I grew up in Lancaster County, PA. Not Lancaster, Lang-kissed-her.
And natives don’t say Pennsylvania but PA.
The land of Amish cooking & quilts, farmers’ markets spelled Roots but pronounced “ruts.”
Where barn raisings are a reaL, tangible expression of community care.
A place where high school football is its own religious community.
The land of the peace churches with Amish, Brethren, Mennonite,
don’t forget black bumper Mennonite, whose inner piety is displayed outwardly in the way they dress: women with head coverings, men with suspenders & long bushy beards.
Two more words. Whoopie pies. Not the style you find here in New England, but with cream cheese filling. Ah-mazing. Lancaster County PA Dutch cooking is hard to beat… even with a lobster dinner or baked salmon.
It’s the place where you can smell the rain coming across the fields long before the raindrops begin to fall. And truthfully, I’ll admit, where you also often smell fertilizer.
Unlike my NE colleagues & friends, I did not learn how to drive navigating circles/rotaries but horse & buggies. Oh Lancaster County. The beginning chapters of my story. For which I am forever grateful.
The kids & I laugh that it is the smell of the fertilizer, horse & buggy sightings… and cows, so many cows in the fields that tell us we’ve arrived “home” in Lancaster County when we visit.
So what I know about cows. Firstly, even though I am now 38 years old I don’t remember a time I didn’t happily proclaim, or at bare minimum enthusiastically whisper “cows” — every time I see cows. This has been true throughout my childhood and as an adult when traveling to National Parks in Utah, Montana, California. And on local adventures through New England in Vermont & Maine. But still. If I see cows — it is a given certainty that I will make it known.
But back to my childhood. Driving with my dad meant he was driving stick shift, barefoot, windows down, radio up with classic rock playing loud. It is still a favorite memory. And through those windy farmland roads dad taught me much about life. One of those lessons that farming families depended upon — knowing how to quickly discern weather changes. So we looked at the wind in the trees’ leaves, the way it air smelled before the rain and to watch the cows. Dad would say “they’re laying down because they feel a storm coming. They huddle.” Which I always found odd. Even as a child. I remember thinking “if they lay down they’ll just get wet and stay wet longer.” As for me I’d rather be a buffalo…
Why a buffalo? A herd of buffalo, or bison, feel the storms rolling & raging and instead of laying down, huddling together as the cows do — they turn & charge directly into the storm. In so doing — they spend less time caught up in the raging storms but navigate through the storms together. We’ll come back to that momentarily.
Now butterflies. Butterflies have been a symbol of new life & transformation across religions, people groups & cultures since the beginning. And rightly so. But sometimes I think we haven’t practiced the pause to remember the caterpillars. The caterpillars who enter into the dark unknown of the cocoon… and literally turn into mush. A process that would be terrifying, painful & lonely in every capacity of the word.
When I prepare sermons for our church & debut them for my wife, she has been known on more than one occasion to ask me “so what?” So in honor of her —here is the “so what” part of this opening blog/podcast.
On butterflies: may we all be reminded that the darkest places in our hearts, in our narratives, the broken edges of our stories… can indeed be transformed by the light of Love that holds us. For what we thought was meant for death, destruction & despair — the end — is just the beginning. And the Good news — is that all of us, all parts of us, can be renewed, restored & reclaimed for life, life to the fullest, a new chapter in our stories. Where there are dry bones the Spirit of Love breathes resurrection hope. We can hear a glimmer of hope, a whisper — “Light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it. “ We can not appreciate the light without knowing the all-consuming darkness…
On buffaloes: Here we are in this space. A space intentionally created for community, for telling our stories, for being brave & afraid at the same time, through the storms in faith, in life — through the storms that rage outside AND within us. A space to “find your herd”. And together run into the storms. Shouldering them together. Because the only way forward…. Is through.
It is my hope to end each blog/podcast episode with a blessing. So here is the first one.
A blessing for the way through
The only way forward…is through.
When you find yourself tempest tossed
When you look inward to the storms raging in your heart,
And you look outward to the unrelenting,
unyielding heaviness of this world.
When you must find a way to be brave & afraid…
Not to become defeated, numb or paralyzed into complacency
But to move courageously in the midst of your fear.
The only way forward… is through.
Blessed are you who stand in despair & desolation,
weighed down by the heaviness of grief in the remnants & ruins
of all that you hoped for laid bare in brokenness and
And hear your trembling voice say: “it is finished.”
Take courage. Take heart.
Take a breath. And another.
Listen. Can you hear it?
God says “behold I am going to make all things new.”
God asks each of us, all of us — can these dry bones live?
Our answer must be the same as Ezekiel’s.
“God only you know.”
And we add our voices:
“Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.”
We ask, Is there beauty here in the ashes?
Does joy come in the mourning?
Oh God please — if you will not calm the storm,
Silence the storms in me.
The only way forward… is through.
Where there are only dry bones
the Spirit of Love breathes
resurrection Hope.
“Lead me beside still waters.”
“Peace. Be still.”
The only way forward… is through.
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