“Maria
walks amid the thorn,
Kyrie
Eleison
Which
seven years no leaf has born,
She
walks amid the wood of thorn,
Jesus
and Maria”
It
is a song about the blossoming of the extraordinary amidst the ordinary,
common, and even ugly. It is the perfect welcome to Winter, when the landscape
is barren and desolate…and the ground is cold and hard. The best surprises are usually preceded by a
gentle expectation of fittingness that something delightful is at hand. It is a
strange thing to try and convey….because it would seem that this expectation
would diminish the surprise…but it doesn’t, it cushions it…or readies the heart
for it, like a mother with a set of swaddling blankets and a bassinet readies a
home for a baby. Sometimes I wonder if this readiness brings the delight
on…like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is always present amidst the ordinary,
and it is characterized by a willingness to believe that something beautiful
can come from ordinary life. I have fallen in love three times this way. Once,
when I was told I would be picked up from the airport by a young man named
Luke, once while singing “Red is the Rose” at a choral concert, and lastly,
when a friend suggested we play a game of doubles with his tennis playing
roommate. In each case I knew the end result would be falling in love, and so
it was. The first resulted in tears and poetry surprising me wherever I looked,
the second in two years of correspondence and soul-friendship, and the third in
a marriage proposal (which I happily accepted.)
“What
neath her heart does Mary bear?
Kyrie Eleison
A little child does Mary bear
Beneath
her heart he nestles there
Jesus
and Maria”
It
was the same way when we spotted the little bird’s nest on our way down to our
favorite sledding hill. It was nestled in the branches of a patch of thorny
underbrush. It seemed to crown the thorny canes, and was position in such a way
as to have the peculiar effect of a lamp-post beside our path, welcoming us to
the dip and dell which funneled us to the very best sledding on the farm. Even
at a distance I knew the nest would be special…that soft “about to fall in
love” fog stole over me…and over Bothilde who asked “Can we just take it down
to look and then put it right back?” I eagerly assented and as we drew near we
could see fluffy feathers interwoven in the outside of the nest….it was a cup
of a thing, fitting perfectly in the palm of my hand…and most wonderfully of
all it was filled to the brim with little red-brown nuts. The intention of it
was overwhelming in the tundra-like barren surroundings. Here we were, wind
whipped on a lower hillside, with not a sound of birds to be heard, and yet we
had stumbled upon a little bird’s larder…and been surprised by the intent
industry of a little creature made of feathers and brittle bones, with a heart
beating fast beneath its stalwart breast, bearing in its beak carefully foraged
fodder…it was as if she had left a note for us to read: “I will be back! Keep
it safe for me the while!” We replaced it a-top it’s thorny perch. The ugliness
of the branches, the nastiness of the thorns and the completely surprising
beauty of a nest filled with dried berries and nuts was heartening…it made us
believe that all good things came from briar patches or similar seeming
desolation and ordinary ugliness.
“And
as the two are passing near,
Kyrie
Eleision,
Lo!
Roses on the thorns appear!
Lo,
roses on the thorns appear!
Jesus
and Maria”
Anyone
with a spouse will understand this paradox. There are few sweeter things in
this world than a heartfelt apology from a spouse that loves you deeply and has
hurt you deeply. I think it’s because there is something of your wedding night
in a true apology: there is gentle humility that perseveres because of a vow
however freshly made or old. One minute you are fuming at the sink, with your
arms up to the elbows in sudsy water, using your anger as a scrubbing pad to
remove all stubborn stains, and the next you are softened and changed,
dissolved in the warmth of contrition, realization, and forgiveness. It seems
to be part and parcel of the roses of life that they bloom amid thorns. Even
the sledding hill itself, which was murder in summer to climb when seeking a
wandering dairy cow or straying pregnant goat becomes the stuff of ballads with
a fresh powdery blanket of snow over it. The terrain you grumbled and grunted
over not a month ago now incites fresh squeals and giggles from adults and
children alike, as we fold ourselves up in little plastic sleds, grab out
courage with two mittened hands and plunge down the hillside.
Given
a chance, I think most everything in this funny world of ours can inspire and
enthrall. You certainly don’t have to live on a farm to see this. The way light
can spill in through a window all over a wood floor is enough to rouse
gratitude in the human heart…and it is that gratitude that makes the atheist
nervous. Because there must be someone to thank!
Before
we came upon the nest, we had passed the sheep returning from their daily
sojourns, grazing through the snow on the Northern slope. They paused at the remnants
of the piles of hay Shane had tossed out to them this morning on the future CSA
veggie field that lays just Northeast of the barn. (This is part of our Winter
manure spreading…and is much easier on our backs this way, letting the
droppings lay where they may in a carefully choreographed fertilizer ballet). I
was tugging the girls in the big black sled and we stopped to look at the
sheep, just as they stopped to look at us. Each one was different. I was transfixed
by the unique face of each sheep, and what had been before “ye old herd of
white blobs” was suddenly transformed into 26 funny little characters. There
was freckled face “Conchita” the short squat one from Mexico, and “Madame
Pierrot” the elegant one with black lipstick and a Elizabeth the Second collar
of ruffled wool. “Angelica” had a soft white face fringed with pink ears, pink
nose and mouth.
Yesterday
we were over a neighbor’s house to see about his restored Canadian Cutter, and
pulling it with the Fjords this Christmas season. The cutter was beautifully
rosemalled with roses and pansies and sprays of baby’s breath. The human heart
always stop short and breaths more deeply when abruptly confronted with such
beautifully detailed work. Work which signifies time standing still for the
artist while painting it…the kind of standing still that requires love and
defies counting. Over cocoa and peffernuse he confided that he finds nowadays
that he has “a lot of money and little time”. He has exchanged one for the
other for 34 years of his life, and now suspects the deal too raw to
continue…it was something of the same observation I stumbled upon house later
when we stood in front of the flock of sheep and it suddenly struck me that the
pause is what gave me the moment of recognition and nod to the wonderful
individuality of the flock.
Had I not halted the march of boots through snow, I
would not have known them enough to love them that afternoon. For a farmer, it
is his knowledge of the farm that keeps him hanging on to it: the knowledge of
where the grass grows thickest (and thinnest) and which blossoms gave the honey
that flavor this year, and where the black raspberries grow, and where the
asparagus hides, wild in the Springtime. Other kinds of knowledge, like how to
turn a hayloft into children’s laughter, or make a hobbit hole out of a
hillside, or find adventure down a woodland path not tried…those kinds of
knowledge too, tie the knower to the known. Knowledge is the wool that Love is
spun out of.
If time is the measure of motion, Love is the measure of Life.
In
the Advent hymn, we mutter “Lord have mercy” as we peer into the gentle mystery
of the incarnation. The rose has thorns…but the rose gives the why to the
thorns. Perhaps the reason why there was no room at the inn, in the ancestral
town of Joseph, filled no doubt to the brim with relatives of his who could
have offered at least a floor to sleep on, was because the coming of Jesus
Christ into the world seemed very much to those without “eyes to see” the birth
of a bastard child. But belief born of a waiting and expectant heart,
eager to see in the ordinary something extraordinary and beautiful, sees the
“fatherless” child fathered by a Father more Father than any, and from whom
Fatherhood receives its name. The Prince of the Universe turned the world on its
head when he was born in a barn, with ox and ass as courtiers. He greeted us
with a baby’s coo as the “Son of He who delights unexpectedly!” Forever after
giving royal dignity to poverty, and making ballrooms out of barnyards.