Happy Harvest

      Life is always bursting at the seams with activity at the beginning of a new school year.  One of the biggest challenges this time of year always brings to the table is balancing the effort of putting away enough food for the winter while ensuring there is plenty of time set aside for everyone's schoolwork.  Slipping in one area can quickly tip the scales enough to throw off family balance.  For me this has meant putting a temporary hold on the flow of writing I had been pursuing over the summer.  However, this breezy Saturday morning I found myself gifted with some spare moments all to myself and I jumped at the chance to steal a few moments for working on this little piece that has been taking shape in the back of my mind.  It's a simple exploration of my love affair with good food and its spiritual impact on moods and feelings.  

     The variety of food provided for us by God does more than simply sustain our lives with physical nourishment.  Food alters and elevates our moods and comforts the body and soul when we are in need.  It is no small wonder that Jesus referred to himself as food or living bread.  Food, being a universal need, is something we are able to wrap our minds around.  We can see, smell, taste, and feel it linking aspects of our physical self to our spiritual dimensions with romantic harmony.  Yet food goes a step beyond simply connecting us to ourselves.  It also links us to each other and Our Creator as well.  
    
     I see each food designed by God as a loving miracle.  It is no small wonder when I can taste a warm sun-ripened raspberry plucked from a prickly branch or slice into a hydrating cool cucumber on a muggy day.  They become living proof to my whole being that God created the world for us!  He knew at the beginning we would need to wrap our shaking hands around mugs of steaming tea with tear-streaked faces or slice into sweet smelling loaves of warm bread on a frigid morning.  It seems to me that each food and all that we are able to create with it is an extension of the many facets of God. Each one is a preconceived gift from above that should be celebrated, enjoyed, and shared with family and friends.    

Happy Harvesting!



Sweet Current

Trembling fingers

grasp,

Spiced mocha mug

sipped with

caution so

fever won't burn.

Butterfly stomach 

gnaws,

Sweet corn aroma

fasting for 

love that

dines on fumes.

Running thoughts

stray,

Currant jam drips

toasted on 

hope to

fuel empty tanks.

Salty palate 

thirsts,

Iced fruit cleanses

melting the

urge to

return to the fray.

Roused appetites

jump,

Early fried confection

sweetened by

warmth that

sustains over time.

When Dreamers Dance

Simply because dreams keep hearts alive.

Dancing with enticing ocean waves

Glass winged butterflies

Mourn the inability to swim.

While leaping into breezy spaces,

Gleaming stone fish 

Dream of scaling distant heights.

Foreigner and familiar stranger 

Merge at the surface.

Diving into deep pools

Traps damaged flimsy wings

Magnetically toppling hardened 

Steely climbers below the 

Twisted parallel tracks of 

Hesitantly determined trains,

Carrying infant hearts

In trembling crafted cradles.

Frightened martyrs fight boldly

For ancient queens retreating

Gracefully across wired curbs

Sporadically hopping the distance

With the ebb and flow of 

Bottled diamond messages

Bobbing amidst tangled sea grasses

Under a stung blue moon.

Bumblebees laugh at the folly

Of children sliding on banisters

While Irish lasses freely ramble

Thundering fields of streaked light,

Futilely chasing wild horses into 

Bloody battles crossing divides

Where dinner bells and songs are 

Drown out by the clashed cry of war.

Building paper dreams 

Bigger than aged airy houses

Empties celebrated cornucopias

Into frozen wastelands,

Compromising hallowed chambers 

Of sheltered snow globes geared 

For wiping out on black ice

Melted slowly by ringed fire.

Responsible travellers check

Burdened weight of cargo

Gingerly leaping doormats

On wings of lyrical lunacy

Waving polka-dotted flags

Over shark infested waves of 

Subtle uncertainty tossing

Casually upon plastic shores.

Perch upon a rugged cliff

Consume a wedge of brutal pie

Cup hands and dip into icy

Creeks flowing through rusty cages

As energy jumps magnetic fields

Stepped down for soft landings,

Reality sparks transformation of hearts

That never wake from the dream.

Weighted Change

     We've seen an overflowing bustle of activity spill out everywhere at our house the past couple of weeks.  Reconstruction mode has sparked digging out a pit, and laying the foundation of a great wall intended to hold up and bolster a new family gathering place under the canopy of studded black velvet and whispy blue optimism.  Lines have been drawn and new stories are being pulled off of shelves with eager anticipation of a school year unsullied by smudgy eraser marks and wrinkled speeches lost under bedded chaos.  Change is pressing away the illusion of carefree summer afternoons lounging under waving trees, while watching happy hens scratch the ground and cottony charades transform in the sky.  Fruit ripens on the vine, weighing down branches and spilling out onto old wooden tables and work benches.  Multi-colored hot jars are lifted from boiling baths and steam burns tender skin.  Air conditioners buzz incessantly and are drowned out only by the deafening waves of insect songs rising and falling in the black muggy haze.  The mountains whisper the slipped secret back and forth that summer is waning.  Autumn begins its timed descent dropping clues of bleeding leaves and seed maturation along trailing creeks. 


      Change calls for us.  Even though it beckons from afar and nudges us along with carefully placed clues, it is not voluntary.  Eventually it sets in with a heavy, inevitable beauty.  It's gentle breezes and heavy weights can lift us into airy castles or sweep us into pressured vats.  We may make struggled attempts to fight against it like stubborn toddlers refusing to sit still for a hair brushing, but no matter how hard we struggle or how fast we run to escape it, change brushes us forward, unhindered by flimsy excuses of unpreparedness.  God knows change is necessary and can sometimes be difficult for us to flow with.  He will alternately pursue us or gently hold us through our stormy sessions of unwillingness to surrender by lovingly turning a deaf ear to our temper tantrums.  Then He whispers ever so quietly into our hearts that instead of crying out against it's crushing weight, we can discover relieving counter pressure hidden in submissive silence if we stop struggling and pause to listen for the breathed promises of a new season of growth.  When we gather our harvest of blessings with aching muscles, bow a submissively grateful head to God, and taste the renewing goodness of creation, it prepares our hearts for the protective crushing weight of winter's blanket.  Bow down and give yourself freely to God for anticipated transformation.  Allow yourself to be consumed by the entirety of the process.  So that when the weight is finally lifted and closed doors open, you are able to recognize what is worth celebrating as spring's light crosses your threshold. 

Weighted Change

A fragile heart grew protected fruit

Among pale green leafiness in lofty dreams.

Admired for it’s wild sweetness

Plucked casually under early summer sun

Set aside to ripen momentarily.

As sands passed through time’s keeper

It is swept up by the pendulum’s swinging.

Brushed into the presses for preserving

Reason ceaselessly crushing weeping

The weighted finality of change.

All that is left is juice and mashed pulp.

Maybe someday there will be wine

No, it will not be strawberry sipped under the moon.

Aged far beyond transparent fragility

Bittersweet maturity deepened the colour.

Merged in a battered sturdy cask

Black cherry tones lace earthy dark grains.

Siphoned as a kin's homemade brew,

From musty depths into corked brown glass

Masqueraded with a little dust on a shelf

It waits.