treasure without seeking

I have become a fan of estate sales. I used to think they were too expensive and quit frankly, too depressing. It was very hard for me to see the entire life of a person put on display...even if it was just their material possessions.

Now I have learned the secret of getting a bargain....and I try to see the "story" of the person
instead of just "the end".

My favorite thing to look for at estate sales is of course: Books!

I discovered over the summer some of the secrets of the trade :) One estate sale had many wonderful books that were still unsold by the end of the sale. I asked the people running the sale what they would do with these books. That is when I found out about The Auction.

My first visit to The Auction was like traveling to another world. It was obvious that most of the people there were long time residents. Everyone had their favorite spot and brought along cushions for the folding seats and a thermos of coffee.

I handed over my driver's license and was given a card with the number 96. The Auction started outside and I was highly entertained as I watched the auctioneers talk up all the junk that was lined along the parking lot.

I had already walked around the inside of the auction building and found the boxes of books leftover from the estate sale I had been to. Anonimo, Garnet and Caspian arrived just as the auction was moving inside. Before we had a chance to even greet one another, they began auctioning off the boxes of books we wanted.

$20, $20 who will give me $20 a box? Any box from here to here $20.
$10, $10 who will give me $10 a box? Any box from here to here $10.
A thin woman with dark hair raised her card and pulled out a box of linens. Phew, she didn't even look at the books.
Anyone else? $10, $10 a box.
Should I? Shouldn't I? What was even going on here?

$5, $5 who will give me $5 a box? Any box from here to here $5.
I raised my number 96.
96, 96 gives me $5 a box. Who will give me 6?
An older man raised his card. The auctioneer immediately turned to me.
7? I nodded my head. He turned to the older man who shook his head no and walked away.

Woo, hoo $7 a box. Anonimo and I began dragging the boxes of books out of the way. 8 boxes total. We found a dolly and Anonimo, Caspian and Garnet loaded up the van while I kept my eye on one more box of sheet music in another lot.

Later that night we sat in the living room with old dusty books spread out everywhere. Hundreds of books.

We began to seperate by author and genre. As we stacked the poetry books, Anonimo stopped to look through a volume of Robert Frost. I glanced over his shoulder at the title page...

Honey? ummmm is that his signature right there?
Where?
Right there? Is that actually Robert Frost's autograph?

Garnet immediately went to the computer and searched google for his autograph. We held the book up to the computer screen and then began to hoot and holler.

Unbelievable, an autographed Robert Frost. We gently set it atop the computer desk

Garnet ran to get her copy of The Second Tree Around the Corner by EB White. I had purchased it for Garnet last Christmas at Goodwill for .15. When she opened it Christmas morning she discovered that it was autographed.

We now had 2 books for our "special" collection.

At the estate sale before The Auction, we had purchased a 12 volume set of Jane Austen for Garnet. She loves Jane Austen as much as I do. Total for the beautiful set $20.

Caspian was looking around ebay the other night and ran across an auction of a set exactly like this one. Starting bid $1,999.00.

I think I will keep going to second hand shops, estate sales and auctions.

Final Harvest

Friday. The weekend. A huge sigh of relief on my way home as I looked forward to a weekend of rest. As I drove home, I almost forgot that Gloria Dei was having a rummage sale that evening. I doubled back and parked in a side lot looking for the entrance. I went in and headed straight for the book section. Soft Cover .25, Hardover .50. Perfect. Affordable.

I began to go through the books one by one and started a stack for myself on a nearby table. I was amazed by the number of books by the Billy Graham family. Someone must have owned every book written by them and donated the collection to the church. I chose only one from among those: an autobiography of Ruth Graham Bell.

A small paperback caught my eye: Emily Dickinson's Poems. Of course I knew the name and I knew she was a poet. I had probably studied a poem or two of hers in school. If I could bring one word to mind that I remembered about her poetry it was 'death'. Hmmmm. .25, why not?

I am overwhelmed at what I have discovered as I sit and delight in each poem. What a gift I have found, what a gift I have been given in these separate tiny treasures that combine to create a magnificent Pearl beyond price.

I sat last night and read through poem after poem, often exclaiming out loud, but most often just sensing a deep excitement at what I was reading. If you cannot tell already, I absolutely CELEBRATE Emily Dickinson's poems. As I read ,I was completely stopped in my tracks by one. It caught my breath away and sent my mind soaring in thankfulness to Him.

An altered look about the hills --
A Tyrian light the village fills --
A wider sunrise in the morn --
A deeper twilight on the lawn --
A print of a vermillion foot --
A purple finger on the slope --
A flippant fly upon the pane --
A spider at his trade again --
An added strut in Chanticleer --
A flower expected everywhere --
An axe shrill singing in the woods --
Fern odors on untravelled roads --
All this and more I cannot tell --
A furtive look you know as well --
And Nicodemus' Mystery
Receives its annual reply!

Nicodemus' Mystery....John 3:4
'How can a man be born when he is old?'

There is so much to enjoy here....to see how Emily took the greatest question of all and formed it into a tapestry of poetic words that bring incredible imagery and understanding. This is what I would call an extraordinary commentary.

I had to turn to the "big" dictionary as I read through her poems and this was no exception. I had bare concepts of the words, but I knew that I was missing too much of her meaning unless I could fully understand the words.
Tyrian : vivid purple, red
Vermillion: scarlet red
Chanticleer: rooster

The more I contemplate this poem , the more I am amazed and thankful for finding these absolute jewels. In 16 short lines, she has encompassed seasons, beginnings and endings, creation, known and unknown, life and death, question and answer, His royalty, His gift, His grace and so much more.

What beauty. What incredible beauty God has given us.

I am beyond thankful for the discovery of these words that touch my soul and my mind.

I read back through the list of books I have accumulated over the summer and I find that in the very first batch I purchased a book of Emily's poems :) Nothing drew me to the book at that time....now is the time. That is one of the wonderful aspects of books....they line the shelves and stack the floors and wait. Everything in its time. And yet all these multitudes of words are nothing in comparison to the Word.

A Word made Flesh is seldom
And trembling partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength -

A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He -
"Made Flesh and dwelt among us"
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved Philology.
E.D.

A Chance to Die

The prayer of Jeremy Taylor was always Amy Carmichael's:

Lord, do Thou turn me all into love,
and all my love into obedience,
and let my obedience be without interruption.

Amy Carmichael
Thous shalt have words,
But at this cost, that thous must first be burned,
Burned by red embers from a secret fire,
Scorched by fierce heats and withering winds that sweep,
Through all thy being, carrying thee afar
From old delights. Doth not the ardent fire
Consume the mountain's heart before the flow
of fervent lava? Wouldst thou easefully,
As from coll, pleasant fountains, flow in fire?

"This sacred work demands not lukewarm,selfish slack souls, but hearts more finely tempered than steel,wills purer and harder than diamond"
Pere Didon

“The roads are rugged, the precipices are steep; there may be a feeling of dizziness on the heights, gusts of wind, peals of thunder, nights of awful gloom- Fear them not. There are also joys of the sunlight, flowers such as are not on the plain, the purest of air, restful nooks, and the stars smile thence like the eyes of God.”

~Pere Didon- Spiritual Letters~

“The purer the aim, the more vehement the opposition, human and spiritual.”
~ Amy Carmichael~

“There is so much sadness in the world, so many heartaches, so many tears fall, it is rather wonderful to be away for a little while in a tearless world, left just as God made it…these elemental things seem to carry one back to the beginnings, the fundamentals, the things that cannot be shaken, ancient verities of God.”
~ Amy Carmichael~

A Small Farm in Maine

I drop Garnet at jazz band rehearsal and pull up to a yard sale right next to the school. The women running it are avid stampers and I come away with a bag full of craft supplies and stamps and a book about Calligraphy for $1. I have bought many books over the years to teach myself calligraphy. The books stayed on the shelf . This time I bought the book telling myself it was for Sardius. He looked at it and said "hmmmmmmm".

On the way home I pulled into a nursery on the side of the road. I had no idea what I was walking into . Emerald would say that we walked into happiness and left with some of the happy on us. The greenhouses at this nursery were comfortably packed with the most gorgeous flowers...rows upon rows. Everywhere I turned I heard the whisper of potential. For the first time I allowed myself to buy a beautiful hanging basket of flowers and gorgeous red geraniums for the front planter. The day outside was swinging from sunny to blustery rain and back again.

I tell myself it will only be one yard sale for the weekend and yet as I pull into my neighborhood a small sign draws me down an alley and to the back of a garage. As I walk up to the sale, a mother and daughter greet me with "everything is 1/2 price!". Not much is left and as I turn to leave I see the bookshelves packed with books . A sign above reads "Paperbacks .25 Hardbacks .50".

I begin to go through the books and sigh with contentment as I see the possibilities in each one of them. I choose many knowing that the price is so low. I walk away with a box layered with books about nature and living off the land. The yard sale is held by a Biology professor from the university down the road and it is obvious by the books what her interests are...or were.

A Small Farm in Maine is a thin paperback with a pleasing cover. The book was originally 6.95. A sticker on the back has 3.48 + tax and another sticker on the front advertises 2.98. I have purchased it for 12.5 cents. I wonder at all the places this little book has traveled from the time it was first printed in 1988. Did everyone who had purchased it read it?

The subtitle on the front: How one couple built a self sustaining life in the country. I am intrigued and begin to read. The author, Terry Silber, draws me into the experiences that she and her family went through as they purchased this small farm and labored through the years. It is spring here in the north and Anonimo and I are excited to be out in the yard.

We bought our home 18 months ago. When we first saw the house it was June and the yard and flowerbeds were overgrown. We had never gardened and knew very little about caring for such a yard. I was a little overwhelmed at what it would take to bring the yard back to what it had been. That first spring , the weather kept us out of the yard on the weekends and we were already into June before we started weeding and trying to figure out what was growing everywhere.

Rose bushes lined the back yard on one side and large lilac bushes bloomed on the other side. Brick lined flower beds held flowers and weeds of every sort. I had no idea how to tell the difference between them. I am sure I pulled more flowers than weeds that spring. The only flowers I recognized were tulips.

That summer I learned that we had hostas. Lots and lots of beautiful hostas. I discovered that the beautiful little plant at the corner of the deck was a Bleeding heart. The front flowerbed unfolded flower after flower, many of which I still do not know what they are. It became obvious that the owner before us had loved to garden and had planted mainly perennials.

Fall came and the yard died down and was covered in a carpet of gorgeous yellow leaves. Winter arrived and covered everything in deep snow. Winter is long here, very long. I have anticipated the end of it for months now. After living through 2 winters here so far, nothing will keep me inside when the snow is gone. This year we were out into our yard and flower beds as soon as the last blizzard melted in late April.

A Small Farm in Maine was the perfect read for this time. I read of Silber's interest in growing things as I imagined what we could do in our yard. I looked at the few flowers we had purchased from the greenhouse and wondered if we even knew how to care for them. Silber wrote of hardening off her greenhouse plants by bringing them in at night and we went out into the night air to carry our precious purchases back into the kitchen.

We have been doing this every night this week....slowly getting the plants used to being outside. I look at the labels in each of the planters and wonder if it is possible that someday they will be familiar. I relate in a very small way to the story of the Silber's and their little farm and I am encouraged to enjoy the journey of getting to know our very small plot of ground that we call home.

As I am finishing the book, a folded newspaper article falls out of the back. It is dated Sunday December 13 1992. "They lived close to the land , beholden to no one" The article is about Helen Nearing, still living close to the land in Maine at 88 years of age. I had never heard of Scott and Helen Nearing. They had written over 50 books in their lifetime and I am sure to a certain set of people, their names are very well known. Scott Nearing lived with Helen in a small stone home they built together called the 70/90 house. She was 70 and he 90 when they built it. He was 100 when he died.

I have no desire to move to a rural farm. Or to become self sustaining. I am content in my suburban home with our little yard and a burgeoning interest in plants. I listen to the birds, I watch the trees change. I work the dirt and rake the leaves. It is our own. Our own small home.