Mud and the Blue Iris: Thanksgiving Ponderings

 

This image on a friend's Facebook page was one of the first things I saw when I unplugged my phone from the charger Monday morning. Irises are a favorite, so even though it's a flower more associated with May than November, it caught my eye. 

And then there was the poem:

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris,

it could be weeds in a vacant lot,

or a few small stones;

just pay attention

then patch a few words together

and don't try to make them elaborate,

this isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks,

and a silence in which another voice may speak.

From Mary Oliver's book of poems, Thirst

It was a dreary, overcast, chilly morning to begin this week of Thanksgiving. And for many of us, Thanksgiving will look much different this year. 

November 2018

From two years ago

Instead of gathering with family, I'll be making turkey and dressing for two. We canceled a trip to Topeka and Kansas City. The last few years, we've celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday at Jill's and then have done a little Black Friday shopping in the afternoon - long after the die-hard early bird fans were back home for an afternoon nap after being up at dark o'thirty.

The extended family Christmas Eve get-together at my parents has already been canceled for this year. And while it was definitely the thing to do, I am already dreading its absence. In my 63 years on earth, this will be my first time to miss this traditional family gathering that also celebrates my mom's birthday. 

I've been furiously looking for silver linings.

"Well, I guess I'll get to go to my church's Christmas Eve service," I originally told myself in a pep talk. (For 40 years, it's been a challenge to gracefully decline participation in this special event - especially when Randy and I say "yes" to pretty much any church task.)

But then came the letter from the Great Plains UMC Bishop, recommending a move back to online worship services. Reading between the lines, it seemed the Bishop was recommending we celebrate Advent and Christmas at home - just like we did Lent and Easter eight months ago. 

Last weekend, as worship chair, I canceled our annual Hanging of the Greens to decorate the church for the holidays.

I texted another faithful family to make sure they saw the email cancellation notice. And the "little girl" I used to direct in the Joyful Noise Choir who is now a mom with children of her own texted, "I understand, but it makes me sad."

I texted back an emphatic, "Me too!!" complete with too many exclamation points.

So for Thanksgiving Sunday, I wrapped Christmas presents and listened to the fabulous organist at Wichita's First UMC play "Now Thank We All Our God" and "We Gather Together" instead of playing them on piano myself. Now that I'm the regular pianist at our church, I'd ordered a seasonal book and was practicing solo arrangements for our Stafford UMC service. 

Oh well, I sighed.

The Mary Oliver poem was just another "nudge" in my quest for silver linings. The night before, I'd finished the book Everything Beautiful in Its Time: Seasons of Love and Loss by Jenna Bush Hager. I told both Jill and my sister that it was the right read for this week of Thanksgiving. 

I must admit I'm a little jealous of celebrities who seem to have a Willy-Wonka-like "golden ticket" to publishing books. I'm sure her celebrity got her foot in the door of William Morrow Publishing, but if I'm honest, she writes well, and I enjoyed the book. In fact, I'd recommend it.

The impetus for the book was losing three grandparents in just a year's span. That grief is different from what most of us are feeling right now. But the loss of these hallmarks of our family life - like Thanksgivings around a family table or Christmas in a farm shed - are grief, too. 

In the book, Jenna Bush Hager detailed some of her grandparents' "rules for living." These are just a few from her grandpa, former President George H.W. Bush:

• Don't get down when your life takes a bad turn.
• Don't blame others for your setbacks.
• When things go well, always give credit to others.
• Don't be afraid to shed a tear when your heart is broken or because a friend is hurting.

And from her non-famous grandparents - her mom's parents Jenna and Harold Welch - this one stood out to me:

• Get out of bed to go look at the stars - and always, always wish upon the first star you see.

So the poem about the blue iris - and most especially the weeds and the small stones - seemed to just continue to reiterate the message. It was a "God wink," as another friend calls it.

 

Even though I'd consciously thought about the words I was reading, it sometimes seems my perspective is as hazy as the view on an overcast day, with the drab days of fall reflected through a dirty feed truck window and fractured by a broken rearview mirror.

The way out of the pessimistic point of view can be as helter-skelter as a country road after a rainy weekend.

 

But it's all about perspective. That rainy, overcast sky dropped nearly 3/4-inch of rain over the weekend. 

It gave the young wheat crop a small shot in the arm even if it made for a few mud puddles while feeding. 

 

It's a lot easier to find the silver lining in migrating whooping cranes  ...

 

... who "breakfasted" for a couple of weeks in a field not far from our house ...

... or in sunset skies 

But in this week of Thanksgiving, I hope to notice them all - blue irises, mud and all. 

 Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. 

Handiwork by my late mother-in-law, Marie

For another look at how cloudy skies produce the best silver linings and sunrise skies, check out this Thanksgiving post from 2013.

Letting the Beauty Speak for Itself

My sunrise tree at sunset

A Time to Think

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. 
–Albert Schweitzer, theologian and medical doctor

A Time to Act

Take time today to nourish your soul with beauty and silence.

Devotional from Guideposts.com

Not many words today: I'll let the beauty speak for itself.

Both Sides of Sunset

With storm clouds brewing as sunset approached, the sky was offering a prime time show. Since reruns are the television entertainment at this time of summer, we left the house and ventured down the road for the free show. 

Priceless.
The western sky was beautiful - no doubt about that.

The setting sun lit the billowing clouds on fire. But if I'd only looked to the west to the main attraction, I would have missed the best part of all.

And isn't that the case with life? We get so focused on what's in front of us that we forget to take a breath and look around.

Some of the most beautiful things are found on the other side.

Maybe it's the other side of the argument.
Maybe it's the other side of that bad mood.
Maybe it's the other side of sunset.

The lesson I’ve learned? Take a breath, look around. Enjoy the entire view. Get a different perspective. You just might find beauty there.

A Time to Think

Every day we live is a priceless gift of God,
loaded with possibilities to learn something new,
to gain fresh insights. –Dale Evans Rogers, singer

A Time to Act

Encourage me God, to see the value in what I have.

A Time to Pray

Dear God, lead me through today with new insights and new hope.

From Guideposts email devotional

Planting Wheat, Harvesting the Sky

The gas tank gauge on the car was drifting toward the "E" ... or as close as I ever let it get. As a country girl who grew up 15 minutes from town, I was encouraged to fill the gas tank when the needle neared the 1/4-mark. It was a habit that served me well as a teenager. When I ended up changing my "title" from father's daughter to farmer's wife, there was no reason to mess with a tried-and-true method.

Most of the last two tanks of gas have been "spent" running from one field to the next as we planted wheat. There was no fun trip to the homecoming parade and K-State football game last weekend in Manhattan ... just more trips to exchange the car for another trip to Zenith in the pickup, pulling the fertilizer trailer and refilling the 100-gallon diesel tank on the flatbed pickup. There were trips to deliver hot meals to the field and to help move the caravan of vehicles needed for wheat planting from one field to the next. A parts run to Hutchinson came after filling up a dwindling gas tank.

While I might be just a little sad (OK, a lot sad) that I didn't get to join Kinley and Brooke at the homecoming parade and get a preview of their butterfly Halloween costumes, I certainly have had some fringe benefits.

The sky! THE SKY!

It was like God was fingerpainting on the clouds, adding just a little bit of gold leaf ... like those fancy chefs on the Food Network.

I could almost ignore the mosquitoes the size of Piper aircraft to capture yet another image of Kansas beauty at its finest.

This wheat planting season has been a marathon - not a sprint. We started October 2, but we were slowed by some much-needed moisture interspersed throughout these past three weeks.(I told Randy that we can't complain about moisture after a dry summer.)

We finally got done with planting last evening, October 23. There are months of sunrises and sunsets until we'll harvest the 1,326 acres that will be Wheat Harvest 2018. (Let's hope it warrants the capital letters in 9 months time!)

Now it's on to harvesting another crop - milo. 

Harvesting the Sky

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
True Poems flee –
~Emily Dickinson, c.1879

 

"A harvest sky yields bounty to the eyes and weary soul."

Kim Fritzemeier, Kansas farm wife

That wasn't on the Quote Garden list of "sky" quotes. Maybe Kim Fritzemeier, farm wife, could be added to the likes of Emily Dickson and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

OK ... maybe not. But some days, the harvest sky has made the seemingly endless trips to and from the field and the emergency parts runs a little more palatable.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

 ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
Good old Ralph probably didn't know much about wheat harvest, but as we do our part to bring that "daily bread" into reality, I thought his quote was appropos. Sunsets are much more interesting with clouds. There's a lesson there somewhere, I'm sure.

Last Friday, I'd made two trips to Hutchinson to pick up parts at Case. That brought my 24-hour total to three trips.

That evening, instead of riding with Randy in the combine as is my usual modus operandi, I opted to stay behind to take photos of the shifting skies as day turned into evening.

It was a glorious show.

And, unlike the parts runs, it was totally free of charge.

It was almost as if Randy were harvesting the sun itself as the sun dipped toward the horizon ...

... and he emptied the combine after yet another trip down the field.

Wheat dust always makes me a little itchy. But I'd have to say it was worth a little discomfort to witness a particularly beautiful sunset.

I've had a few other favorite sky shots from this harvest. One dramatic sky heralded the arrival of Jill and the girls on the evening of June 15.

They arrived about the same time as the storm did.

Dark clouds become heaven's flowers when kissed by light.

 ~Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

We got a rain shower during the night, but I hope it wasn't enough to prevent one more day of harvest. If we're able to cut, we should get done today. Here's hoping!