What a Ghost Town Says

Crumbling walls, gaping frames, and empty door frames are the only remains of the Lower Bankshead Lamphouse near Banff, Alberta. The ghost town has a crunchy coal pathway winding through what once was a thriving coal mining operation. A couple of coal cars sit frozen on a piece of track. Glimpses of foundation walls poke through prairie grass. History leaves her ugliest secrets silently buried here, but proudly flaunts the good that happened.  

Upper Bankshead was the village where the miner's families lived. Only the steps to the community church remain. The weathered sign says that these isolated families of several different ethnic and religious backgrounds sat and worshipped together in this place. Peacefully.

The lamp house is where I spent most of my time. It haunted me. The plaque read: 

I wish every community of any kind had a lamp house. 

Sometimes a person's light goes out, but there is no one to go searching for the missing owner of the lamp. No one knows. No one cares. The empty spot on the shelf goes unnoticed. Lord, forgive us. 

Young Folks Do

One folds paper into flowers

One sets a table eclectic

One prepares simple food ~ 

tomato soup

hot crusty rolls

salad wedges  

roast with rustic veggies

 while peach crumble 

finishes the meal 

passed hand to hand

around the table 

touching hearts 

knitting us together 

 warming the night 

with music 

and light

Fruitiness

"He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely." 

~ Eugene Peterson's The Message

Sucker or Succor?

Packaging, advertising, and the right color at the right time lures me. I easily believe and buy if these conditions intersect with impulse. This little plastic gizmo was $9.99. I know better, yet placed it willingly on the check out counter. It was bright green.

The other day I had a cooking disaster with the simple syrup for pear tarts. Recovered from the trauma, I started over the next day. The pears from our tree needed used immediately.

The tart gadget promised picture perfect miniature pies all the same size and uniform shape.

After the pears were peeled and sliced, spices and syrup added ~ I rolled out the pie crust. Opening the gadget I made two boring tarts that didn't look anything like the glossy picture. It took more time than usual and brought zero pleasure, so I stopped and went back to the way my sisters and I, my mom, her mom, and her mom's mom have been making them since forever ago.

It was satisfying to roll out uneven rounds of crust, put some filling in, fold them over and do the familiar pinch around the edge. The result was pleasing. Rustic. Natural. Honest.

Tarts are pockets of love.  They are able to deliver succor to the recipient who is given a batch.

The plastic didn't deliver anything. Turns out it was just a trickster making a sucker out of me. Why do we so easily believe the glossy is true?

I'd be glad to send a gadget your way, postage on me. Just ask. :)

Artistical Disaster

The pear tart called for some simple syrup. I forgot about it being on the burner until the smoke filled the house. It was close to bursting into flame when I grabbed the pan and ran outside to lay it on the rock patio. It looked like a puffy chef's hat, a smoking black one. It was fail/fail because it seemed like my favorite pan might have been wrecked. Brita came outside to see the damage. Her curiosity changed my perspective and the experience.

Hunkered down beside the mess, she poked and prodded. With a knife, she slit the top to explore what was inside. I bent over to watch tiny little beacon flames flicker out and turn into prisms. Burnt sugar looks like a lava flow, or black spun glass, but it is as ethereal and fragile as soap suds.

It made me think of the beauty that artists like Andy Goldsworthy notice and capture. Their curiosity is a gift ~ framed, displayed, or bound in a book for us to exclaim over.

Most days, I wake up and beg to see ~ really see. Today I forgot, but my daughter saw for me. Noticers refine worship with simple curiosity. Thanks my love.

This is the progression. Burnt Sugar Study. Beauty for ashes.

Blue Hospitality

Prairie sky

spills periwinkle

 vast and wide.

This favored

color poured

from on high
becomes a

generously spread

 welcome laid 

for pilgrims
migrating
toward
homecoming.

The prompt is "Gathering Blue". Come over to 3 from here and there and join the fun with Claire, Kelly, and Sarah. Offer yours. 

Loverby and I just returned from a circuitous loop to North Dakota and back. "This Land is Your Land" played a loop in our heads the entire time. Harvest across the prairie is glorious. There was something in the air. It looked like hope - waving, piled, stacked, transported, waiting, and stored up. 

Camping

He helps me
into water
washing my skin
and hair tender
before
leading me to lay
down clean ~
heaven above,
earth beneath,
water beside us ~

loving me back
from exhaustion.

Like a stuck

casement window, 

handle gears rusted~

wanting to stay shut~ 

he cranks me

wide open, 

letting fresh love 

blow through. 

The stars peek inside

open screens, then 

shoot across the sky

in applause.

Watching the flame

lick and caress the wood

till its colors 

come out glowing

pink, purple, red, 

blue, apricot, and yellow

makes me 

want to stay 

burning also ~

to fear not 

the dark.  

The colors of bruises 

are also the colors of

rainbows. 

Sharing a Bed

Rumpled blankets
bury books and fold up
kittens tangled around the dog
who gives wet licks
to wake us up for
breakfast.

Here's a must for middle age ~
get again not one, but two kittens.
Their paws are softer, whiskers
ticklier, fur silkier, and purr louder
than my earlier memories recall.

At play, they make me smile
at the tumbling chase and laugh
at their clumsiness. My eyes
water in wonder as tiny
padded paws pat my cheek.
Close isn't quite close enough
at times for a kitten, but
I have no way to unzip
my skin for them
to get all
the way
in.

Unlikely Pair

Dick Staub doesn't do celebrity coming or going. Neither does Nigel Goodwin. What they do is dream up ways to gather artistic creative thinkers. They encourage, include, endorse, and foster. Kindling is a way to start fires and keep them burning. 

They both have lion sized hearts. Untamable hair. Voices that roar over valleys and bounce off the highest hills. Hugs that mend aching, fatherless hearts. 

Nigel wears funky street dancer shoes just in case the mood should strike him to tear up the pavement. His signature style is butterfly colored socks and jackets unmatched to anything else he wears. He is unabashedly bold about being seen in public this way. He tries to keep Dick stocked up on colorful socks, to no avail. Barefoot is better. It must be an island thing?

Kay Redfield Jameson in Exuberance tells of the musical that Jim Dale wrote about P.T. Barnum's extraordinary life. It reminds me of Nigel. 

Barnum is portrayed as keeping at bay his own and the world's ennui by spinning off energy and joy. "Through a night as dark as space / And cold as the sea / Someone's got to make it bright / Shoot a rocket, shine a light." Someone, in short, has to build a fire.  Exuberance, Barnum knew, is complicated. Exuberance is contagious. 

In the musical he also sings ~

"The colors of my life

 Are bountiful and bold 

The dazzle of a flame 

The glory of a rainbow 

I put them all to shame. 

no quiet browns and grays 

I'll take my days instead 

And fill them til they overflow 

With rose and cherry reds. 

And should this sunlit world 

Grow dark one day 

The colors of my life 

Will lead a shining light 

To show the way."  

She also quotes C.S. Lewis. It reminds me of Dick's untiring work to see his vision come into being and bear fruit.

"Good things as well as bad are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to get wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.....They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry." 

Might I explain Kindlingsfest 2011 this way?  I've been both warmed and wetted three years in a row. I don't have to have a studio, an audience, or a patron to be creative. I don't need permission, degrees, pedigrees, or papers. I don't need to have a maid, or months of solitude. I only need a way of thinking and being. A way of living each day noticing beauty. I need to choose it amidst the interruptions and disruptions of real life. I want to use color, words, my voice, my gifts, and our home in ways that dance and sing and cast prisms for me and others to swim in.

May these men (and their forbearing, steadfast wives and families) receive more grace, much mercy, and heaped to overflowing blessing upon blessing. Someday we will stand with all heaven and applaud as they receive the  eternal, "Well done boys, well done."

The Kindlings has a wide assortment of links and doors to look behind. You'll discover the dots connecting with International Arts Movement, Taproot Theater, Jeff Keuss's new book, Your Neighbor's Hymnal, Image Journal, and more. The recorded interviews and podcasts are a gold mine of interesting dialogue. The archives are deep and wide. Take a deep breath and dive.

Chickadee Feathers

The flies have been pests in the garden and yard this year. I put out a few fly traps and some fly paper strips around the yard. It is a gruesome solution, but I was desperate. 

I took down the gooey sticky paper strips though. Never to be used in my yard or life again. Never. I didn't know. Now I do. 

As I was watering, I looked over to see a young chickadee crucified to one of them. Its wings were stuck fast, spread wide. It took awhile to loosen the little fellow. I brought him in the house and used warm water and soap to clean as much of the stickiness off as possible. His heart was thumping too hard for its size. I separated each feather and blew gently to dry them off. Many were missing, still stuck to the death trap not intended for a baby bird. 

I set him gently in a sheltered spot. He immediately tried to fly. It was an unsuccessful attempt. My hurting heart couldn't follow him where he hid under some brush. I couldn't save him from the troubles he was in. I hope he lived, but have strong doubts that he could heal properly. 

Grieving, all that day I kept thinking about "not one sparrow falls to the ground without your father knowing and noticing." 

There was a time about ten years ago when I truly believed that he cared about sparrows more than he did about me. It is because I had always misunderstood the verse. 

I thought he kept the sparrow from falling. Why then, couldn't he keep us from danger and sickness. Why didn't he help us when we were in dire straights? Why was he silent most the time. Why didn't he act? 

Now I live and think and trust differently. These things I know:

He sees. 

He notices. 

He cares. 

He's always there. 

I'm never alone. 

He waits to bind up my wounds gently, with profound care. 

He feels my heart pounding too hard. 

He calms my wild eyes. 

He washes the stickiness off. 

He binds the broken parts. 

Puts me in a safe place. 

He hopes that I fly again. 

He does. 

He loves me this I know. 

Every single hair of my head is counted. 

Even the ones that are falling out by the bushel, making it easier to number them I'm sure.