"The lovingkindness of the Lord fills the whole earth..." ~Psalm 33:15

‘T is heaven alone that is given away,
‘T is only God may be had for the asking;
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.

"Light dawns for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart." ~ Psalm 97:11

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Magdalen ("Maudie") at her morning post

Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

the bounty of the henhouse

The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there ‘s never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;

"Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening." ~Psalm 104:23

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,–
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

"How many are Your works, O Lord! in wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures." ~Psalm 104:24

Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God so wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
‘T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;

"Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love..." ~Psalm 143: 8

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

"He makes grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate--bringing forth food from the earth." ~Psalm 104: 14

For other couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer’s lowing,–
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

mesclun frame

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Every thing is happy now,
Every thing is upward striving;
‘T is as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,–

zucchini, gaura and pole beans

‘T is the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

the morning's harvest

The soul partakes the season’s youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep ‘neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

from The Vision of Sir Launfal by James Russell Lowell

Innocence Mission again. Same album; different song.

But that loaded phrase has been a song of its own in my heart and mind these past few days. A token of grace and a good word of God’s love poured out through other people.

You aren’t really strangers, of course. Some of you heard of our grief first-hand. Some of you literally rolled up your sleeves and bore our burden with us. Some of you are a smiling face behind a stream of regular comments. But every one of you has given me the relief that we humans are always gasping after: the knowledge that we’re not alone. And the fact that you care–so deeply–and that you take the time to tell me is really just amazing. I’ve gone through your words with tears in my eyes–messages, comments, emails. I’ve read the poems you’ve suggested and I’ve cherished the Scriptures and quotes. And I’ve admired the love you bear towards your own friendly beasts. I thought I would just duck my head into the comments and tell you there what your kindness has meant. But I decided  it deserved a post of its own.

So thank you. Thank you for revering my sorrow. It isn’t popular to grieve over an animal, at least not according to the dictates of smug-faced pop-theology that assumes everything’s all figured out and every mystery accounted for. I know–you know–there’s more to it than a set of rules (acceptable grieving being among them) and a bunch of closed doors with nothing on the other side. I have been thinking long thoughts along these lines; perhaps they will germinate into a post.

But I wanted you to know what your kindness has meant, and not just on this occasion. Kipling said it so well: “We give our hearts to dogs to tear.” And to cats, I might add. And goats and sheep and chickens. And what a privilege it is to be thus torn. I’d not go through life whole, without such precious scars, for all the world.

Puck and Pansy

springtime chicks, 2009

That snippet of an Innocence Mission lyric has been running through my mind the past couple of weeks: newly weighted with meaning; warm like the steadying handclasp of a friend.

For over two years now, we have known the almost unclouded joy of a dream-made-real here on our farm-in-the-city. We have stood amazed as God brought to life one request after another in the beautiful forms of all of these ‘friendly beasts’ with whom He has so graciously allowed us to share this bit of earth. We’ve had a real-time crash course in animal husbandry and we have laughed as much at our own ineptitude as at the antics of all our creatures. And we have learned much—so very much—from these mute witnesses to a loving and lovely Creator. The grace of God has been dealt to me in trusting eyes and velvet noses and swishing white tails in a way that has changed me forever.

We have been spared more times than we know by the Preserver of man and beast. But even the ‘boundaries that enclose a pleasant land’ cannot keep out pain and sorrow and the awful effects of a fallen world. We’ve drunk deeply of a bitter cup the past couple of weeks—a cup we’d never have chosen but one which yet bears the sweet fragrance of grace and a love beyond our imagining. And we know, as never before, that the Lord is loving and faithful towards all He has made.

In one tragic moment we lost both our beloved Nubian doe, Pansy, and our beloved Pyr, Juno. I know you’ll forgive me for refraining from details too painful to dwell on much less write about, but suffice it to say that I feel like I have been living in a rather horrid mixture of Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows. (Both of which, incidentally, absolutely tore me to pieces as a child. And as an adult. The Lord knows our point of pain…) It was a blow that we’re still staggering under; a double-edged sword. And I am not ashamed to say how deeply I am grieving over a goatling and a big white dog.

The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And He has given so much more than we ever could have anticipated. On the day of our sorrow, as we were speeding home through the night from an interrupted vacation, we kept voicing our truths to one another: We have no regrets. We’d not go back and undo the love to be spared the pain of it. The loss, even in its agony, is a feeble thing beside the joy that these animals have given us.

The thorn is no match for the sweetness of the rose.

A few days before we had left town there was a surprise waiting for us in the barn one morning. Butterfly, our ‘missing’ Rhode Island Red turned up in one of the stalls. With a peeping, pecking bundle of fluff at her side. I was literally stunned stupid.

“Where did she come from?” I blurted out.

The crowing of our rooster yanked me out of my imbecility and I grinned up at Philip.

“Margot’s a daddy!”

(Now, if you want to know why I have a rooster named Margot, we’ll have to save that for another time. Or maybe you could just think about it. For a minute.)

Butterfly and Gertie

I was flummoxed and overjoyed at the same time. The first little life actually born on our farm! It was nothing short of a miracle! And yet danger was lurking on every side, it seemed: Maudie the cat was stealthily slinking in through an upper window, and Juno in her eager oblivion threatened to step on the baby with one huge paw and never know the difference. Turns out we had all failed to anticipate the legendary fierceness of a hen for her chick—let’s just say that all the proverbs are true. But we managed, nonetheless, to scoop up Butterfly and her newly christened little one, Gertie, and deposit them safely into the brooder that we keep in the hens’ stall for the raising of store-bought chicks. With food and water, room to stretch her legs and plenty of hay to rest in, Butterfly settled happily into her new quarters and I, at last, could enjoy the fact that we had a new baby on the farm.

I spent way more time in the barn than I had that day, popping into the maternity ward, as it were, to check on our honored pair. But more often than not I didn’t see Gertie at all. Save for an occasional peep and a tiny head popping out of Butterfly’s feathers, you almost wouldn’t know she was in there. Gertie was tucked up where any utterly defenseless baby chick ought to be: under her mother’s wing.

And so we left on vacation in the joy of new life. And we came home in the literal darkness to the darkness of loss and death. I remember coming into the barn with Philip that night, switching on the light and waking everybody up. Going into Puck’s stall where he was sleeping alone for the first time in his life and falling on my knees beside him with my arms around his dear neck and my hands stroking his long Nubian ears. My grief was so searing that I wept aloud. And so much was the commotion that the whole barn was literally filled with the tumult of it. A bleating goat. Sheep noisily protesting the interruption of their slumbers. A rooster crowing and hens clucking their annoyance.

But over every other noise was one shrill, persistent, terrified. The peeping of a chick that was so loud and unremitting that it sounded like ten chicks instead of one. It went on for so long that I got up at length and went to look in at the brooder to make sure everything was alright. And there was Butterfly, waddling around after Gertie, trying in vain to soothe her hysterical baby who was flying about the cage in a senseless elusion. She would draw near and open up a wing and off Gertie would run to the other end of the brooder, as if devoid of all hope of safe haven after such a rude awakening. I watched this performance several times in succession until Butterfly, bleary-eyed if ever a hen could be and doubtless thoroughly tired of this game, walked over and unceremoniously sat upon her charge. The silence was instant and the other animals seemed to settle with it. The next I saw of Gertie was a pair of beady, contented little eyes peering over the edge of Butterfly’s wing.

It was one of the most beautiful living pictures of the love of God that I have ever seen and He spoke to my heart with it in a way that I will remember to my dying day.

That’s where I want you, my child. Cease from all your strife and know that I am God. Come under My wing and stay there.

I thought of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem: …how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings… Of the mighty tenderness of God who keeps me as the apple of His eye and takes me and my sorrows under the shelter of an overshadowing love. Of the goodness of the One Who sees, and not unmovedly, the fall of a sparrow and Who knows the very hairs of my head. 

So, yes, I am grieving. But I am grieving in the safest place in all the universe. With my face pressed in close against His feathers. And, let me tell you, the tender mercies there are Real.

Your holy wings, O Savior, spread gently over me,
And let me rest securely through good and ill in thee.

Caroline Sandell-Berg

Pansy, March 10, 2008--May 10, 2010

Pansy

It was a regular free-for-all.

An unlatched gate, a freakish puff of passing wind, and in moments the bucolic tranquility of a sleepy afternoon unraveled into a three-ring circus. I came downstairs just in time, glanced out the window with serene satisfaction (I should have known better), and gasped in horror. Slamming down my freshly-brewed cup of chamomile tea, I tore out the back door, pausing only to slip my feet into some ridiculous garden clogs that refuse to stay on my feet under ordinary circumstances and which were certainly never intended to sustain the rigors of hot pursuit.

The backyard seemed full of them, though in reality it was only two goat kids and six lambs. But they were racing in mad circles, eluding all capture, in a hundred directions at once. And there was only one of me. I swear that naughty Pansy, my Nubian doeling, was laughing at me over her shoulder as she ran. And Puck her brother was on to me, as well, wanting nothing to do with the grain I desperately offered him which, in the ordinarily calm routine of the barnyard, is the day’s most looked-for treat. The dogs, tearing back and forth along the fence with frantic barks of alarm were only adding to the confusion, but I got the distinct impression that that bossy and capable Juno of mine was thoroughly put out with me for allowing her babies to place themselves in such danger. I refrained from reminding her that it was on her watch that they had escaped in the first place.

In the end I was reduced to the capture-and-carry strategy. I’m pretty wiry, but after toting a couple of wriggling and kicking goats across the yard and depositing them on the proper side of the fence, then baiting a few lambs with grain and treating them in a like inglorious manner, I was completely worn out. And hot and dirty and mad. As I looked around at the little imps now browsing calmly on my crepe myrtles I had a hard time believing that these were the same creatures as those wooly darlings that came running up to me for pettings and ear-scratchings, that nuzzled my hand with velvet noses and followed me into the barn every night with an eager obedience I couldn’t help being flattered by.

And now, with the taste of rebellion in their mouths, seasoned with the consequent flavor of fear, their shepherdess was the very last thing in the world they wanted to encounter. It was all my boys who were left—Benedick, Sebastian and Harry, the largest and boldest of them all, named for the intrepid Henry V. (Not that I think my girls were that much less rebellious—they’re only smaller and easier to tote. I had unaccountably saved my wethers for my exhausted state.) After a few more breathless turns around the yard and a desperate prayer or two, I was finally able to corral Sebastian and then Benedick, who suffered themselves to be plopped down in the pasture without a fuss once they saw the game was up. Besides, I think they were rather keen to be with their friends again—the way of transgressors, you know, is hard. And lonely.

Titania and Beatrice

But Harry was another matter altogether. My showy, beautiful boy, with his curling horns that would have been quite impressive had we left him a ram, my stout-hearted baby who loves kisses on the top of his pure white head just as much as he loves ramming it against one of his brothers’—he was, there was no mistaking it, abjectly terrified. Of me. He led me on a wild chase, and what a sight it must have been. The ridiculous shoes were left behind in a tangle of periwinkle; my blue dress was now an unbecoming shade of red clay; and I think, if one had looked closely, they would have seen smoke coming out of my ears. And then something happened that erased my anger in a moment and replaced it with a fear that took my breath. Harry eluded me again, made a quick turn, and went racing off down the driveway, as fast as his legs would carry him. There was no way I could catch him.

“Jesus! Please let the gate be closed!” I shouted as I pursued him, like one in a nightmare whose feet are lodged in mud.

It was. Thanks be to God. If it wasn’t, I feel sure he’d be in Alabama by now.

I collapsed in the driveway and he stood there, just out of arms’ reach, regarding me warily, with panic flickering in those gorgeous, limpid eyes of his. We were both panting; every so often he’d turn suddenly and ram himself against the pasture fence, in a futile attempt to regain the old life and the sweetness of security on the other side. It broke my heart—

“It’s me, Harry—I’m trying to help you,” I fairly sobbed.

There was only one way back into all that he’d so impulsively forsaken, and which his brothers and sisters were now enjoying as placidly as if nothing had ever happened. And I was the only one that could give it to him. At last in our mutual exhaustion and by nothing short of a miracle, I was able to direct him into the barnyard, where he stumbled about for a while, too dazed even to drink. My relief took the last bit of strength that I had—I quite literally wept for joy.

I think the very angels in heaven were glad.

"the Warlike Harry..."

originally published 2008 on YLCF

Titania

The one thing that people invariably ask me when they see my sheep for the first time is, “Can you really tell them apart?”

I never cease to be amazed and tickled by this. It’s like asking the mother of a blonde-haired brood if she really knows who’s who. I want to laugh out loud and exclaim, “Well, for starters, the boys have horns!” (The girls do, too, incidentally, but they are such dainty little adornments that you really don’t notice them at first.) And how on earth could anyone with eyes mistake that exquisitely placid expression of Beatrice’s for the pert little inquisitive one of Hermia? Isn’t it quite as plain to everyone else that Benedick looks just like Kenneth Branagh and that Harry is dignity itself and that Sebastian has an almost dog-like friendliness about him? Titania with her fastidious little nose the color and sheen of wheat-colored velvet and that adorable widow’s peak of wool that grows down over her forehead? And what about Ophelia—honestly, if you didn’t know better you’d think she made up those gorgeous eyes of hers daily with mascara and eyeliner.

But I have an advantage over the casual acquaintance of my flock: the keen and unmistaking eye of Love. I love my sheep. I love them to the point of utter distraction. The slightest bleat sends me dashing to the back porch just to make sure everyone is alright and happy. I know where each of them likes to be scratched and who likes apples better than pears and which one is most liable to pick a fight when they’re hungry. And who they’re going to pick a fight with. And when I call them of an evening, and they lift their heads from the bit of earth they’ve been grazing, recognizing my voice and my form and then come at a run, I seriously wonder if there’s any finer compliment in life.

I love my sheep so much that people laugh at my supposed neurosis in measuring and mixing grain and my insistence on ‘horse quality’ hay. When a cold ran through them at the change in the weather last fall, I was the Florence Nightingale of the barnyard, administering tinctures and vitamins and herbs to anyone who so much as sniffed. I’ll go over the pasture with a fine-toothed comb checking for wild cherry (a real no-no) and hand clip treats of cedar and pine for them from the family farm to bring back as a surprise.

My little flock is a lovely, living, daily parable. Predictably, all of the verses in the Bible that have even the slightest reference to sheep have come more alive to me in the last year than ever before. I’ve become fascinated with the differences between the Eastern shepherds, which are the pattern of our Bible stories and allegories, and the more contemporary Western approach. Jesus wasn’t just embellishing his narrative of the Good Shepherd and His sheep in John 10 with a few pretty, humanizing details. When He says that the He calls His sheep by name, His audience knew exactly what He was talking about. According to Phillip Keller in A Shepherd Looks at the Good Shepherd and His Sheep, the modern, industrialized mind cannot conceive of the bond that these shepherds have with the individual members of their flock:

A…remarkable aspect of the care of animals in these countries is that each one is known by name. These names are not simple common names such as we might choose. Rather, they are complex and unique because they have some bearing upon the history of the individual beast.

Hermia, Titania, Sebastian and Harry

I’ve had the unique opportunity this past year of looking at things from the shepherd’s perspective. I have experienced first hand the joy that comes of a sheep learning its name, learning to trust me, learning to look me in eye without a shade of fear in those gorgeous limpid depths of theirs. I have an inkling of how Jesus feels when His sheep run to Him not only for protection, but for the sheer pleasure of His presence. And I will never, never forget the first time that my sheep actually followed me.

It was several weeks after we had brought them home, and I was just beginning to smile rather sadly upon my preconceived notions of ‘pet lambs’ as a naïve delusion. After hand-feeding them grain and spending hours in the stall with them, talking quietly to accustom them to the sound of my voice and consciously avoiding the perceived threat of direct eye contact, they still seemed rather indifferent and afraid. One evening, however, just about the time the sun met the tops of the pines fringing our west pasture and the light became diffused with a dusting of gold you could almost touch, I went out to call them in for the night. I rattled the grain scoop. I called them again. I could see them all, grazing beneath the pecan tree, a portrait of ovine contentment. Suddenly one of them raised their head—Hermia, I’m sure it was—and looked right at me. A bleat and an answering “Blah!” And suddenly, with a tender thundering of little hooves they were coming at a run. I turned towards the barn and they fell in behind, scampering and capering and clicking their heels and bobbing their heads, as lively as my goatlings could ever be. And I walked on, cooing and soothing with the voice they had at last learned to trust, feeling about ten feet tall.

“Lord, is this something of what it must be like for You?” my spirit whispered.

But I knew without saying that it was. This wonderful, beautiful acknowledgment of Love; this sprightly little parable Peace, It went straight to my heart, stamping an image, a moment, that will be with me forever.

My name is not only known to Him—it is precious to Him. He is not only acquainted with but passionately interested in the details that make up my life. Nothing is too unpleasant a task for His ministering hand. He cares for me every bit as tenderly as I do my flock of seven—every bit and a universe’s worth of more. And when I follow Him, my joy is second only to His.

He does not drive us from behind, goading us on as the Western shepherds do, with dogs and commands. He leads. He calls us by name with a voice that is our soul’s sweetest music. And in the voluntary compulsion of Love, we follow Him. And what follows us? Goodness and mercy, all sufficient and all encompassing, all the days of our lives. Green pastures and quiet waters and an unfailing Presence in the valley of the shadow. We shall not know the meaning of want.

My sheep had to choose to trust me. They have to remember who I am when they see me coming with that odious dosing syringe, dripping wormwood. Through all the ordeal of hoof trimming and shearing. Through the winter barrenness when I portion out the right amount of hay—neither too little or too much—for their sustenance. And in the coming plenty of spring when I limit them from one pasture and choose for them another. Because with all the ear scratches and loves and apples and goodnight kisses, comes a whole lot of stuff that’s not as much fun in their opinion.

I doubt that Jesus could have chosen a more tender, a more infinitely attentive symbol for His relation to us. For me, as I go about my barn duties, from mucking stalls to picking up the wheelbarrow an impish Sebastian has just overturned, to running a careful hand over everyone as they go out to pasture, it is a mercy that is new every single morning.

out to pasture

originally published 2008 on YLCF

It’s been a day of gorgeous indolence, a true gift after all the glad hustle and bustle of the weeks previous. I sat on the couch by the fire and nursed the cold I sustained through late nights and early mornings and too much sugar and running out barefoot into the frost-touched grass for just one more branch of holly…and did nothing but catch up on my journal and think long and lovely thoughts.

My heart has been gloating over all the sweet bounty of the season today, and the goodness of God in the midst of it all. I have among the jewels in my memory chest the vision of thirty something-odd of the best beloved folks packing into our house on Christmas Eve; the bright image of a host of little faces screwed up with abandon over the serious business of a peppermint stick in an orange and the poignant stab of my thirteen year-old nephew’s polite but unprecedented, “No thank you,” when I offered him one–the first to break rank with childhood. I have the memory of a walk with my Daddy and the dogs between Christmas breakfast and Christmas lunch, and of playing old Christmas duets with my brother at the piano and making a merry mess of it and laughing at ourselves all the way. I have the gift of a sister home from away and a mother who cries on Christmas night because it was all so fun and we were all together again.

So today I’ve just been soaking it in, not too sorry for the aforementioned cold that enforces an already validated pause. I just love the day after Christmas–and this was a perfect one. There was an absolutely majestic sunset tonight–we watched it over our tea with growing delight as it deepened from a glitter of gold among the pines through every shade of apricot and orange into a fiery splendor of crimson, spanning the pale sky in streaks of wild color. The finest sunset of the season, a glory that reminded us with joy that this was just the second of twelve glad days. And then, just as the last flame had vanished from the sky and the animals patiently gathering in the barnyard told us it was time to pull on our overalls and get into our coats for the nightly ritual of bedding down, the lights flickered and went out, leaving us in the candlelight of the two tapers on the coffee table and the cheery glow of the Advent wreath in the window.

“This should be interesting,” Philip grinned. “And kind of neat.”

With one of my candle lamps and the two holly-trimmed hurricane lanterns that had graced the front walk, we made our way across the darkened lawn with Caspian frisking in the shadows and a waxing gibbous sifting a thin dusting of silver over our way. The animals all greeted us at the gate as usual. But they were unnerved by the darkness of their comforting barn. And the sheep, at least, were none too sure of the flickering lights we bore to dispel it. We hung the lanterns in the stalls as we worked, from the hay drops and perched atop mineral boxes, and I sang and spoke low to the frightened darlings as they alternately followed me as a body and dispersed in sudden panic. The goats were fine once they realized that grain was still forthcoming and hay was in the offing, and they munched some of their Christmas apples with as unperturbed a satisfaction as ever, their breath showing in fragrant puffs by the light of the lantern. But the sheep were too terrified to enjoy their evening repast, dropping some of their loved apples down into the straw untasted to be trampled underfoot by the others.

What a parable, I thought. The Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not–I’ve always thought that one of the most heartbreaking verses in the Bible. A Light not only incomprehensible, but feared.  I’ve heard it mentioned again and again how the first words out of an angel’s mouth when greeting a human being was always, ‘Fear not,’ and watching my poor frightened flock I saw an image of the terror of the unknown and unfamiliar, even couched in perfect safety.

I knelt down in their midst, calling to them softly by name, soothing and stroking as they drew near, a ring of lovely ovine faces illumined by the glow of the lanterns, their tender eyes and smooth velvet noses blooming out of the murkiness beyond. And then I was struck by another image altogether, a picture so precious I caught my breath and smiled. This is what the barn must have looked like on the night of Jesus’ birth, perhaps the light of an oil lamp scattering the shadows of the stable rude and lighting up the faces of the friendly beasts that gazed with wonder alongside shepherds and Mother and Father. That sweet tilt of Hermia’s head, so gently touched with gold, went to my heart, as did the soft muffle of Benedick’s breath in my ear and the rustle and clucking of a hen in the next stall. It all just gave me such a moment of transport, a flicker of knowing.

Let us go then, even unto Bethlehem…

The barn was beautiful by candlelight. And even though the babies protested noisily when we took the flickering lanterns away (any light was better than none!) we came merrily back across the lawn, lanterns swinging, to the music of utter silence in the world around us. Wrapped in an almost heavenly calm.

I was even a little sorry when the lights came on a few hours later.

And so, Merry Second Day of Christmas to you all!! And here’s a little wassailing song for the day–the names of each family’s farm animals and household were traditionally inserted into the carol, and so we had fun with this one last Christmas. You can listen for the names of some of our friendly beasts…and there’s even a mention of Philip!

Gloucester Wassail

Traditional English

My home smells like gingerbread and fir once more, and a gloriously-spangled tree, ‘the prettiest ever,’ has joined the Advent wreath in the den. My few ‘permanent’ decorations—the crèche on the Empire chest, the mantle swag of vintage glass balls, the stockings above the kitchen fireplace, have taken up their yearly residence, and yesterday I put some festive touches on the barn. Philip watched me with a grin on his face as I swung the paper chain along the center beam and hung little red wire cones from the posts filled with silky silver-green branches of long-leaf pine. I knew what he was thinking—but I had decorated in much the same way last year and everything was just out of reach of my impish Nubian goats, Puck and Pansy. Surely they couldn’t have grown that much since last Christmas!

I wasn’t in the barn when Puck and Co. came running in from the pasture for their mid-afternoon siesta, but Philip was, and he nearly doubled over with laughter at the sight. Puck took in the paper chain and the delectable treat of pine boughs dangling overhead in one glance, and in a moment more the ‘decorations’ were gone. He did share a bit with his sister, Pansy, Philip tells me, and Sebastian the sheep managed a nibble or two. But in Puck’s mind, Christmas has really come again, with the goat version of sugarplums sprouting magically from the ceiling.

Caspian has taken up his vigilant guard at the foot of the Christmas tree, just to make sure that none of those gingerbread men, you know, jump off. And the five house cats, Josie, Lucy, Oliver, Pip and Wemmick each have their own favorite ornament, and they show their love by batting it off the tree and scuttling it around the floor between their paws. Maudie and Balliol, the barn kitties, doubtless remember the birds’ tree in the yard from last year, for they were only too eager to lend their aid as Philip strung the colored lights over the cedar along the fence. I’m going to have to hang the birdseed pinecones really high this year!

Next week the ‘candy shop’ will open in my kitchen and Philip will doubtless come home at night to a very floured and sugar-dusted wife. But what loved recipes—every one a memory-laden favorite: Mince-pie cookies! Martha Washington candies! Russian tea cakes and ginger hearts! Butter toffee and caramels! I’ve gotten to the point after ten Christmases in my own home that I can’t even look at new recipes for I’m not willing to give up anything that I make every year in exchange. And there is absolutely nothing more satisfying to me than gifting my loved ones with the fruits of my kitchen—whether around my table, nibbling cookies by my fire, or by way of presents themselves.

The week after next is when I will begin ‘bringing in the greens’, decking the chandeliers and the pictures on the walls with crowns of holly and ivy. I am very old-fashioned about most things, and Christmas in particular, and waiting to decorate with live greenery, which our Southern climate supplies in such munificence, is all part of the glad anticipation of the Advent for me. There is something so very immediate in the prickle of a holly leaf, and I cannot help but think of the old legend that tells how it was used for the crown of thorns, and that it never bore its scarlet berries until the drops of blood flowed from the Savior’s brow. I love the keenness of cedar boughs, all the more vibrant after a good hard frost or two, and their fragrant promise of ever-living things. And the loyal glossy green of the boxwood, twined into wreaths or thin circlets atop my hurricane globes, speaking to me of love and friendship and of the dear friend from whose garden I clipped it.

Christmas is the brightest and best season of the year for me, the most joyous time of all at our dear little farm-in-the-city. No matter what the year has held, no matter what challenges and longings and frustrations may lay behind us in the months that have gone without recall, the blessed now of Christmas returns with its Glory and its Joy just as fresh and amazing as that first starry night in Bethlehem. The miracle of God with us overwhelms me more every single year. It is the life in all sweet the trappings and memories that I love about this season and the lodestar that lures me on into an inscrutable but irresistible future when this Christmas is but a memory itself. I always feel, in the midst of it all, that the scrim twixt the temporal and the eternal is thinner this time of year than at any other, and that the unspeakable realities on the other side are hovering so near, near enough to touch had I but the eyes to see them. Angels’ wings whispering close at hand; the ineffable fragrance of a Rose newly-sprung; the clear, piercing light of the Day Star and the sudden gilding of dawn over a frozen landscape.

But as I love it best, I feel I am more subject to temptations unique to this season and unique to me. The pull to over-do, to live beyond the means of time and energy that God has given me. To forget—even momentarily, but no less tragically—what we’re celebrating in the drive to do it honor. To exchange happy bustle for ‘huffing about’. I am determined not to waste a blessed moment of it this year—but I know that I can’t do it alone. I need my friends to remind me. I need my husband to raise his eyebrows with a smile when I talk about adding one more thing to the irresistible list of projects and Christmasy things I want to do.

I need Jesus. To keep me grounded, centered. Starry-eyed, if you will, as I sit in contemplation of a glittering Christmas tree or at my piano lingering over the carols I love best with a lump in my throat. To keep my heart so tender to the staggering verities of His Word and of what this is all about that I still weep over the same verses in my Bible that have stabbed me every year with joy and pain. To keep the wonder of a Love I still cannot fathom though I’ve been steeped in it my whole life.

To keep me. So that I might keep Christmas.

God bless you all as you welcome Him this season, in your homes and in your hearts.

And here’s another little gift, in the same vein as before. Two songs that I love dearly. I hope that you enjoy them.

Now the Holly Bears a Berry

Sans Day Carol, Cornish Traditional

Noel Sing We

15th Century English Carol

My post in the YLCF series on typical days of the members of our team. I chose Monday.

Monday at the Farm-in-the-City

photography copyright Griffin Gibson 2009