rest of the household up and share or, if you live alone, hand-deliver a few flower cookies to someone who could use a bouquet.

NOTE: These cookies probably don't need much tweaking to be made gluten-free. Just replace the wheat flour with your preferred mix of GF flours,(coconut flour might be especially apt), and--if needed--binding agents, and be sure to use gluten-free rolled oats.

P.S. Don't ask me how those amazing sticky buns jumped on to the plate behind the finished cookies. That's a whole 'nother story from a whole 'nother baker. If you want to know more, go ask our WWOOF volunteer, Andrew.

The Knights Who Say, "KNEE!"

It's been a few weeks now since the Piper underwent surgery to repair her knee. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that some cartilage ended up somewhere it really ought not to have been, and the surgeon was, well, impressed--not in the way you WANT a surgeon to be.

After months of debilitating pain, followed by a fairly uncomfortable post-surgery recovery, the Piper is inching toward full farmerdom again. Last week, she sat in the midst of everyone else's activity and snipped branches down into kindling. Now she is proudly--if gingerly--hauling cartfuls of whey-soaked bread and wilted veggies down to the pigs in the name of "therapeutic strengthening."

The piper is not one to sit still while others work, so these past few months have been especially hard on her, even with WWOOFers cheerfully pitching in to take over her chores and ease my burden of managing the farm alone. She doesn't respond well to requests to slow down, rest, or be careful. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that she's an avid Red Sox fan, I'm not sure how I would have gotten her to slow down at all--thank heavens for the concept of the "DL" (Disabled List). Only after a reminder that "even star players end up on the DL for months at a time..." could she be convinced to lay down with an ice pack for the afternoon. (It also helped that, thanks to the clock radio, she was able to lay there and listen to baseball games!)

She found the first couple of post-surgery therapy visits pretty excruciating. The muscles hadn't been engaging properly due to the inflammation and misplaced cartilage, so her kneecap was no longer being held in place and riding smoothly where it ought to be. The Piper dutifully performed her prescribed strengthening exercises and acquired a special brace to keep the kneecap from "floating."

Last week, she came home from physical therapy with a new look. Like so many other veterans of Wounded Knee before her, the Piper had borne her suffering bravely and displayed tremendous courage and fortitude. The therapist recognized these qualities and sent her home a newly-decorated hero:

Bread and Salt

Some days are spent singing to seedlings, and some days are spent roping bulls. This day was one of the latter sort. The demands on our household included: a bagpiping gig for a Waldorf school's "May fair," a meeting of a church commission to address environmental and social justice issues, a half-shift of retail clerking in a British import shop, an evening of bull-wrangling and electric fence-troubleshooting, and an unfinished sermon that demanded completion.

The sermon is now complete, such as it is. It is based on one of this Sunday's assigned scripture readings: Luke 24:13-35, also known as "the Road to Emmaus."


BREAD AND SALT: A SERMON for the THIRD SUNDAY of EASTER

If they had had Twitter accounts, Cleopas and his companion would have used them. Like the rest of Jerusalem, they had thought of nothing else but the news and the prophecies, the wild rumours about the man just killed. For three days, the air around them had vibrated with dashed hopes and dangerous words, fearful whispers and mutterings of cynicism and despair. There were gamblers checking the odds of a miracle and prophets forecasting doom or resurrection.

If they'd had television, they'd have been glued to the screen, waiting for a hint or a sign. Or they'd have been on their computers, checking GoogleEarth, zooming in on Golgotha and the stone tomb. They'd be fact-checking the rumors on “Snopes,” the myth-debunking website. They'd be unfriending the women at the tomb on Facebook, because you can't have crazy people posting stuff like that on your wall.

Caught up in the terrible drama and distress of any publicised killing, amidst the desperation of any war zone, the scarcity and fear of any occupied territory, they'd tried to keep hope alive. They'd wanted to believe that this new prophet, Jesus, was different from those who had come before him. Hadn't he shown his wisdom and his power? Hadn't he healed the incurably sick and even raised some from the dead?They'd been drawn in by the stories about him and had come to believe he was someone extraordinary, like the prophets of old. They'd even—and they felt sick and foolish about it now—they'd even waited three days after the horrible humiliation of his crucifixion, just in case he might actually rise from the dead. But maybe that prophecy was just another crazy rumor, after all. Anyhow, Jerusalem was crawling with armed guards and angry crowds and people willing to turn anyone in for a few pieces of silver... it was time to get out of town, time to take a walk.

It was a seven-mile walk, but it might has well have been seventy. Their hearts were heavy and their feet felt like lead. Although the sun beat down, their minds seemed wrapped in a thick fog. Even though they fumbled and struggled to find words, they had a desperate need to talk, because the world they knew had just shifted under them and neither of them could make sense of it alone.

So they walked, bearing the weight of a thousand questions together. They told the story again and again—the parts that made sense and the parts that didn't. They puzzled over the wild tales of Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene, with their announcements of angels and empty tombs—or was it just the work of cruel, faithless people, grave-robbers for whom desecration was just a form of sport?
They hardly noticed the stranger at first. They hadn't heard his approach—they were too busy wrestling with all they'd seen and felt and heard. He seemed familiar, somehow, but they couldn't quite place him—and after all, there had been so many gatherings during Passover in Jerusalem, so many faces in the crowds. And then he asked them to share the story, share the news, as if he somehow hadn't heard?!? It was like he'd been in a cave somewhere, or just fallen out of the sky!

But the stranger listened in a way few people ever listened. Cleopas and his companion found themselves pouring out the whole story, complete with their deepest longings, their dashed hopes, and the despair that threatened to smother them. There was something in the gentle intensity of his gaze, his confident yet humble stance...he was so alive he almost seemed to give off sparks, and their own souls, dry as tinder, had leaned close and been set alight.

Still walking, still talking, their hearts began to burn within them. Who could he be? Where HAD they seen him before? He began to tell them their own stories, and the stories of their people, the holy stories of prophets and infidels, commoners and kings. The road unfurled beyond them like a Torah scroll, their own journey like the footsteps of countless generations. They were Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, Israelites in the wilderness, captives in Babylon—and every character, every chapter, in the stranger's words, pointed to a true Messiah and a new kind of liberation.

The sun dipped low over the hills. Birds flew back to their nests. Goats bleated in the distance, answering a girl's sing-song call as they pointed their nimble hooves toward home. The stranger seemed headed somewhere beyond, but Cleopas and his companion urged him—begged him—passionately insisted that he stay with them instead of travelling on. For them, sundown meant Sabbath. Even though they weren't sure anymore what it meant to keep the holy laws, even though they weren't sure anything could ever feel blessed again, they wanted to welcome this stranger, open their house to him. After days of fear and distrust, they felt moved to hospitality. They wanted to offer him nourishment—this stranger whose words had been like food to one starving.

And then he took bread, blessed it, and broke it. He gave it to them. And their eyes were opened. Their eyes were opened. I might as well say: Earth and Heaven spilled into one another. Creation heaved its sides and life was renewed. They saw the stranger for who he really was: God's own beloved child, Jesus, fully embodied, there at the table with them in full communion. What next? He vanished, but so did all the fears and doubts that had tormented them. They—two nobodies, two half-nameless bystanders at the edge of the crowd, had shared a journey with the Risen Lord and seen him in the breaking and blessing, in the giving of bread.

And where are we, in this story? Where are we, along the road? Do you seek a way out of the city? Do you head towards home? Are your eyes on the horizon, or focused on the dust at your feet? What weight do you carry on your own journey? What stories do you wrestle with over and over, trying to make sense when your world has been turned upside down? Is there any fire in your heart, or just the taste of ashes in your mouth?

The rumours continue to fly. The gamblers continue to make bets. The chief priests of modern media spin their webs, sending sticky strands through the air, hoping to catch us all in their intricate net. They bind our eyes and stop our ears until we stagger and stumble. We lose sight of love's transforming power. We lose sight of liberation.

But Jesus meets us where we are—wherever we wander, whatever path we claim, whatever road... Jesus walks with us—not virtually, but actually. He is right here. He does not appear at the comfortable center, but at the edges and the margins—and he appears not first to the wealthy and powerful, but to grief-stricken women and hot-headed men and weary travellers. He comes to you and to me.

When Cleopas and his companion understood—the Bible says, “that very hour,” they hot-footed it back to Jerusalem. Seven miles. On foot. In the dark. The hard road of that long afternoon was transformed by their joy. They carried The Light with them.

There is a proverb in Russia that says, “eat bread and salt and speak the truth.” Bread—the nourishing gift of Creation, tended and shaped by human hands—this is what matters. Bread is real. So is salt—elementary and basic, there in our very real tears and our honest sweat, in every ocean and every drop of blood. And Jesus is that close to us, that profoundly present. That is the gift of incarnation: that Christ walks with us, weeps with us, reaches out to us, offers us nourishment, and seeks always and everywhere to be revealed. He transforms our own stories and challenges us to broaden our vision. He shows himself wherever we walk together, wherever we invite others in, wherever we show others they are truly welcome at our table.

“Eat bread and salt and speak the truth.” The truth? Christ is risen! The truth? Christ is risen indeed, and he walks with us, all the way!

--copyright MaineCelt, May 2011

Corners!

Did you ever play that game? On long car trips with my family--and church youth group trips as I got older--us back-seaters would watch for tight curves in the road, then call out "Corners!" and lean hard into the turn, giggling as we squished together towards one side or the other. If you were the unfortunate person to bear the brunt of the squish, you could always squish back on the next opposing curve. The best place to be was in the middle, cozily sandwiched between the two squish-initiators. There you could feel both of them leaning into you, all of you laughing together. There you could participate equally in every round, protected from the game's rough edges by the bolstering presence of siblings or friends.

Last week, on the eve of the winter solstice, a friend posted the following on Facebook: "Everyone in the northern hemisphere: We're headed into the turn, so lean to the inside and let's get this marble headed back toward yon star!" It was a delightful image: a game of corners on a cosmic scale.

There have been plenty of hard turns on our wild ride. A few months back, we found a wide spot in the road, pulled over to consider the view, and then invited two other pilgrims to share our ride. To clarify: we found ourselves two fine young farmhands, a young couple of hopeful farmers who need a place to test their agricultural aptitude. They moved in to our "spare" room (who needs an office, anyway?) shortly before Christmas. Within a few days they'd rolled up their sleeves and demonstrated their commitment by taking over afternoon chores and splitting a winter's worth of firewood. One of them headed into our woods to inventory local flora & fauna while the other lent a hand with pig-butchering.

Weary from the intensely public jobs they'd just escaped, they begged off the chance to help at the farmers' market, but made up for it by tending house, animals, and woodstove each time I trundled out. They also found some beautiful mushrooms in our woods and turned them into jewelry so we'd have additional goods to sell at the winter market. In a few days, we look forward to sitting down around the table together so we can plan a host of permaculture projects. They'll be able to draw on our hard-won wisdom and experience, and we'll be able to draw on their fresh ideas and energy. Now, my overall enthusiasm is a bit rusty--we've had a rough run, as I said--but I think I can safely say we're rather pleased, both by their presence and the accompanying possibilities!

After years of white-knuckled wheel-turning, it's a challenge to relax, but they're ready to help with the driving...so, laughing and leaning, around the corners we go!

We Bought the Farm!!!

It seemed right to save the 100th post for something special. Does the act of becoming full and rightful owners of our property (albeit with a 40-year mortgage) count as special enough?

We think so.

More news later... right now we're too exhausted from signing papers. Also, we're waiting for the full reality of this great news to sink in after some very long, hard years.

WE BOUGHT THE FARM!!!

Fortunately, Unfortunately...

Unfortunately-- my laptop case was stolen last week.

FORTUNATELY-- my laptop wasn't in it.

UNFORTUNATELY-- my wallet/coinpurse was.

FORTUNATELY-- my wallet and coinpurse were completely empty of money, so I just need to replace my driver's license, debit card, and car insurance card.

UNFORTUNATELY-- my digital camera was also in the case, so there will be no new photographs to illustrate this blog for a while.

FORTUNATELY-- I'd already downloaded nearly everything on the camera, so I didn't lose anything genuinely irreplaceable.

UNFORTUNATELY-- The laptop case was also full of loan paperwork for our farm refinancing, which has been in process since September 2009.

FORTUNATELY-- the loan officer has copies of everything in that two-inch-thick file of papers he's accumulated on us...and, IF (BIG IF) the appraisal goes well, we just might finally Own The Farm...

UNFORTUNATELY-- we still have the appraisal to get through. Yikes. Anybody up for a little carpentry or yardwork?

FORTUNATELY-- we are hard-working people with friends far and near. Whichever sort you are--or even if you're simply a reader we do not yet know as a friend, we humbly invite your good thoughts and prayers for a decent appraisal and the approval of our loan.

Moran Taing / Many Thanks!
We'll keep you posted...

Another Leveraged Bale Out

The cows weren't expecting this. There they stood, in the pre-dawn winter darkness, looking aimless and sleepy in the middle of the snowy field. Our boots crunched in the ice-crusted snowdrifts as we approached the top of the hill. We would have to be decisive. We would have to be swift.

But it's hard to be swift when you're moving a 4-foot-diameter 500-pound bale. No matter how deep the cleats are on your boots, it's hard to gain purchase in ice and snow. By the time I'd brushed the snow off the plastic-wrapped bale and rocked it loose from the ground, those cows--in spite of the darkness--were acting suspicious.

So, we pushed. The Piper and I leaned our shoulders into the bale, muckling on as well as we could with our gloved hands. We paused to re-plant our feet and rocked the bale some more. Finally, we leveraged that behemoth up...and...over...so that it rolled two full revolutions down the hill. Unfortunately, it was headed exactly NOT towards the pasture gate.

Pause for another correction. The Piper and I stand at opposite "corners" of the bale and push, slowly spinning it a quarter-turn until it's aimed in the right direction. Now the cows are lined up at the gate, snorting and tossing their forelocks. Iona, queen of the cattlefold, firmly plants herself at the fore.

Cows are not good at physics. I suspect their phenomenal digestion is the primary location of their intelligence. No, perhaps that's unfair-- there's nothing in their primal cognition to help them respond when a pair of two-leggeds starts rolling a giant marshmallow down the hill towards the pasture gate before dawn. We had the right voices, at least, so we weren't intruders... and when we sliced the haywrap just before the final push through the gate, those cows caught the clean vinegarish scent that announced incoming food. Hunger and curiosity dictated their subsequent arrangement.

And so it was that, when we gave the final push, that bale rolled down the hill, through the gate, farther down the hill with gathering speed, and...smacked broadside into that poor silly heifer. She gave a surprised wee jump forward, then turned around and stared reproachfully (balefully?) at the still-wrapped bale. I hustled down into the field and pulled off the haywrap. As the tasty contents were revealed, the heifer hung back and stared a minute more--just long enough for me to pull the wrapper off and out of the way--then moved in, determined to bite her breakfast right back.

So this is how the New Year begins: with rolling bales, chores before dawn, well-fed cows, strong women, leverage and surprises. We're ready, even if the cows aren't. Bring it on!!!