The Summer’s Flying toward Autumn

The summer is flying toward Autumn. Nearly a month has passed since I last posted and since Paul and I headed eastward in our F150 Lariat pulling our Coachmen Travel Trailer. Our Maiden DistanceVoyage.

The summer’s flying toward Autumn

Days dense with weight fly light as light.

While the summer is flying, we’ve been driving. Driving across country from destination to destination. (Note previous post.) Not only are we now on the backside of my graduation*, we’ve also completed two weeks at “the farm”!

Commencement Ceremony on August 5, 2017
                         Trinity Theological Seminary

Dr. Karen Thomas Olsen

“The farm” is my mother’s family farm – the family farm in Findlay, Ohio! My grandfather Cramer bought this farm in 1925. Merle and Clella Cramer raised chickens, cows, hogs, corn, wheat, alfalfa, soybeans, and ten children born over a period of eighteen years. Seven boys. Three girls. My mother, the fourth child, was the first girl, born one hundred years ago this December. Yes, that was in 1917! Only the tenth child now lives. She and her husband, Aunt Mary and Uncle Bud, live on the farm in a brick house they built up the road from the farmhouse and all the barns.

Paul walks from Aunt Mary’s & Uncle Bud’s brick house down to the old farmhouse.

Today, there are no animals on the farm. The land is rented to a neighboring farmer, and the profits mainly return to pay for the farm’s upkeep. The place is like a museum, orderly and preserved (with some updates), with no current resident in the farmhouse, and with barns full of old tractors, the combine, and various machinery and tools. Fortunately, the farmhouse is open for members of the family to use. So, this is where we’re stationed. Our RV rests in the driveway, so we occupy both the house and the travel trailer as we desire. From here, we visit friends and family in Ohio and Indiana, or have folks over to the farmhouse.

Grandpa built this barn in 1935.

We had our two grandsons, ages 8 and 5, at the farm for almost six days! This was the first time we’ve ever had charge of them, except for one afternoon outing nearly two years ago, so it was a huge event for all of us! We had GRAND CAMP! Grandparents with grandboys at a grand location having a grand time! Our Chicago daughter joined us for three days. One night we had a BBQ with Aunt Mary and Uncle Bud and two of my cousins. I would like to tell you all about our adventures, but I must anchor my post to my blog’s purpose. (Note header.)

The Grands:
                        Grandpa (Papa O) and grandboys                                                (Aiden and Ryland) fly across the farm!

All of this traveling, this visiting, this witnessing of time, this witnessing of space, this witnessing of finity – they sing like a mentoring choir. The heavens declare and so does the earth. The heavens declare and so does my life – the reality of who we are and who we are in relation to our Creator, to the creation, and to other human creatures.

I take so many pictures with my cell phone. “That’s Karen,” Paul says. Why do I do this? Have you been to Meramec Spring on the Meramec River in the Ozarks of Missouri?

At Meramec Spring in Misouri

We spent two nights in that area at the beginning of August. Near Meramec Caverns, Meramec Spring is part of an 1800 acre, privately owned park (operated by the James Foundation). Rolling forested hills surround the area, and you’ll discover a rainbow trout fish hatchery right there at the head of the deep spring! Flowing, flowing, over the rushing, laughing damn, the waters pass under a bridge and become a calm stream for quiet fishermen. Peaceful. Lovely. Light breezes. We walked and observed. The tranquility of the created order soothed our souls.

I take the pictures to preserve moments. The moments cannot be preserved. I witness the context of time. As invisible to me as the wind, time rushes by. I am humbled. While God names Himself, “I AM WHO I AM”, YHVH, the Now beyond time, I am a different “i am”.  I am an “i am” because I am an image bearer of I AM. As Jonathan Cahn observes in his fascinating devotional, The Book of Mysteries, “It is woven into the fabric of existence that when you speak of yourself, you must say His  Name” (Day 2). “I am Karen.” “I am happy.” “I am anxious.” “I am….” But I say His name first. Why is this the grammatical construction?

Cahn continues, “It’s because your existence comes from His existence. He is the I Am of all existence… the I Am of all I ams. Your I am only exists because of His I Am. And as you exist from Him, so it is only from Him that you can find the reason and purpose of your existence. Therefore, when you say your name, you must always speak His Name. And you must always speak His Name first.”

I am finite. My desire to preserve what I see demonstrates this. The I AM is infinite, which is why, I suppose, that I have such achings and longings to preserve the beauty and pleasures of the moments. These desires teach me. They remind me of who I am within the Who I AM. This reminder calms me.

I love traveling the country, drinking in the beauty of God’s creation, visiting friends and family imbibing the belonging. I would like to gather it all in one present tense with all the good endless and all the pain ended. Taking pictures symbolizes these longings. I smile. The summer’s flying toward autumn, and soon I’ll be home in Arizona, meditating upon my memories but anticipating the fulfillment of all good memories in the Kingdom to Come.

Cahn concludes all of his daily readings with a mission directive. Day 2, entitled “The I AM of all I AMS”, ends with this mission: “Today, learn the secret of living each moment from His life, doing from His doing, loving from His love, and being from His being.”

If I am aware of living each moment in Him, maybe I won’t ache so over the loss of my earth-moments. Maybe I won’t need to take so many pictures. They too will pass away, for the summer flies toward eternity. Maybe I’ll be more content knowing that “the best is yet to come”.

^“For in Him we live and move and exist.”

Acts 17:28a NASB

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being;

as certain also of your own poets have said,

For we are also his offspring.”

Acts 17:28 KJV

Also read Exodus 3:14-15

The big barn as the  sun sets.

*Oh, yes, I did graduate a year ago, but I did not get to participate in the ceremony, so I was allowed to be a part of this year’s ceremony. Thank You, Lord, for the honor and privilege of learning and growing! May my growth bless others!