Behind Your Eyes

How about a little music to read along with me?  You will hear and feel this better if you click before you read.  :)  

I'm remembering Christmas day like all the days before it, in that space behind my eyes where I do my thinkin'.  That space, it connects me to remembering and imagining other days.  It was just yesterday, eh?  But it might as well have been 30 years ago because it has past.  How strange.  

The torn wrapping paper unveiled the thoughts I've been having towards my sons and my desire to bless them big...The wrapping torn unveiled the plans, the love, the listening I did to prepare gifts that would satisfy.  The smiles and thank yous said that I did it well.  Today I drove in the rain for 40 miles to secure more of the nice wrapping paper, half off, so that  I could do this all again for them.  I will wait 364 more days before I can wrap up this loving for them once again.  It is only like this on December 25th.  You know what I mean.  You did this for those you love, too.  They laughed and said I am planning so early, but  I've been planning about them for many more years than this.  ♥

 I love Christmas day because the birth of Jesus makes hope rise in the chest no matter the circumstances.  Like the baby in the manger, we can trust like a child.  This day is a mighty force against the darkness.  It is a triumph remembered and experienced.  The Lord is tender in everyone's thoughts......like on communion Sundays.   And the smiles and thank yous diminish any sorrow you feel, or concerns you bear. You can get swept away in the happiness of the moments of December 25th 'round here.  

And beyond the gifts there is so much more.  Because of His birth we can imagine things we wouldn't otherwise.  We can imagine our "forever days" in that space behind our eyes where we do our thinkin'.  I can imagine my Dad again and an embrace we will share when I arrive on the "other shore".  We can imagine all that we've lost surrounding us again.  We can imagine resurrection of dead bodies, we can remember, or experience for the first time, the forgiveness of all of our sins,  and we can live life in our heads and in our skin with the promise of peace even if everything or everyone around us is not peaceful.  Because of Christmas the words of this song mean something to us.  Freedom has bloomed and grown far and wide in us.  We sow seeds in a garden that has soil energized with heaven's life--our faith. 

Merry Christmas and may there be peace in the space behind your eyes and heart.

Moonflowers and Me

I want to paint a picture with both fine and sweeping brush strokes like the masters of old have done, but I am not good at that at all.  So I try here with syllables and whole words and I wonder if I dare even try?  But, stepping out into the air these past few days after the first passing of freezing nights and I see how much has changed for me.   I want to sort it out right here and now.  

It only takes one glance to miss those blazing red faces that met me each morning standing tall for the picking. The red zinnias are gone. Today they are devastated and look almost charred and abused.  The tangling vines that had my garden arbor and rails looking all gussied up for company each day, from my view now, look to  have succumbed to some awful fate as they only hang now, gruesomely by the death grip of their many, once tender tendrils.   And the parallels reach out and grab on like tendrils round my mind.

It's simple really.  It was not a plague or massacre, an attack or a mistake.  It came quietly as always. Just over night and under a nearly full moon it happened again;  the air changed.  The day before it blew fierce, forcing a change.........the air seemed like a weapon all day, yanking the leaves from the trees, tossing and throwing them,  pushing, pounding the farm and all of us.

It would not seem like much to me now except for the garden and the farm.  The response there I see is profound.  Life seems gone for death!--bursting red zinnias bitten and purged.  Moonflowers sort of melted on the rail, unrecognizable now.  "Response", that is all that it is.  My world has responded to the change in air.  

I do not like change. Especially when it seems to exchange beauty for ashes and life for some sort of death.   I have dreaded many of  them like a child dreading a vaccination.  My heart's plea is a quiet,  "No" and, "Please let it pass me by".   The cooler air told me that change was a comin', but I closed my eyes and imagined the sun.  The tall sons at the table tell me that little boy days are gone, but I close my eyes and remember bee bee guns and younger boys, sleepovers and tiny hands.  

But, it is time to respond to the changes in the air like the moonflower did;  like the tomato, the grape, and the zinnia.  It is o.k. for the vine to lay over and take it's winter's rest, right?   It is right for the Canadians to fly south and the bears know to enter their dens to sleep, yes?   It is right to respond to new times and seasons even if it is not our favorite.  Whatever time it is, He is there to help us and to delight in our good response.  

Some wise man once said that there was a time for everything under the sun.  He said it like this many moonflowers ago:  

 For everything that happens in life—there is a season, a right time for everything under heaven:

2     A time to be born, a time to die;
        a time to plant, a time to collect the harvest;
3     A time to kill, a time to heal;
        a time to tear down, a time to build up;
4     A time to cry, a time to laugh;
        a time to mourn, a time to dance;
5     A time to scatter stones, a time to pile them up;
        a time for a warm embrace, a time for keeping your distance;
6     A time to search, a time to give up as lost;
        a time to keep, a time to throw out;
7     A time to tear apart, a time to bind together;
        a time to be quiet, a time to speak up;
8     A time to love, a time to hate;
        a time to go to war, a time to make peace.

Ecclesiastes 3

What time is it for you and for me?  Embrace it and respond.  ♥