Gentle Giants

The Scott County Fair had a draft horse show last Friday and we watched the six horse hitches for the mares division. There were ten entries from all over the midwest. At one point there were 60 horses in the arena - all thundering past the stands pulling coaches- the announcer liked to call them "Gentle Giants." When I stood beneath one who was getting all gussied up before the completion - her mane braided, her tail be-ribboned and her hooves shined - it looked like a spa for horses. Anyway - I stood beneath one of the mares and her lips rested on my head. That's how tall they are. The winner of that division was Percherons from Cheyenne, WY.   They are Percherons. Black beauties whose breed originated in France. 

  

Their synchronized beauty, their power and grace move me. Sometimes to tears. Silly me. But there is a theology to them that causes me to wonder. I mean wonder as in speechless. Amazed. A horse can be controlled with a bit and bridle if you know how. But there is something wonderful about the one who will come to you when called without being coerced. That is what God asks of us - to come to him. To not be like a horse that has no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come. (Psalm 32:9) 

A complicated eulogy

“A Complicated Eulogy”

Elisabeth Elliot died.

Photo from elisabethelliot.org

It’s a very odd thing to read about the death of someone you so respected and who influenced your life, but to also honestly face some of the doubts and, well, personal opinions that quite differed from hers. Writer Addie Zierman brought those repressed questions to the surface. She eloquently voiced what I would want to say if only I’d thought of it. (Read it here.) Elisabeth was one of my heroes, too. Many of the things she wrote and said steered me through difficult times. When I was overwhelmed with life she said: Don’t try to take the entire journey at once. Trust all your life and its details to God. He cares about you. All you need to do is the next thing. Whatever it is. Just do the next thing.

I wanted to be like her. For awhile. Until I grew farther into womanhood and marriage and mothering, then I found her voice more difficult to bear on some issues.

Zierman ends her eulogy with graciousness. If anyone ever wrote mine, I hope they would extend me grace in the end as she does with Elisabeth. Zierman points us to a place where I have wanted others to go – a place of hope, a place we long for: Home, a place where I (and you) are called “Beloved.” 

Rembrandt's Dog

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Our book group recently read Stealing Rembrandts – an entire book tracing lost and stolen works by Rembrandt. One of the etchings that was missing for years and then turned up was The Good Samaritan. (1633)

We own the Time/Life Library of Art Series. One of the volumes is The World of Rembrandt 1606 – 1609 where I found a copy of this etching.

What drew me first was the topic: Prodigal Son. How could he portray this subject that has so exhaustively, and sometimes dead boringly, explored by generations of artists and Christians? I was curious to see whether it could speak to me.

I first noticed that the figures were ordinary in stature –  thick-fleshed and lumpish. They were working-class folks. Rather like the people I come from – hard-working Norwegians and Swedes – our bodies made to plow and milk cows. During Rembrandt’s time it was customary, in fact, considered proper, perhaps mandatory, to depict the human body as idealized – the classical Greek-look. Muscular, lean, tall, perfect, god-like. (Today, advertisements daily remind us of the 21^st century impossible classic: long, thin, lean, corded thighs and six-packs.)

So his viewers must have been a little uncomfortable looking at themselves, ordinary as they were, as we all are.

What captured my imagination (if you allow me) was the mangy dog in the foreground of the etching. A defecating dog. It is impolite to look at such things, much less write about them, and yet he forces us to look because it is a right up-close, in-your-face focal point. What could he mean by including what seems disgusting to us?

Then I read the following explanation:

Rembrandt’s point – which seems not to have been recognized until Goethe took note of it in an essay almost two centuries later – is that true Christianity is active, not passive. It is all very well for the Samaritan to help the wayfarer; in fact, it is his duty. But if the Creator chose to put into the world people whose bodies fall short of the Greek ideal, man is not to quarrel with this or be revolted by it. Further, if the Creator also saw fit to give life to ugly dogs who are under the same necessity of relieving themselves as a Prince of Orange, man cannot quarrel with that, either. A Christian must have reverence for all life, even if aspects of it occasionally disgust him. This seems to be Rembrandt’s understanding of Scripture.  (p. 66)

I cannot argue with this. In fact, I like etching the more because of it and would like the Truth of this to be “active, not passive” in my life.

Ten favorite moments of 2011

1. When Anita walked in and announced, “Honeysuckle had ten babies last night!”

2. Learning that people who hate cilantro lack an enzyme which makes it  taste like soap. Too bad.

3. On a day when Ransom’s coffers are dry; a large-ish check arrives to help out with bills.

4. Ava Lou, our two-year-old granddaughter, empties all the salt and pepper from the shakers, then eats most of it.

5. When Denis learned he’d brushed his teeth after I’d dropped the toothpaste container in the toilet.

6. The William Baffin Climbing Rose is climbing and blooming 4 weeks after being planted.

7. Harvesting, shucking, processing three wheel barrel-loads of our own sweet corn at Heartbeet Farm’s.

8. Pulling a volunteer marijuana plant nearly as tall as me from the sidewalk flowerbed and using it to garnish a mojito for Sandy O.

9. Watching the The Princess Bride with seven-year-old grandson, who thought it sounded like “a movie for girls!”

10. That Jesus loved me even as I envied someone with a perfect life and hair.

                               Honeysuckle's naked bunny babies

                                      Ava tries on her mom's mascara

                                                    Denis shucks corn

                                                   Mint mojito

                                          Toad Hall painted

                      

New Year - with Leonard Cohen

January 1. 2012. Am still alone. In the quiet of this evening spent with Leonard Cohen watching the concert video again – Live in London. Cohen is in his 70s, a gracious man, and this is obvious as he kindly and often turns to members of his band to praise and introduce them. It's uncanny. His smile is so like Jerram Barrs, another hero of mine. I’ve always loved his music from the first time I heard Suzanne Takes You Down years ago, sung by a young woman who lived in our commune. It was so different from the Christian choruses I grew up with, or any other music for that matter – it was mysterious, sexual, beautiful.

This concert is filled with common Grace and Truths that are powerfully strung in Cohen’s poetry and music. Though I’m quite sure he doesn’t share my faith, still through his art, he does me great goodness. I am linked to spiritual concepts that can sound weak and boring if I tell you them outright. Like: “Believe me, one day things will be different. Jesus is coming back to fix things.” Well, yes. He is. And I believe it, but how to express it?

When I listen to Cohen sing one particular song -  Democracy  everything together – the inexorable rhythm, the drum of time, the lyrics, the wind instruments that march on, the voice harmonies that rise – I sense in its richness this is a little like how the Holy Spirit might come to us. On the day when Jesus returns, when all injustice, and illness, and the poverty of people, and the dearth of shelter and love, and the corruption of nations; people everywhere will see that Someone coming through all the static. If “Democracy” is what this poet wants to call it, that’s okay. But, to me, “Democracy” speaks of Christ. About the longing to have things be right, of being human and made whole in  our essential selves, our bodies, in our loves, “We'll be going down so deep / the river's going to weep, / and the mountain's going to shout Amen!”

            Perhaps you’ll give his work a listen one day and join me in my obsession?

Democracy

It's coming through a hole in the air,

from those nights in Tiananmen Square.

It's coming from the feel

that this ain't exactly real,

or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

From the wars against disorder,

from the sirens night and day,

from the fires of the homeless,

from the ashes of the gay:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;

on a visionary flood of alcohol;

from the staggering account

of the Sermon on the Mount

which I don't pretend to understand at all.

It's coming from the silence

on the dock of the bay,

from the brave, the bold, the battered

heart of Chevrolet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,

the holy places where the races meet;

from the homicidal bitchin'

that goes down in every kitchen

to determine who will serve and who will eat.

From the wells of disappointment

where the women kneel to pray

for the grace of God in the desert here

and the desert far away:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,

the cradle of the best and of the worst.

It's here they got the range

and the machinery for change

and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.

It's here the family's broken

and it's here the lonely say

that the heart has got to open

in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.

We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on ...

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.