Formless Babble

Balancing chaos and contemplation -- maintaining serenity in the face of potentially overwhelming external events.  I sometimes wonder whether this is the true task of being human.  In the greater scheme of things moving the worldly aspects of my life from one place to another pales in its significance.  In its immediate impact on me and my aging body and in its effect on the care that we give to our animals and on the care that I take with my spiritual life the significance is huge.  Scale.  I am less than a pin-prick in the fabric of creation, yet I am all that I really know.  So I move on - 'creeps on this petty pace from day to day' thankful for friends and relationships and family that keep me connected with God and the Great Reality beyond my fleshly existence.

Speaking of relationships and family, I miss my daughter.  I haven't been able to connect with her for quite a while, and it makes me sad.

Coming Up For Air (And Light)

It has been a month since my last blog entry, a month that has been extraordinarily busy, almost frenzied.  I have definitely not been attentive to the query in NEYM Faith and Practice which asks: "Do you take care that your spiritual growth is not sacrificed to busyness but instead integrates your life's activities?"  My spiritual growth, indeed my spiritual life, has been on hold.  I am beginning to breathe again and to open my eyes (Mk 10:51,52) to the Light.

The busyness of the past month has been related to the details of selling our Leverett house and buying the Colrain house.  The new septic system for Leverett is in, and a monumental task that was.  The new hardwired, interconnected smoke/CO alarm system (required by Mass. regulations) is installed and working.  We have moved a couple of trailer loads of stuff to an intermediate storage area -- including all of our books, CDs and records that friends have helped us pack.  Tentative arrangements have been made with others to help transport the rest.  All of this while tending to our animals and continuing farm operations.  We have a closing date on the Leverett house of October 29 and an agreement to move into the Colrain house the same day.

The fruit of all of this work is a new farm in a beautiful spot with pasture outside the back door.  In a future entry I hope to be able to launch into a long rant about the beauty and other amenities of the newest version of Winterberry Farm.

A final word for today:  immense gratitude to our friends in Leverett and Mount Toby meeting.  We couldn't have made it this far without your loving support and help.

Although it has been a hectic few days, I have been thinking about issues of safety.  This theme has been with me for a long time (look at my career!) but recently raised by a number of things including a requirement to add hard-wired, interconnected smoke detectors to our house before it is sold.  I also think about safety in a couple of other ways.  Some people have looked at our impending move as (perhaps) imprudent given that we are 'old' and thus more likely to be in need of emergency care at some point in the not too distant future.  The question, then, is why move to a remote area with no cell phone coverage and a 30 minute ambulance ride to the hospital?  This question may be the logical equivalent of why go to a movie theater when someone might come in a shoot the place up?  Or why work in a New York high rise when terrorists might come and crash an airplane into it?  Or why go swimming when you might drown?  Ultimately human beings die.  The issue is not that our lives end but rather what do we do with our lives while we are here present.  I feel that I have a lot more pondering to do about this before I write further, and I am holding two thoughts this morning:

Psalm 127

Unless the Lord builds the house,
   those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
   the guard keeps watch in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
   and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
   for he gives sleep to his beloved.


and:

time past and time future
what has been and what might have been
point to one end
which is always present

-T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

My new haircut. 

This is less about perseverating about my haircut and more about learning how to use the camera feature on this laptop.

For the past two weeks Jill and I have managed to get to mid-week worship at Woolman Hill (5:30-6:30 each Wednesday).    After worship there is an opportunity for attenders to share out of the silence about how the Spirit is moving in their lives.  Everybody usually says something, but each of these recent times I have not been moved to speak.  Not because the Spirit isn't moving in my life -- it is.  It's more about resting in the Spirit.  The mid-week worship has been a time of refreshment and relaxing into what is rather than a time of sharing and ministry.   It has helped me recharge my batteries to go back out into the world and deal, once again, with busyness.  This 'recharge, refreshment, relaxation' happens in community among fellow seekers.  It happens with relationship.  So, with my loins properly girded with connection with God and my Quaker community I proceed into the day with gratitude and a smile.

 This is a selection of photos taken on Tuesday, 9/17/2013 of the house in Colrain that Jill and I are in the process of buying.
 The North side of the house.
 The garage addition faces West.
The South side.  Greenhouse with deck on top.
 The front of the house facing East.
 Living room.
 Front parlor with woodstove.
 The Front stairs.
 Master bedroom
 The attic.

 The fields.  Ahhhhh... the fields.




The pond.

 

Haircut

Yesterday afternoon I went to my barber, the woman who has been cutting my hair for years in a small, local, one-person shop.  I was contemplating a bittersweet moment, a final haircut in a familiar place with a person who has known me in a partially intimate way for a long time.  Even if she doesn't remember my name, she remembers a lot about me and what I do -- things shared in the chair while other guys waited.  I know a fair amount about her too.  About her kids and her growing up and the neighborhood and her new house and the dogs. So I was prepared to be sentimental.  Instead, she had a girlfriend of hers there and they were chatting, distracted, through the two men ahead of me and through three-quarters of my cut.  She was also snacking while cutting.  During the last part of my cut she asked a few questions about what was going on for me, how is the farm? how is my wife? how are the kids' programs?  I answered with short, factual replies.  She noted that I appeared to be in a bad mood and I acknowledged that I had things on my mind.  She finished, I paid with the usual tip, and I left the shop without looking back.

Usually a haircut leaves me fresh and upbeat.  Even though I am mostly bald (or perhaps because of that fact) a haircut reminds me that I am still vital, alive, and growing.  I usually admire myself in the truck mirror before leaving the parking lot and look at myself in the bathroom mirror several times at home.  I always wait for Jill to notice that I have been trimmed and she often remarks that it looks good.  This time I didn't look.  Jill remarked that I looked 'skinned' and I know from the feel that it is too short.

This morning I will look in the mirror before we go to inspect the Colrain farmhouse we are moving to in a few weeks.  I will be satisfied that I am still vital, alive, and growing.  And I will regret the loss of relationship.

Sometimes things move so quickly.  Or so it seems.  Jill and I have been thinking and talking and looking at farm property for years.  Now it appears that our place in sold (purchase and sale agreement imminent) and we have an accepted offer on a new farm in Colrain.  All of the busyness and stress leaves me breathless.  I've just worked two more shifts at the hospital,  Maud the errant Border Collie came home (or maybe never left), we have continued to do farm chores, and a very full First Day morning at Mt Toby meeting with many people and kids.  I long for time to read and contemplate life and maybe nap.  Life is rich and full.

When I took the livestock guarding dogs (Alka and Boro) over to the sheep last night I was treated to a spectacular light show from an approaching thunder storm.  As I fed them and the sheep the thunder began to roll and rain began to spit.  I put my cell phone and my wallet in the truck to keep dry and kept on with the chores, thinking about how the chains I attach to the truck to feed Alka and Boro before putting them in with the sheep make perfect grounds for lightning.  Everything went fine and I finished the chore and drove home.  Several thoughts occur to me:  I resonate to the light and power of thunder storms.  I am reminded that I am not in charge, that life and nature are transient, rich, and beautiful.  I also know that there are consequences to my actions, that if I make perfect ground connections that I am increasing the risk of a lethal consequence.  So, part of my humanity is risk taking - something I already knew about myself.  In my youth I joined the Army and went to Vietnam, then spent 20 years in law enforcement.  I still drive too fast for conditions.  I am selling my house with no fixed replacement for me (and Jill), my animals and my other property.  I take other risks on a daily basis, sometimes without thinking about consequences.  At least I don't drink.  I wonder about how much of human "progress" is as a result of this kind of risk taking, whether it is adaptive.  I wonder how much of it is "male" and a product of testoserone surges.  I guess I'm not too old after all.

A negative consequence to the thunder storm:  Maude, one of our Border Collies and Jill's favorite, is extraordinarily thunder-phobic.  She got out at the beginning of the storm last night and still hasn't returned.  We've looked for her to no avail.  I hope she comes back soon.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013 
More house sale stuff today... the buyers appraiser was here and our first low ball offers on a farm in Colrain were countered higher than we want to go.  I have many conflicting feelings about all of this.  First, not having the buyer jump at our house at the full price feels like a rejection (even though rationally I know it is not).  I've lived here for most of twenty-eight years and put a lot of time, effort and money into it.  How dare anyone not love it?  Also, the prospect of leaving Leverett where I have so many friends and where Mt Toby meeting is.  I was a policeman here for 8 years and a selectman for more than four.  Wherever I go will be starting new... not an easy concept when you're in your seventieth year.  Then there's having your first choice for a new farm slipping out of your reach and having to settle for a second or third choice.  Isn't living a good, long life up to this point worth something on the farm marketplace?  Finally, all this whining and kvetching is eating away at the edges of my soul.  I need to maintain an 'attitude of gratitude' and not succumb to the hubris most entitled middle class American men wallow in.  Writing in this blog is one attempt to accept what life gives me, to take peaceful joy in the gifts that I have been given.

I worked 3-11 at the hospital this evening.  I have three days off coming up.  Jill has left me a comprehensive list of things we need to do during that time and all I want to do is nap and read.  I'll feel better in the morning.

9 September, the second day of my 70th year.  First, an apology for the title of this blog -- it's the title of a biography of Rufus Jones by Elizabeth Gray Vining.  I am not saying that I am like Rufus Jones, but I am saying that I am a friend of life - in all its many forms.

Yesterday was a momentous day - the first day of my seventieth year, the day my wife Jill and I accepted an offer on our house and the day a small group of friends met with us and confirmed our leading to offer to buy a farm in Colrain that meets our needs for pasture land next to the house.  It was also a day when I received a happy birthday e-mail from my daughter to my great delight.  And meeting at Mt Toby yesterday was the first day of new scheduling forms for first day school and worship.  A lot of new vistas opening for me.

This first, rather halting, attempt at a blog is a reflection on that newness and an expression of gratitude that life and relationship and love continue as long as you are open and willing to be led.