Browsed by
Author: Tim

Senior pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ. Ordained in May, 1983. Called to First Congregational UCC in August, 1994. Retired July 1, 2018.
A Fly Agaric’s Terrifying Tale

A Fly Agaric’s Terrifying Tale

Fly Agaric
Fly Agaric

The name is Stool, Toad Stool, but you can call me Toad. My tale is one of mortal danger, of dire straits and terrifying peril, so if you have any little ones with you, you may want to send them outside to play.

It began on a dreich September morning, but you must know a dreich September morning in Glenbrittle is nothing unusual. The orb of the rusty sun rising over Sgùrr nan Gillean was streaked with clouds, jagged swaths of gunmetal grey, the dull and gloomy light barely illumining the grey-shouldered banks of the Allt Coir’ a’ Mhadaidh. Grey stone, grey mud, grey soil, grey clouds — much of my world is grey  — but that’s why I matter, my ruby red cap unrivaled in this landscape, even standing out among the viridescent green of fern, the azure blue of harebell, the cotton candy pink of bell heather. I am a rare treasure in this glen. You must look very hard to find me, hidden as I am in a narrow crevice cleaving the face of the grey granite lip overhanging one of the coruscating emerald plunge pools they call the Fairy Pools. From the restricted vantage of my little crack, I have never glimpsed one of those elusive sprites myself, but I do not doubt that I have myself been mistaken sometimes for a fairy.

The air on that September morning hung heavy and brooding, still but unquiet, foreboding some unwelcome turn. The cascade at the head of my pool seemed to splosh, not splash, the sound of its crashing waters muffled by the leaden sky. And then, in a moment, it blew a hoolie. A furious wind surged down the glen, whipping the surface of the stream into a frenzy. The jagged clouds of gunmetal grey blew out before the roiling advance of immense thunderheads bearing rain, not gentle, plopping rain, but driving, biting rain, pockmarking the surface of the pool and stinging my leathery skin. The erstwhile quiet sky roared and the stream below me boiled with sudden urgency.

Harebells
Harebells

I do not know how long it rained. It may have been hours, it may have been days. The rain came down in relentless torrents, obliterating awareness of anything but itself. We have a saying here that if you don’t like the weather, give it an hour, and I must say we have come by that adage honestly. Is it warm and sunny? Just wait. In an hour, you’ll need that parka. Is it stormy and wet? Just wait. In an hour, you’ll shed that raincoat.

But not that day. That day, the rain was never-ending. It saturated time and space. It submerged memory and desire. I struggled to remember what my world was like before, and I could not begin to conceive of any world after.

The unabating rain deluged the Black Cuillins, flooding the numerous burns and streams that rush down its flanks. Carving its twisting path through Glen Brittle, the Allt Coir’ a’ Mhadaidh is fed by a dozen such tributaries. Near my perch, the burn is less than two kilometers from its confluence with the River Brittle and here achieves its maximum volume. The rains came down and the stream rose up. Minute by minute it rose, the turgid pool below me reaching levels I had never seen before. Its turbid waters swirled and foamed, now inundating the gravel bars at the edges of the pool, now inexorably creeping up the rocky scarp into which my crevice is carved, now surging into the crack itself, now churning around the base of my stem, now sloshing about my gills, now overlapping the edges of my precious cap.

And then … I can’t tell you what happened then. I could see nothing. I could hear nothing. I could feel nothing. I became nothing. All my world was dark. All my world was void. All my world was gone.

Marsh Marigolds
Marsh Marigolds

Until it wasn’t. I share my crevice home with some orange hawkweed, some marsh marigolds, and a generous sprinkling of meadow-grass. It was the meadow-grass that saved us. It was the meadow-grass that saved me. Its sprawling system of creeping rhizomes clung to the rock and anchored the soil into which my own mycelium were rooted. We emerged, the hawkweed and marigolds and me, well-watered, but in place, watching the once more familiar and no longer threatening waters of the Allt Coir’ a Mhadaidh recede.

I will never forget that day when, for a time, my fairy pool became an ogre’s torrent, and I cherish each day, dreich or sweltering, that I sit here in my cleft on the face of the grey granite lip overlooking the shimmering turquoise pool below me. I still have not seen a fairy, though I sometimes wonder, if fairies do indeed exist if they go about in the guise of meadow-grasses.

The Ballad of Tobias Bartlett

The Ballad of Tobias Bartlett

Tobias Bartlett was his name
A name he proudly bore
Our household never was the same
After he came through the door.

A leaper he and so much more
He flew with astounding grace
So nimbly springing from bedroom floor
To eagerly lick my face.

He was my partner on many a hike
From Acadia to Downeast
There wasn’t a trail he didn’t like
His energy never ceased.

A Wildcat traverse was not the least
Of all the mountains climbed
Its rugged steeps his joy released
His ardor so sublime.

One time I lost him on Blue Hill
The ledges were too near
Toby “Come” I called and again but still
No Toby did appear.

I descended without him filled with fear
My heart within me pounded
My hope for finding my dog so drear
When down the trail he bounded.

We went away for about a week
Left Toby with a friend
And when we returned one leg was weak
His paw it wouldn’t mend

His plight I could not apprehend
Why suddenly so lame
But brave and sweet until the end
My Toby just the same.

Tobias Bartlett was his name
A name he proudly bore
Our household never was the same
After he came through the door.

Toby

Tuesday Mornings

Tuesday Mornings

Tuesday Mornings

 

 

I have just published a chapbook of a selection of recent poems entitled, “Tuesday Mornings: poems of wonder, lament, and whimsy.” You may purchase a copy at the Lulu Bookstore.

 

 

Here is an excerpt from the preface …

I have chosen to group the poems under three headings: wonder, lament and whimsy. All my writing begins in wonder: wonder at this extraordinarily beautiful and inscrutable world of God’s making and the privilege of living within it, observing and appreciating and engaging; wonder at the human capacity for making beauty with color and shape and texture, with melody and harmony and counterpoint, with movement, and with words; wonder at the beauty of the human spirit at its best when we are able to reflect something of the wisdom and grace and compassion of the creator whose image we bear.

This world is beautiful, indeed, but troubled and besieged by brutality, compelling the poems of lament. Lament is an ancient and powerful form of prayer, a way of giving voice to distress, of refusing to ignore or excuse injustice. Lament is not despair, but its opposite, a declaration that evil should and can be overcome, and a hope-filled expectation that its own cries will be heard, by people and by God.

Whimsy is the corollary to wonder, finding exuberant delight in the beauty and power of language itself, playing with words to induce a knowing smile or a joyful laugh, uncovering serious meaning by not taking itself too seriously.

I do hope that you will enjoy reading these poems or speaking them aloud, which is how all poetry should be heard, and that the poems may inspire your own expressions of wonder and lament and whimsy.

the dance

the dance

               change direction

it may be an amiable suggestion
               try something new
               expand your horizons
               see the other side

it may be an urgent warning
               run from danger
               flee the peril
               turn round before it is too late

it may be an insidious enticement
               ditch your commitments
               ignore your duties
               put yourself first

it may be a gracious command
               repent
               turn away from foolishness and sin
               find the path that leads to life

it may utter randomness
               be here be there be anywhere
               yield to the chaos
               abide no rules no design no intent

it may be an invitation to dance
               imbibe the rhythm
               flow with your partner
               exult in the delight of the movement

               change direction

it is yours to choose
               a path, a way, a way of being
               not remaining stuck, not acceding to powerlessness
               but dancing, dancing, dancing to the music of God

it will not be so

it will not be so

When every spruce and fir are painted white,
the wintry scene dispenses pure delight
and all the world seems surely put to right,
but it is not so.

Where glistening shards of ice append the spout,
my curious dog approaches with her snout
and wonder wants to displace the dread and doubt,
but it cannot be so.

While pensive writers conjure enchanting tales,
their words and thoughts are shaped to allay travails,
the looming specter of terror inexorably pales,
but it must not be so.

Of angels among us we’re prompted to recall,
At least for a moment the enveloping shadows forestall,
Lest hopelessness leave us bereft of faith at all,
but it will not be so.

Eilidh

Eilidh

The newest member of the Blue Hill Ensworth household: Eilidh (pronounced “Ellie”), an almost nine-week old Australian Shepherd. We picked her up in Martha’s Vineyard Saturday.

The view

The view

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain — that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees — as far as Zoar. The Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”

Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Bethpeor, but no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated. The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.

Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses. Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.

It must have been quite a view, the view from the top of the mountain, from the summit of Mt. Nebo rising some 2300 feet above the plains of Moab at the eastern edge of the Jordan Valley.

You could see for yourself, of course, because Mt. Nebo is still there, in Jordan, about twenty miles south of Amman and thirty miles east of Jerusalem. From there, you could see what Moses saw, the whole Jordan Valley spreading out before you, flanked by mountain ranges north and west and by the desert and the Dead Sea to the south. You could look north as Moses did, toward Gilead and Galilee; and west toward Jerusalem and the heart of modern Israel, lands named by the ancient Israelites after their tribes, Judah and Ephraim and Manasseh, lands backed by the Western Sea, the Mediterranean; and you could look south toward the Negeb, the desert, and Zoar at the southern tip of the Dead Sea. You could see all of it, all the Canaan Moses saw, an expanse of land the size of New Jersey.

Moses was an old man when he stood atop that mountain, near death, but Deuteronomy, the fifth book of Torah, says he was still full of vigor and that he could see just fine. He could see that land, the land that he and the Hebrew refugees with him had waited forty years to see, the land of the promise. He could see it! At last, he could see it.

It had been more than a struggle to get there, half a lifetime of ordeal and peril and hunger and strife for Moses and the Israelites: hurriedly fleeing Egypt with Pharaoh’s armies at their heels, wandering endlessly in a barren wilderness with little to eat or drink, suffering attack by the people of the lands through which they traveled. For Moses in particular, it had been a struggle, a long and fraught journey, the last long chapter of what must have seemed to him like three lifetimes.

Saved from a kill order at his birth, there was his first life, growing into manhood as a member of the Egyptian court, living a life of privilege and possibility and ease, but unease, too, torn between two conflicting identities, unsettled by the sufferings of his birth-people, sufferings he saw, but did not share.

After personally taking vengeance upon a murderous Egyptian slave-master, Moses fled Egypt and settled in Midian, living his second and what may well have been his best life, quietly tending sheep, taking a wife, raising a family, living a life happy and peaceful and blessedly uneventful.

And then, God. And then, God … God confronting him, God commissioning him, God cajoling him, until finally Moses reluctantly agreed to return to Egypt to ask the king to let God’s people go. Then came his third life, the most difficult and dangerous and thankless of all.

Confronting the hard-hearted ruler of the mighty Egyptian empire was one thing, but that must have seemed a walk in the park compared to dealing with the relentless grousing and complaining and cowardice and ingratitude and bitterness and faithlessness of Moses’ own people. Oh, how they longed to be slaves again, more than happy to trade in the demands and risks of freedom for the easy and predictable misery of vassal servitude in Egypt!

And so it must have been a sweet view for Moses atop that mountain, knowing he had persisted, that he had endured, that he had succeeded in fulfilling his mission, God’s mission, bringing the people of the covenant to the brink of the land of promise.
But it was a bittersweet view, too, because he himself would not enter it. He could see it, but he would never set foot in that land, never make his bed there, never settle his family there, not die there.

Moses never reaped the rewards of his monumental effort. His only reward was to be remembered, to be remembered as God’s faithful prophet, one who performed signs and wonders like no other — not least of which was somehow managing to manage an unmanageable people!

And to be remembered as one whom God knew, one whom God knew, face to face. Is this what it means to be loved by God? Is this what it means to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind? To listen to God and to speak, to know God and to be known, face to face? With that kind of intimacy?

Moses stood atop that mountain and saw the land. He saw the land of promise, and then he died.

We are like Moses. My friends, we are like Moses, entirely, completely. There is nothing that Moses saw that we cannot see, nothing that Moses did that we cannot do, no relationship with God that Moses had that we cannot have.

There is nothing that Moses saw that we cannot see, nothing that Moses did that we cannot do, no relationship with God that Moses had that we cannot have.

We are like Moses. We too have our Midian times: times of honest work and a pleasant home life, times of blessing and contentment and peace. And we have our Egypt times: times of struggle and doubt and concern, seeing suffering and oppression and injustice all around us, feeling powerless and overwhelmed and beyond discouraged. And sometimes, like for me right now and maybe for you, we have both at the same time.

We are like Moses. We struggle with obstinance, with disbelief, with failure of courage, with bitterness and apathy, both in those we watch, but also in ourselves. Like Moses, we hesitate, we protest, we too would much prefer to stay home tending sheep and sitting down at the supper table with loved ones, and forget all about Egypt, forget all about the suffering, all the suffering we see, but do not share.

But we are like Moses. Like Moses, we are commissioned by God, called by God, called to go to the promised land and to take with us as many people as we can. Because our true home is there, that’s where we belong, that’s where all of us belong, in the land of promise, the peaceable kingdom, the realm of shalom, not somewhere else, but right here, this place, this world, as it will be when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
But we are like Moses. We will not get there. We will not enter it. You and I will not enter that promised land. But we can see it!

We can see it! We must see it! We must let the Lord lead us up the mountain and show us the view! The view is everything, the view is the reality that what God has promised will be. The way of shalom, the path of peace, is not the stuff of vain wishes and hopeless dreams. It is God’s promise. It is what will be. It is where God is leading us. And we can see it! From the top of the mountain, we can see it.

I like to climb Blue Hill. I like climbing out onto the open granite ledges on the southeast flank of the summit and taking in the view, the extraordinary view from the mountains of Acadia in the east to the Camden Hills in the west: Newbury Neck, Bartlett Island, Long Island, Naskeag Point, Isle au Haut, Blue Hill Bay, the inner and outer Blue Hill harbors, Eggemoggin Reach. It is almost — no, not almost — it is, for me, a spiritual experience, because it is there, seeing that view, gaining that perspective, that I remember who I am and what I am, that I am reminded of my place, my so small but important place, on this vast and beautiful earth. And it is there I feel most home.

The view is everything. So climb the mountain, take in the view, remember what God has called you to be and to do, and know that even though you and I may not set foot in the land of promise, it is there and it is our true home. It is our home, yours and mine, and all of us.

The psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 90, a psalm, a song, attributed to Moses. Stand now on top of the mountain with Moses and sing with him …

O Lord, you have always been our home.
Before you created the hills
or brought the world into being,
you were eternally God,
and will be God forever.

You tell us to return to what we were;
               you change us back to dust.
A thousand years to you are like one day;
               they are like yesterday, already gone,
               like a short hour in the night.
You carry us away like a flood;
               we last no longer than a dream.
We are like weeds that sprout in the morning,
               that grow and burst into bloom,
               then dry up and die in the evening.

Teach us how short our life is,
               so that we may become wise.

Fill us each morning with your constant love,
               so that we may sing and be glad all our life.
Let us, your servants, see your mighty deeds;
               let our descendants see your glorious might.
Lord our God, may your blessings be with us.