Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical disguise. 
―Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen

Ah Gwendolyn, your truth is magnificent! So much of life’s wisest counsel could be summed up in these four words: exhaust the little moment. And though there are those who are experts in exhausting the little moment, there are more–like me–who could benefit from some serious mentoring.

I admit that I naturally succumb to little moments that involve little people. Particularly the little people I love most: my granddaughter Gracyn and grandson Griffin. For example, I relished the moment captured in the photo above. Gracyn and Griffin wearing my ankle boots, clomping across the floor, giggling at each other as they worked hard to stay upright. When Gracyn commented, “I just love the sound these boots make when I walk on the wood floor,” the little moment deepened instantly into genuine deja vu. I remember loving this same sound as my sisters and I strolled up and down the sidewalk in my Aunt Susie’s hand-me-down beauty pageant pumps. And when Griff proclaimed, “These are my cowboy boots, Grandma!” the little moment burst into big-time glee as Gracyn and I could hardly contain ourselves. Little moments seem altogether right in the company of little people.

And when those little people grow into big people? These little moments are fleeting and run the risk of going unnoticed or being brushed over. This past week, my son moved out of our home into his first rental house. Once my little boy, he is now a man with a teaching job soon to begin and a home of his own. As we were moving boxes and furniture, he stopped, turned to look at the sofa and said, “Thanks for arranging the pillows, Mom.” Such an ordinary act, a little moment. Miniscule, actually, in the grand scheme of things. But for him it spoke love, and for me it spoke reassurance: you are still needed and appreciated. I am certain that in the days to come, when I look at the empty floor of our entry way, the floor that was once covered with athletic shoes and sweatshirts, I will remember this moment, for it will not come again in this identical disguise. 

And though these little moments will certainly pass, Henry David Thoreau writes that You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Herein lies the paradox of little moments: they ground you solidly in the here-and-now AND promise the mystery of eternity.

There are little moments that have–in many ways–defined my life. And perhaps they should have defined my life in greater, more lasting ways. When I was in fifth grade and an avid kickball player, I was chosen captain during afternoon recess. Having won the coin toss, I scanned the playground before me, my expectant classmates crowding in. Certainly I would pick David Wisch, the hands-down best kickball player at Park Elementary School.

But something on this particular day–something heavenly I’d like to think–caused me to look beyond the pressing throng of fifth graders to Don S., who stood sullenly at the back. No one ever chose Don; he joined a team by default, last man standing. Always. On that day, in that little moment, I spoke the name that no one, Don included, expected. “I choose Don.” I’m not sure if my memory is accurate, but in my mind’s eye, I see Don with his head down, his shoulders slumped forward. I see one of my classmates nudge him and urge him forward to join my team. And I see him cast me a look that both moved and shamed me. Me? You really want me? 

I don’t remember if my team won or lost that day. But I remember the look, the little moment during which I honestly saw Don, perhaps for the first time, as a human being worthy of being chosen first. Today, I can say that I wish that this little moment had defined me in deeper, more lasting ways. I wish that I had always looked at those edge people, those who were perpetually invisible, those who expected nothing but wanted anything from those who looked over and around them. I wish that not a single Don S. would have escaped my notice.

Holocaust survivor and author, Viktor E. Frankl wrote:

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.

Oh how I wish that the specific meaning of my life might have been shaped at that given moment. And how I understand that it is not the meaning of  my life in general but rather the sum of a lifetime of choices made and a lifetime of opportunities taken in little moments.

Author Maya Angelou understands a significant truth about little moments:

. . . I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

To be completely wedded to the moment and yet ready to be completely wedded to the next moment. I have seen this truth lived out in people who genuinely live life abundantly. These are the individuals who live with the assurance that abundance lies paradoxically in the smallest, and often most ordinary, experiences. Wedding oneself to these small, ordinary experiences is, perhaps, the most sacred, live-affirming marriage.

The most wonderful thing about the Sanctuary of Little Moments is that its entrance is wide and admission is free. Anyone may enter, young and old. And those who have missed decades of little moments? It’s never too late to wed themselves to present and future moments. It’s never too late to join the fellowship of those who have been wedding themselves to little moments for years.

American author, Henry Miller, aptly describes the Sanctuary of Little Moments:

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world itself.

Little moments unlock a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world itself. They give credence to the expression that less may be more. If we will but wed ourselves to them, give the best of our hearts and souls to them, they will bless us with mystery and magnificence beyond our comprehension.

So when Gracyn stoops to pick up a snail the size of a pencil eraser–small enough that I really need reading glass to see it well–I will stop and take serious notice. For this little moment–and those that will follow–may never come again in this identical disguise. 

Revelations 8:3-4

And another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given him, that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. 

Summer Blessing

The hills wear gray today.

And for one hour,

the horizon is lost in mist.

In the hollows,

it sits solidly.

Along the road, watery webs string from weed

to weed.

It’s July, but I can see my breath,

can feel the damp assurance

of autumn.

At 6 a.m.

there is only You,

only me.

Here the unspoken words of my prayers

sleep protected in heart pockets

like vapors

wrapped in velvet.

Here in this dawn cocoon

I am unafraid as I unwrap each word:

a series of small nouns,

an urgent adverb.

And then a single verb rises,

tentative at first,

then determined to break

for sky.

Bless

Bless me

Bless me Father

for I have sinned.

Exodus 34: 33-35

The face of Moses kept shining and after he had spoken with the people, he covered his face with a veil. . . he would put the veil back on until the next time he went to speak with the Lord. 

Transfiguration

I seldom look up,

for each morning the panorama of green overwhelms me:

waves of hickory and oak,

elm and black walnut.

At once, the deep green forest

in the gullies,

then silver and sage

at the ridge.

The emerald sheen of new mown fields,

the yellow-green of roadside yarrow

and stems of sweet clover.

I walk and wear the veil of green at dawn.

And when I return home,

I cannot look upon the ordinary things of my day.

I pull the far corner of the veil across my eyes

and do not speak.

Our Father who art in Heaven:

the hazy vista of eastern Davis County,

the unexpected ditch of day lilies,

the sweet mingling of clover

and dew at dawn.

And above,

five redwing blackbirds

waving in the scarlet light

of the the first day.

Hallowed be Thy name. 

Bunting Light

  for Susan and David                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           June 17, 2017

When spring gives way to summer,

the world spreads out before us.

Once quiet and dormant,

now verdant and vibrant,

sacramentally brilliant.

The air is filled with bird song

and wild honeysuckle.

Nuthatches and rose-breasted grosbeaks take to the trees;

red-winged blackbirds and thrushes dot the thickets.

And in June light,

burnt umber and crimson flash in the foliage.

But the indigo bunting hides,

its silhouette dark atop distant trees.

It takes just the right light,

a single ray that pierces the clouds

and filters the too-bright.

And then black gives way

to cerulean and aquamarine

in bunting light.

So it is with love,

which waits, cocooned in the heart.

Quiet yet perfect,

patient, ever expectant.

Until just the right light–

a single prayer that pierces the heart–

unwraps its cocoon.

Then prayer gives way to love

in bunting light.

And in this sacred space,

this sanctuary of light and grace,

two souls wed.

During the last few months, I finished two historical novels that profiled ordinary people in the French Resistance and Americans who, in desperation and without work, traveled to Russia during the Great Depression in search of better prospects promised by advertisements in The New York Times. Different times, people, and places, but I couldn’t help but be moved and burdened with the abject hunger that serves as perhaps the most significant protagonist of all. There were too many passages in both novels that chronicled the ques of hungry people waiting for hours for whatever they could buy that day. A quarter pound of butter, an onion or potato, a wedge of cheese. There was no shopping for what you needed or wanted; there was only waiting and hoping that the day’s ration would be something to fill their empty bellies. There were too many descriptions of the persistent wasting-away, of the lethargy and hopelessness that comes from weeks of subsisting on broth, of the living who were daily dying. Both novels left me with a literal pit in my stomach and images that I will not soon forget.

I recalled similar passages in other works I had read. Hunger is always a major character in Holocaust works. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he writes:

Bread, soup – these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.

To be reduced to a body, a starved stomach. To trade your dignity for a piece of bread, your soul for soup. I cannot imagine the injuries that hunger inflicts on on body and soul, for I have never been so hungry that my next meal was my whole life. 

We want to feed the souls of those who hunger, and we acknowledge, as Pranab Mukherjee argues, that there is no humiliation more abusive than hunger. We understand, however, that we must first feed their stomachs. Mahatma Gandhi writes:

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

The truest missionaries bring God to the hungry in the form of bread or cassava root or corn. They truly see those who wear hunger draped over their shoulders, a dreary moth-ridden cassock to hide their skeletal forms. They work lovingly from the stomach to the soul. And they never underestimate or forget the miraculous ways God works through bread.

But so many are ravaged by seasons of hunger. During my trip to Nigeria, I saw children who could have benefited from some meat on their bones. Literally. Distended bellies, upper arms and legs you could close your hand around, and clothing that hung much too loosely from their frail frames. For three weeks, I was habitually hungry because I didn’t like Nigerian food and chose to eat little. But the Nigerians were habitually hungry because they didn’t have enough food to eat. I had access to food; they didn’t. I would return to America and order a cheeseburger and fries on my first night back; they would share want with their brothers and sisters most nights.

And yet, it was this very hunger that drove them to the maize fields outside their villages, to the river for clean water, to the market to barter for whatever they can get. This hunger drives parents to spend precious naira on uniforms that will admit their children to private schools where they will spend their days in open air classrooms equipped with crude wooden tables and a single chair for every two students, with teachers who painstakingly write all they know and wish to impart on cracked chalkboards that serve as the only textbooks their students will ever know. No electricity for lights or computers–just the pressing hope that these children will find a better life with three meals a day, modern conveniences, and access to quality health care that will save their children’s teeth and eyes and lives. In the face of unimaginable unemployment, governmental corruption, and the brutal terrorism of Boko Haram, this hunger drives their dreams and fuels their hope. This is a hunger that both haunts and blesses them.

Where is this hunger in our country? In Africa, it enveloped me and left indelible scars on my soul and psyche. And though I occasionally see it in my own schools and community, I have never see anything of the magnitude I saw in Africa. Here, we staff soup kitchens and missions, food pantries and backpack programs, open our churches, schools, and community centers for free meals. We feed people. I have no doubts that most of these folk are hungry, but as we feed their stomachs, I can’t help but wonder if they hunger for more.

Do they hunger for the dignity and financial security that comes from work, any type of work? Do they hunger for the privilege to be educated? Do they hunger for their children’s futures? Does their hunger both haunt and bless them as it does for others in third world countries?

Whereas most will not turn away a free meal, many may turn away from other opportunities, including educational opportunities. I recall being at a regional meeting during which a college official addressed the high school administrators in attendance by saying Just send us some kids–any kids–and we’ll get them through our technical programs. And so my high school did. The young men we sent ultimately stopped attending classes, did not get through, and almost did not graduate high school. They were handed a tremendous free opportunity by those who intended to get them through using whatever means they had to use. But when they stopped attending classes, even the well-intentioned college officials had no choice but to fail them. In the end, these young men were not hungry enough to eat what was given to them. I suppose they were holding out for a better meal served on china–not plastic.

Did my students hunger to learn, to prepare themselves for a life beyond school? As I ended my career, I found that the most hungry were often students whose parents and guardians hungered for them. These adults were those who invested time and energy into their children’s educations, who sacrificed greatly for their children’s futures, and who harnessed and used their own hunger for the benefit of their children’s bodies and souls. The hunger that had haunted their own past lives blessed their children’s future lives.

Clearly, if it were within my power, I would feed all those who are truly starving. Then I would provide the necessary training, education, infrastructure, and economic means for all able-bodied individuals who wish to work and feed themselves and their own families. And finally, I would feed their souls. This would take care of much of the world’s hunger.

And for my own country?Again, I would feed those who are truly hungry.  But then, if it were in my power, I would create a genuine hunger for the dignity of work, for true education, and for service to others. I would work so that more could experience the potential blessing of hunger and not just the curse.

Novelist George Eliot writes:

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.

Many of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world have not given up longing and wishing. They hunger for food, for better lives, for the beautiful and good. The fact that they hunger is both tragic and inspiring.

As I look around my community and country, I want all children’s bellies to be full. But I think we could do with some real hungering for the beautiful and good, as well as a keener appetite for educational opportunities, employment training, and generally improving one’s lot in life. This is the hunger that blesses, and we could really use some hunger of this sort.

Footnote:  Thousands of Americans migrated to Russia in 1931. Destitute and desperate for employment, housing, and benefits promised by Russian  advertisements in The New York Times, they left their homeland for a Worker’s Paradise. Once there, most were stripped of their passports and eventually accused of counter-revolutionary acts in Stalin’s totalitarian state. They worked and starved; they lived in fear and want.  Many were sent to prison or were executed. Antonio Garrido gives his account of this migration in his historical fiction novel, The Last Paradise. Through this novel, I learned of the terrible hunger that Americans suffered–hunger for food, for heat, for protection from the Russian secret police and Stalin’s regime, and finally for a safe return to America.

Disclaimer: I love dogs, pygmy goats, rabbits and horses, all creatures great and small. But I am decidedly and devotedly a cat person. Ask my family: I have yet to meet a cat I didn’t like. Short or long-haired, Siamese, Persian or Maine Coon, I love them all.

Two weeks ago, one of my outside cats (you know you’re a cat lover when you have inside AND outside cats!) had kittens. When I awakened that morning to find her in labor, I sat in the early morning chill, holding my breath and whispering push–push now as she gave birth to five kittens during the course of the morning. Cats are birthing machines, and I reveled in the relative ease and efficiency with which she birthed and after-birthed. What a woman, I thought as she nestled all five into her for their first feeding.

English Romantic poet Robert Southey wrote: A kitten is, in the animal world, what a rosebud is in the garden. Sitting on the floor of my screened-in porch, I was smitten with the five little rosebuds in front of me. I couldn’t wait to tell my granddaughter and grandson that we finally had kittens, for they had been coming over daily to check to see if there were babies yet. As the rosebuds wiggled and rolled into one compact gray and white mass, I couldn’t help but think What a great day this is!

Japanese haiku writer Kobayashi Issa is a cat lover after my own heart:

Arise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings…
Amble out for love

This is one of the greatest things about cats: they amble out for love. No over-eager licking or jumping up or general pushiness for cats. They are amblers whose love is manifested in curling up and purring and general hanging out. And I like that very much.

British veterinarian and author James Herriot claims that cats are the connoisseurs of comfort. On a rainy day or a cold winter night, there is nothing like the sweet weight and warmth of a cat stretched out on your chest as you read or nap. This is comfort to rival the finest spa experience. Add a generous dose of purring, and this is heaven-come-to-earth.

As one who often turns off the radio as I drive, I value the quiet space in which I can think and dream. Cats afford a rare companionship in solitude. Mark Twain wrote that if animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. This rare grace of never saying a word too much is an attribute I admire, one to which most humans might aspire.

In the weeks to come, my grandchildren and I will set about naming the kittens. Just as naming my children was serious business, so, too, is naming my cats. As the kittens’ personalities emerge, we will try out names in pursuit of the best extension and reflection of each cat. One day’s name may be discarded in favor of a new, and hopefully more suitable, name the next day. Some kittens may receive people names, while others do not. Serious as this naming business is, it is not a science so much as a labor of love. I currently have a Pierre and a Phil, the fanciful French cat and the redneck Iowa cat. A wild stray who took me weeks to tame, a peanut of a cat, finally earned the name Birdie when it was clear that she would remain forever petite, eating more like a bird than a feline. Over the course of decades, I have had a Scamper and a Puff–regular cat names–as well as a Jade and a Darth–not-so-regular cat names. Poet T. S. Eliot understood the difficulty of finding just the right cat name:

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

            .   .    .

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

[Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats]

A name that both cannot be uttered, cannot be described in words AND one that can. This is the paradoxical task of naming cats, and I tell you,  it is not just one of your holiday games. After all, the kitten with the face that looks oddly like a monkey (according to my granddaughter) cannot continue to be called Monkey Boy. There is a dignity in this naming process, and both she and I understand that he deserves much better.

Each morning before I make coffee, I walk to the sliding door onto my screened-in porch to check on the five rosebuds. Often, they are contently gathered into their mother, one furry ball of sleep. Other times, they are trying on their new legs, wobbling to the edge of the cat bed, desperately focusing their new eyes on the shadow and shape that is their mother. Knowing that I can open the door, scoop them up, and take in the wonder of kittens? This is one of the best ways to start (and end) each day.

We have a dog, two bunnies, chickens, a fish, two adopted ducks at the pond, and cats. If it were up to me, we would have more of everything. Still, there is–and will always be–a special place in my heart and my home for cats. Though I haven’t yet told my husband, we will have kittens again in a couple weeks. Birdie-the-petite is not so petite these days. And this is great news for a cat lover like me who understands that the rosebuds will have cousins to play with this summer. What could be more glorious than a cozy clutch of kittens and their mothers who devotedly amble out for love?

It was the last day of school before Christmas vacation, and the afternoon dragged on as I watched the snow blanket the playground. As a fifth grader, I was counting the minutes until we were loosed from school and could begin the official countdown until Christmas.

At the final bell, my sisters and I bundled up for the five-minute walk home. By the time we reached the back door, snowflakes clung to our our eyelashes, and our mittens were damp. My mom was waiting for us in the kitchen as we unbuttoned, unbooted, shaking wet snow from our coats. I know it isn’t Christmas yet, but I have an early present for you girls. Come with me. 

We followed my mom into her sewing room and there it was in the corner: a two-story Barbie house that my mom had lovingly crafted from cardboard boxes and furnished with velvet-covered tin-can chairs, cereal box bed, and real curtains. It was magnificent! Speechless, we gathered around the house to take in every room and accessory.

For as long as I can remember, my mom has worked miracles on a limited budget. Barbie houses, prom dresses, bedroom makeovers came to life through my mom’s vision and skills. She learned to upholster and to refinish furniture, to decorate our home for every holiday with pieces she made in ceramics and to make sure that we had special clothes for special occasions. From my mom, I learned to shop at garage sales and thrift shops before this became fashionable. Under her tutelage, I learned what I would need to know when, years later, I would attempt to work miracles on a limited budget for my own family,

More than things, however, my mom created events. Friday nights were hamburgers and chips on TV trays and one glorious hour of Lost in Space. Sunday afternoons might find us driving country roads, scavenging old door knobs from abandoned farm houses and searching the ditches for milkweed pods and cattails. And then there were the old-shirt-it’s-time days. When my dad’s shirts became worn enough that my mom was never going to let my dad be seen wearing them in public, she gave us the go-ahead to literally rip the shirt off my dad’s body. As he feigned surprise and gave half-hearted attempts to evade us, we ran and ripped, ripped and ran. Until ribbons of plaid sport shirt hung from my dad’s shoulders. Until, squealed out, we lay breathless in the grass clutching fistfuls of fabric as trophies.

And on 4th of July? She created THE event of the summer. With coolers of eggs, bacon, and juice and boxes of donuts, we made the annual trip to Ft. Kearney Recreation Area for breakfast on the beach and swimming after. As years went by, neighbors, college friends, and assorted other guests attended the annual event. Eggs never tasted so good as they did on these mornings. Our fingers sticky from glazed donuts and sunscreen, we washed them in the swimming area and stretched out on our towels in the mid-morning sun. As kids, we never gave a second thought to the fact that as we were sunbathing, swimming and making sandcastles, my mom was cleaning the skillets, cleaning up the picnic site, and packing the remaining food in our coolers. We never once considered the planning, the packing, the preparing that made our 4th of July at Ft. Kearney a splendid reality, year after year. We had a mom who would put most event planners to shame.

Best of all, though, my mom created sanctuaries. In my sleepless hours of adolescence, my mom’s constant presence and assurance became a sanctuary I retreated to night after night.  I love the photo above because years before she would accompany me to high school track meets, it reveals the mom who would brave wind and sleet to sit for hours in the bleachers as one of very few spectators. In this photo, she wears a hooded coat at a college football game, but during track season, she wore a black garbage bag over her coat to protect herself and the entire team’s stash of snacks. When races did not go well, when you needed warm hands to rub out the cold, my mom was a sanctuary of comfort. As I grew and moved to different cities and states, I depended upon the sanctuary of my mom’s voice over the phone lines that spanned the miles between my mom and me. Even now in the moments before I sleep, it is this voice that sends me into the sanctuary of dream.

In the Sanctuary of my Mom, you will never go without. Before you realize you need something–a word of affirmation or guidance, a new coat or set of dishes–she has anticipated just what you need and presents it as if it is no big deal. I have lived a life of plenty, for I have never gone without my mom’s unfailing love and support. And this a a very big deal, indeed.

I have always wanted to grow up to be just like my mom. For my entire life, I have watched my mom advocate for those in need of help, befriend those who need a genuine friend, and open her house to countless visitors who need a place to stay. Gathered around my family dining room table, I am certain that these individuals can’t imagine a place they’d rather be. Truthfully, I can’t imagine a place I’d rather be than seated at this table with a great piece of pie and the promise of hours of conversation with my mom.

My siblings and I are remarkably blessed to live in the sanctuary of such a mother. In this sanctuary, I propose that every day should be Mother’s Day. Not the Hallmark, FTD kind of Mother’s Day, but the real deal complete with phone calling, letter writing, and visiting. Sentimental verse and flowers are sweet, but our own words and presence are so much sweeter. How do I know this? I learned this–and so much more–from my mother.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom–today and always.

photo by Collyn Ware

“The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet… From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.”

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

If I could leap into the spring air, flinging my back leg so joyously that my heel catches my wind-worthy hair, throwing my arms back with abandon, I would do it. Today, everything is like a new dress. Today is a day for flinging off aprons and malaise, for ordering up some flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. 

May is a flinging and sprinkling time, the finally-spring days between winter and summer. There are tadpoles in the pond, rose-breasted grosbeaks have returned, and peonies are full-to-bursting. Anything and everything seems possible.

When the morning air was like a new dress, Zora Neale Hurston’s Janie awakens to possibilities that previously only danced around the edges of her life. The circumstances for a poor, young black Southern woman had not changed. But Janie sees beyond these circumstances, beyond a life of servitude to others, to the men who would be her husbands, to heartache and striving. She flings her apron and calls upon love.

In this season of uncertainty where dark circumstances roll in around us, pressing their thunderous weight upon us, we would do well to follow Janie’s lead. As the nuclear testing continues, as oppressors persist in oppressing, as factions banter and fight, we might as well just fling off our aprons. If only for a day, a glorious May day. Or perhaps if only for a moment of pure, unadulterated springtime sprinkling. We were made for this, and lest we forget the beauty of flower dust and new dresses, we should go about leaping, gaining whatever height we can.

Pablo Neruda claimed that You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. Daily, there are those who are bent on cutting the flowers, plucking their blossoms and shearing their stems to the ground. These are the hell-in-a-hand-basket folks. While the child down the lane loads her basket to the brim with violets, they persist in dragging their brittle baskets of solemnity and fear. They will not see that you cannot keep Spring from coming. Worse yet, when it comes, they will miss it all.

And there is so, so much to miss! In My Antonia, Willa Cather writes:

After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.

Cather understands that spring lives without budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only–spring itself. . . the vital essence of it everywhere. Even on the red prairie, blindfolded, she is certain that she would revel in the nimble air and know that it was spring. Reveling, flinging, sprinkling–it’s all good. Even the oldest, most stoved-up of us feels nimble enough in spring.

Nimble enough to kneel on the ground, trowel in hand, flats of petunias and impatiens and geraniums before us. Our fingers tremble at the sight of spring soil, and as Margaret Atwood writes, In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. 

In Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Mae Crawford’s first two marriages–one arranged, one chosen–had left her springless, suffocating, and stifled. After two decades, she awakens, flings off her aproned life, and runs to Florida with Teacake, a younger man who, she believes, offers her a final flinging of the weight and loss of her previous life. Hope and love spring eternal. She leaps into new possibilities with the confidence and certainty of one who still believes in flower dust. 

In a Season of Flinging and Sprinkling, our former hopes and plans may still be springless, the dried and withered essence of buds-never-bloomed. Such is life. But if we refuse to loosen our apron strings, we refuse a season of new germination. Japanese haiku writer, Matsuo Bashō writes:

Dead my old fine hopes
And dry my dreaming but still…
Iris, blue each spring

Like many, I have to remind myself, daily, that there will be Iris, blue each spring. I have to rise with expectation and plans for flinging. I pray to see my day through flower dust and with springtime sprinkled over everything. This seems like such easy, joyous work. And some days it is; other days, it is simply work. It is easier to cling than fling. Cling to impending gloom, listen to the voices of darkness and fear, double-knot my apron strings. These are days of doubting and dreading, followed by nights of dreamless sleep.

Still, dry dreams and dry bones can come to life in the Season of Flinging and Sprinkling. This, I will stake my apron on. And tonight, I will enter my home smelling of dirt and flower dust.

One of my “farm” cats is very pregnant, due to give birth any day now. Gracyn, Griffin, and I are waiting with baited breath. Last week, Griffin told me that he knew how baby kittens are born. This took me back to a similar conversation with my oldest daughter, Megan, when I was weeks away from giving birth to her sister, Collyn.

I know how this baby is going to get out of your tummy, Mom. You do? I asked. I know about that little hole. I had learned by this point in my parenting life to suspend judgment, indignation, and/or shock. So I held my breath and waited. Yup, I know about that hole in your tummy where the baby comes out. The little hole is my belly button? (This was going better than I’d hoped.) Yup, your belly button. I nodded knowingly, and she continued with newfound confidence. When the time comes, you will put on the magic birth belt, your belly button will get really, REALLY big–big enough for the baby to get out– the baby will plop out, and then you will take off the magic belt so your belly button will shrink back down to normal. That’s how it happens. 

Later when I was recalling the conversation to Paul, he asked how I responded to the entire story. I told him that I smiled and said, “That’s right!” At age 4, the mystery of childbirth was better founded in stories of magic birthing belts and expanding belly buttons. For mystery–any mystery–would be tragically fleeting when the ordinary ways of the world with all their common sense and biology and certitude crowded in with adult bluster.

Holocaust survivor and author, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, understood this all too well:

“The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don’t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and that’s just what we cannot do with the mystery…. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.” [from God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas]

Oh to have open, wide-awake eyes, to be surrounded by and immersed in mystery, to live as a child who is not yet finished with this world, and to try your hand at stories and explanations that make your world an even more wonderful place. In the Sanctuary of Mystery, the world is not yet finished, and possibilities, like many-colored balloons, float above and around you by the millions. All you have to do is grab the strings of the ones you particularly like, pull them close to you, and experience the wonder. Looking, feeling, tasting, and smelling deeply, you know that this other-worldly experience cannot be tamed or named; here are mysteries that defy these worldly attempts, and when you are reduced to single words–unbelievable, unreal–no one thinks less of you. The Sanctuary of Mystery forgives the inarticulate and applauds the expressive. Truthfully, no words are preferable. Mysteries invite participants to stand silently in sore amazement.

Bonhoeffer claims that as adults, we may destroy mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal. Children are the teachers, the mentors and guides in the Sanctuary of Mystery. In the photo above, my son, Quinn stands, shoes in hand, with his good friend, John. Their friendship is, indeed, a mystery. Neither boy sees any boundary in their being–no black or white, no age, no IQ. Reading at age 3 (chapter books at age 5), John could have used his intellect to be lord over everything in their friendship. And if John had any sense of his potential power as a white male, he might have used this as well. Boundariless, both boys basked in the mystery of a friendship that took them to places that John had read about, and Quinn gratefully imagined through John’s retelling. His mother and I found them one Sunday during church fellowship time, escaped from the adult coffee-drinkers and lost in a serious reenactment of the Lusitania on the church balcony. Just as they were about to abandon the sinking ship, their little legs draped over the edge of the balcony, we intervened. Would they have jumped the 25 feet to the sanctuary floor below? Lost in the mystery of another time and place, the boundary between the real and the imagined stretched and blurred, I still believe that they might have. Time and again, John and Quinn honored the mystery that others, who would choose instead to live on the surface, who would take the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, would forsake.

Each spring when my hosta sprouts break earth sending green spires skyward, I revel in the mystery. How can the soon-to-be thin, broad leaves wrap themselves so tightly, so perfectly and powerfully into needle-like points that break through the dense clay of southeast Iowa? And how do they know when the time is just right to emerge from the caves of winter to the fragrant expanse of spring? And why are such green wonders perennial, coming back to life again and again and again? There is only one true way to regard a hosta: as a child, in wonder.

Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. As adults, we often let others name our qualities and define our world. Having removed the mystery from all of it, the namers and explainers work with dogged conviction, heads down, noses to the grindstone. They wouldn’t and couldn’t see mystery if it hit them right between the eyes. With their data and research reports and pie charts, they show us who we are. Your IQ test reveals, your aptitude inventory indicates, your leadership survey explains that. . . These namers and explainers begin their work with adolescents, testing them and showing them their prescribed paths forward. With certainty and zeal, they believe they are doing the work that needs to be done. You don’t even know what a community planner is or does? Not to worry, your counselor will schedule you into the right courses to pursue this career and advise the right university programs. But you always wanted to work in construction trades? Well, as a community planner, you will have lots of opportunities to consult with those in construction. 

When a person is called to a vocation, when a person uncovers a hidden quality or desire, when a person leaves a career after decades of service, moving towards a destination and position not yet identified, there is mystery. These decisions and acts defy rational, practical explanation. They defy worldly expectations. They fly in the face of calculations and prescriptions. While there are some who stand in sore amazement at such acts, there are more who cover their children’s eyes, clap their hands over their ears, and run away. Lest such inexplicable foolishness rub off on their offspring and lead them beyond the surface of the safe to mysteries unknown.

Years ago, a biology colleague held me captive for several hours in my office (he was sent by his department to school me) as he explained the scientific particulars of evolutionary biology. I listened, nodded to show agreement with those explanations and details with which I could agree, but asked the same question whenever he took a breath deep enough for me to get a word in: Can you explain First Cause to me? There was nothing, and then there was matter. What caused the matter to be? The first two or three times I asked this question, he reentered his dialogue as if I hadn’t spoken at all. Finally, as the supper hour had come and gone, I tried one final time. This time, he sighed, looked at me as a master looks upon an initiate and said: You just don’t understand. We don’t start there. I smiled, packed my computer and school work into my bag, grabbed my coat and thanked him for his time. He was glowing, puffed up with the victorious certainty of a job well done, convinced–I’m sure–that he had successfully initiated me into the fellowship of believers.

We don’t start there. How well I understood that they did not start there in the mystery of creation at the hands of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God. Of course not. Starting there would push the boundary of his scientific explanation. Starting there would–for the willing–force one to struggle along and confront the mystery. Starting there would provoke genuine awe and wonder that would dwarf the explanations and the accepted claims of his scientific faith. That would be life-changing at best, and life-shattering at worst. Mystery has that power, and those who accept this gratefully succumb to it. They understand that mystery and science/reason do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Like Bonhoeffer, I believe that living outside of the Sanctuary of Mystery is our downfall and our poverty. The good news? Mystery invites all to its banquet of wonders. Come as a child with open, wide-awake eyes. Come often and stay long. Bask in the fellowship of those who are not yet finished with this world. And be prepared to entertain all that you experience with sore amazement.

As we walked from our classroom through the hall to recess, I delivered the big news to my fellow sixth graders who surrounded me: Did you know that I am related to one of the witches who was hanged during the Salem Witch Trials? It’s true–my dad told me the whole story last night. I’m related to a woman who was accused of being a witch! On an ordinary sixth grade day in autumn, news of this sort was a genuine show-stopper. Literally. Sixth-graders clogged the traffic flow to the recess door when they stopped me to get the rest of the scoop.

You are joking, right? You aren’t really related to a witch–are you? How does your dad know this? She was hanged? You aren’t REALLY related to a witch. . . 

This was the stuff that childhood dreams are made of. I garnered instant celebrity status and was chosen by the captain of the kickball team who had “first pick” that day. Perhaps I had inherited powers that would catapult our team to victory. Perhaps I could read the other players’ minds, anticipating which way a player would kick the ball. Perhaps I was gifted in ways my classmates had never begun to imagine.

Or perhaps this was some sort of genetic justification of my own idiosyncrasies and propensity for the unusual. Come to think of it, I did have an odd sense of humor at times and a definite penchant for solitude, even as a child. Not to mention the fact that I rarely missed an episode of the television show Bewitched. 

According to Wikipedia (my second claim to fame–an ancestor that made Wikipedia!), Anne Greenslade Pudeator was a well-to-do septuagenarian widow who was accused of and convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials  in colonial Massachusetts. She was executed by hanging. Anne married Thomas Greenslade and had five children before Thomas’s death in 1674. Having worked as a nurse and midwife, she was hired by Jacob Pudeator to care for his ailing, alcoholic wife who died in the following year. Anne then married Jacob who died in 1682 and left her with money and property.

Some have speculated that her status as a woman of means was reason enough for the afflicted girls of Salem and other villagers to target her as a witch. Her accusers cited the following offenses:

• forcing a girl to sign the Devil’s Book
• bewitching and causing a neighbor’s death
• appearing in spectral form to the afflicted girls
• having witchcraft materials in her home (grease, she claimed, for making soap)
• torturing others with pins and causing a man to fall from a tree
• killing Jacob Pudeator and his first wife
• turning herself into a bird and flying around the village

She was accused by two of the afflicted girls, Mary Warren and Ann Putnam Jr., as well as John Best Jr. and Sr. and Samuel Pickworth. On September 19, 1692, she was sentenced to death along with Alice Parker, Dorcas Hoar, Mary Bradbury, and Mary Easty. Then on October 2, she was hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem Town.

Eighteen years later, the General Court reversed the convictions of those victims whose families had advocated in their behalf. Anne’s conviction, however, was not reversed at this time. It wasn’t until 1957 that Anne was finally exonerated by the Massachusetts General Court. Her exoneration was due largely to the efforts of Lee Greenslit, a midwestern textbook publisher and my father’s relative. [My paternal grandmother was a Greenslit.]

In an article which appeared on September 11, 1954 in the New Yorker Magazine, Lee Greenslit explained that the name Greenslit was far more commonly known as Greenslade during colonial times. As an amateur genealogist, he hit the mother lode when he discovered this fact and was able to trace his lineage back to Anne Greenslade Pudeator and the Salem Witch Trials.

There are many theories about why these Salem girls–the afflicted ones–accused their family, friends, and neighbors of consorting with the Devil. These theories surrounding the girls’ fits and strange behavior range from stress, asthma, boredom, epilepsy, delusional psychosis, to convulsive ergotism, a disease from the ergot fungus that invades damp, warm rye grain. Regardless of the cause(s), the girls’ claims of witchery resulted in the deaths of 24 villagers: 19 were hanged, 1 was pressed to death, and 4 died during imprisonment.

According to USLEGAL.com, spectral evidence refers to a witness testimony that the accused person’s spirit or spectral shape appeared to him/her witness in a dream at the time the accused person’s physical body was at another location. It was accepted in the courts during the Salem Witch Trials. The evidence was accepted on the basis that the devil and his minions were powerful enough to send their spirits, or specters, to pure, religious people in order to lead them astray.

In spectral evidence, the admission of victims’ conjectures is governed only by the limits of their fears and imaginations, whether or not objectively proven facts are forthcoming to justify them. [State v. Dustin, 122 N.H. 544, 551 (N.H. 1982)]

 Spectral evidence was not only accepted in the courts but was often the only evidence provided in the trials of those accused of witchery. And it was more than enough to secure a conviction. You could simply claim that you saw the specter of another in a dream or vision and that the physical body of this individual was present at another place. You could claim that this specter flew, coerced someone to sign their name in the Devil’s Book, or caused another to harm him/herself or another. In truth, you could claim anything, and this claim–limited only by fear and imagination–would pass legal muster.

The Sanctuary of Spectral Evidence is a name-it-and-claim-it-safe-place. From the safety of your dedicated space, you can make claims–any claims–and sit back with a beverage of your choice to watch the fireworks. You don’t like your neighbor, your employer, your legislator, your teacher, your doctor, your parent, spouse or relative? Name an offense and let the accusation wound as it will. And if an individual is genuinely offenseless? Create an offense. The more outlandish, unbelievable, and unjustifiable, the better. Name it and claim it. It is just that simple–and just that deadly.

The Sanctuary of Spectral Evidence is an equal opportunity employer. You can be a libertarian or librarian. You can be a vegetarian or a veterinarian, a Parisian, a Philadelphian, or a Poughkeepsian. All are welcome, and qualifications are graciously waived. If you can accuse, if you seek to wound, you can work your accusational magic alongside other passionate employees. Health care and retirement packages are commensurate with your accusational prowess and experience.

Actually, spectral evidence has nothing to do with evidence, and everything to do with specters. If there is a ghost of a chance that the accused has said or done or felt something, one can face the judge and jury with confidence: Here is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God. 

In the Sanctuary of Spectral Evidence today, social media reigns. One can launch accusations into cyberspace from the safety of home, office, or wherever a smart phone may travel. Where once we would have cried foul at such groundless accusations, today we may shrug and mutter But what can you do? Such is the way of the world now. 

But when a 13 year old in Missouri takes her life after weeks of public shaming through Facebook and Instagram, it is we who should be shamed for our careless acquiescence at such acts. Today, as in the past, spectral evidence kills. At best, it robs unsuspecting, undeserving individuals of hope and kills their faith in humanity; at worst, it robs the world of precious lives.

Years ago, a student told our class that he admired a coach because–in the coach’s words–he meant what he said, and said what he meant. When the rest of his class nodded approvingly, I asked: Is it admirable to simply say what you mean and mean what you say? Anything you say and anything you mean? Just say it with conviction and passion? So I could say that it is o.k. to steal my friend’s car, I could mean it, and this would be admirable?

Silence. The class just looked at me until I persisted: This would be admirable? This would be o.k.? Finally, a student admitted that she’d never thought about this perspective. Others looked on, the foundation of this smug aphorism crumbling before their very eyes. Where there is no logic, there is no value or truth.

Logic and sufficient, relevant evidence matter deeply. Yet, those who live in the Sanctuary of Spectral Evidence don’t know this. Or they simply don’t care. For them, there is no need for opening or closing arguments, for witnesses and cross-examinations. They don’t need to make their case, and there are no documents, depositions or photos to enter into evidence. The accused never take the stand, and judgment comes quickly and without contention. Name it and claim it, baby.

As much as we look back on the Salem Witch Trials with awe and horror, we should look first at the log in our own eyes. Spectral evidence of the modern sort abounds. We may not hang, press, or drown the accused today, but we punish and wound them nonetheless. We try them through social media, through the press, and through gossip. And the accused are left broken with their hearts in their hands, their reputations in tatters.

Anne Greenslade Pudeator was guilty of nothing but living during a period in which a group of afflicted girls held her fate in their hands. But in the Sanctuary of Spectral Evidence, those girls could confidently wield their power. When there is no need for evidence or logic, accusation rules in this vacuum.

As a descendant of Anne Greenslade Pudeator, I can take heart in Lee Greenslit’s resolve and ultimate success in clearing the family name. Though I can no longer blame my weird sense of humor on Anne nor claim any special mind-reading powers. My celebrity status was memorable but short-lived.

Still, witch hunts continue, and there are afflicted girls, boys, men, and women too countless to name. They take sanctuary in spectral evidence and the power it affords them. We need more Lee Greenslits who will doggedly pursue the truth, a truth founded in real evidence. The Anne Greenslade Pudeators of the world deserve no less.

In the days before Holy Week, I have found myself thinking about what might have been: a mother whose son outlived her; a teacher and friend whose days were just beginning; a Savior whose love and mercy would knit the unraveling world together. As it should have been and as it should continue to be, sacred stitch after sacred stitch.

I have found myself thinking about my own children who might have been. Conceived in love, knitted together in a mother’s womb, fearfully and wonderfully made. [Psalm 139: 13-16] I have found myself dreaming again of who these children may have grown to be and have imagined them seated at Easter dinner beside my other children, a cozy clutch of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. And again, I have mourned their absence. Perfect-buds-yet-to-be returned to spirit.

In her novel, The Light Between Oceans, M. L Stedman gives us Isabel, a woman desperate to be a mother and destined to miscarry all of her children. Stedman writes:

[the] losing of children had always been a thing that had to be gone through. There had never been any guarantee that conception would lead to a live birth, or that birth would lead to a life of any great length.

This is the biological reality of it all: there has never been any guarantee that conception would lead to a live birth, or that birth would lead to a life of any great length. And the fact that countless women experience this thing that had to be gone through is cheap solace in a world of bubbling and bonneted babies. In truth, no guarantee lives too quietly alongside hope. It fails to be heard in the midst of life songs. And for a time, it ticks in the shadows in a dreadful and inevitable countdown to death.

Stedman profiles Isabel’s loss throughout several miscarriages. This passage, in particular, took me back to my own grief:

The old clock on the kitchen wall still clicked its minutes with fussy punctuality. A life had come and gone and nature had not paused a second for it. The machine of time and space grinds on, and people are fed through it like grist through the mill. Isabel had managed to sit up a little against the wall, and she sobbed at the sight of the diminutive form, which she had dared to imagine as bigger, as stronger – as a child of this world. ‘My baby my baby my baby my baby,’ she whispered like a magic incantation that might resuscitate him. The face of the creature was solemn, a monk in deep prayer, eyes closed, mouth sealed shut: already back in that world from which he had apparently been reluctant to stray. Still the officious hands of the clock tutted their way around. Half an hour had passed and Isabel had said nothing.

Daring to imagine your child as bigger, stronger–as a child of this world and not merely a child of your dreams is the courage of one who dares to thumb her nose at biology, striving, instead, towards love. For as Stedman writes: Once a child gets into your heart, there’s no right or wrong about it. There is just love and what might have been.

When a child who has lived solely in the heart and dreams of a mother dies, grief is often solitary and veiled in shame. Why did a body meant for child-bearing fail? What sins have manifested themselves in this death? How can one legitimately grieve in the overwhelming face of platitudes: You wouldn’t want a child to be born with such defects; You are young and can have more children; This is God’s will–who are we to question? 

When there is no tangible evidence of a life lived, grief is often swept away quickly. No child, no real reason to give yourself to the grief that is expected and acknowledged when a child has lived–if even for a day, an hour, a single moment. In the eyes of many, what might have been is a but a wisp of love and loss.

When there is no funeral, no memorializing of life, loss is silenced. Others too soon forget that you would have been a mother in five months, that the name you have held in your heart will go to another woman’s son or daughter, that an ultrasound picture is all you have to fill the empty pages of a baby book. You bear no stretch marks, and you wear your real jeans. Once again, you are a mother-in-waiting. You dread the visits to your OBGYN office where you are surrounded by beautiful, burgeoning bellies and smiling receptionists.

In her collection of poetry, Conquest, Zoe Brigley writes:

So many women come to me saying, “I have lost too,
and this one, and this one”. So many embryos retreat
to flesh: the live cell of the mother. Don’t tell me that it
will happen for me, when the only sure thing is a miracle:
the sperm nuzzling in its nest and the egg that opens, explodes.

In your world of brutal biology, when the only sure thing is a miracle, when so many embryos retreat to flesh, you drown in what might have been. It pulls you under just as surely as any loss. What might have been does not forgive the fact that your child was an embryo or a fetus–not a real child.

Still, as dark as Mary’s loss at Golgotha was, her child torn from the love and life that might have been, it gave way to life more glorious than she could ever have imagined. This is the promise of Easter: that death is overcome, and what might have been has come to be in life everlasting, in grace and peace beyond measure.

This is the promise that sustains all of us in the midst of pain and loss. And this is my prayer for others who grieve what might have been–children, dreams, loves and lives: that we never mistake the absence of the tangible for what is real and true and life-giving and that, each day, we claim Easter’s promise of what has come to be.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”