Looking For Pennies

 A couple of years ago, I read an insightful excerpt from Annie Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. The passage moved me so much, I actually hand copied the whole excerpt and gave it to our priest to read. It is not religious in nature; the author describes the art of seeing and discovering the riches that Nature unfolds before our eyes every day. And yet, how can this not be religious? Can we really separate the glory of  Natural creation from the supreme Author, the ultimate Creator? This is a rather lengthy passage, but I know you will be enriched by taking the time to read it. I will put Ms. Dillard's words in tan, emphasis mine:

When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I've never been seized by it since. For some reason I always 'hid' the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street.

 I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY.

I was greatly excited, during all this arrow drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about, I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought until, some months later, I would be gripped by the impulse to hide another penny.

It is still the first week in January, and I've got great plans. I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But- and this is the point-

who gets excited by a mere penny?

If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den,

Will you count that sight a chip of copper only and go your rueful way? It is a dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny.

But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and  simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.

Unfortunately, nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't affair. A fish flashes, then dissolves in the water, before my eyes like so much salt. Deer apparently ascend bodily into heaven; the brightest oriole fades into leaves. These disappearances stun me into stillness and concentration; they say of nature that it conceals with a grand nonchalance, and they say of vision that it is a deliberate gift, the revelation of a dancer who for my eyes only flings away her seven veils. For nature does reveal as well as conceal: now you don't see it, now you do.

For a week last September, migrating red-winged blackbirds were feeding heavily down by the creek at the back of the house. One day I went out to investigate the racket; I walked up to a tree, an Osage orange, and a hundred birds flew away. They simply materialized out of the tree.I saw a tree, then a whisk of color, then a tree again. I walked closer, and another hundred blackbirds took flight. Not a branch, not a twig budged: the birds were apparently weightless as well as invisible.

Or it was as if the leaves of the Osage orange had been freed from a spell in the form of red-winged blackbirds: they flew from the tree, caught my eye in the sky, and vanished. When I looked again at the tree, the leaves had reassembled as if nothing had happened. Finally I walked directly to the trunk of the tree, and a final hundred, the real diehards, appeared, spread, and vanished.

How could so many hide in the tree without me seeing them? The Osage orange, unruffled, looked just as it had looked from the house, when three hundred red-winged blackbirds cried from its crown. I looked downstream where they flew, and they were gone. Searching, I couldn't spot one. I wandered downstream to force them to play their hand, but they'd crossed the creek and scattered. One show to a customer.

These appearances catch at my throat; they are the free gifts, the bright coppers at the roots of trees.

It's all a matter of KEEPING MY EYES OPEN. Nature is like one of those line drawings of a tree that are puzzles for children: Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, a bucket, a zebra, and a boot? .......

IF I CAN'T SEE THESE MINUTIAE, I STILL TRY TO KEEP MY EYES OPEN. I'm always on the lookout for ant lion traps in sandy soil, monarch pupae near milkweed, skipper larvae in locust leaves. THESE THINGS ARE UTTERLY COMMON, AND I'VE NOT SEEN ONE. I bang on hollow trees near water, but so far no flying squirrels have appeared. In flat country I watch every sunset in hopes of seeing the green ray. The green ray is a seldom-seen streak of light that rises from the sun like a spurting fountain at the moment of sunset; it throbs into the sky for two seconds and disappears.

BUT THE ARTIFICIAL OBVIOUS IS HARD TO SEE. My eyes account for less than one percent of my head: I'm bony and dense.

I see what I expect.

The lover can see, and the knowledgeable....The point is that I just don't know what the lover knows; I just can't see the artificial obvious that those in the know construct....

A fog that won't burn away drifts and flows across my field of vision. When you see fog move against a backdrop of deep pines, you see not the fog itself but streaks of clearness  floating across the air in dark shreds.

So I see only tatters of clearness through a
pervading obscurity.

I can't distinguish the fog from the overcast sky; I can't be sure if the light is direct or reflected. Everywhere darkness and the presence of the unseen appalls.

We rock, cradled in the swaddling band of darkness.

Even the simple darkness of night whispers suggestions to the mind.

You can read more of Ms. Dillard's moving and lovely words in her book, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek.

The Beauty Of Emptiness

Will you join me for another lovely reading from Caryll Houselander? She writes so eloquently about "that virginal quality which, for want of a better word, I call emptiness." (the very first line of her book, The Reed Of God). What follows in this post is an excerpt from that same book, accompanied by some pictures I took when I was out tending to the animals this evening.

It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended. It is emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can only have one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.

It is the emptiness like the hollow in the cup, shaped to receive water or wine.

It is the emptiness like that of the bird's nest, built in a round warm ring to receive the little bird.

The pre-Advent emptiness of our Lady's purposeful virginity was indeed like those three things. She was a reed through which the eternal love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.

She was the flower-like chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love, and lifted up in sacrifice.

She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird.

Emptiness is a very common complaint in our days, NOT THE PURPOSEFUL EMPTINESS OF THE VIRGINAL HEART AND MIND, but a void, meaningless, unhappy condition.

Strangely enough, those who complain the loudest of emptiness of their lives are usually people whose lives are overcrowded, filled with trivial details, plans, desires, ambitions, unsatisfied cravings for passing pleasures, doubts, anxieties and fears...

Those who usually complain in these circumstances of the emptiness of their lives are usually afraid to allow SPACE OR SILENCE OR PAUSE in their lives. They dread space, for they want material things crowded together, so that there will always be something to lean on for support.  They dread silence because they do not want to hear their own pulses beating out the seconds of their life, and to know that each beat is another knock on the door of death. Death seems to them to be only the FINAL VOID, the darkest loneliest emptiness.

They have no sense of being related to any abiding beauty, to any indestructible life: they are afraid to be alone with their unrelated hearts.

Such emptiness is very different from the still, shadowless ring of light round which our being is circled, making a shape which in itself IS AN ABSOLUTE PROMISE OF FULFILLMENT...

Can someone whose life is already cluttered up with trivial things get back to this virginal emptiness?

OF COURSE HE CAN; if a bird's nest has been filled with broken glass and rubbish, it can be emptied.

It is not only the trivialities which destroy this virgin-mindedness; very often, serious people with a conscious purpose in life destroy it by being too set on this purpose. The core of emptiness is not filled by trifles but a hard block, tightly wedged in. They have a plan, for example, of reconstructing Europe, reforming education, for converting the world; and this plan,

THIS ENTHUSIASM, HAS BECOME SO IMPORTANT IN THEIR MINDS THAT THERE IS NEITHER ROOM TO RECEIVE GOD NOR THE SILENCE TO HEAR HIS VOICE, even though HE COMES AS LIGHT AND A LITTLE COMMUNION WAFER AND SPEAKS SOFT AS A ZEPHYR OF WIND TAPPING ON THE WINDOW WITH A FLOWER.

...At the beginning it will be necessary for each individual to discard deliberately all the trifling unnecessary things in his life, all the hard blocks and congestions;  not necessarily to discard all his interests forever, but at least once to stop still, and having prayed for courage, to visualise himself without all the extras, escapes, and interests other than Love in his life: to see ourselves as if we had just come from God's hand and had gathered nothing to ourselves yet, to discover just what shape is the virginal emptiness of our own being, and of what material we are made.

We need to be reminded that every second of our survival does really mean that WE ARE NEW FROM GOD'S FINGERS, so that it requires no more than the miracle which we never notice to restore us to our virgin-heart AT ANY MOMENT WE LIKE TO CHOOSE.

Our own effort will consist in sifting and sorting out everything that is not essential and that fills up space and silence in us and in discovering what sort of shape this emptiness is in us. From this we shall learn what sort of purpose God has for us. In what way are we to fulfil the work of giving Christ life in us?

Are we reed pipes?
Are we chalices?
Does he ask to be sacrificed in us?
Are we nests?
Does He desire of us a WARM, SWEET ABIDING IN DOMESTIC LIFE AT HOME?

These are only some of the possible forms of virginity; each person may find some quite different form, his own secret.

...It is really through ORDINARY HUMAN LIFE AND THE THINGS OF EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY THAT UNION WITH GOD COMES ABOUT.

...We do not all achieve that purpose in the same way, or through the same experiences;
IN FACT NO TWO PEOPLE HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF GOD

The reed grows by the streams. It is the simplest of things, but it must be cut by the sharp knife, hollowed out, and the stops must be cut in it; it must be shaped and pierced before it can utter the shepherd's song. It is the narrowest emptiness in the world, but the little reed utters infinite music.

The  chalice does not grow like the flower it resembles. it is made of gold; gold must be gathered from the water and mud and hewn from the rock, it must be beaten by countless little blows that give the chalice of sacrifice its fitting beauty.

The twigs and fluff and leaves of the bird's nest are brought from all sorts of places, from wherever the brave careful mother alights, with fluttering but daring heart, to fetch them, from the distances and explorations that only the spread wings of love know. It is the shape of her breast that moulds the nest to its inviting roundness.

Thus it is with us-we may be formed by the knife, pared down, cut to the least,

TO THE MINIMUM OF OUR OWN BEING.

We may be marked indelibly by a succession of strokes, blows from the gold-beater's hammer; or we may be shaped for our destiny by the love and tender devotion of a devoted family.

We can accept and seize upon the fact that what we are at this moment, young or old, weak or strong, mild or passionate, beautiful or ugly, clever or stupid, is planned to be like that. Whatever we are gives form to the emptiness in us which can only be filled by God and which

GOD IS EVEN NOW WAITING TO FILL.

~ Caryll Houselander

My Fortune

Do you believe in the fortunes that come in the little cookies at the Chinese restaurant? I didn't either. Then on my birthday, my fortieth birthday, no less, this is the fortune I received:

"Buy Things because you need them, not because they are on sale."

I'm a believer now. This fortune was meant for me, and I'm taking it to heart...
I began reading The Freedom Of Simplicity by Richard Foster. It appears to be a book with transformative powers. I think it will be a good Advent read. I'll let you know!

Flash back photo: Ben reads to Tommy and Sam (last year)...Just discovered Tommy no longer sucks his fingers. Why didn't I realize that before?

Little Joys

"In small proportions we just beauties see; and in short measures life may perfect be."
~ Jonson


The Joy Of Cranberries

Boil cranberries with lemon, sugar, and water. Strain and cool. Mix with seltzer water for a refreshing drink


The Joy Of Nature's Playthings

"In all walks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike."

~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Joy Of Water In The Creek Again

                                                 The Joy Of Creating

                  The Joy Of Swimming In November

                               And Sister Huddle In Warming Sun

The Joy Of Leaves Under Running Water

                                   And Downy Calf In Autumn Fields

   The Joy of Flight And Of Passing Days That Scatter Winged Memories
                         

The Joy Of Seeing My Grandmother In Her Face

After Emily had "prettied up" Mary Margaret, Mary Margaret said, "I'll have to do this when it's time to go look for a husband!"

The joy of feeling good about yourself and who you are and how you look and knowing it...so you WANT a picture of yourself.
           
 The mother's joy of knowing that it is not vanity, but self-confidence, and she's so glad her daughters  are joy-filled, beautiful, inside and out

      
 The Joy Of A Little Boy's Picture Of Something That Made Him Happy

 

The joy of the way the sunlight strokes the wall...and knowing that when I went to get another picture, the light was gone. I caught the sun today. I caught the last glimmer of light before the blanket of dark fell once more.

"What is time?-the shadow on the dial,-the striking of the clock,-the running of the sand,-day and night,-summer and winter,-months,years,centuries? These are but arbitrary and outward signs,-the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the life of the soul. If not this,-then tell me, what is time? "

~Anon

Hidden

How silently you sheathe the flower of fruited mirth.

                                           
                     "To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour." ~William Blake

 Reading aloud has fringe benefits: I get new ideas and learn right along with the children. We also like listening to stories together on CD. Mary Margaret has requested the Felicity (storybook two) the last several nights. What a charming story. Here is what I am pondering this week:

(Felicity and her mother had been making apple butter together, and Felicity is questioning why they should go to so much trouble for a little apple butter.)

     "Yes," said Mrs Merriman. "A notable housewife runs her house smoothly, so that everyone in it is happy and healthy. Her life is private and quiet. She is content doing things for her family."
    
     "Things nobody ever sees," said Felicity.

     "Aye," agreed her mother, "But many lovely things are private and hidden."

     She picked up one of the apples. "Look," she said. She sliced the apple across its fat middle, instead of top to bottom. She held the halves up to Felicity. "Have you ever seen the flower that is hidden inside every apple?" she asked. "It's there for those who know how to find it. See?"

     Felicity grinned at her mother. There was indeed a flower inside the apple.

     "My mother showed that to me when I was a little girl and we made apple butter together," said Mother. "She taught me to sew and cook and plant a garden and run a household. Now I am teaching you. Someday you will teach your daughter..."
(Felicity Learns A Lesson, p.8-9)

I am almost forty (I can say almost for four more days!) and I have never noticed the flower inside an apple. I am so glad  to know this!

I am reading an enjoyable book on homemaking called, No Ordinary Home by Carol Brazo. Brazo began her parenting career flustered and discouraged. She had once been an English professor, and her new life as a parent seemed monotonous and unchallenging in comparison.In her book, she describes how she made it her mission to make her home into a sanctuary. She quotes Ranier Maria Rilke:

"If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

Brazo actuallly found Rilkes writings discouraging at first. She felt like the failure who couldn't bring the beauty in her home. Haven't we all felt that way at times?
Nevertheless, we must keep trying! I have always wanted to be an amazing artist like my sister, Maureen. I never could get the pencil to do what I saw in my mind. But drawing is Maureen's gift!

Now that I'm getting older, I realize that I can be an "artist," too. Maybe I'll never draw like my sister, or write poetry like Milton, or sew, or knit, or a hundred other things I would like to do, but can't...but I can SEE BEAUTY.

God gave us all the gift of his beautiful creation, but we must open the eyes of our heart to see it. Helen Keller, blind  and deaf as she was, knew beauty. She describes in The Story Of My Life (her autobiography):

     I felt my way to the end of the garden, knowing that the Mimosa tree was near the fence, at the turn of the path. Yes, there it was, all quivering in the warm sunshine, its blossom -laden branches almost touching the long grass. Was there ever anything so exquisitely beautiful in the world before? Its delicate blossoms shrank from the slightest earthly touch.; it seemed as if a tree of paradise had been transplanted to earth. (p 19)

If someone who is blind and deaf is able to find the hidden beauty of creation, surely I should be able to do the same!