I have been to the wedding.

family, love, travel,

Last week was my granddaughter’s wedding, and a glorious event it was. Christ was honored and thanked and adored. Two families were joined, and I was happy to be there as one of the several grandmas (there were grandpas as well) whose grandchildren were pledging their lives to one another.

I flew to Wisconsin a couple of days before the celebration, and was mostly at my daughter Pearl’s place, not far from Milwaukee and Lake Michigan. My great-granddaughter Lora was in town with her family for nearly as long as I, which was sweet. All of Maggie’s brothers and their wives were present, and I was in awe of how everyone has grown up, and how God has poured His Life out on us. He is the Love Who is sustaining us through our various heartaches and trials, so that we can have joy in the midst of them, and rejoice with Maggie and her husband (I forgot to pick a nickname for him, but I will work on that soon.)

Lora and her Grandma

The venue was a farm, with a big house where all the wedding party could prepare, for the ceremony and reception that were outdoors on wide lawns, with apple trees all around. We were under the sun for the ceremony, and under awnings for a meal and dancing. The weather was warm and humid.

Getting ready took a long time! I hung around the spaces where the bride and bridesmaids were getting their hair and dresses and everything the way they liked, and was able to be of help once or twice with a safety pin or an opinion. The host of the venue contributed by being the cobbler for the girls.

Because Maggie is the first (and only) daughter of my own first daughter, feelings and memories of Pearl’s wedding almost thirty years ago filled my mind throughout the evening. After dusk, while some people were dancing, and the bride played chase with the flower girl on the green lawn, a gibbous moon rose above the horizon, and continued to rise and brighten the landscape for the rest of the night. For hours dry lightning flashed in the clouds above, while we listened to heartwarming speeches, such as by the bride and groom about their praiseworthy parents ❤ Everyone was in love with love, and Love.

Congratulations to the newly married, blessed by God.

In her silver shoon.

nature, poetry, ,

SILVER

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

-Walter de la Mare

Paul Sandby, Moonlight on a River, 1800

 

One goal: to give yourself!

poetry,

THE APPLE ORCHARD

Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard’s green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season’s hundred days of toil,
straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking
but succeeding, even though the burden
should at times seem almost past endurance.
Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!
Thus must it be, when willingly you strive
throughout a long and uncomplaining life,
committed to one goal: to give yourself!
And silently to grow and to bear fruit.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Emile Claus, Orchard in Flanders

We believed in everything.

poetry, , ,

THE LAMP

I write in order to comprehend not to express myself
I don’t grasp anything I’m not ashamed to admit it
sharing this not knowing with a maple leaf
So I turn with questions to words wiser than myself
to things that will endure long after us
I wait to gain wisdom from chance
I expect sense from silence
Perhaps something will suddenly happen
and pulse with hidden truth
like the spirit of the flame in the oil lamp
under which we bowed our heads
when we were very young
and grandmas crossed the bread with a knife
and we believed in everything
So now I yearn for nothing so much
as for that faith

-Anna Kamieńska

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Translated from Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson