I love the songs in Scripture. They have bound up wounds and resuscitated my weak heart when the burden was more than I could bear. We’d all be amazed to find out what’s covered up and bound to our backs. There are many loads, sometimes just an extra bag, that has sent this burro’s knees to the dust. It’s at this point I can’t seem to remember anything I’ve learned. I can’t see, get up, or even take another controlled breath.
But here is where the lyrics of songs and laments have made their way into my soul reminding me of what is true. Songs have such a unique way of speaking hard things into deaf ears. And like these light, provision-loving birds, a song will land and awaken what seems dead and show me where my rest is found. A reprise is the repeated part of a song that seems to be so necessary to sing one more time if I’m to find my way. “I have forgotten what happiness is. My endurance has perished; so has my hope. Remember my afflictions and my wanderings... My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3, paraphrased)  What an unlikely pair, these two. One might think there’s nothing in common between this fierce brute with his horns and hard head and those flighty birds who seem quite a nuisance. But truth is their best life is in the company of the other. Here they set the terms of their journey together: One taking care of threatening invaders while the other provides the makeup of a nest. One kicking up the insects for dinner while the other cleans the coat. Seems like thriving on the plains requires opposites appreciating and gleaning from the strengths of the other.
I considered choosing a name for this piece from a list of dear friends I’ve had the privilege of knowing closely over the years -—people who were very different from me at the onset but proved to be the most amazing companions. I figured if I did use names, it would be a messy job clarifying who was the bison and who was the bird.
 The title is both a description and a gentle imperative.
When we traveled through the beautiful Northern Plains, it seemed bison were as prevalent as cattle in Texas. They were dotted along immense stretches of rugged grassy terrain, backdropped by plateaus and mountains. A bison’s “home” is miles and miles of valleys, plains, and scrublands to roam. They are movers, plowing their way through winter and moseying through summer. What drives them is the forage. It’s the smell of what’s being served that season in that particular place that directs their massive, buried heads. It dictates their daily paths, their well-traveled lines, and their often unpredictable routes for the season. As the season begins to change here, I find myself tightening up, trying to control all outcomes… trying to identify our roots and routes so as to provide myself a sense of stability, actually control. But I will break (again) to humbly live what I know. My stability has always been outside of me. It’s in seeing and smelling the provision right under my nose that has come from God’s hand. It’s trusting and steadily moving on their route, though it may be a bit different than what I mapped out the year before. It’s steadying to a nomadic pace and tending the ground right here, under my feet. Plowing and moseying. Intermittent resting and foraging. Steady, Girl. I’m also in love with sagebrush and its almost snow-white greens and dark hardy bases that allow you to finger the soft leaves and blooms above but refuse to bend for you to walk through. I’m drawn to beauty that puts on a pair of work pants and boots.  Many places around the world, not many here, build the beginning of their homes where next door ends. The ownership is only distinguished by a shift in paint color from side to side and even top to bottom.
Neighbor means touching sides. My color next to yours, next to his, next to hers. Sharing steps, oven smells, water leaks. Neighbor means connected like Legos and leaning like dominoes. Where one floor is weak, another roof holds. Singing and conversation and pain are heard through the conjoined walls, and seen and acknowledged and repaired as community lives out its meaning. Common ownership and shared works of service. It’s a closeness that requires much of us in exchange for more. What if when you stepped out of your door you walked into the life of another? What if we took the spaces we built between us for privacy sake and exchanged it for humility and healing? “Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.” (Proverbs 27:10)
But in the deepest part she knows her joy, her song, is in rhythm to bearing, wearing, and carrying what no one else can. This is the burden and beauty of womanhood.
 She gathers because she had once sown. Her planting is full of faults, full of gaps as far as she can see, and that in itself is almost enough to keep her from the fields at this harvest. What if she left parts undone or gave more water when it really just needed sun? What if her tending was lacking or her hovering smothering?
She sees the neighboring fields. Their rows have yielded sheaves of experience and praise. But still, she chooses to put on her gloves and apron, carry the knife, and take to the field. She does the back-breaking work of bending and seeking and pulling and gathering all that’s been kept while she tossed in her sleep. But she also gathers because she needs to hum songs in unison with other women laborers as they too reap. To see in her peripheral the rhythm of steps and technique of others doing this vulnerable work and learn what is good in what she’s grown. To gather and hold the harvest of grace that’s been sown (by a tenant farmer, show knows). There’s a burden and beauty in womanhood. “Let Your work be shown to your servant and Your power to my children. Let Your favor be on us and establish the work of our hands; yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90:16-17)  Heading to bed in the desert when the lack of sunshine makes me doubt. Wrecked within. All the stored water in my flesh is tested under my heavy pulsing heart. I feel thin, weak, wondering if the sun will truly make its way back again, though I’ve seen it again and again and again. I wonder why it continues to leave me. Leave me cold.
This I recall to mind. I am actually the one moving on this rocky, sandy ground around a sun set, always the same. Waiting for truth to reach over those burning cliffs and remind me. This I call to mind and so I have hope. His love never stops, and His mercies never end, ever. New every morning. Hold on until the day Desert Clinger. (Lamentations 3)  The labor of determining seed and soil and timing. The repetition of back and forth when you see nothing but long rows of unknowns, dropping handfuls of hope and instruction when you’re long past exhaustion under the heat of scrutiny, even pain. There’s a burden and beauty in womanhood. It’s long-suffering work to surrender what you hold for someone else to grow. She chooses sowing over hemming it all in.
“Dark and I, yet lovely. Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun… While taking care of the vineyard, my own vineyard I had to neglect.” “How beautiful you are, my beloved!” (Song of Songs 1) |
