While we were driving Mrs. Horse on a day that felt like Paradise, Bruce and I saw this bit of mystery—a dust devil, a whirlwind spun up and gliding across our Mr. P's field, only now it's his sons' field. Sometimes the wind delights us, shows us a picture of the Holy Spirit at play. Our pastor reminded us that Jesus promise that no one can take our joy from us, is true for us, because he has already destroyed death by death. Death is dead. So our despair, our fear when our beloved departs and enters rest is not the last word. So joy is our natural state, a fruit of the Spirit, and it is a practice and a work to defy the kill joy who would take our joy, because Jesus said, no one would take that joy.
The other day when I was reading the Daily Office, these words struck me: “Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death that he died, he died to sin, once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Right here. Right now we are dead to sin, but alive to God. That life is brighter, more real than we can imagine. We just don’t see it. But we can believe it. We can act like it’s true. We are dead to the arrow that missed its mark, the old meaning of sin. We are full of light, and the breath of the Spirit we just don’t know it yet.
I also want to say that it’s true, that Jesus does show up when we visit the sick and the naked. Bruce and I stopped over to see Mr. P a few times while he was in the hospital and nursing home. He was ready to Go Home to Be with the Lord. We didn’t say much, just a few prayers. And a few hugs. But my gosh there was light and joy for us in those visits. There’s something holy and clean about a farmer who has tended his fields without fanfare, who has enjoyed simple pleasures, been a good neighbor, who is ready to go.
And then there’s this—rain beating trees, fields, thrashing streaks of puddles, it comes so fast and hard. But for us no smashing of trees or houses.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord, his going forth is as certain as the dawn, he will come to us like the rain, the spring rain that waters the earth. (Hos 6:3)
There’s often the threat of rains turning to hail stones, and wind whirling into pillars sliding along the ground that smash our homes and our lives. Ever since I got on the plane to travel with Francis and Edith Schaeffer, and Fran said there would be spiritual warfare, and in a few days, my father would be dead, I have known how quickly those whirlwinds can blow up in our lives. We are a fragile people.
This week Bruce had a common procedure for men. They call it a TURP, a transurethral resection of the prostate. Hopefully it will make his life easier. But his being in pain, being in an acute care ward with other suffering people, well, you see whirlwind on the horizon.
But I don’t want to talk about that part so much. Even though I have complained about lack of community, I’d like to share how I found it this week. A friend of this page, a years long friend, Laura, offered to sit with me during Bruce’s surgery and time in the recovery. She knew how hard those hours would be. We had lunch, we talked, swapping stories, that are born from years of knowing each other.
One of the hardest things about church suppers, especially if you’re new, is that you don’t know enough to ask good questions about the other person’s life. Laura knows how to ask questions and listen, but she will also tell her stories. She has also stuck around when we disagreed. We don’t talk about flashpoint, culture war stuff.
Awhile back someone asked, “How do you want to be as a human being?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that, but the answer rose when I remembered a very early memory of sitting in a church meeting. The preacher must have asked will you be God’s friend? He may have been preaching about Abraham, who was called God’s friend. Yes I wanted to be God’s friend. So that’s my word for now. Friend—to God, and to people. Laura has shown me how by sitting with me in the hospital, despite her husband’s recent entering rest in the same hospital.
Worry and grief set up in my breath. I so wanted to have a good cry, when I left Bruce at the hospital, half awake, his voice faint, his arm shaking. I walked the dog, did chores. A barn swallow sat on the fence post watching me. He sat so still. Tears welled up, the kind when you are met with kindness. He sat and did not fly away even though I stared at him, wondering if he was hurt.I wondered if he was Little Bird, a barn swallow, a fledgling we’d watched over during the pandemic. I leaned on Mrs. Horse so I could steady myself and she walked away as if to say how rude. Okay, fine. I was relieved when he flew off.
On the way to pick up Bruce and bring him home, I heard David Crowder’s song, “Somebody Prayed.” The lyrics:
“That's why when mountains move, I say
’Looks like somebody prayed’
“I've seen miracles come from feeble words
I've seen hospital rooms turned into cathedrals
I've seen freedom come to the prisoner
You can't tell me that prayer don't work.”
About the time Bruce was released, things got bloodier. That was my experience after a bowel resection. The real pain started when I began eating again. His doctor and nurses have been very supportive, though we were still unsettled. It hurts to see a member, the true key to our peculiar joy, bleeding.
Charlyne texted, “This is the ‘worse’ part of the procedure but it passes soon -Monday just seems far away. It really isn’t compared to Bruce being healed for many years…You are as involved with Bruce as if you had the surgery. Your thoughts are intimately with him… we learn to separate out later to ask questions. Your thoughts were and are in the right place.” Yes, yes that’s it. I’ve held worry in my breath while at the same time heard the words: “This isn’t about you.” Well, maybe it is, when you have the kind of marriage where we’ve become knitted together.
Other friends asked after us, laid down their prayers for us. So that business about not having community when the hurt comes, well maybe it was a fabrication born of fear and some tough times in the past. Maybe God’s people actually do come through.
So there’s this—a rainbow whirled up from the earth by the sun and rain.
Okay, I couldn’t resist. Here’s the piece I wrote on Little Bird:
The barn swallows swooped over the field as if they were telling us where Little Bird was. Dutifully Bruce looked for him, knowing he’d survived the night. I thought about the saying: What is desirable in a man is his kindness. I loved my husband.
Little Bird had been knocked out of his too small nest with three other fledglings. Bruce put them back, but they fell out. The others died but not Little Bird. Usually we let nature take its course, but this time we set him on a low beam in the barn, so the parents could feed him. I prayed for his survival, as I cupped him in my hands, his heart racing.
He huddled there until he got strong enough to jump off. Soon I saw him lift off the ground, the other birds whirling overhead, encouraging him to fly. But he fell back.
Then the swallows were gone. There was a little bird shaped grief in my chest. I think about what a gift it is for parents to knock their children into flight. I think about my father who did not call me home after my mother died even though we were both desperately lonely. He blessed my flight, a blessing, a love, as sacrificial as Mary sending her son to die.
As for Little Bird, Bruce said he saw two adults and a little one sitting on the wire between the shed and the barn.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
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