hope is the thing with feathers

True. Good. Beautiful.

These three words welcomed a bunch of Lorien Wood-er’s back to school in January. And oh how I’m holding onto them for dear LIFE in the bleak midwinter.

A few weeks ago I was home for Christmas—what a treat! I was driving past several open fields between my friend’s house and mine. I am always grateful for this little plot of the old Carmel, Indiana: Fields. Fencerow. Trees. Fields. Row after row. And I. love. this. These open spaces always speak to me, reminding me how I always wanted to grow up on a farm instead of the sweet culdesac of good neighbors and bikes on sidewalks. My friend Liz and I often talk about our “somedays”—what we hope and dream for someday. My Someday is on a farm. There are horses. There are open spaces. There are kids runnin’ all over it. I digress…

When I passed these wintery fields with their patches of icy snow, I thought of the word barren. Empty. And then I thought about a recent study of Antarctica with a class of 4th-5th grade explorers, and how we discovered that a “barren” landscape can be beautiful. These empty fields, the deeply rutted earth offering the last of its stubby stalks seemed so very barren. Exposed.

And this is the way creation speaks, telling me something true. These fields reminded me that Barren can be Beautiful. That Empty can be hopeful. And that, too, is good. It’s good news for a heart that feels exposed and empty.

This landscape depicted what follows a bountiful harvest. Stalks chopped by some plow. Grain long since gathered in. A long winter full of waiting.

And here is a little something I’ve learned, via a video featuring organic farmer Anthony Boutard as he reflects on his dormant cornfield(s). He comments that often we don’t think about what’s happening post harvest. But there’s so much going on after it’s all been processed. He remarks,

“The cornfield has a life after it’s finished producing ears for us....”

Here's what's happening: dormant fields supply food for birds like quail and bluebirds who will forage for seed during cold spells. The mice are having a hay day. These fields provide shelter for spiders to hide-out all winter, undisturbed. Boutard calls this “their refuge, this is their home for the winter.…”

So it’s true. What appears to be barren may not be. Life-less may be life-giving to others.

One more connection to dormant cornfields I just cannot ignore. This barren-looking cornfield business matches up with the gospel—namely, the gospel as presented to a group of elementary school-aged children. “Beginning. (God’s original intent.) Broken. (Sin enters the world, and things get messed up.) Baptized (Jesus comes.) Blessed and Becoming (Restoration).”

Being broken, a seed that falls to the ground and dies….perhaps becoming “barren” is a part the process.

Spring will surely come again--we can hope in what we know to be true. And, as Emily Dickenson defines hope,

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

So we hold fast to the hope set before us--the same hope that's perched itself right in the emptiness. And keep on singing.

in the wilderness

No commentary from the peanut gallery on this one, just a word from Elizabeth Elliot that HITS HOME in the wilderness.

"The only way she could learn trust and obedience was to have things happen which she could not understand. That is where faith begins-- in the wilderness, when you are afraid and alone, when things don't make sense....She must hang onto the message of the Cross: God loves you. He loved you enough to die for you. Will you trust him?"

E. Elliot

well-said, Steinbeck

It's time to write. The thoughts from the first days in Montana are welling up in me, ready to spill out.

John Steinbeck wrote of his travels west, “I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”

I’m in it.

When I am in a new place, I am in a constant state of “figuring it out.” I bet our brains are always in figure-it-out-mode, whether or not we're aware of it. I try to understand the people, what are they like? And so I start categorizing (cringe). Here's what I mean: People in D.C. are typically highly motivated individuals who work a ton and love meeting for "brunch" on the weekends. People from Maryland love blue crabs. Or, further from home: I found the people in Scotland to be warm, hospitable, and upbeat. As broad as these generalizations are, I confess, these are all conclusions at which I have arrived.

This summer in Montana, no doubt I am gathering information for my mental files and adding to a working definition of this stunning landscape and the people who call it home. The West has always captivated me. I’ve been in love with the idea of it since I was 12 years-old and bought my first real cowgirl hat. We were driving across Wyoming, and that stretch of southeast Wyoming must have been a defining experience. It seemed so then and now. I had never encountered so wide a prairie or so vast a sky. My 12 year-old heart skipped a beat; and has ever since.

Montana endears itself to me daily. I love the ever-changing clouds over the mountains and the brilliant sunsets. I love the thunder rumbling and the rain on the roof as I write (and getting rained upon on every hike I take). And of course, in addition to “reveling in the beauty” (a phrase my roommates won't let me ever live down, and for good reason) of wildflowers and wildlife and mountain streams, I love the people I’ve met here. I feel more at home here in two weeks than 2 years in D.C.. Hm...

And now, to toot some people’s horns-- I’m privileged to work alongside some individuals who have impressed me. Their giftedness and resourcefulness coupled with their occupation/passion is pretty inspiring. Allow me to introduce you.

I met a friend of a friend who has a pretty unique livelihood. He hunts for elk sheds (when their antlers fall off in spring) and semi-precious stones and pieces of hundred year-old junipers and all kinds of treasures in the mountains. He sells them in his own shop in Bozeman. It’s a workshop unlike any I've ever seen.

Then there’s a wrangler at the ranch who is pursuing his masters in education. In his spare time (ha!), he markets his own leather-working crafts—belts, chinks, and other custom jobs. He’s opening his booth at the Farmer’s Market this week for the first time. During the off-season, away from the ranch and without his leather working tools for a few months, he started making jewelry out of horse-shoe nails and coat racks from old horse shoes. Re-Source-ful.

I also admire my crew-leader, an outstanding horse-woman here at Lone Mountain Ranch who wrangles children and horses with amazing skill and dedication. She’s a rock-star.

All this to say, I’m impressed, Montana, not only with your beauty but also the people I’ve met here. I love the way they use their gifts, and use what they’ve got.

I’ll try not to make any sweeping generalizations as I have before. I can’t label Montana or its people in any one way, nor do I want to. These mountains don’t fit inside any of my mental files any more than any person could.

I can’t put this starry Big Sky in a box. So I’ll take a page out of Steinbeck’s book, and won’t try to analyze love when I’m in it. This is a gift. And love feels a lot like gratitude. I am grateful.

In which a Butterfly is Patient

It must be caterpillar season. My students have been finding caterpillars outside, left and right. I was determined to keep this one alive over the long weekend. Despite the abundance of caterpillar discoveries by well-intentioned Kindergarteners, we didn't have the best track record for keeping them alive. Naturally.

Before leaving school for the day, I was mindful of our caterpillar. I desperately wanted this one to live. I envisioned his whole life cycle unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps Monday morning we would arrive to find a cocoon, and by the end of school we would witness the metamorphosis from that little green worm into a breathtaking monarch. A miracle.

I decided he had a better shot at life if I moved him from the plastic container (borrowed from our play-kitchen) into something a little more sustainable. I gingerly transferred him into a giant mesh butterfly house. I pictured our little transformed caterpillar, soon-to-be monarch flitting around in there before we released him outside to pollinate our garden.

I had heard from a reliable sixth grader that caterpillars drink from a cotton ball soaked with water. (???) I was attempting to do so, when...where was he? He was hard to find in all that foliage, camouflaged for survival. I looked all around that butterfly habitat but couldn’t find him anywhere. I was puzzled. He couldn’t have gone far in such a short time. He must be hiding out inside, I thought as I went to zip the top closed.

And then suddenly, I made a terrible mistake. I zipped a fateful ziiiiiiiiip. There he was, on the top edge of the butterfly home. On the zipper. Rather, in the zipper. I was horrified. I had zipped him and killed him in an instant. There was no saving him.

In my very effort to keep him alive (at least until Monday!), I had killed our caterpillar. The irony was too much.

What would I tell the kids when they asked where he’d gone? I imagined the conversation we would have, explaining matter-of-factly, "I was moving him into a bigger home, and I didn’t know where he was, and I accidently zipped him in the zipper.” Perhaps this would lead to a greater conversation. Life is fragile.

I’m making light of all this now, but in that moment, I was crest-fallen. I couldn't believe what I had done. Moments later my teaching partner Emily came in. I told her what happened and how it was all my fault. She hugged me and spoke words of comfort, like any loving parent or teacher would comfort a child. Then she said, “Let’s go find one outside! They’re all over!”

Please take a moment to imagine the sight-- the two of us digging in the dirt around the playground, peeking through the leaves at the edge of the woods. I didn’t even know where or how to look for a caterpillar. Somehow caterpillars seemed to leap into our students’ hands. Kids have a special radar for small treasures.

Emily was convinced we would find one, as the caterpillars were “everywhere.” We eventually gave in, hopeful the kids would find another one tomorrow.

The story is a simple one, right? It seems everyone has a tragic butterfly story. Just ask my mom about the butterfly release she once had with a group of Kindergarteners. (Unreal.) Or, one of my professors in college shared a story from her days teaching elementary children, when they released the class butterflies only to watch birds gobble them up a moment later. Horrific, but also hilarious. (In retrospect.) If not butterflies, its some other vulnerable and treasured creature. Moms, dads, aunts and uncles, babysitters, anyone who spends time with children, you know what I’m talking about. Whether a hamster or baby chick, we’ve all known one beloved pet whose tragic end has devastated a small child, or ourselves.

I don’t really have a point. I don’t even have a lesson or a spiritual application or at the very least a verse to counter life’s disappointment. I know I should have one. The point is that in an instant, I came to the shocking realization of one of life’s truths: sometimes caterpillars die of unnatural causes before they’ve had a chance to turn into a butterfly. I’ll let you turn that into your own metaphor.

This is not really about a caterpillar at all. I simply must accept that life can be hard and know that God is bigger than our disappointments (no matter how big or small) and that moreover, He UNDERSTANDS. He knows when my heart is sad. And thankfully, he sends dear friends who come running alongside to enter into the sad things. Friends who say, “I’m so sorry you just killed your class caterpillar. Let’s go find another one!” Seriously, who does that?

One of the things I know God is teaching me these days is summed up in the title of a beautiful children’s book I highly recommend. Coincidentally, it’s about butterflies. And it is called, A Butterfly is Patient. I want to be like a butterfly. One who weathers disappointment, who waits through long weeks in a dark cocoon until eventually, in time, a miracle happens. A butterfly is patient.

The Wild Places

A few months ago I moved to a little house in Falls Church, VA along with two others. We love the little cracker-box that it is, sitting on a good sized yard with two giant maples arching across the backyard. The Lord orchestrated the timing of our move and our temperaments beautifully, as a conductor who keeps perfect time and knows each instruments’ part.

We loved the little house and called it “The Greenhouse” soon after moving in. It’s a place with loads of light, countless plants in pots inside and out. There is a general atmosphere of life, growth, and lots of green. We're all doing some growing.

Spring came, and one housekeeping need quickly became apparent: we needed a lawnmower. Desperately. Our generous neighbor across the street mowed the front yard (and continues to, graciously, despite our protests that we’re working on getting a mower as soon as possible) on a weekly basis—mostly from the goodness of his heart, and perhaps partly so he doesn’t have to stare at a gangly yard across the street.

It looked great- all trim and green with zinnias sprouting and window boxes blooming from a welcoming front porch. Totally tidy and well-kept. However, after weeks of rain, sun, and negligence to purchase a mower due to busyness and weekends away, the backyard became a small prairie. I think of it as a wildlife preserve. The grass quickly grew from knee-high to waist-high seemingly overnight.

I began the search for someone equipped with the heavy-duty tools to tackle that backyard. I spoke with a gentleman and his lawn crew who were working on a neighbor’s yard.

I remember the unlatching of the gate and swinging it wide open to show the wilderness habitat we had unknowingly fostered…then shutting it, as if our pet dragon lay sleeping there. We couldn’t let the neighbors know what was hiding there. Dangerous. Wild. Untamed. And certainly unsightly.

“That will take a while,” he said in his thick Spanish accent, before naming his price.

We ended up employing a different neighbor across the street—a guy recommended to us who cut grass from time to time when he wasn’t growing his dreds out or stocking shelves at Whole Foods.

This episode, shallow and mundane as it seemed, had a shadow-side that followed me around begging me to pay attention. What was I supposed to learn from this besides the obvious lesson in lawn-care? To keep it up.

What are my own wild places? Where has the grass grown too tall from neglect? What do I keep hidden behind tall fences and gates latched tight too long? In what ways do I keep things pretty out front for others to admire while elsewhere things are unruly beyond my control? Whatever you do, don't set foot in my mosquito-ridden backyard. It will eat you alive. I am so quick to suppress, to latch the gate and turn a blind-eye to my internal wreckage.

This spring I opened the gate to the wild places:

Pride. Some sense of elitism. Fear. Discontent. Some apathy mingled in. (Cringe.) So much I do not care to expose.

But the truth remains that nothing is so far gone that it cannot be redeemed.

It is possible that overgrown backyards may be, to quote lines from an Amy Imbody poem,

“transformed, redeemed-
to be some higher, holier thing
than it had seemed.”

the dragon

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's no surprise that this year would be "the year of the dragon." It's a theme I keep noticing. We started the year in Kindergarten studying "Dinosaurs and dragons" to begin the year-long theme "Real vs. Pretend". This has every bit as much application for a 25 year old as it does for 5-6 year olds.

Stay with me.

We read the classic, "Saint George and the Dragon" the legend of England’s patron saint. I had never heard this story until it came up in a conversation sparked by artwork depicting Saint George. This was when I first heard the Latin phrase I would later sing with a class of Kindergarteners, da ferrum et monstra draconem. It translates, Give me a sword and show me the dragon.

Fightin’ words.

Words that penetrated my heart immediately.

St. George's story begins, "In the days when monsters and dragons, and fairy-folks lived..." We were hooked. A dragon is terrorizing a village—not a pretty sight. King, Queen, and townspeople are beside themselves of course, and the only way to end the terror is to surrender Princess Iona to the dragon. Hand her over, and all is well.

Enter the no-name Red-Cross Knight, who we learn is more than meets the eye. He learns that he is the son of a King. This message is delivered along with the commission that he must, “Go down into the valley to fight the dragon you were born to fight.” The plot thickens. The Red-Cross Knight, learning his true identity journeys day and night until he comes to the oppressed village.

Against all odds and all amounts of dragon-like, fiery aggression, and after three grueling battles, Saint George kills the dragon. At last, all is well—thanks to Saint George whose heroism has long been awaited. And there was much rejoicing.



So why am I hung up on Saint George?

Because his fight is our own; and in the journey of things Real vs. Pretend, this is real. We are up against equally oppressive dragons.

There are the small skirmishes of the soul. I fight the voice that tells me I must be productive with every second of my time. I fight discouragement when a dear friend undergoes surgery after surgery. And I battle loneliness in a new city when my world seems suddenly small...

We fight the lies that wait outside our door. We fight an I-pad culture in which our happiness and our own well-being are the ultimate goals that drive our days. We fight our need for validation and approval.

Such battles seem insignificant in perspective with a bigger picture, a dragon that lurks in the darkness. Last night I saw a preview for a Nicholas Cage movie that I found disturbing on several grounds. One being the general darkness of it, the flaming skulls, and chains whipping around; two, the words that flashed across the screen as all this unfolds: “Hell has come…” This is scary. And we are entertained?

The good news is this-- we are not just on the defense here. Thankfully there is a greater cause for which we fight. For Truth. The Gospel. Life and Light. Joy. Beauty. Freedom. Justice. Reconciliation. God’s Kingdom come. The Kingdom we’re fighting for is more beautiful than St. George’s. It’s real. The Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst, and we have a God who equips and trains us to fight for it.

“He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze…” Psalm 18:33.

“You armed me with strength for battle,” (Ps. 18:39).

Rest assured, you are held by One whose hands are infinitely stronger than your own. You are not alone. You are fighting with and for One who is greater than any dragon you might face. May this phrase be the prayer and battle cry on our lips—

Give me a sword, and show me the dragon.

beauty matters

Every once in a while some magical thing happens that sparks the thought, this is exactly what I was made to do. However, it's far more likely to find me, a first-year teacher wondering, “am I doing what I was made to do?” This is hard work.

Then comes a moment of utter sweetness and purity of heart that bears some reflection. Children say things that make you stop in your tracks. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

We are reading “George Washington Plants a Nation” as we study Presidents and Kings this fall. This story is more about GW’s life as a farmer trying out different manures for fertilizer and crop rotations rather than his military history. Maybe that’s why I like it. We talked about Washington’s love for the land and his care for creation. He loved planning each piece of Mount Vernon, each tree and each field carefully considered. He was all about maintaining his plantation so that it was fruitful and beautiful. He even wrote home from the war about his hopes and plans for what to plant and where.

We talked about how farming mattered to George Washington—a big important general and war hero! He cared about planting trees and cultivating the land. Such beauty mattered to George Washington, and it matters to God. Beauty matters to God.

It was at that realization that one student piped up, “Miss Skinner, you made me almost cry!” Sure enough, I saw tears in his eyes. I paused, unsure how to respond or to quell the tears that sprang up in my own! I was at a loss for words (seldom do I evoke others' tears during a read-aloud). Two other boys, perceiving that this heart-felt expression was well-received by their very sensitive teacher, claimed similar statements, that I made them cry too. (Ha!) Soon everyone chimed in. That moment of authenticity and total tenderness had come and gone.

I wonder what exactly struck a chord in Sammy’s heart? Is he so in tune with the beauty of creation? Will he farm someday? Doubtful. Will he become a landscape architect? Possibly. However, it must simply be that at the core of human nature, and even at five years old, beauty matters.