Sabbath Thought: The Blessing of Good Work to Do

    Connemara Mowers, County Mayo, Ireland ©A. Rutherford

                                      
In Ireland every time you go around a new bend in the road, there is something which takes your breath away.  And the people, too, seem to be filled with it, a sensitivity to wonder and delight.  Not so jaded as most Americans who are so intrenched in the material world, most of the Irish still seem able to connect in some deep way with the world around them, above their heads and under their feet, the same connection as the mower in Frost's poem from Thursday felt with his world and his work.

The day I took the photo above I was walking on a graveled path above these fields with a local artist who was guiding me to find some ancient Celtic ruins, a burial dolmen on a hill beyond the farmer's field.  As we walked along, we came upon these men scything their fields, working away in a scene of incredible beauty.

As we passed by close enough, my fellow artist raised her hand in greeting to them, and her voice sang out across the field in a lovely lilt, "God bless the work," which she explained to me was the traditional Irish greeting to those engaged in their daily chores.

I loved it, and I thought how wonderful to have someone pass by you who didn't even know you and sing out to you, "God bless the work!"  How affirming that would be!  How it would connect you to your fellow man, to your work, and to God . . .  how very real . . . and what a blessing to feel connected to God in the labor of your work week as well as in your Sabbath worship and rest.

The One

Green, blue, yellow, and red—

God is down in the swamps and marshes

Sensational as April and almost as incredible

the flowering of our catharsis.

A humble scene in a backward place

Where no one ever looked

The raving flowers looked up in the face

Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked

The profoundest of mortals. A primrose, a violet,

A violent wild iris—but mostly anonymous performers

Yet an important occasion as the Muse at her toilet

Prepared to inform the local farmers

That beautiful, beautiful, beautiful God

Was breathing his love by a cut-away bog.

-Patrick Kavanagh, Irish poet

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?  

                                                                                   -Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
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The Wisdom of Delight

      Click for larger image- ©A. Rutherford

Still reflecting on the "music of what happens," I read this sonnet below by Robert Frost last night, and I was struck by the fact that of all the poetry by Frost I've read in the course of all my study and teaching, I don't remember paying any attention to this one, if indeed I had  read it at some point in time.

Perhaps it's like certain verses or passages in the Bible that jump out at you at certain times in your life and you think, "Hmmm, I've never noticed that verse before." And yet you know, because of where it is in the book or chapter, you know your eyes must have seen it dozens of times, but your mind or your spirit or your heart never noticed it before. It didn't speak to you then because of where you were in your life or who you were . . . but now it says something that causes a response in you or answers a burning question of your "now," or comforts a sorrow you didn't have before— all of a sudden there it is.

I'm not sure why all of a sudden this poem spoke to me last night.  I'm not even really sure what it is saying to me now . . . it is so understated . . . as Frost often is.  He usually doesn't come right out and tell you what the message of a poem is to the extent he does in his poems "Wild Grapes" or "Birches."

But after reading the poem and reflecting on it this phrase popped in my head, so it must have something to do with the poem, or where the poem meets me—the “wisdom of delight.”

But now it's like a puzzle that I have to figure out, although I’m sure it’s connected with our talking about learning to become musicians of the everyday.

Mowing

There was never a sound beside the wood but one, 

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. 

What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; 

Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, 

Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound— 

And that was why it whispered and did not speak. 

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, 

Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: 

Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak 

To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, 

Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers 

(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. 

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. 

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

As I wrote yesterday . . . “As musicians of the everyday, we would be more attentive to the ways of nature and of our own emotions.  We would bring a musician's or an artist's sensitivity to all issues of daily living.  We would always have a sense of the beautiful or the harmonic in everything we do.”

Is that why the mower seems to feel the rhythm of the scythe?

Is that why he notices (attends to) the flowers amongst the grasses even though they are "feeble-pointed" and don't stand out in the environment?  He even tells us that they are "pale orchises."  

He notes the snake, and he goes on to describe it (bright green) which seems to indicate a deeper visual awareness . . . 

He seems to delight both in his everyday work (the earnest love that laid the swale in rows) and in the environment.

. . . . Has the mower tuned his heart to the music of what happens? . . .

His scythe whispers . . .
not a "dream" (false promise) of the easy life ("idle hours")
or easy money ("gold") coming out of nowhere by magic ("fay or elf")

but it whispers the “truth” (line 9)

His conclusion seems to be “The fact (truth? reality?) is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”

But, says she scratching her head, exactly what is the “fact” that “is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”

Frost makes it seem like a secret or lesson that is important to know!

Yes, I think that's what I sense in the mower in Frost's poem . . . he is doing a very mundane task, repetitive and tiring, but he is so in tune, in the present moment, with the rhythm of what he is doing and where he is that the material world around him fades away, leaving him to see the minutiae of the environment . . .  flowers . . . the snake . . . and to delight in them and to hear the music of his scythe and the hum of the earth, even as he is laboring.

Come, Thou fount of every blessing, 

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. 

Streams of mercy, never ceasing, 

Call for songs of loudest praise.

            -Robert Robinson

©A.Rutherford

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The Things of this World

a spot on the beach at Cleggan, Connemara, Ireland

©A. Rutherford

I am always telling my students to pay attention.  Before they get to know me very well, they think I just want them to be quiet and look at me when we are doing the lesson.  They assume their minds and imagination can be anywhere as long as they look like they are attending to me and the work we are doing.

I have to teach them what I mean by paying attention, and at first I might as well be speaking to them in a foreign language.  But eventually they get it, and many have come back later to thank me for the gift true attentiveness has been to their lives.  Attentiveness is one topic I would like to develop in this blog.

To be lost in wonder one way of being attentive.  It is to be rapt in one's attention.  Not in flights of fancy to imaginary places but to really see the everyday stuff of our lives in a deeper, fuller way . . . to be in relationship with our life.

Richard Wilbur, one of my favorite poets, explains this need to be attentive in his poem "Love Calls Us to the Things of this World," as he describes someone waking to the sounds of the everyday work world outside his window.  So easy it would be to get out of bed and walk out into that world without taking time to breath one's soul back into oneself.  Without taking time to bring your spirit and your body together through prayer and meditation, one would be likely not to  pay attention to the things or people or experiences one encounters in that day, at least the kind of attention that allows us to see the beauty and joy that are available to us through our sense of wonder.

And besides we might pass by a "thin place" totally unaware . . . *smile*

Moreover, learning to pay attention to the gifts of God in the world around us aids us in our growth toward being better able to pay attention to our relationship with Him.  Gratitude and true appreciation for His gifts point us toward the Giver.

When we fail in wonder, we fail in gratitude.  The response to wonder is calling attention to the world in order to praise it.   -Esther de Vaal

As another poet explains . . .


In rare moments

when I am at home to myself,

my heart is still,

my pulse a psalm.

I know obscurely

I receive my life

from a power beyond me,

live by a life not my own.

This morsel of life,

its ephemeral beauty, 

its searing sorrow,

is on loan, 

marginal to a greater agency

that always, all ways

engages the darkness,

brings life from death.

My own gratuitousness

itself is a gift,

liberating me

to live in this moment.

to be at peace in a world

that, like me, is passing away,

to love it fiercely,

to let it go.

-Bonnie Thurston

The popular culture cries to us that God is dead or that He is no longer relevant.  But Dag Hammarskjold, who was a Christian mystic and the second  Secretary General of the United Nations, in his book Markings, offers this insight:

             God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, 
             but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady 
             radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond 
             all reason.

Poet William Blake asks us to 

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.”


A visual meditation— Click on the photo at the top of this post to enlarge it.  Look around in the picture.  What small bit of delight might you miss or even obliterate if you were not paying attention to where you were going?  


Now click on the photo below.
Below is the "big picture" this small bit above came from . . . Most of us get the "big picture" and often it is wonderful indeed, but still more wonders are right under our feet.  Think about how that might be a metaphor for other natural gifts of delight and wonder you might be missing.


Practice attentiveness . . . first to the gifts, which will lead then to the Giver.

©A.Rutherford

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Splendor in the Ordinary

A dolmen, an ancient Celtic portal tomb in County Clare   

©A. Rutherford

Celtic people believed there were "thin places" on earth where the veil between this world and the "other world" was like a membrane.  At these places, the spiritual world was very near and you could sense the presence of that world beyond this world.  

The ancient people used to hallow such places.  Groves of trees, grottoes in the mountain side, the mountains themselves were set aside from ordinary life and consecrated to the spiritual, the sacred.  At these places they would build shrines, create holy wells,  and set up temples to honor the gods they believed would then come to commune with them there.  They had a strong sense of place, and of sites which they believed were holy ground. 

Thus the Celts and others acknowledged that they were surrounded by mystery, and they honored it and bowed before it.  They knew they lived their ordinary lives in the presence of the divine.  They developed rites and rituals out of the stuff of their daily lives to honor this mystery. I look around at the way we live our lives today and I wonder where the wonder went . . .

How do I get back my strong sense of living amongst the mysteries of life?

In Anam Cara, John O'Donohue explains, "It is one of the tragedies of modern culture that we have lost touch with these primal thresholds of nature.  The urbanization of modern life has succeeded in exiling us from this fecund kinship with our mother earth.  Fashioned from the earth, we are souls in clay form.  We need to remain in rhythm with our inner clay voice and longing.  Yet this voice is no longer audible in the modern world.  We are not even aware of our loss, consequently, the pain of our spiritual exile is more intense in being largely unintelligible."

In my wanderings in Ireland I have often felt as though I had come upon one of these thin places, a place where the real Presence was so strong it seemed that if I turned around I would see a burning bush, and my heart was filled with a sense of awe.  The deep awareness of the Sublime was overwhelming and humbling, and my immediate impulse was to say a prayer and worship.  The Irish landscape seems to have an abundance of such places.  But I am trying to remember how often I have come upon one here.  Maybe they've mostly been paved over  *smile*

Perhaps those of us in those countries where modern culture is overwhelming have to pretend . . . hmmm what do I mean by that?  Let's see . . . maybe we have to live our lives as though or as if . . . maybe the thin places for us have to be inside ourselves . . . at least until we can order our lives in such a way that we can largely live our lives apart from modern culture . . . at least those of us who are drawn to doing so . . . who long for something more, something deeper, something really real.

I've gathered a few things out of my commonplace book to help me think about developing more of a sense of splendor in the ordinary:

“There is an indefinable, mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it. It is this unseen power that makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses”

-Mahatma Ghandi 

The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

                 -Thomas Moore, Irish poet (1779 - 1852)

“Let the Beauty you love be what you do.”   -Rumi

If day and night are such

that you greet them with joy

And life emits a fragrance

like flowers

And sweet scented herbs—

That is your success.

All Nature is your congratulations.

              - Thoreau

An old hymn . . .

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,

In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,

Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,

Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,

Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might;

Thy justice, like mountains, high soaring above

Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.

To all, life Thou givest, to both great and small;

In all life Thou livest, the true life of all;

We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,

And wither and perish-but naught changeth Thee.

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,

Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;

All praise we would render; O help us to see

'Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee

6th church ruins at Glendalough, County Wicklow
©A. Rutherford
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Lost in Wonder

                       View from Minaun Heights, Achill Island, County Mayo one special night

                                                © A. Rutherford      See photo notes below 

When we move with poetry and the imagination

when we deal with symbols and images,

we become people who are happy with mystery

and open to discovery.

To deepen the mystery.

to embrace complexity is risky.

We need to have courage

enough to be ready for an unveiling

which can be a startling process.

                           -Rowan Williams

Solitude, silence, beauty, wonder—

these are things that are intangible, ephemeral, ethereal, ineffable really . . .

"soft" things . . . 

yet they can "steel" the soul for when those times come that demand more courage 

than one thinks one has and provide a cushioning, an embrace if you will, that comforts . . . that then allows one in turn to embrace the mystery that is at the heart of life 

in spite of circumstances which would keep one earthbound.

It is important to understand that poetry, art, music, imagination, creativity all are gifts that if accepted help us to transcend the things of this life that hurt, confuse, dismay, disappoint.

These gifts are symbols .  . . they point to the sun that is always shining above the clouds no matter the weather on earth below them.  

Recently there has been a time of heavy weather in my life, but my soul, my spirit, can rise above the clouds to that place where I can dwell in Light . . . at least in my heart and my mind, even if no one else around me knows that in my secret place, God is at work. 

In the Celtic Christian tradition, Celtic saints were peregrini, wanderers.  They set off in their small fragile boats to go wherever the wind of the Spirit might take them, and the goal of their journey was to find "the place of their resurrection," by which they meant their true selves, the resurrected self—the secret self known only to each of us and to God and perhaps to an Anam Cara, the Gaelic term for a soul friend.

They didn't care where they went on their pilgrimage because they were motivated by their love for God, and they undertook their journeys to come closer to Him.  They knew that their true journey toward the precious thing they were searching for was really to be found within themselves.  So the outward journey was a way of expressing the inward journey they were making.  What did one achieve at the end of such a quest?  One achieved stability of soul and gladness of heart despite all circumstances.

At the end of the journey was Joy . . .

Photo Notes:  Achill Island is off the western coast of Ireland, and is one of my favorite spots on earth.  Can you imagine standing atop the third highest elevation on the island late one evening as the sun goes down and suddenly before you the world takes on a transcendent glow?  A scene of magical, breath-taking beauty . . . other-worldly in its aspect.  I didn't think my camera could possibly capture the mystery of the beauty stretching before me, but I was blessed in that it did. 

Psalm 121:1-2 (NLT)

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem

I look up to the mountains—

   does my help come from there?

My help comes from the Lord,

   who made heaven and earth! 

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A Sense of Wonder

I think often of what kind of young men . . . and older men . . . I want my grandboys to become. In today's culture there's so much to distract their little forming hearts and minds, and so much that would impede the kind of character growth I would love to see in them. Most of what is the "norm" now to me is abnormality and aberration. I look at little boys, teenagers, and young men (young women too) today and what I see that's missing for the most part is a sense of wonder and delight, an appreciation of Beauty in its natural forms and in literature and music, the kind of bravery that is not afraid to go against the tide and act with honor and moral courage even when it's unpopular.

I look at the little face in this photo, so impatient with his Gannie's kiss because he's got more important things to do than stand still for a moment and be held by arms that love him, and I smile and think, "Oh, I hope you always have the sense that you can get on with your life and become who you were meant to be because your Gannie and the people who love you have got your back covered. . . . and that a sense of security gives you the confidence to be brave and to swim against the tide and become the person God created you to be. I want you to know what Joy is, and Wonder, and Delight, and Humility, and Honor.  I want you to be able to see true Beauty and value it . . . I want you to have a Poet's Soul."

I want you to be like the little boy in this poem below, written by my friend Chris, with you in mind, someone whose imagination is alight with goodness and sensitivity. . . someone who can see through the "real" world into the really real world . . . someone who is not earthbound. What a brave little heart the boy in this poem has . . . you just know what kind of man he will become, unless "life" gets in his way. And so today I pray for my grandones' protection and my daughter's courage too and her strength to be the kind of Mom who has raised the "little brave man" of the poem.

Read it aloud . . . you'll love the "music" in it.

Jeremiah and the Gnome 

The little boy that knew the gnome
That made the brambled wood his home
sat and wondered if he’d like
to visit, talk and read a book

And so he gathered up his things
granddad's medals, bits of strings
his favourite book, a polished stone
and wandered down along the brook

And in a whisper called his name
and after such a time, he came
and sat beside him oh so still
and gave his things a look

~~~~

They sat, ne’er talked for quite a time
watched the water tumble by
where speckled fishes sought the deep
and shared an apple in the light

That glinted softly in the brook
Read a well worn favourite book,
of castles, pirates, dragons, swords
princes black and princes white

With string and sticks and bits of bark,
They made a sturdy little ark
And floated it into the brook,
And watched it sail beyond their sight

~~~~~

Lying back they watched the sky
As lazy, wispy clouds ran by
Then made a makeshift pair of swords,
and battled in the wood

And hearing creatures rustling near,
imaged them as dragons, fear
shrank away as courage grew,
and back to back they bravely stood.

With souls so pure they bravely fought,
and gave the monsters all they’d got
knowing that their cause was just
and darkness would not conquer good.

~~~~

And none have been as brave as they,
Down by the brook that summer day,
None had been so strong and bold
And none’d been so brave-hearted

And all the while the river ran
until his mother called him home
And where the river flowed so clear
Each said farewell and parted

The boy turned for his mother's call,
The gnome was there, then not at all
And silence fell across the wood,
And off for home he started

~~~~

Arriving home to mother’s smile
She said “I’ve missed you all the while”
He told her of his tiny friend
And all their brave adventures there.

He told of ships lost out to sea,
Of serpents yellow-eyed and green
He told of knights both bad and bold
Of dragons, knaves and maidens fair.

“I’m happy you’ve had such a day,
It’s such a joy to see you play
But do be watchful in the wood
You must be careful playing there.”

~~~~

Don’t be silly mom”, he said
As he settled in his bed,
“When boats are lost in blowing gales
When schemers evil, are betraying

While sparks fly off of crashing swords,
And monsters lurk in murky fjords
While dark knights do their evil deeds
There’s dragons needing slaying.

While maidens run from thin eyed knaves
And gryphons watch from darkened caves,
And pirates steal a kingdom's gold,
There is no time for playing.”

 © Chris Earle, 2009

This poem isn't special because it has my grandson's name in the title. This poem isn't special merely because it is excellent technically. This poem is special because it has a "soul" showing through, a poet's soul, and because it says something significant about an important truth that's in danger of being lost, and it says it with a sense of delight and even fun. It says it with the same imagination and musicality that the poem is reminding us not to lose. It reminds me of poems and stories like The Velveteen Rabbit that work on two levels . . . a good "story" and a great lesson for those who will read it on a deeper level.

This poem is quite wonderful ! . . . and wonder-filled too . . .
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