Another leaves

It is beginning to feel like this these days in the field.

With the back to school commercials in the media, the coolness of the evenings, the earlier and earlier sunsets. I look forward with all my heart, to the season of Autumn, and I reject with all my heart, the season that follows after; winter. And so I am conflicted.


Another leaves the nest this very day. It is time for the last of our brood to leave and make his way in this world. Micah is off to school this afternoon.

He has found a good landing space for now, and will be heading off to CLBI for the year. And God being God about these things, has undertaken to provide him with just enough money for today. The exact amount. It's turning into a great life story. The kind of story we all need, as we transition from our parents faith to our own.

So there are all these mixed up feeling happening here. Memories of when I headed off to seek my fame and fortune. Memories of each one of our other children as they left home for school, taking pieces of our hearts with them.

There are lots of good-byes in life, and some start the moment they leave the womb. This journey away is filled with excitement and a deep sense of joy when they do well out there. But there are moments too of loss and great empty spaces in our day to day lives.

Mostly though, it's about the joy. At least that's what I tell myself.

and suddenly I'm doing a graveside service here tomorrow

I just found out today, because the "regular guy" wasn't around.
I was asked at the last and I'm glad to do it.

She's 79 years old and it will be a state sponsored event.
Her children are all gone,
Her love, he died three years ago.
She has no close family.

No obituary, no history.
A birth date and a death date. That's all they have. Nothing more.
Tonight I'm in the office doing some digging, trying to find, well, anything.

I find a friend.
We piece together as well as we can, a bit about her life.
God has been a part of her story in the latter years.
A cheerful gal who loves people and her flowers.
Who had children who are all gone.
Who was born under a heavy cross she bore all her life.

How do these people ever face life with enough courage to even attempt to create something beautiful. And try again and again when it fails?

I am amazed again at the resiliency of life. Her life.
And tomorrow I have the honour of helping with her farewell.
A very real change from death to life.

It will be grand, even if it's only a few of us.

Rough night last night

10:50 pm it started.

Lightning, thunder, rain.
Then more and more it came.
The whole sky lit up like daylight.
And the thunder grew and grew and pounded the field.

On one particular close hit, I heard Micah scream like a girl out there in the Sun Room.
It was close.

Then came the hail. Pounds and pounds of hail.
Pea sized, marble sized.
Like a snow storm it came and you couldn't see through it.

And I was sick as I thought about how good the crops had been looking around here... till then.

The rain poured forth so much that it seemed the whole of the yard was running downhill.

The storm hammered us for some time. A solid half hour to forty five minutes.

Hail piled up at the corners of the house like snow.






We fell asleep with the thunder moving off into the distance.

This morning the damage is clear.
The hail was still piled up where we left it last night.

The garden was shredded. Cucumber plants now holier than I am. Tomato plants with all their top branches sheared off. We should still be ok with the fruit though. Lots of tomatoes beneath the tough leaves, and cucumbers are hardy souls themselves. We'll see if the lattice worked leaves can support them growing still.

And the close lightning hit has destroyed the internet radio, and looks like the router too. So that will all take work and money and time to get going again.

But none of it compares to what some of these farmers must be dealing with. It was such a full crop too.

We are glad for no injuries, no loss of life here.
God has been good to us again in that way, and I'm thankful.

But it was a rough one here in the field last night.


At least it isn't snowing here like it is in the Chilean desert, where it hasn't snowed in 400 years.

New Beginnings

For a New Beginning

In out of the way places of the heart

Where your thoughts never think to wander

This beginning has been quietly forming

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire

Feeling the emptiness grow inside you

Noticing how you willed yourself on

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the grey promises that sameness whispered

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue