Fruitless, Yet Flourishing

I’ve been staring at the tree outside my frosted window; stark, desolate, fruitless. Barren, except for one shriveled, orange-brown leaf that clings stubbornly to the tip of a fractured twig lifted heavenward. No, wait. Today, even that final remnant has loosened its grip during last night’s temperature plunge.

Why do I sense I’m gazing at a self-portrait?

Why can’t I shake this palpable feeling of vulnerability, nakedness, insecurity, loneliness?

Memories of past seasons of verdant, leafy, fruit-laden limbs offering food and shade to passersby give me no succor.

I closed my eyes. And then, with those other eyes we all have, I saw.

I saw Winter’s tree-sap flowing in the deep, hidden places; nutrient-laden waters streaming into and inhabiting every cell of root, trunk, limb and leafless branch. Every fiber brimming with a mysterious source of sustaining life. Every branch-tip lifted upward, pointing skyward, revealing to me a pattern of humble dependency. Unpretentious confidence and hope and knowing that this isn’t the final story.

I looked again and I saw an elderly, frail, bent, white-haired man tipping back his head to draw in a thimble-full of wine. The richest of fare. Surely this gentleman has a story of past accomplishments, but today he silently parsed for me the difference between season-dependent fruitfulness and never-ceasing flourishing.

God and man, at table, are sat down.[1]

Take a Deep Breath of Remember:

Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
Take words with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to him:
“Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously,
that we may offer the fruit of our lips.^”
 “I will heal their waywardness
and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them.

I will be like the dew to Israel;
he will blossom like a lily.
Like a cedar of Lebanon
he will send down his roots;

his young shoots will grow.
His splendor will be like an olive tree,
his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.

 People will dwell again in his shade;
they will flourish like the grain,
they will blossom like the vine—
Israel’s fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.

 Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols?
I will answer him and care for him.
I am like a flourishing juniper;
your fruitfulness comes from me.”

Hosea 14: 1-2, 4-8 (NIV)

[1] From the Hymn, God and Man at Table are Sat Down, Dr. Robert J. Stamps, 1972.

Photo Credit: Ron Silflow

Asaph and Miriam Got Rhythm

Sparrows look alike. I can distinguish male from female due to distinctive markings, but not individuals amongst dozens lining the rafters of a milking parlor.

There are two exceptions. Sparrows are creatures of habit. In this case, the habit is the location where they roost inside the parlor structure. Stretching across the milking parlor pit, about six inches below the ceiling, is a small cable along which slides a tarp used to keep warmth from escaping between twice-daily milking shifts. Slide the tarp open. Wait patiently with occasional glances over the next 20 minutes. There he is. Asaph.

I don’t know where he’s been, but he always shows up, day or night.

If there’s milking going on, Asaph shows. Doesn’t matter who’s milking that shift, he shows. Asaph’s got rhythm.

I call him Asaph because, during a six-hour milking shift, he chirps out birdsong praise that pierces heaven. Yes, I know. Sparrows are worthless (except in the eyes of God). But to me, sparrows are sacred precisely because, to most, they go unnoticed. Yet they splendidly declare the glory of God as individual’s part of something grander like a choir or a symphony. I could think of no one besides David, a name too common for this occasion, more skilled in uttering praise than David’s co-psalter, Asaph.

I started my own little rhythm, a little liturgy. I catch a shadowy movement out of the corner of my eye. Asaph silently glides past to ascend to his roosting/praising perch. I grab the tattered, iodine-stained church bulletin from Sunday’s service out of my back pocket, greet Asaph a good and fine morning, and ask him to join me in reading the Psalm printed in the God Calls Us section. Asaph always nods approvingly, rearranges a few feathers on the black napkin which garbs his upper chest, and interprets my English phrases into bird-praise.

I mentioned there were two exceptions to my sparrow ID limits. After a month of noticing Asaph’s methodical visits to the cable perch, I spotted a female companion joining him. Sparks sizzled between them. I feared this new acquaintance might whisk Asaph away to her perch in another part of the barn, but Asaph remained resolute. His little rhythm of “showing up” was undeterred.

Joining him, with grace and devotion, was this new little tweeter I call Miriam.

Moses’s sister Miriam, you recall, led the women in song and praise with tambourines as the sea closed over Pharaoh’s chariots. Now Miriam, arrayed in a traditional feathered gown, sings forth praises in the same tradition.

Beneath the cable perch is a silver-dollar-sized hole in a rusted tin structure enclosing pipes near the ceiling. Voilà, the perfect entrance for a nest. For over 2 years, during “special sparrow seasons” in both Spring and Fall, I’ve watched Miriam and Asaph’s relationship blossom. Asaph and Miriam got rhythm.

Their procreation instincts make this cowboy blush.

Next, their duel-effort nest construction begins. They masterfully weave wheat straw, abundant in a barn, tiny twigs, and curiously, shreds of royal blue baling-twine strands into a shell. Finally comes the lining of soft, fluffy down plucked from deep places hidden beneath shielding feathers.

Miriam disappears for 12 days to incubate the 4 eggs stashed in the hidden refuge. Sometimes, I see her quickly pop out of the nesting hole and wing-bump Asaph, her tag-team partner. Asaph wriggles his way into the hole to warm the eggs while Miriam quenches her thirst. Once the small, dull-white and brown, mottled eggs hatch, the two of them begin a steady convoy of worm delivery to the triangular beaks eagerly protruding from the hole in the tin.

Let the flourishing begin!

Take a Deep Breath of Remember: We need a rhythm inventory. What rhythms, what habits of remembering can we weave into our schedule to enable us to glorify God and enjoy Him forever? Our rhythms reveal our loves. They shape us. Sometimes unknowingly. Are there rival habits or rhythms competing for our supreme love?

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17, NIV)

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I feel the strong pull toward loves that promise fulfillment but leave me empty. Forgive my wayward heart. Turn me toward You, my supreme love. By your grace, become so beautiful to me that my highest desires burn for You. Amen.

 

 

Blossom Gets Colostrum

2:30 A.M. Calving Stall. Nonchalantly I squat beside Big Mama, push my forehead into her warm flank to offer reassurance, dodge a few tail swats, and fend off a hind-leg kick, then squeeze a two-liter bottleful of colostrum from a tight udder.

Blossom needs her first critical nourishment present in that first-milk from a freshened cow. Amazing design comes in play during her first 48 hours. During that period the cells of a calf’s gut, typically held together in tight junctions, are loose enough to allow large proteins to squeeze between them and enter the bloodstream.  Colostrum is loaded with just such large protein molecules – antibodies – crafted to protect Blossom from microbes she will encounter until she can produce her own. Germs that can put a quick end to any hope for her flourishing. Blossom’s gut is vulnerable. Colostrum-antibodies are like military Special Forces stealthily patrolling her bloodstream for invaders. They also act as gatekeepers, little TSA agents that coat the cells of her gut to arrest bad-guy’s germs bearing guns, knives and bombs.

I cap the bottle with a big red nursing nipple. Awestruck, I watch Blossom orchestrate her tongue and jaw perfectly to draw in the rich liquid nutrients.

Let the flourishing begin.

I’m lost in wonder. But the wonder stirs up a longing. I wish I had someone that would patrol my deep places and rescue me. Save me. Keep on saving me.

Take A Deep Breath of Remember:

(Hebrew 7:25, KJV) Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

 There He is. My advocate. My resurrected, ascended-to-heaven Jesus pleading for my salvation, having begun, to keep working in me through eternity.

Prayer: Jesus, lover of our souls, fill our veins with Your ever-saving presence. Amen.

Author’s aside:

Some of you are asking yourself if I used the KJV to preserve the word “uttermost” because it sounds like udder-most. Why yes, of course.

Also, I hadn’t traveled by air for 10+ years until two weeks ago. Had to de-board the plane for a second TSA screening before leaving Bozeman airport when a man remembered his loaded gun in his wheelchair. But, hey, I live in Montana.