Fall Archives - Page 8 of 13

Homecoming

October 15, 2017 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.” —Charles Dickens

An old black pickup pulls into the driveway every weekday afternoon and parks in front of the garage. An old black dog inside the house who’s waiting and watching by the floor-length window gets a shot of adrenaline in anticipation. The homecoming has begun! Chris exits the pickup, gathers his small red cooler and extraneous sweatshirts, boots, and clothes that are mud-streaked, oil-stained, and grass-smelling and walks slowly toward the house. If he’s dug holes, planted trees, or been on his hands and knees pulling weeds for too many hours of the day, it shows in the limp of his gait. But pure happiness and joy meets him at the door in a rush and a dozen rubs against his legs. There is a smile on Chris’ face as he sits on the bench, looks at his gray-faced friend, and rubs behind her ears as she wags her tail in contentment. The three of us then take a walk down the road—Chris and I check in with one another about our day as Tamba checks out the new smells on the old pathway.

It was Homecoming at Saint John’s University last weekend. Aaron and his friends met to eat breakfast in the Reef—the cafeteria on the basement floor of the thick stone walled Quad building. After a short walk across campus, they entered the pine tree enveloped football stadium where the Johnnies whomped the Auggies in a no-surprise win. Tailgating, catching up, reminiscing, and sharing a beer and a game of pool rounded out the day. Chris and I joined Aaron for a hike at Saint John’s the next day—it was a beautiful, sunshiny day, and the Maple trees were in spectacular color. Families, students, and alumni hiked the extensive network of trails, reveling in the magnificence of the place.

What does a place one wants to come home to offer? What brings people back ‘home?’ Saint John’s emphasizes a sense of community and friendship that I witnessed during Aaron’s four years there and that has continued in the years since he graduated. It is a place where you can fall, and there are people there to help you back up.

Home is a place of beauty, however you define that. Saint John’s University is surrounded with hundreds of acres of natural beauty—lakes, streams, Maple forests, grasslands, and Oak savannas—and contains historical and modern architecture that awes and inspires.

Coming home should be a safe haven in the rough seas of life. The heart-breaking reality is that many children don’t have a safe haven at home; they consider school and their teacher a place and person of safety where they can have food, kind words, and care and help with learning and being. We never know when we are someone’s port in a storm.

Home lets us be who we are with no pretenses, embraces us no matter our size, color, mistakes, or shortcomings.

Home is a place to hang out, to get close, to have a conversation, to hold one another accountable, to soak up the good things in life and to deal with the bad.

Home is a place of encouragement when a task is daunting, when we wonder how the heck we’re going to climb this next hurdle, when the steps are right in front of our faces but we are unable to navigate them for whatever reason.

Home is a place of growth and learning where books and experiments, chores and hands-on doing, creativity, mistakes and solving problems of every kind are used daily. We learn, we grow, we shed our old ways and constantly become new creatures.

Home is a place that helps us out of the muck, that throws us a rope when we’re stuck, that will wade into the mess we find ourselves in, pull our boot out of the mud, and help us back to shore.

Home is where all the paths of life lead back to—often we lose our way and wander through the trees. We get confused about what direction we’re going and whether it’s the right way. We get scared of what’s to come because of the dark nights that have come before. But always, the Light of home is calling us forward through the shadows.

For Aaron, homecoming at Saint John’s was fun and nostalgic, satisfying and bittersweet (Jake, you were missed!) For Tamba, Chris’ daily homecoming is a time to celebrate with joy and contentment. So what does a place or person offer that one wants to come home to? Safety in all realms, acceptance of who we are, beauty for the eyes and soul, responsibility of internal and external dynamics, help when we need it, a culture of learning and growth, and fun, happiness, contentment, and joy! Home is the place we return to, it is the people we can count on, it is the God who sustains us, it is the path we travel on the journey back to ourselves. Home is truly where our hearts are, where we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we matter.

The Things Our Eyes Can’t See

October 8, 2017 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

When I was in graduate school, I could get lost for hours looking into a microscope—looking at things our eyes can’t see—red and white blood cells, chromosomes, uric acid crystals in urine, sperm cells, and so many other incredible structures. It was a whole other fascinating world that we carry with us, that is us!

Our woodland Cooper’s Hawk flew to an Oak tree branch when I happened to be looking out the window. I know he saw me looking at him—in other words, he watched me like a hawk. He wasn’t too perturbed, as he sat there for quite a while, fluffed up his feathers, and continued watching.

Hawks and other raptors have excellent vision—they can see 4 to 5 times farther than humans, have superior color vision, and deeper foveas that allow their eyes to act like a telephoto lens. They need this acute vision to focus in on their prey from a great distance, then accurately capture it.

With our much more limited eyesight, we get a bigger picture of the world by moving our eyes and heads. We are capable of seeing the big picture and the details of things that are close by but often overlooked. The big picture of Autumn is the changing colors of the landscape, but I thought I would focus in on a more detailed look at Fall through the camera’s telephoto lens. The needle-like leaves of the Larch tree are changing to a golden yellow and will drop to the ground like a carpet.

Spiny seeds of Queen Anne’s Lace have begun their dispersal by wind or clinging to the fur, feather, or pantleg of a passerby.

Scarlet cones of Sumac berries top the equally beautiful crimson foliage and will remain as a food source for dozens of birds throughout the winter, long after the leaves have fallen.

Huge white puffs of ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea flowers gradually dry to a rich, toasted brown color and can be brought indoors for a beautiful Fall decoration.

Individual seeds on the Purple Coneflower light up like pegs on a Lite-Brite screen.

Fast growing fungi popped up all over the yard after days of rain. Isn’t it incredible that such a strange structure, complete with unique colors and shapes, can grow so quickly then melt away to nothing?

Like a huge bouquet of tiny rosebuds, each ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum flower spreads its namesake to all who see them.

Behold the first leaf to change from green to wine on one of the many ‘Nannyberry’ Vibernums we have planted in the woods.

Dried Fern fronds remind me of the racks of drying tobacco I remember from my childhood, that hung in Pennsylvania barns.

The lace cap flowers of ‘Quick Fire’ Hydrangea bloom a pure white and gradually turn pink as Summer wanes and Fall arrives.

Joe Pye Weed seedheads look like pink sheaves of wheat blowing in the breeze.

A tangle of plumy seedheads from a Purple Smoke tree is rarely noticed at this time of year.

The landscape of Fall is beautiful; the details of Autumn are intriguing, just as the landscape and microscopic details of our bodies are amazing. Though we don’t have the keen distance sight of a hawk, we do have the marvelous ability to see the big picture and the details, both literally and figuratively. But what happens when we are only focused on one certain thing?

The other objects in sight are rarely noticed or are distorted beyond reality. At times like this, a person’s world and vision gets small—when the focus of his sight and mind is singular and obsessive. It happens when a person is fighting for her life. It happens when despair covers a person like a cloak, and she seems to melt away to nothing. It happens when one is lost for hours, days, years in addiction. It happens when suffering people are unimportant compared to money. It happens every day. It is rare that a person in this situation can correct his vision on his own, let alone have the inner and outer resources to change his world. That’s where the rest of us come in, for if you think you live your life as an island, you are either a fool or delusional. We are our brothers’ keepers. Before that seems overwhelming or raises the hackles of defense, know that we are hard-wired as social creatures. We are meant to look out for one another. It starts with taking good care of ourselves, our partners and families, then our friends and community, our country, our Earth. Like a hawk, we can watch for despair or addiction, for suffering and injustice, and though we cannot do the inner work for the people affected, we can stand by their side and do what we can to assist them. We need to be able to help them see the big picture, yet work diligently with the details. And then there are the things our eyes can’t see—love, faith, hope, resiliency—that sustain us even when the material world has dried up and fallen away or been washed away in a flood. Behold!

Wielding the Power of Love

October 1, 2017 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

There’s somebody out there wielding more power than they probably know they have. Their power is not evident at the time of delivery; in fact, it will be evident days to weeks later. The delivery, I’m sure, is taken lightly and seems relatively benign, and they may or may not see the consequences of their actions. That being said, their mission is noble and just—to rid our city or township of the noxious Spiny Plumeless Thistle.

I don’t have anything against the intrinsic value of any plant in this creation of ours, but I have a strong dislike for Buckthorn and Thistles, two of the most tenacious invasive species of our area. Come June, I am scanning the ditch along our road for the opening of a pretty-if-it-was-on-another-plant purple flower. At that time, I get out Chris’ sharp digging spade and spend an hour or two doing my civic duty by walking up and down our road chopping every purple-flowered, prickly plant I see.

Seed dispersal by wind takes the opportunistic seeds to anywhere there is some degree of disturbance—an overgrazed pasture, vacant lots, field edges, or roadsides. Luckily, the plant is biennial, and with persistence, it can be eradicated over a number of years, especially if all neighbors are on the same page. As the summer wears on, my digging slips, and I notice a few spindly plants flowering across the road from our garden. Here is where the wielder of power comes into the picture—with a wand and a tank of herbicide. August is not a good time to spray weeds in a good management program. I’m not an expert on herbicides, but I live with a man who has used them every year of his horticultural career, and I know about drift and volatility. I first noticed a change in the color of a number of sumacs–they all turned orange while the others were green. And then I noticed my tomatoes—the growing tips were burned back, the leaves got spotty, and the tomatoes I was so looking forward to started turning off colors. Dang it! The city public works director denied that they were the ones responsible, but I was a little worried when he said my garden was too far from the road to be affected (not true) and didn’t know what dicamba was.

The wielder of the wand did more damage in the neighborhood. While spraying in a gravel parking lot down the road at a small park, the drift killed all but one branch on a 15-20 year old Accolade Elm, a hybrid tolerant of Dutch Elm disease. Its survival seems unlikely.

And the hill at the end of the road that used to be all grass a number of years ago will probably be filled with thistles again next year, as the herbicide concoction killed the grass along with the thistles.

So disappointing that my tomatoes were wrecked. Disgusting that a tree that took so many years to grow was wiped out. Frustrating that the people responsible don’t have a better management plan than ‘go spray thistles’ in the humid hot middle of summer. For some reason it all reminded me of the hate, injustice, and ignorance in the world that seems to be tenaciously invading all our lives. The prickly spines of hate are often hidden under the beauty and righteousness of a pretty idea. Seeds of discontent and harm are dispersed via the internet by opportunistic self-serving strangers looking for the grounds of unrest. And what are the wielders of power doing to manage it all?

It’s overwhelming at times. I find myself wondering in that ancient, yet 90’s sort of way—What Would Jesus Do? It helps me stay strong. I know that I will keep picking up my shovel to chop out hate and ignorance, and for all I am worth, I will wield the power of Love.

Shifting Gears

September 24, 2017 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

We were still newlyweds when Chris taught me to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission. We had just bought a used 1981 Chevy C-10 1/2 ton pick-up truck. It was a bold red color—the only choice for a truck, according to Chris. The single cab and long bed (the standard back then) looked sleek and utilitarian and housed a ‘three on the tree’—a manual three-speed shifter on the steering wheel column! He drove us to a way-out-yonder gravel road north of Bates City where no extraneous traffic would interfere with my concentration, and then we switched places. He was a patient, methodical teacher, and I tried to be the good student that had carried me through all my years of schooling. But studying books and operating clutches are two different things! I don’t care to remember how many times I killed the engine before I even got going. There was gear grinding, bucking action, nervous laughter, and many “I’m sorrys” when I thought I was wrecking it. Trying to get the hand-foot timing down—letting off the gas, pushing in the clutch, moving the gear shift to the right position, then letting out the clutch slowly and giving it gas—was hard and frustrating. And how do you even get braking in there, too?

Fall is a time for shifting gears—luckily Mother Nature has done it more times than we know and does it smoothly and seamlessly. The growing, producing season is in decline; the fruits of that season are gathered or hanging heavily on the vine, ready for harvest. Internal systems in trees take their cues from the external world—length of daylight and temperature—to stop production of chlorophyll, which unmasks the carotenoids and anthocyanins that give leaves their fall colors and eventually causes the leaves to drop off.

Fall flowers provide needed nectar to insects that may be migrating, hibernating, or laying eggs for the last cycle before winter. One last hurrah of the repeat bloomer Stella D’Oro Lily entices a Monarch butterfly to linger and feed.

The beautiful ‘Fireworks’ Goldenrod attracts bees and wasps of all kinds.

Showy purple Asters bloom vibrantly as one of the late season stars of the perennial world.

A shift happens with the bird population. The summer birds have mostly migrated away—we no longer see the graceful swoops of the bluebirds or hear the incessant chatter of the house wrens. It is rather quiet on the bird front, though we heard a flock of geese just this morning. A quiet little guy visited the bird bath recently and seemed to be wondering where everybody else was also!

Spring fawns are losing their spots to a winter coat and are almost as big as their mothers. They are the reason we must be so diligent in guarding young trees and shrubs.

The male spotted fawn shifts to a ‘button buck’ as the pedicels form into small hair-covered bumps at 4-5 months of age that will grow into antlers next April or May.

With the patient tutelage of Chris and lots of practice, shifting gears with a manual transmission was soon second nature to me. The old ’81 Chevy was a stalwart worker for us for many years.

Fall not only shifts gears for plants and animals, but for us also. Some of us harvest and preserve food for winter. We start craving hot soups, pumpkin anything, and apple pie. We slowly and effortlessly morph from outside evening activities to reading or tv watching. Daylight and temperature influence our internal systems and our external choices, showing that we are an integral part of Nature that is often overlooked. Yet we also have a huge cortical brain that can override the more animal aspects of our existence. We can choose to shift gears! We can choose to migrate to a new place, choose to live in the way-out-yonder quietness or the busy bee metropolis. We can choose to be bold, choose our schooling, linger in darkness or seamlessly let our Light shine.

‘The Breath of the Buffalo in the Wintertime’

December 18, 2016 by Denise Brake 6 Comments

It’s been a year now since my Dad moved through his final days of life, receiving hospice care on Christmas Day and for two short days after that. I still have the notes I took each time I talked to him while he was in the hospital and rehab center. I still have his phone number under Dad in my cell phone, though no one’s there to answer. I still have the picture of him in my mind of how he looked when I saw him for the last time two months before he died. His hair and beard were white and long. The sharp pain of his passing has waned, and I find myself carrying gratitude for him, his life, and his stories.

One story he told about his childhood years was riding to the nearby town of Badger in the horse-drawn sleigh. Grandpa would harness and hitch up the horses, and then the whole family would pile into the sleigh and cover themselves with a big buffalo robe—the tanned hide of a buffalo with the hair left on it. Dad said it was the warmest blanket for traveling across the snow-covered prairie in an open sleigh.

We’ve been having a bit of a cold spell here in Minnesota over the past week or so—temperatures in the teens or single digits with wind chills up to 25 below zero, with last night’s actual temperature a frigid 25 below! January weather before the Winter Solstice. During this cold weather last Saturday, we visited a Christmas tree farm that offers horse-drawn sleigh rides (or wagon, if not enough snow) to see their buffalo. The big, black Percherons stood in front of the hitching post, patiently waiting for the next group of bundled sight-seers. We were not among the bundled, but the horses, the cold, and the buffalo reminded me of Dad’s story of winter prairie life.

One buffalo was standing his ground while the others grazed or ate hay. His moisture-laden breath wreathed his big head and froze on his muzzle like a great white beard.

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of the buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” –Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator

What is life? Would we even know without the pain and poignancy of death? Crowfoot reminds us that life is the little things that happen in our world—the flash of a firefly, the frozen breath of a buffalo, notes from a phone call, childhood stories, a sunset, and a hug good-bye. Christmas and other holidays feel different when our loved ones are no longer in our lives—through death or by choice. There are missing pieces that dampen the joy and celebration. And while the sharp pain subsides with time, the loss chills our hearts in small but real ways. So I cover myself with the buffalo robe of memories—it’s the warmest way for traversing this new path.

The Treasure of a Diamond

December 11, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I’m not much of a ‘jewelry’ person. I wear my simple gold wedding band on my left hand and a silver, lapis, and turquoise ring I bought years ago at Mount Rushmore, on my right hand. The single diamond in my engagement ring was knocked out decades ago when I was doing laundry. My ears aren’t pierced. And most days of my life, I would look pretty silly wearing a necklace with my jeans and fleece. But, I remember when I was a kid, I loved looking at the diamonds in my Mom’s jewelry box. Rows of dangly earrings and intricate brooches sparkled with what seemed like hundreds of tiny diamonds. What a treasure! It didn’t matter to me that they weren’t ‘real’ diamonds.

Melting snow during Thanksgiving weekend created a thick fog that condensed and froze on everything. The Cedar trees were encrusted with glittering ice ‘diamonds!’

The ice-covered Hydrangea reminded me the most of the earrings I admired in the jewelry box–clusters of tiny diamonds and flower-shaped dangles. What a treasure.

The berries of the Gray Dogwood, fall food for the birds, were replaced by diamonds of ice.

Those of you who know of my non-proclivity for jewelry also probably know of my love for Emmylou Harris. I was introduced to Mark Knopfler’s voice and song-writing from their album together, All the Roadrunning. You know how at certain times in your life a certain song ‘speaks’ to you? The second song on this album spoke to me—it was on repeat and played loudly in the quiet of my car or the solitude of the house for many months.

I dug up a diamond / rare and fine / I dug up a diamond / in a deep, dark mine

If only I could cling to / my beautiful find / I dug up a diamond / in a deep, dark mine

My gem is special / beyond all worth / strong as any metal / or stone in the earth

Sharp as any razor /or blade you can buy / bright as any laser / or star in the sky

I had been to the bottom of the deep, dark mine—that spiritual journey that shakes up all the beliefs that hold your life together. When you are digging and clawing for something to make sense of all the pain. When you’re covered in the dust of disappointments and heartache, and it’s so dang hard to breathe. And then I realized I had found a rare and fine diamond, and it was me. We lose what we were and become something new. Each one of us is special, beyond all worth—what a treasure! Take your place, Bright Star, and shine.

Gleanings from November—Seeing Clearly

December 4, 2016 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.

John Ruskin, English art critic 1819-1900

This November was a strange month. Not only was the weather erratic and unprecedented but so was the election and the political climate. (Sigh) All of it is confusing and confounding with smokescreens of battling tweets, false news sites and hacking, entertainment-fantasy-lies versus reality, and those who say to the seers, “See not.”*

The bright-headed Pileated Woodpecker caught my attention in the gray, exposed landscape of early November. His large body of steely gray feathers could easily have been camouflaged, but the red crest of feathers and stripes of white, red and gray on his head and neck created a bull’s-eye through the circular branches of an old Oak. I’m so intrigued by this huge, shy bird. Most often I hear the distinctive, raucous call before seeing the undulating flight and clumsy landing. His strong, pickaxe bill can send chunks of wood flying as he searches for insects.

The mild weather of early November gave us glimpses of colored shrubs and perennials that usually would have lost their leaves via a killing frost by that time. Joe Pye Weed still looked beautiful in its autumn glory, surrounded by red fruit stems of Gray Dogwood and graceful branches of Oak trees.

The last of the golden-leaved trees was the Honey Locust, losing leaves from stems, then losing the yellow sprays of leaf stems from branches. A cascade of loss.

November’s super moon caught the attention of the world, something that gave me great pleasure and hope—that a celestial body could be the focus of attention for a week of time. The moon, stars, sun, and earth—all common denominators for each and every one of us on this planet. But the focus can easily be placed on other things, even when looking at our common subjects.

What is the real subject? What is the real issue? What is the truth of the situation?

Many things can obscure what we’re looking at, what we need to know. Clouds of illusion, reflections of reflections, and influences of darkness can obstruct our vision and muddy our convictions.

On the 18th, our first snow was a blizzard, closing schools and littering the highways with wrecks. Not seeing and slippery slopes have consequences.

But there was this flower blooming outside our window the day before the storm. One stem of this Hollyhock represented all the stages of our lives: a closed green bud full of potential; an unfolding bud showing rich, young, lively color; a lovely, open blossom in its prime; an older, more experienced, slightly faded bloom; a wilted, wiser, wrinkled version of its former self; and finally, a withered, spent flower that was being ‘cared for’ by the rest of the plant. All of them valuable and worthy to be seen.

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.” (Gamble & Huff) So, where do we begin? We begin right where we are. We begin by seeing and being aware. There is great value in seeing the environment around us, in being aware of the people around us, but most importantly, I believe, in seeing ourselves. What path are we on?

On our paths, we attempt to see our lives clearly. We want the sweet poetry of joy and love. We look forward to a good and meaningful life. We long to be in the presence of the Holy One. In that spirit, with that Spirit, we have the amazing ability to look at our lives, our thoughts, our feelings and have insight—what a gift! Novelist Jonathan Franzen wrote about insight: “And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.” I say to the seers, “See.”

*Isaiah 30:10

Pregnant With Blessings

November 27, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I was struck with envy on Thanksgiving Day, on this day when family, food, blessings, and laughter were supposed to be overflowing and when gratitude should have been flowing from my lips. Instead I was feeling sorry for myself. We were home—just the three of us—when we should have been at the relaxed Andersen gathering in South Dakota or at the exuberant Brake family get-together in Kansas City. I wanted to be with all my kids; I’m not sure that longing will ever go away. For they are the ones who give me joy, who I love to love, who I find to be the most beautiful and courageous of all creations. We had no Thanksgiving turkey in the house, as our last-day decision not to travel west left us with a nearly empty refrigerator. And then, a reckoning: a walk with Chris and our Tamba dog. Nature to the rescue once again. The snow was beautiful, the air fresh and good to breathe, and there was a shift inside me. Aaron, with his kind and humorous spirit, went with me to the little grocery store down the hill where we bought a few things to make our Thanksgiving meal—simple and spare compared to most, but gratifying nonetheless. We listened to Christmas music, and I reverently rolled out a crust for a pecan pie. I talked to the girls, to my Mom and sister, missing them all with a heart that aches and rejoices at the same time. I was thankful to be with Chris and Aaron in our warm home with Nature all around us.

Prayer for Nature
by Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918)

O God, we thank you for this universe, our home; and for its vastness and richness, the exuberance of life which fills it and of which we are part. We praise you for the vault of heaven and for the winds, pregnant with blessings, for the clouds which navigate and for the constellations, there so high. We praise you for the oceans and for the fresh streams, for the endless mountains, the trees, the grass under our feet. We praise you for our senses, to be able to see the moving splendour, to hear the songs of lovers, to smell the beautiful fragrance of the spring flowers.

Give us, we pray you, a heart that is open to all this joy and all this beauty, and free our souls of the blindness that comes from preoccupation with the things of life, and of the shadows of passions, to the point that we no longer see nor hear, not even when the bush at the roadside is afire with the glory of God. Give us a broader sense of communion with all living things, our sisters, to whom you gave this world as a home along with us.

We remember with shame that in the past we took advantage of our greater power and used it with unlimited cruelty, so much so that the voice of the earth, which should have arisen to you as a song was turned into a moan of suffering.

May we learn that living things do not live just for us, that they live for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life as much as we do, and serve you, in their place, better than we do in ours. When our end arrives and we can no longer make use of this world, and when we have to give way to others, may we leave nothing destroyed by our ambition or deformed by our ignorance, but may we pass along our common heritage more beautiful and more sweet, without having removed from it any of its fertility and joy, and so may our bodies return in peace to the womb of the great mother who nourished us and our spirits enjoy perfect life in you.

I’m so thankful for Nature. On this Thanksgiving weekend, it is fitting to pray for the Earth we call home, the Earth that provides the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil and sun to grow our food. If God were to listen to the ‘voice of the earth’ now, one hundred years after this prayer was written, I wonder if the Creator would hear a song or a moan of suffering. As in the rest of life, it would probably be a combination of the two. I know the song is sweet and uplifting in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, but imagine the suffering song in the long-parched drought areas of the West. Theologian Rauschenbusch also asks God to ‘free our souls of blindness that comes from preoccupation with the things of life, and of the shadows of passion.’ Are we blinded by consumerism at this time of year? What does the darkness of our passions—greed, envy, fear, egotism, and bigotry—do to our souls and to the earth? Gratitude begins with the intimate experiences of our senses—thank you for this beautiful snow, thank you for the heart-warming smell and taste of fresh-baked goodies, thank you for the sound of laughter, thank you for the warm touch of hand on hand. With gratitude, our hearts open to joy, beauty, love, kindness, and courage, and we become the winds of goodness, pregnant with blessings.

Not Your Normal November

November 20, 2016 by Denise Brake 3 Comments

It’s not normal to photograph blooming flowers on November 17th in Central Minnesota. The weather has been abnormally warm the last three weeks with daily high temperatures all above normal with most of them ten to twenty degrees higher than normal. On November 5th the high was 72—27 degrees above normal. No wonder the flowers are still blooming! We had cleaned up the garden, pulled and put away the pots of annuals, and done the other fall clean-up in our usual yearly routine. But a small raised bed of spring-seeded annuals and perennials on the southwest side of the house continued to bloom in spite of a few frosts. Cosmos, coreopsis, and hollyhocks of different colors shone on in summer fashion, while most of the fall colors around them had faded to brown.

The only potted plant that was left out in the November warmth was a tropical Mandevilla vine that had produced an abundance of pink trumpet-shaped flowers all summer long. I was sure any hint of frost would have killed it, but the warmth of being beside the house must have protected it from the light frosts.

The next day—Friday morning—rain hit the windows with a strong NNE wind. Soon the rain turned to freezing rain and sleet, and the ice pellets piled up in the grass. By mid-morning, the precipitation was a heavy, wet snow.

We were in a blizzard warning, and schools, events, and college classes were cancelled.

It snowed all day, the temperature fell, and the wind blew strong and relentlessly.

The heavy, wet snow was plastered onto the north side of the tree trunks and burdened the evergreen branches. My ‘color’ pictures showed a black and white world.

Saturday dawned clear and chilly—a normal late November day in Central Minnesota.

The brilliant blue sky ushered in the clear, Canadian air. It felt good to breathe it in.

The flowers from two days ago were folded over with ice and covered with snow. A few Autumn leaves stood boldly in the winter wonderland…

and shone like amber in the morning sun.

Fall, in the guise of Summer, has passed the torch to Winter. Temperatures will stay cooler now with a blanket of snow on the ground.

The birds will come to pick the crabapples like they normally do once snow inhibits their food gathering.

And we trek on.

Flowers blooming in 60-degree temperatures is not normal November weather here in Minnesota. Not at all. This wasn’t some rogue outlier warm-couple-of-days in the pendulum swing. This was a steady, long run of much warmer than normal temperatures that stretched the growing season of Minneapolis-St. Paul to a staggering, record-smashing 220 days. The normal growing season (consecutive days without freezing or sub-freezing temperatures) is 157 days. It’s easy to overlook the facts, because who doesn’t love blooming flowers, snow-free driving, and going outside without a coat? Climate change. Extreme weather events that are becoming commonplace—floods, drought, wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes. Pollution. Water scarcity. It affects all of us negatively in one way or another—some much more personally than others. It’s just very hard to see on a daily basis and easy to dismiss, deny, and gloss over. I’ve worn my own blinders on various occasions—I know that denial can be a loving bedfellow that gives us what we need and want. But soon the promises of the golden eggs are unrealized, and we discover that the excited, noisy chatter coming from the coop isn’t because of golden eggs, but because there’s a weasel in the henhouse.

The Greatest of These is Love

November 14, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

It’s been a confusing week. Welcome to Life, right? Luckily, every day of our lives isn’t so confusing, but looking back on my decades, there were definitely weeks, months, even some years that fall into that category. And then there’s wanting and working hard for something that means the world to you….and not getting it. That’s when things get personal. After about two and a half years into my graduate schooling, my adviser decided to build his business and not have students anymore. In order to finish my PhD, I was forced to change departments and get a new adviser. I moved into a department in chaos–the offices, labs and classrooms had been moved out of their building in order for repairs to be done. When I met with the new professors, I asked if I should shadow their lab manager and other graduate student to learn the ropes of the new lab. They laughed and said of each woman, “She doesn’t know anything.” As uncomfortable as I felt at the time, I didn’t know how foreshadowing that statement was to be. I should have turned around and run the other way. We make choices, to the best of our abilities, and then feel obligated, committed, stuck, maybe, like we don’t have another choice, considering all the the circumstances. Four years later, my coursework was completed, my research was almost finished, there was a new department head, my ‘new’ adviser had left, the professor I asked to help me finish said he didn’t have the time for me, my parents-in-law had both died, two of our three kids had left for college, and I was a total wreck. Somehow, I managed to find an ally, and we tried to get that PhD to happen, but I was broken in every sense of the word. How could this be happening? This shouldn’t be happening. My sense of ‘rightness’ in the world was shattered.

Beyond the confusing political week, I also had a crazy blog week. Chris had noticed a hawk in a tree outside of our yard. I could barely get a picture of it, but a few minutes later, it flew to the top of the cut-off spruce in the yard with a red squirrel in its talons.

We live in a place surrounded by trees, and I assumed it was a young Cooper’s Hawk who eats mainly birds, but also hunts for chipmunks, rabbits, mice and squirrels. Cooper’s Hawks have a large head, broad shoulders, and long, rounded tails. The juveniles are brown with a streaked brown breast and yellow eyes. (The pictures of the young Cooper’s had streaking all the way up to their necks without that white bib. Oh, well, juveniles are variable.)

The young hawk looked down at this prey as he squeezed it to death with his strong talons.

Cooper’s Hawks live and hunt in the woods and are skillful fliers with short wings and long tails. (His tail doesn’t seem as long as the other Cooper I saw.)

He was a beautiful hawk, and it was crazy that I got a picture of him with his prey!

After a minute or two, he looked around, and then flew away with the squirrel.

Yesterday, as I looked at the hawk websites again, I realized that my hawk was more likely a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. But Red-tails usually hunt in open land, not in tree cover. I had assumed because of our location that it was a Cooper’s Hawk, even though his tail was shorter and he had a white bib. Confusing. What I thought to be true, what I assumed to be true, even with nagging evidence to the contrary, wasn’t true. Granted, the coloring was very similar between the two—it was not a cut-and-dried decision.

Evidence. Assumptions. Facts. Opinions. Wishes and wants. The choices we make are a large knot of all of these things. We often see and dismiss evidence of what’s to come, yet on some level, often with our gut instinct, we absolutely know the truth. But it’s not a cut-and-dried decision. And then there are the things we work hard at and hold dear–the things we will fight for, the things that sustain us, the things we build our lives upon. When those foundations are threatened, we feel attacked and justify our actions of attacking others. It’s personal. We wonder how this can be happening, we proclaim this should not be happening. My sense of ‘rightness’ in the world took another hit last week, and policy wasn’t the reason. I can certainly see both sides of the policy issues, and there is truth on both sides and lots of gray area in between. That’s what politics is all about. My hit came when the bully won, when fear and hateful language won. We teach our children not to make fun of the disabled kid, not to call others names that are different from them, not to be a bully. If we hold that standard for our children, why in heaven’s name wouldn’t we hold that basic standard for our president? I may be idealistic, but I am no longer naive. I know that sometimes the predator wins, that non-ethical things happen in unintentional and in deliberate ways, that many people don’t have the same standards as me, that some will ‘win’ at any cost and lay their head on the pillow at night and sleep soundly. Last week my gut felt sick and I had trouble sleeping. I did a lot of thinking and took in very little media. And here’s what I know: I know that words are important. I know that decency, understanding, and civility are cornerstones of our American values. I know that most of our ancestors were immigrants. I know that I love my LGBT friends and family members. I know that all women are strong and beautiful in so, so many ways. I know that Love, Faith, Hope, Mercy, and Goodness matter. And I know that the greatest of these is Love.

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