We come at last to the dark
and enter in. We are given bodies
newly made out of their absence
from one another in the light
of the ordinary day. We come
to the space between ourselves,
the narrow doorway, and pass through
into the land of the wholly loved,
~ Wendell Berry
Lingering in bed
listening to steady rain
softening the fields,
whispering to the waiting
seed something the wind said.
Rebekah Choat
Ring out, wild chimes, in the wild wind;
hasten this tired year on its way.
Sweep in, wild hope, with the new day;
our spirits lift, our sad hearts mend.
Ring out the darkness, ring in light –
ring out, wild chimes, o’er all the earth.
Renew us in the year’s rebirth;
ring out the wrong, ring in the right.
~Rebekah Choat
.
I saw a sparrow in my backyard this morning, and if I tried to tell you how much hope the little bird excited in my heart, you might think I was unreasonable, maybe even a little mad. A sparrow – one of the commonest feathered creatures on earth – awakening a spark of joy?
But you see, I spend the greater part of every day working at my kitchen table/studio facing the wall of windows into my backyard, from which vantage point I can see all the bird feeders I’ve set up outdoors. And among the myriad strangenesses of this distressing year, I’ve been troubled by the fact that, although they’ve been here in flocks in previous times, I had not seen one single sparrow in all these long months.
I won’t go so far as to call it an omen. I don’t believe the world is miraculously going to return to ‘normal’ next week. I think this winter will be difficult in distinctly 2020 ways. I’m sure we will all have to continue to adapt, to make adjustments we may never have imagined, and that whatever ‘normal’ finally emerges will not look like the one we remember.
But neither will I dismiss my morning visitor as a commonplace, a coincidence. I will hold on to this reminder of hope, this assurance that the One whose eye is on the sparrow is also watching me.
October opens with bright
blue mornings, rambles
through red-golden afternoons,
then slips away one
shiver-shadowed night.
~Rebekah Choat
Mornings with chronic illness are hard. I rise slowly, no less tired than I was when I climbed into bed nine hours ago, taking a moment here to flex ankles and elbows, another there to try to work the kinks out of my neck, all the while assessing which muscles are most sore, which joints most stiff and painful this day. Depression sits on the edge of the mattress beside me, observing that I have a progressive disease – one that won’t be cured but will, in fact, worsen the longer I live with it.
But there is a husband, a teenager, a grandchild who requires my attention, so I push myself up and face the day, thankful that at least the heat of Texas summer is finally ending and it will be pleasant to sit on the patio for a while.
Psalms. Coffee. Porch swing time. Somehow, breathing outside in the relative quiet, reading the well-worn words, nourishes me enough to go on with a small modicum of grace.
I’ve been reading the Psalms for nearly fifty years now, never dwelling long on the ones about battles and vengeance; they seem far removed from my modern, mostly suburban American life.
But as I read Psalm 143 this morning, my foggy brain gradually came to realize that David was not necessarily talking about a human foe here: “For the enemy has pursued my soul;” “he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead;” “my spirit faints within me.” These sentiments feel true in my own despondency. Is the man after God’s own heart, perhaps, praying these words in his own time of overwhelming weariness and sadness?
He goes on to declare, “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done.” And I do. I know that God has acted on my behalf in the past, that he has previously rescued me not only from physical dangers, but from blinding black sorrows and feelings of despair. I know, but I can’t feel it right now. “Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails!”
“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,” please, just a wisp of hope somewhere in the breeze, a reminder of joy in the chickadees’ chatter, “for in you I trust,” because it has been the pattern of my years, because I don’t know what else to do, because in spite of everything, I do still believe you hold me in your hands.
And so September
ends, in shadow and sunlight,
in sorrow and hope.
~ Rebekah Choat
If I whispered
in your sleeping ear
—I love you—
would your waking
mind remember?
I lose myself in the sound of summer rain,
fling into the free-fall,
slip into a swollen stream,
ride the river-run down to the sea,
rise again into the sky,
lose myself…
~ Rebekah Choat
It’s just raindrops on
my glasses or the crack in
the windshield blurring
my vision. I assure you,
it isn’t tears in my eyes.
~ Rebekah Choat
