Tenderness

Last week, I went to get my hair cut. The woman giving me a shampoo asked if I was “tender-headed” and I said no. She then gave me a good scrubbing and a wonderful scalp massage. 

I’m not sure anyone has asked me about being tender-headed. A more familiar expression to me is tender-hearted, and there are several in our family who are often described that way. I don’t know that I am one of those. But maybe I should have told the person washing my hair that I was tender-headed. It is in my head that I feel tenderness for the world. I think about the horrors that are reported every single day, big and small, and my head is filled with sadness, grief, frustration, and disbelief at all the daily cruelty. And I find myself wishing, hoping, praying for tender heads rather than hotheads in places of power and decision-making.

 

Update.....

The corn is now higher than my head and starting to tassel. Here and there, I can see baby ears starting. It has rained at just the right time. The sunflowers, however, are no more…. The deer ate them all, leaving only the lower part of the stems, all stripped clean of the leaves. And then the weeds grew, so the rows are green but not with sunflowers. The deer need to eat, and a tender buffet right there is tempting, I suppose. But I will miss the blooms in the summer mornings.

 http://pastormartha.blogspot.com/2025/05/time.html

Neighbors

Some of the pickles!

When I lived in New England, it was rare for someone just to drop in. People (me included) almost always called in advance, to see if the timing was convenient or if folks would be home. But here in the country, it is very different. People stop by all the time. And they usually bring something. Sometimes it is a story or an old newspaper article about a long-passed relative. Lately, it is produce. People have brought pints and pints of blueberries, cabbages, the last broccoli from a garden, a bucket of peas. And this week, it was squash, pounds of squash; and then, green beans. So I got out my jars and pickling salt and canner. I have make 20 pints of squash pickles and six pints of pickled green beans. We will share them with neighbors, and eat them in the winter, when they will be like a taste of summer in a jar!

 

May 4

Daddy was born on May 4, 1918. He lived to be 98 years old. Last year, on May 4 – his birthday -- Mama said she thought she was getting a cold, but she didn’t seem to feel really sick until Wednesday, May 8. It wasn’t a cold – it was pneumonia. The year before, she had pneumonia at about the same time. We nursed her through then, but last year was too much. She died on May 11, 2024. She was also 98 years old. 

She was an educator for all her career. And her final act was one of teaching: She donated her body to East Carolina University for medical students to learn about anatomy. She graduated from East Carolina, as did her mother, her daughter-in-law, and her grand-daughter. What an act of generosity, and what a legacy!  

This year, on May 4 -- Daddy’s birthday -- we buried her ashes. We did everything we think she wanted us to do. She is buried in exactly the same grave where he is. After eight years of life without him, she is physically where she said she wanted to be. We wrote our messages of love on the box that held her ashes. Our brother put the box in the ground, and my sister and I helped to bury it. It was sweet and sad, and we were surrounded by so much love. 

She was known and loved for the letters she wrote. She thanked people for anything and everything – a plant, a visit, a bucket of peas, a job well done. Those letters were precious. It seemed just right to read 2 Corinthians 3:2-3: “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, and you show that you are a letter of Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are human hearts.” She did write on our hearts, inscribing our lives with her love. 

It has been a year and a bit, and I miss her every day.

 

Time

When I walk with my dog, our way passes between the fields, corn on one side and sunflowers on the other. What started as bare ground yielded to faint green as the seeds sprouted. Now the corn is knee high and the sunflowers are growing, too, except in some spots where the deer have eaten the tender stalks. In a few months, the plants will be taller than I am, and my way will be lit with golden sunflowers and tasseled corn. 

Once upon a time, my life was governed by a calendar and a clock – meetings here, meetings there, things to schedule, places to go and people to see, deadlines and timelines. Now, I find myself marking time by how much the corn has grown. It is a different rhythm, sweet and satisfying. I still have things to do, appointments to keep, a calendar, but watching the corn grow and talking to the dog fill me with peace.

Cards and Notes

My new year’s resolution for 2024 was to send a card or note to someone every week of the year – 52 in all. Some weeks, I sent several, some weeks, none. But I was doing well with it, keeping up with my resolution on average, and enjoying it. 

Mama always wrote people to thank them for anything and everything – a plant, a visit, a bucket of peas, a job well done. People loved her notes and kept them. I recently saw one on a bulletin board where my niece works that Mama had written almost two years ago. It meant something to get a hand-written note from her. She also sent, without fail, birthday cards, Halloween cards (with music and motion!), and Christmas cards. 

Last December, when she had written all her Christmas cards, she chose the ones for this year and the stamps, too. We bought them and tucked them away in her desk. And here I am this December, sorting through her list, addressing the cards she would have sent, missing her. 

And my notes for 2024? After she died, I wrote at least 80 thank you notes, in addition to my little list of one note a week. People were so generous, so caring, so loving. And she would have wanted every one of them to have note, to be thanked. I learned from her how important that is, how special. And I am trying to live up to her teaching. 

And the Christmas card list is up to 72…..

 

Saving Summer

It was cold last night, frosty in spots here and there. The last tender vines of the winter squash and the peppers, unprotected in the vegetable garden, have frozen and withered. But the basil, even more tender, was sheltered at the back door, tucked into the kitchen garden, and this afternoon it was still bright and green, just as in the hottest days. Now I have cut it all down, and I will make pesto to freeze. Then in the deep of winter, we will have pesto dolloped on soup or mixed with pasta. And it will taste like summer. And it will remind us that warm days will come again.

 

Jesus in the Desk Drawer

My sister is in charge of the computer lab at an elementary school that is affiliated with one of the churches in the area. Yesterday she was away, and I filled in for her. There were four classes with students in grades two, three, and four. For the most part, all was well – only two little episodes of acting up. The children were polite, engaged with their projects, and comfortable with each other. 

When I opened the drawer of the teacher’s desk to look for a rubber band, I found a tiny Jesus figure. I don’t know if my sister put it there, if it was confiscated from one of the children, or if every teacher’s desk at that school comes equipped with one. It gave me a moment’s pause. I don’t expect to see Jesus when I open a desk drawer. The truth is that maybe I don’t except to see Jesus at all. 

But maybe I should. The first part of Mark 13 is the scripture for tomorrow. Later in that same chapter, Jesus cautions: “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.” (Mark 13: 32-33) 

Lots of folks these days are looking for signs and omens, prophecies to be fulfilled. They are combing through the books of Daniel and Revelation, reading fiction about the rapture, and making much of world events. But according to Jesus, they are missing the point. No one knows that time. And in the meantime, we are to keep alert, to live as if Jesus is present in every place, which of course, he is. And he is present, not watching to catch us in our sins so we can be punished, but rather waiting to walk with us through this beautiful and broken world. 

So the next time I open a desk drawer, I will try to remember to look for Jesus. And I know that if I remember to look, if I seek, I will indeed find him.

 

Hope, part two

“In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection…” This phrase that has come to me in recent days is often included in a funeral liturgy. On those occasions, we take comfort in the promise of resurrection, we turn to the promise of life eternal, we remember that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.” But I am lately thinking not so much about the “resurrection” part of the statement but rather what it has to say about hope: “sure and certain hope.” 

Really and truly, there is nothing sure and certain about hope. In fact, hope is the opposite of being sure and certain. Emily Dickinson wrote that 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me. 

“Hope is the thing with feathers.” Hope is a fragile little songbird that sings even when there is nothing to sing about. Hope is a thing that can be blown away or frozen in a bad patch of weather; hope is a song so quiet that it almost cannot be heard; hope is fragile and faint. Hope is not knowing, not seeing, not even believing, and still vowing to go on, still singing in the storm. Nothing is sure and certain about all that. 

To have “a sure and certain hope” is to have faith, to believe where you cannot see, to go on when you do not know the way, to love and trust when the world preaches revenge and retribution. 

And although I did not think I was pondering the “resurrection” part of this bit from the liturgy, maybe I really am. Resurrection is life coming eventually from what seems like death. Resurrection is God’s promise of restoration and renewal. Resurrection is a miracle, salvation coming out of violence and darkness and death. And resurrection is hope! So these days, as Wendell Berry instructs, I will try, in sure and certain hope, to "practice resurrection."

 

Hope!

 

Last year we had this enormous and beautiful spider who made her web at the fence by the horse pasture. Her web was maybe ten feet long. One side attached to tree branches, another side to the horse fence. There were other strands that anchored to other places.  And it was more than a one-sided web, at least two-dimensional, several layers of web to snare the unsuspecting insect. None of it looked very substantial, but the web lasted for what seemed to me to be a long time.  

 

One day I went out and she was gone.  But I was hoping that she left her egg sac, that her offspring would come back. And this year, they did -- not in the same place but close by with a web just as amazing.  And the next generation built a web just as amazing.  

 

One day soon, this next generation will be gone.  It is close to that season.  But I hope she will leave her egg sac, as her mother did, and that there will be another web next year.

 

And I remember from my Hebrew classes that the word for hope has its roots in the idea of spider web. So maybe it is built into those spiders’ nature to hope for nourishment, to hope for survival, to hope for next year. Maybe that is built into me, too.  And I hope their beauty lives on in the next generations, and that I have eyes to see that beauty and constancy.