Foggy Mountain Tales

Live and Let Live or the Golden Rule?

2011-03-30T14:07:00.001-07:00

My husband, his mother, and I went for a walk this morning. We followed our usual path—Zack and I walked up the steep hill to his mom’s place and then the three of us headed past my son Jubal’s trailer and up the long driveway and through the gate to the “upper end.”

That’s what we call the land that’s farthest away from the houses, the sheep barn, and the orchard pastures. A dirt road follows another steep rise up through oak woodlands, past the pond that floods the road after winter rains but dries up in the hot days of summer. After passing the pond, the road follows a wide loop that circles the oldest barn on the place, old enough that it has been many years since it was used for anything but storage.

Before we got too far, my son Jubal caught up to us, his dog Odie jumping with excitement, wiggling and barking at the sight of us. Good-natured and tail-wagging friendly, Odie is a young pit bull, sleek, muscular, and extremely energetic. They joined us and were soon in the lead.

These walks are for exercise, but they are also a “check-in” time—we share conversation about our lives and scope out the farthest reaches of the ranch, a distance of a mile from our house, around the loop, and home again. It’s an opportunity to keep an eye on the springs and spring boxes that provide the only water on the place and we can locate fallen trees or broken fence lines. It’s also a time to enjoy the natural beauty that we are privileged to live amid.

On every walk, no matter what the season or weather, the view from the upper end can take my breath away—sometimes hills and valleys barely seen through the foggy mist; sometimes miles and miles of clear skies that reveal Mt. Tamalpais in the far distance.

Occasionally, we stumble upon a bit of excitement. This morning Odie perked up his ears and stiff-legged, jumped into the ditch near a large stack of fence pickets. Jubal pulled him back then whistled low and soft. “Odie,” he said holding Odie’s leash tight, “jumping a rattlesnake isn’t the best idea, bud.”

A small rattlesnake, probably less than 12 inches long, lay curled in the grass. It didn’t coil or try to strike, slow and sluggish from the chill of a damp morning.

Thirty years ago I married into a family that likes and respects all creatures, snakes included, even rattlers. My husband’s family showed me that snakes have their own place in the natural order. Although it took a while, I have come to adopt my husband’s ways—I don’t kill snakes. Our policy is the old adage, “live and let live” or perhaps it’s just a variation on “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” what we Christians call the Golden Rule. Given our call to care for creation, it seems to me that the Golden Rule applies to the other creatures that share the earth.

Every major religious tradition has something similar to the “Golden Rule,” but even when our treatment of other humans is concerned, it’s not easy to live that rule, not in our own lives or out in the larger world. That’s obvious from the newspaper headlines and the words of the latest television pundits. All across the world people are shooting and bombing, killing and maiming each other, from Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya to a whole list of countries in Africa and other places spread around the globe.

We fear what is different, whether it’s a difference of race, tribe, clan, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, political party, or at times, even species. When economies tumble, natural disasters come, a frightening disease strikes an entire population, or any of the things that increase the tension and anxiety in people’s lives, the ones we fear become an easy target to blame, an easy enemy to attack.

Love your neighbor as yourself, the Bible says, but what about those who aren’t our neighbors? Those don’t look like us, or don’t talk like us, those who don’t worship the way we do, don’t live the way we live? In the 6th chapter of Luke, Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them… But love your enemies, and do good to them… be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

Living here on the ranch with its abundance of wild creatures has taught me that humans can learn to live with what is different, even with what we fear. My prayer is that one day, by some miracle of grace, the peoples of the world can find a way to respect, love, and live with each other, whatever our differences may be.

peace & blessings, Country Woman

Making a Joyful Noise

2011-02-23T18:34:00.000-08:00

When I was in grade school, we had singing class each week. I remember lining up and walking down to the gym where we’d sit on the bottom row of the bleachers and sing songs from tattered blue books that had simple line drawings of singing, marching children wearing silly hats and wide smiles. I loved music class, a half hour break in the day. Besides, singing lifted my spirits, leaving me smiling and light-hearted.

For a long time, singing came naturally to me—as we got older, my sister and I enlivened dish washing time by singing the top ten tunes we heard every day on the radio. Three years older, she favored Elvis numbers, “Don’t step on my blue suede shoes,” while I preferred the harmonies of the Everly Brothers and the girl singers who sang of unrequited love, “To know, know, know-o him, is to love, love, love-a him.”

After I turned twelve, I joined her in the choir at the little Baptist Church where I had been baptized that summer. We were the youngest choir members, surrounded by gray-haired ladies whose voices ranged from Mrs. Mallory’s strong alto to tiny Mrs. Adams’ shaky soprano. There really weren’t any “great” singers among us and I’m not sure what we sounded like on those long ago Sundays. I do remember that there were a few times when, there in that shabby little church, allowing my own tentative voice to mingle with theirs brought me a tiny glimpse of what it was like to stand on holy ground.

But I grew up and it wasn’t long after I left the church and that small town in Oregon that singing lost its lustre. It happened one sunny summer day. I was making lunch, my baby daughter in her high chair next to me, giggling and cooing. I was singing “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure and wear flowers in your hair” when I heard my husband’s low growl from the other room, “People who can’t sing really shouldn’t try.”

It was very a long time before I sang again, long after that marriage ended and years after I had married Zack. One evening, coming quietly into a room where I was singing as I worked, he asked me, “Why don’t you ever sing? You have a nice voice.” I didn’t tell him that I felt ashamed and embarrassed because I wasn’t “good enough.”

I just read a book written by Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls duo and her father Don Saliers, a renowned church musician. In the introduction to “A Song to Sing, A Life to Live” the authors say: “It has become easy to forget that music deepens and makes more vivid the beauty, the delight, and yes, even the lamentable terrors and sufferings of our world. Music is rooted in the human body and the human soul, and it gives voice to the spirit of human communities. Without songs to sing, life would be diminished.”

“Without songs to sing”—it does not say “without songs to listen to.” Strangely enough, it is only some of the richer, “first world” nations that have forgotten that singing is part of what it means to be human. In many countries, the presumption is that everyone can sing and they do. Certainly there are those who have more naturally melodic voices, those who are trained and educated, but communal singing is as old as human history. Singing as a way to worship and praise the Holy is probably nearly as old.

This year my husband surprised me with a very special Christmas present. He paid the tuition for a four-session singing class taught by Katie Ketchum, the substitute musician at our church several years ago when Kira went to Russia. Katie is also a trained singing teacher. The class was for women, many of whom I discovered had similar experiences.

Waiting for that first class to start I paced and hyperventilated outside the classroom. However, once it began, with Katie’s calm presence, a sense of safety and peace came over me. The fifteen women talked and laughed and there were even a few teary-eyed moments. We shared our stories, Katie taught us exercises to help us loosen up, and we sang a few simple songs.

Last of all we practiced a traditional round together, a bit weak at first, then I heard the voices around me grow stronger and more beautiful by the moment. I closed my eyes and kept singing. Standing in that circle of women, most of whom had been strangers just an hour before, I realized we had crossed over onto holy ground, that place where people open their hearts to each other and share their deepest human connections.

Driving home from the last class of the series, I determined to do my best not to let the voices from the past silence my own voice any longer. I hope you do not let anyone silence yours. Scripture tells us to raise a joyful noise. May it be so.

Blessings from Country Woman

Reverence

2011-02-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

In a book titled “Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue” by Paul Woodruff, the second paragraph begins with these words: “Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control—God, truth, justice, nature, even death.”

Last week, after reading an article in the Press Democrat, my husband and I drove to a private school not far from Healdsburg to view a sight that I had never imagined. It was a lovely evening, shirtsleeve weather with a slight breeze. Rio Lindo Academy, a Seventh Day Adventist boarding high school, has a lovely campus with brick buildings, wide green lawns, and a sweeping view over acres of vineyards. We parked across from an older structure, its plaster walls dull and cracked, the windows dusty, a building long abandoned except for storage purposes. At one end, there was a large square chimney, the object that drew us to that place.

We were among the first arrivals, but obviously we had come unprepared, arriving empty-handed except for my husband’s camera bag and gear. Several couples had set up lawn chairs and there was a family, dad pushing a stroller with a small passenger and mom carrying a tiny baby. Another couple followed them and quickly spread a blanket and set down pizza boxes, the aroma wafting our direction. Soon more people arrived, couples, others who were alone, more families, and sometimes groups of five or six. The lane was lined for more than a block with people sitting or standing and children running and playing. While there was quiet conversation and the laughter of children, mostly people watched that chimney.

After about a half-hour, someone said, “Look, here they come.” Far above us we saw a few dark shapes against the sky, small birds, fluttering and circling in the air. They came down towards the chimney, circled it and then flew away. Minutes later, another group did the same, followed by another. We waited and during the next half hour, the groups grew larger and finally they began diving closer and disappeared inside the chimney. More and more came, hundreds of tiny birds swooping into the chimney. Finally there were thousands filling the sky, a living tornado of whirring wings, circling and descending out of sight.

One of the school’s staff walked through the crowd and passed out a paper that talked about the school on one side and described the birds on the other. I read that they are Vaux’s Swifts, known in some places as “chimney swifts” for their habit of using chimneys as their resting place, especially on their migration routes. The paper stated that some years there are as many as 20,000 birds that stop by the school campus, with 360 entering the chimney every minute during the most active landings.

Several days passed and Sunday morning came. As we were preparing to walk out of the house and get in the truck for the drive to Guerneville for church, the phone rang. Someone called to tell us the whales were running off Bodega Head, “So close,” she said, “they’re touching each other.”

After street church that afternoon, we made our way to Jenner and turned south towards Bodega. When we arrived we found that the cliffs above the ocean were lined with people, much like those who had gathered to watch the birds. We made our way to the edge and within a moment or two, I cried, “There’s one, Zack,” pointing to a large black shape that rose just above the waves. As long as we stood there, we could see them, their presence heralded by an arching spray of water, then an immense shadow that broke the surface, then disappeared.

Looking at the people gathered there and remembering those waiting so patiently in Healdsburg, I thought about how these small events had pulled each of us away from our regular routines. Dinners postponed, televisions turned off, work set aside, we had come to watch these mysterious, magical occurrences, events beyond our understanding and certainly beyond our control. As the last birds disappeared into that chimney, there was a sound that swept across the crowd, like a breeze ruffling through leaves, a deep sigh of appreciation, perhaps even of awe. On the cliff above the sea, again and again, I heard one person and another call out, “There’s one—I see one!” This world is full of amazing things, all of them part of the gift we have been given, the wondrous gift of being a small part of this intricately beautiful creation. Sometimes all we can do is stand in reverence, filled with an awe that goes beyond words.

blessings from Country Woman

Weddings Then and Now

2010-08-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

When my great-niece Amanda asked if I would preside at her wedding, I had no idea that on a warm, breezy July afternoon I would find myself in an enormous Oregon hayfield waiting for the wedding party’s arrival. In front of me people sat on hay bales, many folks in bright western clothes and cowboy hats of all colors and sizes, felt and straw hats, wide-brimmed and narrow, new and well-worn.

Finally the moment arrived. While country western music rang from the sound system, the mothers and grandmothers were escorted up the aisle, then came the 4-year-old ringbearer escorted by his parents, followed by four young couples. Brocade vests with western shirts and string ties for the guys and bright yellow dresses for the gals were accompanied by well-worn cowboy boots for all. Two small flower girls, flowers and ribbons circling their heads, bright as baby angels, threw rose petals among the hay stubble.

As the bride and her father stepped into the aisle, I asked people to stand. What a lovely bride she was, her simple but elegant white satin dress, long dark hair, and flowing veil. When she lifted her dress a bit to keep it from dragging, once again, I saw cowboy boots scuffed from use. As the music shifted to a softer, sweeter sound, a man sang “my baby girl’s all grown now” and that’s when Amanda looked up at her father and tears appeared on her cheeks. He pulled her a bit closer and kissed her on her forehead.

After he gave the bride’s hand to the young man waiting next to me, the bride’s father stepped back to take his seat next to my niece, fumbling for his handkerchief. The young couple stood there just looking at each other and in that moment, I knew we had once again come to that holy place where love brings us.

When love lasts even when life brings us to the waning days of our lives, that is a gift beyond measure. The morning before the wedding, my husband Zack and I went to breakfast in a local café. The place was packed and we took the last available table. Next to me an elderly man sat alone, although there was a half-finished breakfast resting across from him. His chair was only inches from mine and I asked if I was crowding him. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m just waiting for my wife—she’s in the ladies’ room .”

He went on to tell me that they had come to the coast to escape the 100 plus temperatures where they lived in Grants Pass. “I just can’t take the heat any more,” he said. “Besides, we wanted a special weekend—they’re gonna take my leg off Monday and it’ll be a while before we get out again. I feel real bad, though – she wanted to go to her niece’s wedding in Los Angeles this weekend and I just wasn’t up to it.” He shook his head and said, “Yep, I feel real bad—she really wanted to go.”

When his wife returned, the man struggled to get up. I stood and put my hand under his elbow and then I saw the crutch, one of those metal ones with a cuff for your arm. I handed it to him and he limped towards the restrooms.

His wife was a small woman looking some years younger than her husband. A bright red baseball cap sat loosely on her head, thick dark hair springing out from it. She smiled a bit and said “He’s such a talker, isn’t he?” She adjusted the hat, then said, “I can hardly stand this wind—it nearly blew my hair off,” and she laughed. “I’ve been in chemo for a while,” touching the wig.

She looked back where her husband was making his slow way through the crowded room, shook her head, smiled and said, “We’re lucky to have each other. He takes care of me and I take care of him.”

Zack took my hand as we watched them totter off to their car.

Of course, none of us knows what the future holds, what joys or sorrows will find us in the years to come, young couples just starting out or that elderly couple who were young once, too. But what I prayed for Amanda and Nate, what I pray for the couple from Grants Pass and for everyone is that each of us will find that partner who will help us become the people we were meant to be, who will encourage us to follow our dreams, who will stand by us through the hard times, and celebrate with us when life is good; that love will hold through whatever comes, that each of us includes God in our lives and always keeps open to the possibility of grace.

Do Not Go Gently

2010-07-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

I wrote this during Lent — when I reread it today, I just felt like there was someone out there who needed to read it, too.

During the eight years I served a small country church in Kansas, I did a lot of funerals. During one six-month period, there were seventeen.

Each funeral was different—once I presided with a priest at the local Catholic Church. That funeral had the rich smell of incense, the sweetness of bells, the familiar words of Mass. My first service at the local mortuary chapel had favorite old hymns and bouquets of wheat and sunflowers, the deceased with the look of a dedicated farmer even there in that place. A service for an elderly man I’d never met had the delightful gift of a piano concerto from a teenaged grandson, his fingers rippling across the keys, and once three young girls said goodbye to their grandma with sweet high voices singing “Jesus loves you, this I know.”

But those solemn services were alike, too—music, stories, an unexpected and painful kind of joy, the kind that comes from sharing treasured memories that will live on as long as there is one person to tell them. And of course, sadness, deep sadness that closes the throat and brings tears long after you think you have no more tears to cry.

And, the hard thing is, life does go on—even in the midst of planning a service, choosing a casket, of writing thank you notes, life goes on. A little girl’s voice calls you away from your tasks, “Grandma, Grandma…” and you go, knowing that this too is a precious and holy moment that will quickly pass and be gone.

Or you force yourself to fix breakfast, breakfast for one, and sitting at the table, your toast growing cold, you sip dark coffee. Suddenly there’s a bird on the windowsill hopping brightly back and forth, peering at you with a shiny dark eye. You step outside to get the paper. The air is fresh and cold and the old dog comes to lean against you, hoping you might stop to rub his ears while he groans with pleasure.

The days pass pretty much like always and that is the way of things, the way of life. I think of the people, the families I spent so much time with in those days. I held them in my heart and in my prayers as they went through these first months. Know, too, that God holds you, each of you who has lost someone, whether recently, or years past, because though it becomes easier, there is always that sad, sore spot in your heart that never quite goes away. I know that spot well. Sometimes it’s strangely comforting when I feel it, remembering dear ones who at that moment are as clear in my memory as if I’d seen them only yesterday.

Perhaps it’s the season that has me thinking of death and loss. In these weeks as I ride over West Side Road to the church, there are enormous oak trees that stand stark and leafless against the sky. The vineyards are bare, the workers hunched in the cold as they prune back the vines. As I write, the temperature has dropped and heavy, slushy flakes fall outside the window.

But sitting in the recliner this morning drinking my coffee and finishing the Sunday paper, something caught my eye—rosy buds on bare limbs, dark and velvet soft, the flowering quince outside the front window. My first thought was that it was too soon, that they will only perish in the next hard rain that is sure to come. But still I am cheered by the thought of them there, waiting to burst forth into bloom, waiting to announce that winter has once again moved on, that the cycle goes on, life goes on.

Lent is almost upon us, the season that seems harsh and spare, the time when we are called to look within, called to question what is going on in our minds and hearts, what is going on in our life of faith. We prepare for Easter by preparing for death, for loss. Then I think about Jesus’ teachings and I wonder. Is that what he taught? It seems to me that until the end, Jesus lived life to the fullest. What did he do the night before he died, the night scholars say he knew well that the cross was waiting? He ate dinner with his friends, he drank wine and told stories, he called them together to say one last time, “I love you… I love you.” And even Judas sat at that table.

I think of the Dylan Thomas poem, the words,

“Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

We don’t get a guarantee of time—a year, twenty, four score and ten—all we get is the opportunity to live life to the fullest as long as we can, until the very last moment, the very last breath. When we hold back, when we refuse to give our best, that’s the sin, the shame.

Winter and Lent—time to slow down a bit, time to think of what’s going on, what’s coming, where life’s going; time to look forward to the change spring will surely bring. I pray that whatever the season, whatever the circumstances, we each find it within us to refuse to live halfway, to refuse to live anxiously, tentatively stepping through our days. No, it is far better to rage…to rage against the dying of the light wherever we are… sometimes that’s all that keeps the darkness away.

Blessings to you and may your days be filled with grace, Pam

Self-Help, Helping Others

2010-05-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

I’m always picking up self-help books, everything from “I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church” to “The Smash Fat Diet.” I have this fantasy that if you buy the book, your life will magically change for the better. Perhaps that’s why self-help books are such a popular genre—people have a tendency to suffer from what the psychologists call “Magical Thinking.” If we think it, it will come true.

Self-help books are supposed to change our lives. Sometimes they may do that, at least I hope so. As for mine, they mostly gather dust on the shelf.

Novels can also be self-help books; at least they have the power to change our lives if we let their stories transform our hearts. A seminary friend of mine has told me that reading the novel “The Poisonwood Bible” certainly changed her.

Written by Barbara Kingsolver, one of the most gifted writers of our time, “The Poisonwood Bible” is the story of Nathan Price, a driven and troubled man. In 1959 Price drags his wife and four daughters to Africa so he can follow his call to spread the Word of God to the “heathens.”

It’s a powerful tale that I’ve read twice and also listened to as an audio version. In a time of great upheaval in Africa, the Price family travels from their home in Georgia to a tiny isolated village in the Belgian Congo. There, Papa Price preaches sin, hellfire and damnation to people who are desperately poor, people who may very well be the very least of “the least of these.”

After reading the tragedies that befell the Prices and the people they lived among, including an attack of army ants, drought, starvation, and a war for independence, my friend Wilma began a juice fast that lasted the entire season of Lent. She said that Kingsolver’s powerful words reminded her that for many people in the world, life is a struggle just to survive.

“In the face of that kind of suffering,” she said, “the way we live is obscene. Knowing that I spend more money each month on pet food than many families spend for their entire month’s meals made me ashamed.”

I haven’t seen Wilma since that conversation several years ago so I don’t know where her journey has taken her. I do know this—I continue to struggle with trying to live more simply, to consume less, to live lightly on the earth.

It’s tempting to give up, to just forget about it. But then I hear a story like Emily, Babe Lambert’s great-granddaughter, told in her letter from Africa—how the children she met there have so little and are so grateful for the smallest gifts.

Or I remember my time in Kentucky when a woman who lived in absolute poverty and squalor asked if I would sing with her. Her voice rang out loud and clear, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…” When I left her tiny cabin, she called out, “Honey, remember, Jesus will see you through the hard times.”

Like the disciples, we decide to follow Jesus—this charismatic teacher, preacher, savior who came to show us The Way—the way to live, the way to love. But we forget that decisions always have consequences. “The Way” isn’t as easy as throwing down our fishing nets, packing our bags, and hitting the road. I fail and fail again and I, too, feel ashamed. So I vow to try one more time and ask the Holy One to forgive me. I also try to remember that Jesus will always see me through the hard times.

Blessings, Country Woman

The Parable of the Chicken

2010-03-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Several years ago we acquired four chickens—a motley crew, there was one small red hen with very strange ways, a large red hen that reminded me of a church lady I once knew, plus two black and white hens that we promptly named Pepper and Salt.

For over three years our small flock seemed content. A few months ago, that all changed. First Miss Wacko, who often refused to come in at night, disappeared. Not long after surviving an attack by a red-tailed hawk, Big Red gave up the ghost.

In the days that followed Salt and Pepper seemed contented enough to have the coop to themselves and wander the confines of the pasture, escaping occasionally to make a break for the barn or the orchard. I must confess that Salt’s demise rests on our shoulders. One Saturday evening we drove to Guerneville to dance to the rockin’ rhythms of Michael Adams’ band, The Fargo Bros. By the time we got home, we were so tired, we forgot that we had not closed the small back door to the chicken house. The next morning, Pepper sat alone on the perch except for a pile of feathers in the corner.

Each morning we let Pepper out. She wandered alone, pecking here and there, a small black and white figure against the sea of green. Who knows if chickens get lonely, but they are flock animals after all—they naturally form communities. So we asked around until we found a farmer north of Ukiah who had young hens for sale.

We were so pleased to bring home a dozen new companions for Pepper—four white hens, tall but slender birds, three red hens much like Big Red, and five Araucanas, large birds feathered in rust, brown, and black in gorgeous patterns.

However, chicken psychology is obviously not our forte. Much to our surprise and dismay, Pepper rejected all attempts to introduce her to this new family. As soon as we began unloading the newcomers, Pepper set up a terrible squawk. As each chicken was set on the floor, her insulted and angry screeching grew louder. When I let her go, she immediately rose up like an avenging angel, striking out with her heavy talons at any chicken that dared approach her.

It has been five days now and each time we let Pepper out of her cage, there is a violent but short-lived struggle. Amid a great flapping of wings and flying dust, I manage to snatch her up and put her back in the large pet carrier that has become her refuge.

How strange that even chickens reject strangers, even their own kind, just because there’s something about them that’s just a little different—the wrong color, the wrong size, the wrong smell, the wrong behavior. This is especially intriguing to me in the midst of the ongoing battles over health care reform and immigration.

Don’t people realize how they sound? Underneath all the rhetoric, their words are pretty clear. “I take care of me and my own—you can darn well do the same.” Or “This is my place—you look different, you talk different, you even dress different and you’re not welcome here.”

Like dogs fighting over a few scraps or a none too smart chicken that doesn’t realize that a new flock might just be a blessing. Amid a great flapping of lips and a cloud of innuendo and insults, our leaders have refused to see that we’re all in this together, that we need each other. Many of them seem to have lost their way and sometimes they fool the very people who put them in office into following after them.

Worst of all, lots of people on both sides claim to be Christians. Maybe they read a different Bible than I do. The one I read says over and over that our differences don’t matter. It says we’re all part of the same family, brothers and sisters, children of the King. The Scriptures that I read say that everyone is our neighbor, even those we fear or despise. Again and again Jesus speaks of love and forgiveness and grace.

A chicken can’t read, but human beings have no excuse. No excuse at all.

Peace and blessings, Country Woman

Living on Foggy Mountain

2010-03-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning we castrated all the ram lambs. It wasn't as drastic as that sounds, no blood or sharp knives, although drastic enough. My husband caught up a lamb and held it sitting on its rump on the corral fence. My job was to take this tool called an "elastrator" that resembles heavy duty pliers, put the smallest, tightest rubber band on its four prongs, spread the prongs stretching the rubber band wide, and place it over the poor lamb's testicles, letting the band return to its original size. Within a few weeks, the testicles will have dried up and dropped off, a supposedly painless procedure, though I have my doubts.

Our ranch is 106 rocky, tree-strewn acres. We're 1500 feet up from the valley floor and on a clear day we can see the very top of Mt. Tamalpais though San Francisco is hidden a bit beyond. Most mornings we walk a mile-long loop up around the far end of the ranch and then down again to the house. Some mornings we're startled by a flock of wild turkeys, their feathers puffed up in fright, their anxious calls like nervous church ladies. Other times we'll see a herd of wild pigs snuffling their way along, seeking grubs, bugs and acorns among the leaf duff scattered beneath the oak, madrone and bay laurel trees.

It is a gift and a blessing to live in such a place. There are times we don't leave it for three or four days, depending on work schedules or those necessary errands we can't do by mail or phone. Even when I must leave, the beauty of it, the peace it offers stays in my mind. When I return, I stop to open the bottom gate, a mile from our house, and find myself breathing a long sigh of relief, knowing that home is only minutes away.

Living in such a place also means hard work, lots of it. If the water pressure fails, we must follow the pipe lines, check the water tanks, inspect the spring boxes. When one of the sheep escapes, someone has to walk the fence lines until a hole is found and fixed. If a tree falls, we let it age, and then we cut, split and stack the wood that will warm us that winter. In the rainy season, we walk the ditches and shovel out the leaves and debris that block the culverts. The work keeps us mindful of the natural order of things, mindful of our place in the natural world, aware that our bodies were meant to be used.

People visit us and envy our peaceful, pastoral life. Being "good hosts," we sit with them and drink iced tea while two red-tailed hawks circle overhead and the lambs jump and play in the orchard pasture. When they're gone, we return to the work for the day—transplanting tomato starts, pruning grape vines, whatever the season requires. Most days, though, if only for a few moments, we pull up the lawn chairs to rest and talk and admire the world around us.

Searching for Heaven

2010-02-24T15:44:00.001-08:00

When I started this blog, I intended to be faithful about writing in it every day or so. Well, like most good intentions, that one went by the wayside. Well, here goes again—I want to use this blog as a discipline, a spiritual discipline of sorts, writing as healing, writing as a way to focus on the holy moments in my life and in the lives of those around me.

All day my mind and heart have pondered a rather amazing book by Barbara Brown Taylor. Taylor is a a former Episcopal priest, now a college professor and a famous keynoter and guest preacher. She speaks and writes with profound eloquence; she's one of those "shining star" preachers, a celebrity in preaching circles, and rightly so. Her words often bring a lump to my throat, sometimes tears and laughter, and once in a while, the thrill of discovering something truly holy.

This morning I read the intoduction and first chapter of one of her latest works, "An Altar in the World." She speaks of how God's true home is in the world, out here where people live and breathe, drink beer and curse, call their children home from their play, build cities and bomb them into oblivion, make love and babies, live out their years. More often than not, at least the people I've accompanied on that last journey, more than anything, on their deathbeds, they wish for one more day on this earth with those they love.

Barbara Brown Taylor has done what every preacher aims for—she has disturbed my complacency; she has held up a mirror and for just a moment, I've seen the face that hides behind the veil, read thoughts that I only dare speak in private. I'm a pastor. A lot of my work happens in a church. It's a beautiful church—built of redwood, circular with an altar constructed of an enormous polished redwood trunk and a gleaming slab. The altar sits in the middle of that circle; it rests under an eight-sided peaked roof that reaches toward heaven, or where some folks say heaven is.

But sometimes I can't help wonder if people somehow think the place is magic… if I think it's magic. Is this God's home? Is God here somewhere in the dark, or did we miss the sweep of wings, angel escorts protecting God from the press of the crowd? Do we come to this place with the hope that if we pray the right prayers, sing the right songs, put our hard earned dollars in the brass plate, we'll win that lottery ticket to heaven? Or is heaven what we seek when in our last moments we yearn for one last day, one moment, of life… with its toil and tears, its heartbreak and its joy, life on this holy place we call earth, God's home filled with all the good things God spreads before us.

2010-02-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

Lost at Sea

Rev. Pamela J. Tinnin

When a month or more passes without us taking a day off, my husband, mother-in-law and I decide to go to the coast. The route we choose varies—sometimes it’s over Skaggs Spring Road to Gualala, sometimes out River Road to Jenner, or many times, it’s our favorite, Highway128 through Boonville and Philo to the mouth of the Navarro River.

Several weeks ago, we turned south where 128 meets Highway 1 and made our slow, meandering way to Point Arena. Zack’s mother lived there as a child, back when it was a small, sleepy village of loggers and fisherman and their families. The fishermen are still there, at least to some extent, though these days both fishing and logging are pretty sparse in that part of California. As we drove through the almost deserted streets, Mary pointed out her long ago home and the church she attended, still open all these years later.

We saw some fisherman down at the cove, a few sport fishing from the pier that extends out into the sea, others commercial fishing in the boats we could see far out on the horizon. We stood there behind the railing, watching the surf going in and out, waves big enough that there were a half dozen or so surfers, paddling around looking for the “big wave.”

The three of us were watching an osprey circling overhead, when the “big wave” found me, rising up over my head and drenching me, then moving up the parking lot about 10 inches deep before receding once again. Standing there, water dripping off my jacket and pants, I burst out laughing, surprising even myself because I’m not what you’d call a “water person.”

For some reason they call those waves “sleepers,” I guess because if you don’t pay attention, if you “fall asleep”, they catch you by surprise and may even sweep you out to sea. Every few years, the newspapers report a swimmer or rock climber, caught in the undertow, swept out to sea and lost. That day I wasn’t swept out to anywhere, just left sopping and bedraggled, shaking in the cold breeze, and laughing, our nice little ride to the coast interrupted by an unexpected adventure.

Sometimes I forget life is like that—you go along doing the ordinary, mundane things that make up your days, thinking that finally, at last, your life has settled down, you’re secure, you’re safe. Without warning, all that “safety” can be swept away by the undertow of unexpected events. A financial crisis, illness, a death in the family, a divorce, an unexpected pregnancy, the loss of a job—those “sleepers” that catch you by surprise, the things that leave you stunned and shaking, wondering what happened.

Not long ago I was talking to a clergy colleague, telling him about our church’s financial struggles, saying that I wasn’t sure what the future held, for the church or for me. Fred sort of chuckled and said, “You know, Jesus never said it was going to be easy.”

At first I was offended and thought to myself, “How insensitive is that?” But you know, he was right. Remember Job who was a righteous man and yet suffered all kinds of torment? Remember Joseph who was sold into slavery by his own brothers? And didn’t Jesus say that rain fell on the just and the unjust?

There are no guarantees, not for you, not for me, not for anyone. There’s just a promise—that no matter what happens, no matter if we’re lost and out to sea, we’re never alone. Even when we feel abandoned and cast aside, Jesus is there waiting for us to open our lives to his presence and our hearts to his grace, waiting to hold us and breathe new life into us once again.

2009-09-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT
Rev. Pamela J. Tinnin
I must confess, summer is my least favorite season—it's the heat. I'm just not a hot weather person and in these past weeks we've had some 100 plus days here on the ranch. With several fans going and by keeping the shades down, it hasn't been too bad. We walk the dog in the early morning while there's still fog in the valley, then I help Zack pick vegetables before noon. After that, if it's not a day for me at my office, I usually spend my time working on the computer, a fan pointed right at me, sometimes with a cool, wet washcloth draped around my neck.

Last night as I sat here I remembered another hot summer, a summer in the late eighties. It was a time of terrible drought in northern California, long days of heat that reached 118° several days running, and the worst fire season in years. Day after day was filled with the sharp smell of ashes and the throaty rumble of the World War II bombers that were used to drop fire retardant on the flames that would suddenly flare up and race through the dry grass.

To escape the heat of the house at night, my husband and I set up a bed outside, an old iron-framed three-quarter-sized cot with a tufted cotton mattress, placed to catch the slightest breeze. We'd lie out there, covered with a thin sheet, and watch a sky full of stars. As we waited for sleep, there was little sound except for our soft talking, an occasional rustle of small creatures in the grass, or the muted cry of a coyote in a far off canyon.

No matter how many seasons pass, record-breaking hot summers always seem to take me by surprise. Some thirty years ago, I spent such a summer in Oregon. My husband, children, and I had moved to a small town in the farm country that surrounds Salem, the state capitol. Mostly there were small farms that raised mixed vegetables and a variety of berries for the truck garden market. One afternoon after my husband arrived home from work, we gathered up the kids and drove to a popular picnic place on the banks of the Molalla River.

Some of the local farm workers were gathered there, mostly Hispanics and a few African Americans. After a day's hard work, the women sat around on blankets fanning themselves with folded cardboard, the men wore sleeveless white undershirts, drank warm beer and played horseshoes, the children waded in the water and splashed each other. As we spread our blanket nearby, the women smiled shyly, the men tipped their straw hats, the children grew quiet.

We sat down and opened the bags we carried. I passed out bologna sandwiches to our kids, poured Kool Aid, and offered everyone cookies. Eventually the migrant children resumed their chatter and called my two to come and play. They dashed into the water, squealing as they jumped and ran in the shallows. Finally it grew late and we all began to pack up, us to go back to our little house and electric fans, most of them to return to tiny migrant worker cabins or tents, while others just bedded down in their cars or pickup trucks.

Remembering that evening, I thought of my favorite scripture: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8) There's an expression my Oklahoma Great Aunt Ola used to say to her pastor—"Brother Harold, that scripture just plain convicted me." There have been many times those words from Micah 6:8 have "just plain convicted me."

I complain of the heat while in Africa a husband fans his wife as she lies dying in the hospital hallway because there's no medicine and no bed for her. I whine about my discomfort while a family of nine settles down to sleep in their cardboard shanty in Brazil. I fret about no air conditioner while right here in our own country thousands of mothers and fathers worry how they'll put food on the table for their families or, hearing the baby cough in the night, they pray it's only a cold because there is no health care insurance and no money for a doctor.

I don't want to be a Sunday morning Christian. I want to be like Peter and James and John, ready to leave everything and follow the One who came to show us how to live, how to love. I want to act justly, love tenderly, walk humbly. Then why is it so hard? Why is it so hard?

2009-08-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

THE BREAD OF HEAVEN
Back in the early 1970s, my family and I lived in a rural community in the mountains of Oregon. Called Scotts Mills, the little town had fewer than 50 houses, but it did have a small grocery store, a one-room Quaker Church with a bell that tolled every Sunday morning, a grange hall, and a kindergarten-through eighth grade school.

The town had been invaded, at least that’s what some of the old timers claimed. The back-to-the-land movement had brought young families seeking out that perfect place, that pastoral Eden, where they could settle down, live the “good life,” and raise their children. I guess I was part of that movement, though I had wanted to be a farmer as long as I could remember. One of the best presents I’d ever been given was the miniature farm set that waited under the tree one Christmas morning. I must have been six or seven and by the time I outgrew it, long after I was the age for it, and finally agreed to pass it on to my younger sister, the tractor was missing a wheel, the metal barn had its share of dents and scratches, and the paint was nearly gone from the miniature horses and cows.

Although we had come to Scotts Mills to live in the back of the old hotel and run a gift shop, I was determined that this was my chance—my chance to be a farmer. Soon I discovered the wonders of the Tuesday auction barn. My first time there, I brought home a 3-day old blind goat kid and a tiny speckled pup.

These proved to be less than wise purchases. I cured the goat’s blindness with boric acid baths, but he quickly learned how to open the back door, jump on the kitchen counters, and devour whatever he found there, including my four-year-old son’s birthday cake. As for the pup, despite the old blankets I put in the woodshed, when night fell, he began to cry. Yip-yip-yip would continue until his voice grew hoarse or until a neighbor came banging on the door and we’d have to bring the puppy in, which was what he had in mind in the first place. Needless to say, our new family members found their way back to the auction. I can only say I hope they found happy homes with owners who had more patience than I.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson, but several months later, my lifelong dream came walking into the auction ring—or I should say limping—an elegant dark bay mare who had made a good run at the rodeo circuit, but was past her prime and had never healed from her last fall.

She was a beauty, but her right rear hock just above the hoof was swollen twice the size of the others and the bidding stayed low. I tried to sit on my hands—we certainly had no money, not to mention a place, for a horse. Then a woman I’d just met leaned over and whispered, “I’ll loan you the money and you can pay me back at $20 a month.” My hand shot up and in seconds the auctioneer said, “Sold to the little lady over there.” I was the proud possessor of a broken-down horse I named “Baby Mare” and I was $175 in debt—not to mention wondering where I would keep her.

Well, that problem was solved much more easily than I had thought. There was an elderly couple who farmed just up the road west of town about a mile and a half. They raised a few beef cattle, grew their own hay, and had an enormous garden and huge berry patch. Jim and Hannah Atchison were probably in their eighties, but shared the belief that if you slowed down, you began to die, so their lives were as busy as ever. Mr. Atchison was at the auction that day and he found me at the horse pen where I stood staring through the rails, stunned at what I had done.

“If you want, I’ll haul that little mare to my place—she can pasture with the cattle if you’ll help me put up my hay next week.” I wasn’t a churchgoer at the time, but it felt like an answer to prayer.

That next week I showed up early Monday morning. The old man had already cut and baled the alfalfa, the bales lined up in neat rows up and down the field. There were others there to work, three men about my age, mid-twenties, two with long hair tied back with bandanas, and the third an African American with an enormous afro. When they found I couldn’t lift the bales more than a few inches off the ground, much less throw them on the back of the old flatbed truck, I was assigned to drive. All that morning, I sat in the old cab, moving slowly through the field, grinding the cranky gearshift, and feeling like at long last I was a farmer.

Around noon, Hannah Atchison called us in to eat. They had set up a sheet of plywood on sawhorses under a large oak tree and there were platters and bowls nearly covering it. We each found a chair and began to pass the food around—steaming corn-on-the cob, thick sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper and vinegar, roast beef that cut with a fork, tiny new potatoes fried crisp, and bread like no bread I’d ever tasted, a large round loaf, dark and crusty and covered with seeds. The bread sat on a plate in front of Jim Atchison and just as one of the guys lifted his fork to his mouth, Mr. Atchison said, “I’d like you all to join me in a prayer.”

We looked at each other, put down our forks, folded our hands and bowed our heads, as the old man’s raspy voice began, “Gracious and merciful God—we come to you this morning with grateful hearts. We thank you for the works of your hands, the water, earth and sky; we thank you for these young people who bless us with their presence at our table; we thank you for this food, this bread that will nourish and sustain our bodies. Most of all, this day and always, we give thanks for the true bread, the gift of your Son, the one who strengthens us for the journey. In his name we pray. Amen

More than thirty years have passed and I still remember the dappled sunlight through the leaves, the smell and heft of the bread, and Mr. Atchison’s words, whose meaning eluded me that day, and for a long time after. “…the true bread, the gift of your Son, the one who strengthens us for the journey.”

“Give us this day our daily bread” we pray, and bread is indeed, the staff of life, the stuff of life. Toast and pancakes, wholewheat loaves and egg-rich bagels, garlic-smeared slices and flatbread split and stuffed with good things. But the reality also is, for many in this world, plain, ordinary bread may be all that stands between them and hunger.

When I took a bread-making class, I noticed that the instructor handled the dough with respect; she kneaded it with care—she even told us, “Don’t be rough with it—you’ve got to develop a feel for it.” Bread is precious, more precious than many of us in the richest part of the world realize—for some it is all they have to eat; a piece of bread is what stops the cries of children when their stomachs grow empty.

There is another kind of hunger, isn’t there, a hunger that we all know, rich and poor alike, a hunger that will not be satisfied—not with bread, not with a feast like the one we ate that day at the Atchinsons’. It’s a hunger of the heart—a hunger for love, for sharing, for grace, a hunger for a life that has meaning. The recipe for true bread, the things Jesus offers us—not flour and honey, oil and water—but love, sharing, grace, family and good work.

My horse stayed at the Atchisons’ for the next several years. Mr. Atchinson showed me how to make a poultice for Baby Mare’s leg. The swelling never disappeared, but the limp did and she was faster than ever. Hannah taught me how to can peaches and she told stories to my children. We joined them for picnics and swimming in the creek that pooled cool and deep in the woods behind their house.

More than thirty years have passed since an old man and woman invited four strangers to share their table, their home, and their lives. They asked us to break bread with them, to be in fellowship with them, and by their words and their lives proclaimed “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”

May every meal be a reminder that it is the true bread that sustains us, the true bread that strengthens us for the journey, the true bread that heals us and calls us to invite others to the feast where there is always more than enough for all.

Peace and blessings, Country Woman

2009-08-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

IN THE WORLD—NOT OF IT
After church one Sunday when my husband and I still lived in Kansas, he and I took one of those "Sunday drives.". Not far from the small town where we lived, I looked up to see a vehicle approaching, Even at that distance, I could tell it was an Amish horse and buggy, the narrow silhouette bobbing up and down against the horizon. When we got close, we slowed down, not wanting to spook the horse, a small, elegant black mare, wet with sweat, legs moving at a smooth trot.

A young couple sat in the open buggy, the man straight and stiff, his suit buttoned to the neck, his flat black hat square on his head, reins held easily in his hands. The young woman wore a black bonnet, her cheeks flushed in the heat, her white collar bright in the clear light, her eyes squinted against the sun. As they passed by, I was surprised to see the woman had her dark blue skirt pulled up just below her knees, her bare feet and legs catching the slightest breeze on a sweltering July day.

I am not a hot weather person. I’m glad that today’s cars have air-conditioning, though I do worry about things like pollution and the ozone. In fact, several years ago, when we were looking for a car, our biggest concerns, after cost, easy maintenance, and high gas mileage, were a decent radio/tape player and dependable air conditioning—not hard to tell where our priorities are.

Sometimes I think about that young couple, how they were living out the teachings of their faith, as uncomfortable as they might have been in dark suit and hat, long sleeves and bonnet, and the buggy that carried them slowly through the hot air of a summer afternoon.

Prof. Marion Bontrager, of Hesston College in Newton, Kansas, tells that the Old Order Amish are one of the fastest growing churches in the United States. Once I attended a lecture by Prof. Bontrager. He discussed whether the Amish will survive the technological/ information age. He said that they’re growing because they have large families and a high percentage of their young people stay within the church.

Not surprisingly, there are very few converts, though a limited number marry into the faith. “Amish ways are too hard for most people,” said Bontrager. “Lots of people recognize the depth of the Amish faith and the goodness of their values, many yearn for their simplicity—but they just aren’t willing to change their lifestyles that drastically.”

Not willing to change their lifestyles… There's a paraphrased translation of the New Testament called “The Message” by Eugene H. Peterson. He speaks plainly and often bluntly—there isn’t a lot of ambiguity in his words. In 1 John, beginning with the fifteenth verse of the second chapter, Peterson translates the text this way: “Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.”

How much do I love the world’s ways? How much do I love the world’s goods? What would I be willing to give up? My comfortable air-conditioned car? The beautiful mountain ranch where I am privileged to live? The security of medical insurance?

Of course, those things haven’t been demanded of me, at least not yet. But what of those smaller things, those minor choices? New shoes I don’t need, a subscription for a magazine that I could read at the library, that second helping at first Sunday potluck.

Then there are other, subtler ways the world pulls us away from what we know is good and true. Someone I know and like tells me a joke that demeans African-Americans, homosexuals, or Jews. Do I remain silent, acting as if I never heard? Do I speak up, risking the person’s embarrassment and anger?

And if I can’t pass the small tests, what would I do when faced with the big ones? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor executed by the Nazis only months before World War II ended, gave his life for his faith. Could I?

I wish I had all the answers, but for now it is the questions that plague me. Does the way I live demonstrate my faith? Does the way I live tell people something about the one I claim to follow? Does the way I live bring love into people’s lives? Or does the way I live isolate me and others from what is holy, crowding the Holy One out of our lives?

Those questions are ones which we must each answer for ourselves—the couple in the buggy on warm afternoon in Kansas, you, me—even Billy Graham, the Pope, the President. And when we fall short of perfection—and we will—we can be grateful for the gift of God’s amazing grace which has the power to accomplish miracles and transform ordinary folks into holy people of God.

In the meantime, whenever I remember my former Amish neighbors, my heart lifts a bit at the thought of my brothers and sisters who wear the signs of their faith for all to see, gentle reminders that we are to be in the world, but not of it.

Blessings and peace, Country Woman

2009-07-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

Morning Walk Interrupted
This morning, like most mornings, my husband Zack and I, accompanied by our dog Simon, climbed up the steep hill to my mother-in-law’s place. We opened her gate and at the sound of the large cowbell hanging on it, Mary came out and joined us in our walk up to the upper end of the ranch.

From there around the looping dirt road that traverses the farthest pasture and woodland, it’s a mile, about half steep grades, and takes about a half hour or a bit more, depending on our speed. We passed by the lush, vine-laden grape arbors, the pair of pomegranate trees bright with orange-red blossoms, the two small trees covered with fuzzy immature almonds. Moving up the hill, we walked by the persimmon trees and stopped to open two more gates.

The road meanders past the old campground with the horseshoe pit, tire swing and outhouse. We walked past a storage van with some fencing supplies stacked nearby. There are several springboxes that my husband checks on each week, then we started the ascent up past the first water tank.

My mother-in-law gasped, her foot raised, ready to step. There on the road lay a hummingbird, its shimmering green feathers like a glistening leaf, so tiny, Simon had walked past without noticing. We stooped to admire its plumage when Zack said, “It’s still breathing.”

I picked it up, so light in the palm of my hand, it’s soft touch the only sign I held anything at all. The little bird fell over on its side and we saw a twig tightly grasped in its miniature talons. Last night the wind blew, rattling tree branches and banging against the house. Perhaps two young to fly, the bird had been blown from its nest. Maybe it was cold and unable to move. Then again, it may have been injured somehow.

Our walk forgotten, we headed back the way we had come, me carefully carrying the bird in one hand with the other cupped protectively over it. Both houses have hummingbird feeders — sugar water might revive the tiny creature.

But as I walked I began to feel faint movement inside my cupped hands. At first, there was just the whisper of a touch, the beak brushing my palm. Next came a tiny turn of the head, once, again, then again. By the time we reached the almond trees, the humming bird fluttered its wings, just a bit. We stopped there and I opened my hand.

The hummingbird sat there, grasping my thumb, turning its head this way and that, testing one wing, then the other, spreading its tail. The three of us watched, not saying a word. After a few moments, it fluttered up, came back down once, a brief touch of sharp claws on skin, then awkwardly flew to a nearby branch. With its sharp little beak, it preened its feather, ruffled them, then rose up on its whirring wings and disappeared.

Sometimes, caught up in the daily round of chores and the busyness of my church work, I forget the beauty that surrounds me. I forget that we work in order to live; we don’t live in order to work. Sometimes I forget to open my eyes and heart to the miracles that happen each day.

God sets us in the midst of this glorious creation—how can we not realize that just being here is a gift? Of course, not everyone is blessed with a mountain ranch home. But even in the city, there is beauty that we can scarcely describe—the swoop of a pigeon in the park, a hundred sails on the boats making their way back and forth across San Francisco Bay, the smile of an old lady who sits next to you on the bus.

We also sometimes forget that we are part of the beauty God created, the creation God loves. What does the scripture say, “For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son…” or the newer Contemporary English Version in The Poverty and Justice Bible, “God loved the people of this world so much, he gave his only Son…” If we truly realized that we are so beautiful, so loved, how could humans ever do anything evil or ugly again? How could we?

Blessings and peace, Country Woman