I
have discovered some rhythms to my life, like the blending of spice,
Cinnamon and thyme, cardamon and lime and all things that rhyme.
Harmonizing scents, broths that warm with bay, tea that tastes like
hay, flavor's rowdy play, it’s a brand-new day, come what may,
I’ll stay with this.
Ginger takes the lead, dill chips and chia seed, vanilla bean and peppermint leaves. Chili flakes on potato
cakes, onion rings and worthy things.
I’m all in.
December wind cools the already cold air. The morning walk is bundled and pulled inward, so unlike the early Autumn walks, the rolling up of sleeves, short skorts, and morning humidity heating me up and slowing me down just a little while ago. Today I choose the long, puffy coat with the generous hood. A pair of gloves are conveniently stuffed inside its pockets left there the year before. It's turtleneck-time and corduroy-rhyme. It's long socks for tall boots and scarfs pulled snug around the neck. The garden rows all needy and running wild in June now must wait. The sowing of seeds, the pulling of weeds pause to the season of cozy blankets and warming thoughts tossed around on soft chairs. It is time for the steaming cup of chamomile and lavender tea, a candle wafting fragrant scents into the air, the stove top boiling broth and herbs making the house a scrumptious, homey thing. I'm all in. Morning monotony be damned? It is this glorious sameness I crave. It is in these rhythms that I've found an understanding friend. I'm all in.
Creamy, tender skin is iridescent in morning light, plumped with
life, like it's been filled to its capacity with the morning dew. It is
the small hand of the Zinnia Princess, and she is out in her garden
again. She points a decisive finger at her first choice, a
voluptuous, hot pink bloom.
“Wower”, she
aptly calls it. I, and all the others in the garden are hushed and stunned by this
unexpected declaration. A light breeze jiggles the stems of the
congregation and gives the flowers a responsive shutter as they
receive the honor of their new name; “Wower”, indeed.
She reaches forward,
clutching a chosen stem and I, her most humble servant, cut it loose
from the plant with my pruning shears. She reaches again to fill her
other hand; there is more than enough. She picks a coral pink this
time, the perfect complement, a brilliant choice. The faint rippling of applause from the rosemary bush looses its fragrance with the sudden enthusiasm, and the aroma wafts into the air.
I carry her around the south side
where a red zinnia wower blooms scantily along the picket fence
painted a cedar color. Only three red blooms today. She will not pick any of these.
I, toting the
princess on my hip, step over the stone border and enter the garden.
I sit the princess down atop the mulch-covered ground and she drops
her stems while reaching her hands up to hold mine. She disappears between the tomato and the okra, needing some assistance
she is generously willing to take me along with her. It is a morning immersion, and she invites
me along into her exploration. She is young-wise and I can easily see she feels there is
much here to discover. I am intrigued.
Her pause pales the
importance of the ticking time in my head and the rush to get off
into the business of the day. Her slow and purposeful gaze into tomato tangles is unique
in these parts and I think I must imitate her if I possibly can.
I glance down into
the glossy pools of her dark eyes and find the stirring waters there. Now I realize I had at some point wandered away in pursuit of something else less worthy and less wonderful. My heart
lurches as two tears break free to race down my cheeks, and I feel the familiar, subtle stir in me once again. Wisdom hushes me, shutting me up
to hear. If I am willing, it will open me to see and to learn with this Zinnia Princess,
Princess of the Wowers. Like the Pool of Bethesda where the wounded and ailing rushed to moving waters for healing, she is sensitive to the effervescence all around us. She has just recently arrived from God's heart, and the glinting of His kingdom is still upon her though she is unaware. So, she has come to preside over this garden, insistent in its mystery, and with an infant's watchful eye.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
I slow myself and I follow her
gaze flower to flower, and it becomes obvious to me why she has innocently insisted on a more expressive name, calling sorry eyes back to the WOW in a zinnia again. This is a most appropriate and sensible
response in a dulled world, dutifully looking into the small boxes ever in our hands. She leans a soft nose
straight into the brilliant color and sniffs it, pulling the subtle
scent wildly into herself, and blowing it rapidly out, almost violently she breaths
the scent in and out then turning her attention towards me, she points
the pollen covered stamen at my face and demands I do the same. So, I
do. And so, I yet will.
I
drove between water because smart and skilled men made a levee and
poured a road out on top. The sun showed through a sky stuffed with
gray clouds and hit the lake tinseling the water and making me cry.
The Lord touched my eyes with tinsel on water and gave me the word to
tell it today. He touches my heart with tinsel and water, and my life
is a wonder. I am distilled
in tinseled water, in the plucks of guitar strings and simpler
things. I’m distilled
in the wisps of wind and warmth of sun and those little
paddle-footed-waddlers
quacking along a grassy path. I’m preserved
in moonshine and fair things. I am
clarified
in
laughter, in the eyes of a caring friend, in voices and cat purrs, in walks on fallen leaves, and thoughts of higher things. I’m
distilled
under warm covers and preserved in gratefulness. I’m purified
in sun rays and sprinkling rain and baskets full of adjectives for
what I see. I’m refined
in vanilla peaches and love, in prayers at the table and on my soft couch. My shelf life has no care for I’m distilled in eternity.
“Come let us reason together”, says the Lord. ”Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow.” Isaiah 1:18
Snow covered the yard and wind was relentless for days.
Nevertheless, snow is exciting, and tucks one into a cozy frame of
mind, removing a myriad of options from a day off. In the quiet house
clocks tic toc the time, the faucet is dripping away to protect the
pipes from freezing, and cars ease by on a snow covered 3rd.
I sliced a box of plump little multicolored tomatoes and slid trays
full into the dehydrator, but not before saving some of the seeds. I
covered the seeds lightly in a little box of soil and put them near a
window. Seeds have come up with no care at all in past compost piles
and random spots in the yard and garden, so maybe these seeds will find
their way to germination too. They will help with the wait for spring
either way. 😊
I often dream of what I could accomplish if I had a string of days
like this. I imagine all the reading I would do, the notes I would
take, the food I would fix and the plans I would make and accomplish.
Then a day comes when downy snowflakes fall from the sky and into my lap
is a snow day.
And it has happened again, weather that says, “Just cozy up
inside. There’s nothing for you out here. The view out the window is
best.” Rain fell in the night and giant trucks slid over yonder, off the
interstate pavement into the trees and up banks of icy ground. Ice is
nearly non-negotiable and it’s not wise to try, but oh, how we try
anyway.
Black birds visited the yard in a throng, pecking the ground looking
like digital creations. Maybe they are searching for pieces of pecans
discarded by gluttonous squirrels. They all rose and filled the hickory
tree, filling in the gaps left by fallen leaves, but only for a moment
before moving like a black cloud across the lawn to the pecan tree, then
to the ground again before flying away to who knows where. I watched
them from my second story window snapping pictures.
“Come let us reason together.“
I slice the tomatoes and dry them for a day. How different they taste
when not carried in a splash of water, how chewy and sweet. In my
excitement I held one finished piece in the light of my window before
eating it. The winter storm had changed my dead yard to a glamorous, all
white stage where the tomato became a marvel before it. As if before a
spotlight now, I saw the seeds exposed in their deep and secret place
suspended in time, an intimate peek into a scarlet explosion in the
heart of the fruit, like little, fat exclamation points, like
rambunctious, young sperm in pursuit of the egg. I’m shy at the sight of
it. If they had a voice I’d hear shouts of joy and the whisper of…
“Come let us reason”.
It’s been days still simmered on this theme, these thoughts pulled
apart. I started an ancient practice in a jar on my kitchen counter,
fermenting milk. It is silky and white and tart from growing bacteria
that is good for me. Then I dried pounds and pounds of strawberries into
sweet, red chips. Yesterday, I put them all in a plastic bag and felt
so pleased with this work. The whites and the reds glaring again. A
simple, messy life, tucked in a measly river valley town has things yet
to say. Important lines to repeat out loud in my own simple way.
“Come let us reason“
There is nothing more or less going on in this life long mess of
discarded strawberry tops and the feelings and experiences. It is all a
boiled down in a line from Isaiah, older than the kefir grains
preserving the milk on the counter. It’s older than time. It is of the
foundation and that’s as solid as it gets.
“Come let us reason.”
It’s not “Just do what I say!” It isn’t, “Blindly follow me.” It
isn’t, “Let me take you, use you, control you.” It is higher and bigger
and breathtaking.
“Come let us reason.”
Engage the matter of your life and your outcomes with the outcomes of
truth. Reason, dissect, use your intellect. God has nothing to hide.
The cuckoo clock click, click, clicks as I pull the pine cone
weights up again. I hung the clock some four years ago, but the ticking
is a wee fast, or a wee slow. It requires a perfect setting for
perfect time and since I’ve never performed perfection in my life, I
wait for a day of visitation by the divine, a day when the clock will
keep the perfect time and I will then never again touch the wooden
weight, and will eject anyone else who tries. Until then, I admire the
artistry, the movement and the sound, and move on to opening the shades
and tying the curtain back so I can see a peek of 3rd from the blue
room.
This place is all art, the cuckoo clock, the sunlight making shadows
on the wooden floor, the quirky, twisty willow in the big patio pot
outside and the morning glory that’s been creeping up the branches all
summer. And again, inside, the desert rose has been pushing out shining
new leaves since the day it moved from a friend’s bedroom to its spot
near the window here. I went to a gallery to see paintings and pictures
of things I see every day; mountains, rivers, lakes, butterflies, people
posing, people doing peoply things. Right now the shaky, quivering,
high leaves of the water oak out the second story window in my home is
more than I can thoughtfully endure. I can’t render adequate words,
can’t take it properly inside me, the emerald greenery cutting the view
of a sun-drenched, wispy cloud formation sailing slowly by whether I
ever see it or not. I can’t figure out what to do with this kind of
wisdom and beauty. I can’t own it, can’t take an adequate photo with my
old phone. I can’t devour it and make it a part of me, but still, I try
to capture it in this way, in the ways of words, making friends with
failure again.
My jolly, funny Wheatens beg for an essay of adjectives to pull
together the scenes of their frolic and folly, their carnival of comedy,
their shackle-less hearts of joy bounding around a back yard. I would
leave pristine paragraphs, heart-melting songs, lovely letters for my
grandchildren, the great, great, greats and beyond. The yearning to
leave something after I’m gone keeps trying me. And I see only art
today, and that gives me a good chance.
Some days all the scenes transform, as if seen through gray, cracking
glass, or viewed to the sounds of school bells telling your racing
heart that you are late for class, unstudied for the quiz, ill-equipped
for another day of the 7th grade. On those days, the roses whine about
needing dead-heading because the old blooms are ugly and many, the
Bermuda laughs while invading the garden again and very likely plans to
take it over for good, the hum of the air conditioner that cooled and
comforted only days ago, begins to whisper that I didn’t have the unit
serviced this season, so who knows what issues are building in the box
outside.
But today, I see art, and today I say I will only see art forever,
and face failure again when it comes. A man said that when grief or
terrible upheavals come, this is the best opportunity to send your loves
notes up to God, to imagine your hugs, your surrender and devotion, to
remember your bliss about the cords of love He’s wrapped you into
Himself with. He called this worship, and this makes sense to me. In the
pain, what’s real remains, and a worthy story has its proving ground,
its rendering of art and worship.
You have a worthy story, an artistic rendering of life in its time,
its scenes. And the rules of your life are golden and your scenes are
soft, no matter how hard, in the light of this blazing context:
All things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
Some days you wake falling, bored, unsure, slow-wafting into the
abyss, flung away from a familiar plan. You’ve woke with the gray,
cracked glasses before your eyes, you’ve accepted their strange fit with
their poor visibility and you must strain the familiar strains to piece
together the fragments of what you see. What appears is ugly, fearful,
mediocre, and not what you’d planned.
I picked up a paper and a pot full of Prisma pencils. This morning it
felt random and new, though I’ve done this before. I needed to make art
today, so I stared at the paper and doodled the body of my favorite
bird. I couldn’t remember how to add the head, but I tried. She looked
like she was falling, so I drew her a blue sky in which to descend, I
gave her some clouds for her free-falling. I wanted to encourage her, so
I penciled the words, “Trust the Fall”, to comfort her. As I watched
her fall, to my surprise, all at once, I saw the rays of a golden sun
below, the sun she was falling towards, not away from, so I penciled in
the sun. She was falling into the light, not into the abyss. “Trust the
Fall!”, I whispered to her. I cheered for her quietly because it was
morning, and I had only had a few sips of coffee. Instead of the
free-fall, I saw, instead, a trust-fall, and soon she would see the sun,
she only need believe. Her face now looked of surrender, I gave her
innocent eyes that looked like ones who trust until they see.
Psalms 92:12 The righteous will flourish like the palms tree: he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
The best thing about us is the YOU in this little person-realmy-realm. You are the flavor of spring in me, the buzzy-bee, happy-We. You smell like hyacinth, you feel feather-light, your magic swells my senses. I am high. I am high.
The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. W.B. Yeats
You are the way to hopeful days, the glimpse of light, the glint of gold, the hallelujah here.
You are the way to say, to say the words that like to play. You lend a phrase to display the holy way that unloads the heart of its heavy joy, to spread it around this little patch of world I move in.
Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Lord, how shall I celebrate a new morning? Birds are already singing it up a storm out there, rooster is saluting the morn, frogs in the pond are piping and I, the tallest, weightiest of all sit in a silent stupor. Why is this? They are so fully invested with YOUR purpose, so without hesitation of their call. It is You in their throats, in their chests, in their movement and song. It is Your eternal purpose in them, without choice they go along happily it seems. It is beautiful, sure, purposeful, comforting to know that they will always do what they were intended to do; not robots, but creatures full of divine, unaltered purpose.
It's the creatures with choice that falter. It's us with our own navigation systems that go the wrong direction. It is us with doubts about our purpose that sit in a stupor unhinged. We, often as if sitting behind a curtain, live veiled from the movements of God-- adrift without a compass.
Jesus said he did only what He saw his Father doing. He showed what synchrony between the two can do. When he sparked debate at the temple or stood speaking to the crowds, when he struck out in a boat to meet a demoniac on the other side, he saw it first in the place that we also can see. He did what his Father was doing and put His hands and feet to this on earth. Isaiah 60:l
What is perfection to me?--
The bark on an old oak tree,
the colors of a lake just waking up,
the cool waves of the sea?
What is perfection?--the chubby hands of a child,
the evening call of a whipporwill, frisky puppies going wild.
The cardinal in his flaming red suit, showy and brilliant always catching my eye, the embrace of a mother calming the fray, the calloused hands of a man gently leading the way. Perfection is living and loving and seizing the day.
What is perfection to me? The heart emptied of pride now filling with life, the turning of the eyes towards the light. Perfection is the beginning of redemption, the first steps towards "home".
Who can condemn the heart who's relented, repented and real? Not perfect in all of our ways, but perfectly in process of being healed.
What is perfection to me?--It is love covering another's faults, it's holding of hands and carrying on. Perfection is people clean through the cross, all covered in grace, accepting themselves, who we are, who we were, and who we will be.
Every blog has a song inside it. Today a love song because our Father so deeply loves us. Click and loop to hear it while you read. 🙂
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I have pulled up a chair, poured a hot cup, I've had a cleaning cry when I needed to, I've poured it all out and I've kept it all in and found that it's ok either way. I've stayed as long as I've liked, and I've come back when I may because there is time--my lifetime going on forever. The conversation that will never end has been a midnight discourse, a pondering parley, it's been a desperate question with a year's long answer, an immovable opinion remedied with His single word. You're invited into the dialogue, but I've found it is prudent to listen awhile too--listen a lifetime.
I've peered into the Great Story to see some of the first starters like, "Let there be light!" and "Be fruitful and multiply". I've heard the first words of young Jesus saying, "Didn't you know I would be about my Father's business?" Year after year, page after page, His Word permeates the reader, overflowing one's life, bringing eyes and ears alive to Him. It leaps off the page to meet me here in room, in my car, in my world. The conversation has begun, and it will never end, but one must take one's place and join in.
All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved...Romans 10:13
I've tossed silly, stormy questions that He hung straight up to dry. I've volleyed words only to run from His replies, blocking them out, pretending I didn't hear. I've marched into His office, and I've cowered behind the curtain unsure if I had His audience, if I had been heard. I've written Him books and books full of feelings, told Him my dreams and listened to His for me. I've heard that He traces the lines of every word, following along and I've known Him to break right in. He's rang bells to seize a moment with me, He's sent a song to share in my thoughts as I pray. And it's a conversation with no end. You can join in too. Most of you already have.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.....Isaiah 1:18
It started for me with a kneeling-prayer on my dad and mom's dining room floor, an admission, a repentance, a glancing back at a self-driven life to say goodbye and start anew, start the conversation that has gone on until now and will go on forever.
Sometimes I step back from the dialogue in ugly unbelief while He moves near. I may falter in my speech while He's finessed a forest for me to find a word in, to feed my ears and eyes His feelings for me and the way forward. I may stutter. I will stammer only to feel the wind and find the sky has coalesced into meaning and direction. I find He has carved a cloud into holy speech, a picture of His written Word. And this conversation will go on and on. If you don't yet know, He wants to talk to you too...but I bet you know.
There have been love notes galore that remind me, "For God so loved the world", and books sent to shake me out of my stupors and into discipline and correction. His words have come by way of men and women speaking His heart's utterance for me.
Do not neglect the spiritual gift that is in you, which was given to you when the prophets spoke and the elders laid their hands on you. 1Timothy 4:14)
I've heard it through signs on the highway, signs in the sky, from stones on the ground, from the mouths of children, the eyes of animals and in any way He chooses to reveal His mind and echo His timeless nature and Word. I posture myself to hear with belief. I exhort myself to listen and join the conversation with all of my heart as His whole world opens to form His-voice-to-see as it did in the beginning.
For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20
Looking in the mirror at the curling locks that reach around and down the front of my shirt. It was what I didn't do that created this moment for me. It's been awhile and I don't even know why. The bun or the braid or the pony tail lengthens and I have done nothing about it. And those strands of silver wisping lighter than the black, here they come and I let them show. It's what I didn't do that allows them their time and maybe I look all of my 55 these days because of what I didn't do.
If I didn't worry... if I didn't ...what then? It would take time, but something would grow from that looking away...that ignoring. Like the long curls cascading down the back a slow change would occur from what I didn't do... if I didn't worry, if I didn't.
And it has begun; the slow, the easy, the steady change, the turning of the back to the prodding problem, to the frightful future. To the bad news I turn my back and do nothing...Instead of acting, I just "trust fall" again and again. To the heavy thoughts of days ahead alone, of getting older and when things go wrong, of sickness and such silly things I do not sink into concern. I do not feed the frenzy that comes to me poking, asking, threatening to invade my head and my heart.
Once the frenzy came shouting at me and I pulled up a chair to listen awhile. What if "this"? What if "that"? It shouted. I went for a walk with my friend. 'Round and 'round on the road winding between tombstones and big old trees we walked shuffling a gathering of Canadians into the graves.
I told her what I'd heard and she said, "Rhonda....the Lord! The Lord is already there at the end of each concern and He will take care of you." Sometimes I need a friend to help me in what I shouldn't do. I shouldn't worry. And if I don't something new will grow. It will. And I will look different. I will talk different. A change will come because of what I didn't do.
May I sit with you for but a few more hours
and bless you for being you?
May I smell your blooming flowers
and watch your mulberries ripen soon?
May I brag about the roses
that choose your welcome to open wide?
And may I bring you this offering,
this feeling? I will try.
Your days grow sweetly longer,
your showers come to find
the soil that needs more water,
the flowers and the vines.
I breath you in to savor.
I drink you in my thirst.
I bless you in your breezes,
I marvel at your worth!
The purest smell of privet,
the dandelion blooms,
daylily and magnolia
all draw me from my room.
I'll plant a little garden
when I find a piece of ground,
an orchard and a vineyard
'cause you'll be back real soon.
You are my shining favorite.
I don't wish for you to go.
Can't we just start all over?
-- May 1st, I love you so.
Your days passed by too quickly,
your benefits astound
and I am left to linger
till you circle back around.
The sight of a soft cat on the floor, utterly relaxed,
batting the ornament she took from my small tree caught my eye.She is rolling about with it, immersed in the
amusement. It has struck me that these are moments of the profound.
Nearby an uptight human sitting at her computer, praying robust and hard
prayers for sons, for country, for city, for leaders, for churches, for
justice, her shoulders are tightly held, her mind is fixed and her heart is
sober and hopeful until this glancing to the right and this funny beholding
sets the mind suddenly free as the full-bodied, well-fed cat bats the small, red ornament
under the couch.She may do this for the
entire day, I mused. She’s evidently done this all night as I found the small tree
laying flat on its face and ornaments scattered across the room.She’d jumped into my lap three times this
morning hoping to sway me to her will: “Pat me. Pay attention to only me! Can’t
you hear me purring?!”
What is the profound in this to me? It is this, "Don't forget to be free, to be
at ease, to linger in the peace that is yours to enjoy." Should only the cat
enjoy the peace and ease afforded us? Let your prayers for justice, for
freedom, for truth, for mercy rise high. Pray your prayers and then rest in a measure
of the cat’s peace and you will have it all.😉
AndthepeaceofGod, which surpasses all comprehension, will guardyour hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7
Who is this little worm, but a mite on my
windshield?Wiggling about, such a phenomenon.
So small, not more than half a centimeter, but charged with the vigor of an
athlete.I thought his tummy must be
full of food to have such energy-- and how did he light upon my windshield?Had he been spinning a long strand of web
too?
I had a trunk full of groceries.I bought a little extra this time in case I
can’t go back soon. The little worm
shrugged at me with a blushing of pink all about.He has no care over powerful monopolies of food and such things. He needs no warehouse of goods to sustain him. He feeds in the
open air as I plopped my bulk groceries down into a large cart. Alone in the
warehouse full of people, no one bothered to look much at the other, all awkward
behind masks. He feeds outside of the
system I’m in, I mused. He does not envy
me nor beg to come in.What more could
he need? Little worm, how I'd like to enter yours.
I, inside my car, trying to enjoy a moment beside
a lovely lake, but concerned about the cottage cheese and meat in my cooler and
concerned that I find a bathroom in due time. I’m caught up in a system chosen
for me before I was.Need it always be?
Little worm, may I come into your way?Leave the extra canned goods behind and wander
in the ease of your dwellings?The lake was
mine for only a few moments, but it is yours your whole life through, though beautifully
short and sweet. We try much harder than you to extend ours.
"Get out of the car, get out of the race for the
normal and safe", I say to myself. Let the world go on fading and the King take His place. What am I saying?Do I even yet know?I’m
only “considering the lilies” and a promise I hold.
Mathew 6: 25 "Therefore I tell you, donotworryaboutyourlife, whatyouwilleat or drink; or
about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than
food, and the body more than clothes…….
