Cultivation

(A sestina, for the “cultivation” poetry prompt at Books and Culture)

Nothing magic or automatic makes
a lady cultivated, a gentleman distinguished.
We inherit hair color, stature, shades
of complexion—but DNA contains no culture;
It can’t be handed down like old
clothes outgrown. It is the shared

work of generations teaching, the shared
work of generations learning that makes
connection between young and old.
By our likenesses we are distinguished
from another community’s culture—
the rhythms of our music, the shades

and hues of our own art, the shades
of meaning in conversations shared
over meals—but we can’t ram down culture
like a grumpy, tight-lipped nanny makes
a child swallow bites of undistinguished
mush. Culture won’t go down that old

way; “learning” by force gets old
fast. Winsome cultivation is a shade
tree—a gentle, distinguished,
trusted voice. A voice that shared
a story, and in the sharing makes
me want to tell my own. This is the culture

of grace, the pattern of love, the culture
of loving, living examples of the old
made new, a distinct stirring that makes
a shelter for the parched seeking shade.
Cultivation is work, but there’s no shared
space for work and force. Distinguished

from the lord tyranny, distinguished
from forced labor, the love-work of culture
guides us from the unfamiliar to the shared;
then grows into a lineage, becomes age-old.
We dip in fingers and paint our own shades
into the portrait cultivation makes.

But like the distinguished farmer of old,
after sowing culture we draw the shades,
take our share of rest, and see what He makes.

And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

(Mark 4:26-29)

Humility Is Not Like Cramming for a Test

The week before a big exam I crammed in whatever facts, equations, names, and dates I needed. Come test time, I unloaded those bursting memory banks, pencil flying ahead of the clock. After time was up and my pencil was down, I wiped my brow in relief. Done.

Right after the test I cut the twine that tied my bulging mental cardboard box of facts, and all of them spilled out.

Forgotten.

What else have I forgotten? What gifts passed from God’s hand to mine that I did not bother to remember? I remember—and remember long-term—for a reason.

And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you…
(Deuteronomy 8:2)

In these words is a secret, a way to humility. This secret is remembering the Lord’s works, so I let His goodnesses pass before me, like a slow slide show of all the wilderness scenes of my past. Father, I remember the parched emotional wildernesses of 2004, of 2005. I remember how you brought me through the mental despair of freshman year in college and the relational barbs of fifth grade. Father, I remember how you sustained me, pulled me out, encouraged me. I remember and am humbled.

Then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
(Deuteronomy 8:14)

Forgetting leads to pride leads to forgetting leads to…

To protect myself from pride, I make it a habit to remember the Lord and His works. Memory aids humility.

(Linking with Ann Voskamp today. Click on the Holy Experience badge below to read more posts on Humility

A New Hue at Rainbow

We’re thrilled to let you know that Charles Sharman’s Through the Bible with My Child is now available at Rainbow Resource Center (where we find many of our home school books and supplies). Have fun exploring the Rainbow!

An excerpt from the Rainbow Resource catalog product review (written by Deanne of Rainbow Resource):

As Christian families, our greatest desire is to be actively involved in teaching our children the Bible, but often times we just don’t know where or how to begin. Beginning with the premise that God entrusted parents to teach the Bible to their children and that the Bible was written for all of us, Through the Bible with My Child has been created to equip parents for this monumental task…

(As always, also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores.)

Level-Headed Red

They say red is hot-headed
fiery and volatile.

On the contrary, hers
is the longest wavelength,

her frequency of peaks and troughs
is, of all colors, least.

She is calm, even-keeled,
slow to trough, slow to peak.

(For the combination PhotoPlay and poetry prompts at The High Calling and T.S. Poetry)

Know and Do

Wise and Otherwise is one of my favorite board games. It’s similar to the “dictionary game” (you’re given an obscure word, then you make up a definition that you think others will vote for), except instead of being given a word, you’re given the first half of an ancient proverb from a different country. Then you invent the rest of the proverb, hoping others will vote for yours.

An example:

Priceless Correspondence

Now they come at four dimes
and four pennies apiece
in neat sheets, like pages
out of a history volume boasting
of our own, our own brush strokes
and space probes and man around the globe.

They come like syncopated
rhythms of modern bards’ music,
lively bits of conversation
between strings and brass brought
from a mix of New Orleans and Africa
and isles nearby, improvised and styled.

They come like a billboard
listing simple steps saying
how to save the earth and go green.

They come separated by wavy lines
to simulate the old perforations,
like a monument remembering
the way they used to be.

They always come in Love.
I’ve received them that way
and that is how I send them,
a letter on paper, ink from a pen
guided by my own hand
and stamped.

For the poetry prompt to write about something I got for less than a buck.

When was the last time you picked up a pen and wrote a letter or note of encouragement? There’s something about getting an envelope in the mailbox, the address written by a loved one’s hand, instantly recognizable…

Will Mom Ever Grow Up?

This is the second summer Derek and Titus are going away for a week-long camp. At least this year, the camp is not far (Woodland Park, instead of last year’s six-hour drive to Lake City).

Still, though Woodland Park is just a few minutes up Highway 24, it takes over an hour to get to the camp itself. We have to go eight miles on the unpaved part of Rampart Range Road. Our little ’98 Ford Escort doesn’t exactly have the most up-to-date suspension system, and we feel every bit of washboard on that dirt road. Most of the time, I’m going ten or twelve miles an hour. (I do a mental calculation: eight miles at ten miles an hour will take…) I picture our car parts coming apart with every vibration and wonder, “Are we hitting the resonant frequency of anything in this car?”

I pull over frequently to let the other cars pass. When they do, they leave us in the (literal) dust, and we roll up the windows until the dust settles. We’re not even going fast enough to kick up dust.

How Is a Ham Bone Like a Cedar Tree?

I met Kathy in the autumn of 2005, when I was new to our church and feeling a bit friendless. It was Easter 2006, so I had only known Kathy for a few months. We were chatting about our Easter-meal plans. I think I was planning on making a ham, but I don’t remember. Kathy’s mother, Charlotte, was flying over for the holiday. Others in her family were coming, too (I think—my memory is fuzzy on that). I do remember very clearly that Kathy ordered a ham from Honeybaked. I drooled when she told me.

“Oooh!” I said, still drooling. “Are you going to make split-pea soup with the ham bone?” I loved making split-pea soup from ham bones. I imagined how ham stock made with a Honeybaked Ham would taste.

“Nah, I’m not into that,” Kathy answered.

Several days later, after Easter, I was doing this or that in the kitchen when my doorbell rang. My doorbell never rings unless it’s a solicitor, so I approached the front door with my guard up.

Sock-footed, I walked stealthily to the door and looked through the peephole. Immediately my guard went down; it was Kathy! The furrowed-brow wrinkles above my eyes migrated and turned into smiling crow’s feet at the sides of my eyes. I opened the door. In her hands was something in a plastic bag, the kind you get from Safeway or King Soopers.

The first words out of her mouth: “I brought you a ham bone!”

Wide-eyed and wordless, I took the bag.

“I even left quite a bit of the meat on it, too,” Kathy explained.

I never knew how much a picked-over ham bone would mean to me. It meant she was listening. It meant that one day, in her own kitchen, cleaning after a big family Easter dinner, she thought of me. It meant she remembered I liked ham bones for split pea soup. It meant I was a friend.

I often don’t realize who I am or how God has blessed or gifted me until someone else recognizes it and expresses the recognition in real actions.

Then Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David with cedar trees and carpenters and stonemasons; and they built a house for David. And David realized that the LORD had established him as king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.
(1 Samuel 5:11-12)

What Hiram did was a form of encouragement. I have friends like this, friends who have helped me see who I am, what I should be doing, what I am to them. Friends who send me cedar trees (or ham bones). Thank God.

What cedar tree could I send? Whom should I be encouraging in this way?

Lord, I have received it. How can I give it? To whom?

This Thursday Bonnie Gray hosts a community of those who share about the power of encouragement. Click on the FaithBarista badge below to read more posts on encouragement!