by Christie Purifoy | Nov 8, 2012 | God's promises, Home, Pennsylvania, prayer, Uncategorized, Work
A few people have recently asked if this place feels like home yet.
I haven’t been sure of my answer. I know that it is home, but does it feel like home?
Lying in bed last night, I finally puzzled it out. It seems presumptuous to call this place – the old brick house, the long maple-lined drive, the falling-down barn – my home. I haven’t earned it yet.
The house has been here for more than 130 years. The farm for longer than that. The stone remains of the ice house and various other outbuildings (we’ve taken to calling them “the ruins”) testify to just how long this place has been cultivated, lived in, and cared for.
How can I waltz in and call it my home?
I need to sweep a few more floors, plant a few more trees before I can feel comfortable making that claim.
And we will plant those trees. We’ll wait for late winter or early spring, and then we’ll dig in four fruit trees. One for each of our babies.
We have plans for blueberry bushes, a few more maples to fill in the gaps, and I’m trying to decide exactly where to carve out the asparagus bed.
Did you know that asparagus can come back every spring for twenty years or more? Placing that bed is a big decision. It matters.
Or, does it?
I can remember someone in the Christian circles of my childhood saying this: “The only things which last forever are the souls of men and the word of God.” I can’t remember who said it, and I can’t remember (or perhaps never knew) if they were quoting someone else.
I can remember, even as a kid, feeling the rift between how those words were supposed to make me feel (focused, committed, inspired) and how they actually made me feel (depressed, primarily). And now I know why: those words aren’t true. They leave out too much.
They leave out fruit trees and asparagus.
Clean floors and campfires.
Friendship.
Love.
Home.
God is making all things new, and our lives, our daily this and that, are a part of that great project. This is an old place, yes, but it, like all other good things, is being renewed.
In God’s kingdom, the stuff of earth can become so much more. This is true of bread and wine. It is also true of bricks and trees.
Our bricks.
Our trees.
For His glory.
Amen.
by Christie Purifoy | Nov 5, 2012 | Art, Books, Faith, Pennsylvania, Poetry, Uncategorized
I watched these old, old maples bend in the wind of that hurricane. Because they yielded, they are still standing.
That is how I want to live. I am more and more sure that art and beauty and love grow best not by raging against the wind (or the storm, the dark day, the hard, unasked-for circumstance). They come through yielding.
To yield is not to give up. It is not throwing up my hands in defeat. This yielding is more like being carried. It is moving with what moves and watching – always watching – for the One who does the moving.
And then singing of what I see.
Vow
The need to work this land to fit my wants
I yield. I vow no more to walk with plans
like gossip falling from my mouth. I choose
to go in silence, learning, in my sure
refusal, the truth that yields to yielding.
At Equinox, before the flood of light
sets water loose, I covenant to give
the downward rush beneath the grass its head.
I’ll dam no stream. I’ll dig no pond. Nor will
I plant willows to suck the wet spots dry.
My work shall be to say the nature
of Creation’s slow unfolding, to name what
becoming new has always been, to praise
what lives without my praise unto itself.
– John Leax
by Christie Purifoy | Nov 1, 2012 | Family, God's Love, motherhood, Pennsylvania, Scripture, Uncategorized
Only seven weeks old, and she’s seen her first hurricane. Actually, “heard” might be more accurate. I’m not sure any of us held her up to the window to watch the rain fall, but we were both awake to hear the wind in the night.
It was a wind to make you thank heaven for thick brick walls, even while you wondered if the storm windows would hold.
She breathes warmth and peace into the side of my neck, and I am newly determined: when storm clouds hover I will, like this baby girl, expect to be cared for.
I will practice hope.
I will assume Jesus meant it when he said we have no reason to worry.
When Hurricane Sandy threatened to cut off our power and water, I lined up baby bottles on my window ledge. They were filled to the brim with clean water. Then I went and filled a few more containers with water. And then, a few more. Possibly, a few more after that.
Does the Lord of the storm (Job 40:6) love me any less?
“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.”
(Psalm 107: 28-29)
(photo by yours truly)
by Christie Purifoy | Oct 22, 2012 | Books, Food, Poetry, Scripture, Uncategorized
Once upon a time, Mondays on this website were devoted to poetry. Because the small bites of poetry are about the only literary food I have time for these days, I’m reviving the tradition. Please tell me what you think. Would you like a poem each week?
To help you make up your mind, here’s one from a favorite poet, Luci Shaw.
It reminds me that my own “quotidian wilderness” (a land of baby bottles and cinnamon toast, children with sniffles and autumn leaves) is saturated with glory.
Manna
They asked, and he brought quails,
and gave them food from heaven. Psalms 105:40
I’m not asking for quails for dinner
and, if they flew in my window, at mealtime,
in a torrent of wind, I would think
aggravation, not miracle.
Time is so multiple and fluid. If I lose a day
flying the Pacific and gain it back
returning, perhaps the prayer I offered
this morning at first light
was known and answered last week.
You never know what a simple request
will get you. So, no plea for birds
from heaven. Rather, I will commit myself
to this quotidian wilderness, watching for what
the wind may bring me next –
perhaps a minor wafer tasting like honey
that I can pick up with my fingers
and lay on my tongue to ease, for this day,
my hunger to know.
– Luci Shaw
by Christie Purifoy | Oct 19, 2012 | Family, God's Love, Grateful, Home, motherhood, Pennsylvania, Poetry, Seasons, Uncategorized
A few mornings ago, I heard an interview on NPR with the poet Mary Oliver. Speaking of the experiences which inspire her poetry, she said, “The world doesn’t have to be beautiful to work. But it is beautiful. Why?”
Some questions don’t need to be answered in order to open our eyes. There is wisdom to be had just in the asking.
We tend to think of the world’s pain as the senseless thing. The meaningless thing. But what of the world’s beauty? Whatever did we do to deserve autumn leaves? The smell of a campfire? The honey-wine taste of a pear?
This is the view from my window. With apologies to The Photographer (who I’m sure can look at this shot and know exactly how I should have tuned my camera settings), it’s a view to make you catch your breath.
Sitting in the chair by this window, I notice just how tired I am. And I can hear the boys fighting on the other side of the house. And then the baby starts to cry, and it’s time (again!) to fiddle with formula and plastic feeder bits and bobs because my body is fundamentally broken.
But, all I can think is “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
My bed faces a set of three windows. The glass is so old it’s wavy, and the autumn colors outside look like they’ve been spun through a kaleidoscope. Sitting there, I can still hear those boys fighting, and I can see the fearsome dust bunnies lurking in every corner of this room, and, oh, I am so, so tired.
But, again, all I can think is “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Following a season of drought, my life today is one of excess. I am too tired. I am too happy. I am so disappointed. Those boys are too loud and will they ever learn to play without fighting??
But, it’s the beauty I can’t get over. The over-the-top, cup-runneth-over beauty that is everywhere in my life right now.
So, yes, I am tired and my house is dirty and I wish I had the time and energy to cook all those mouth-watering recipes I just pinned on pinterest, but I open my eyes just the tiniest bit, and the only words I can think of are these:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
