One Simple Day with Sadie

Stories in the School Clouds

In your teaching show integrity, seriousness.
~Titus 2:7

1. Come in and sit down immediately.
2. Do not use bad or unclean language.
3. Help along with the singing.
4. Do not play on the outhouse roof during recess.
5. Be humble and do not openly correct the teacher of any mistakes.
6. Do not write in books or on school property.
7. Do not leave school grounds without permission.
8. Be truthful, honest, and respectful at all times.

These are the rules in the one-room school house. They are placed in the front of the room on an easel, along with yellow pencils, plenty of pink erasers, a continual flow of white paper, and one beloved teacher for each corner in the small rectangular building. The teachers teach, and protect.

Sonny walks to school each day. Half a mile in the warmth and sunshine; half a mile in the freezing cold rain; and half a mile in a foot of snow that falls several times each winter.

School begins at 9:00 a.m.; potatoes of every kind are cooking and warming on the furnace by 10:00 a.m.; and children are reciting by 11:00 a.m.:

He who has a thousand friends,
Has not a friend to spare;
But he who has one enemy
Wilt meet him everywhere.

The older students have the responsibility of bringing in water from the outside, and keeping the the stove fed with coal or wood. The younger students are given responsibilities, too, and each is delegated a task that is appropriate for their size and gender, such as cleaning the black board and taking erasers outside to be dusted.

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” a child excitedly asks sitting in the center of a circle of students during outdoor recess.

Sonny was criss-cross-applesauce, palms down, petting the greenest of grasses.

“Oh, boy,” he says, looking upward. “I see plentiful fields in the clouds, and beauty in the grayest of skies.”

The farmer has already taught Sonny how to hunt. In that process, he has taught him to be positive, taught him to see blessings. Each deer that goes down receives a sacred blessing, first. A prayer in appreciation for a life given, second. Nothing is spared. Nothing is wasted. Meat, pelt, bones, antlers, all have a purpose, a use.

Along with the books, an education, the scholastics, Sonny is learning to be a pioneer, a conservative lover of the land, respecting untamed simplicity, marveling at its splendor.

Every farmer is concerned about their swathe of pristine land and will eventually pass it to the offspring. Every farmer gets involved with the children’s education.

“Our inability to see things that are right before our eyes until they are pointed out to us would be amusing if it were not at a time so serious. We are coming, I think, to depend too much on being told and shown and taught, instead of using our own eyes and brains and inventive faculties, which are likely to be just as good as any other person’s,” the farmer told Sadie one early evening.

Sadie was putting the final touches on left-over dough, Sonny helping with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon on each.

“The dough that is left after the pie crusts are made,” Sadie says.

“Pin wheels!” shouts Sonny.

Nothing was ever wasted, everything was used. It was 1 + 1 + scraps + bits and pieces = as much use as can be gotten. God is good.

© Sadie Gibble

From the Book:
The Barn Star: Field Notes from the Farm
Come Spring
by Sadie Gibble

And I hear it with each beam of warmth and light:

Sadie, simply, be a good person:
Love who you can;
Help where you can;
Give what you can.

And I pray:
God, give me the strength, the awareness, the wisdom (to know).

Sincerely, and Amen

Hymns and Pennsylvania Dutch Chicken and Waffles

My farmer loves the hymns. He walks back to the farm house to listen to them the same way he walks out to tend to the fields: firm and strong, in spirit and physique, always a smile, but always with the day’s work on his brow, and trophies of dirt stains and sweat-plastered hair.

Today, it will be chicken and waffles, along with the baking of a few loaves of bread, and In between kneading dough and letting it rise, and working with the waffle iron, my hands will also be serving “Who Am I” on the keys of the great Hammond organ, with bits of white flour playing hide-and-seek on the black keys, no doubt.

When I think of how He came so far from glory
Came to dwell among the lowly such as I
To suffer shame and such disgrace
on Mount Calvary take my place
Then I ask myself this question:
Who Am I?
(Who am I? Rusty Goodman)

Everyday, I rise to God’s bugle call, splash my face with the baptism water, wrap and secure the dress strings, pin the hair, place the white bonnet of matrimony, assist with the farmer’s suspenders, and proclaim the statement: Dear God, take me to who I am.

God has surely wrapped me in a velvet cloak, surrounded me with His Silent Night, made me His Morning Star, and asks for nothing but the very best that I can give to others.

Today’s best will be found in chicken and waffles (amongst other things).

Sincerely,
Sadie

© Sadie Gibble
The Barn Star: Field Notes from the Farm

It's Sunday: On time and rising, as scheduled. As promised.

By early morning, and an “early” that all farmers know, I see light that can easily be missed.

Good night, Moon. Hello, Sun. Stars, greetings to every one of you, I silently think.

It’s that time of day when the moon symbolizes the beginning of a new day.

A few simple hours earlier, the moon’s chin shone of gold. Now, she slowly turns her perfect face away from the world below. Her forehead is of amplest blond, her cheeks like rose beryl stone. Her eyes look directly onto soil that is ripe for birth, and her lips of amber never part. But, always she smiles, gently, in her silver performance, until the finale has Old Moon taking a curtsy, reminding “I will be back,” as she fades into the new moon, which is tomorrow.

“What a privilege to be the remotest star,” I whisper, "a twinkle on every door. She’s a gemstone, shining bright, that old Old Moon.”

Each day has always brought something new for me, and the Old Moon brings forth a newness that is ever larger.

How exactly did this day begin, so long ago?

Remember that first day the earth was created? How the air felt, the flowers smelled, the sunshine warmed, the berries tasted? Remember those first moments, when God’s world was created? We were all babes at that time, growing into an awareness of each magical gift.

That first sound of the bird, and the delight. The softness of the peeps, at the county fair. And the first taste of homemade ice cream. The first kiss. The first …

“Oy,” I hear myself say.

Seven days. Seven days for You to create this world, dear God. That’s how my day began.

In the beginning, God created. In the beginning, a globe was made. I've tasted life and all of its creation because of You, and I can’t imagine beginning a day in any other way.

Sincerely,
Sadie