Welcome to my August

It is a fantasy, to imagine someone I love appearing, unannounced, on the doorstep for cake and tea.  Of course, if it were unannounced, the cake would not yet be made, but we could nip on chocolate while we waited for it; there's always a store of chocolate.  Or we could have a bonfire in the backyard, with hotdogs roasted over open flames.  And long, sweet conversation with lots of laughter.

I keep the beds made up with clean sheets, and I stock the guest bathroom with my favorite soap, moisturizer and shampoo.  There is even a stash of new toothbrushes in the bottom drawer!

Oh, the dream of a balm for loneliness.

August is so pretty, when the flowers finally reach their full bloom.

This is the walk to my front porch, crossing in front of my wild tangle of growing things.  Do you see the magnificent rosebush from our 30th anniversary?  There's another on the other side of the garage, but that one only has five or six blooms.  They make my heart overflow with gratitude.

Here is a closer shot of this fabulous bush in its prime.

And a close up of a gorgeous rose.

And another!

This is the bush as it stands today.  Each day, I tell myself, "Today I must deadhead it so it can go again."  And each day, I decide to wait one more day.

Just around the corner, my hummingbird feeder hangs nestled among red four o' clocks.  

The hummingbirds like the four o' clocks even better than the syrup. 

(1 cup boiled water plus 1/4 cup white sugar)

The cosmos are always slow, but hope springs eternal for these lovely blooms.

Further down the line, mini zinnias.  

Last year's zinnias were supposed to top out at 48 inches, 

but they surpassed 7 feet!  

Shawn doesn't like really tall flowers, so I got these minis.  

They offer me a precious surprise each day, 

tucked between four o' clocks and marigolds.

My front door in early morning light, 

while the four o' clocks are still mostly open.  

These flowers are at their best between 8 pm and 8 am. 

and they smell divine all night long.

A riot of four o' clocks

More four o' clocks

Pink four o' clocks at about 8:30 or 8:45 a.m. as they are closing up for the day.

This is how my front door looks most of the day, without early morning light or open flowers.

My front yard lamp-post island garden. Oy, have we worked to remake this!

We'll take a tour around the circle:

Luscious cleome winding in and out of pink coneflowers.  Coneflowers are perennials, and cleome self-seeds, so this is some low-maintenance joy for me.

Coneflowers are so photogenic, I can't stop myself photographing them.

Here we have coneflowers in front of purple salvia.  

I bought the salvia for super cheap this spring, because it had been frostbitten.  

I cut it back and planted it.  It's grown and bloomed like a champ ever since.  

Makes my heart swell a little.

More of my survivor salvia.

And a close up, just because I love this plant.

Here it is in context, between a lily and a daylily (which are both done), 

and in front of sedum (yet to bloom), yellow four o' clocks, and coneflowers.

Beyond the sedum, an obedient plant 

(the one with white flowers--it's also called false snapdragon) 

which I was thrilled to find at the nursery.  

I had one of these in NY and loved it.  

This time, I bought three!

Another view of the obedient plant.

Apricot coreopsis.  I also had coreopsis in NY, and it was a favorite.  

I always seem to plant this guy on the side of the bed 

that I have to walk around to see, but in this case it is also the street side, 

so I hope it does well and gets appreciated.

I adore these pink asters, and they are adding to the butterfly appeal of this garden.  

(This bed holds a collection of plants that attract butterflies, 

and the monarchs have already been visiting!) . 

Unfortunately, I am allergic to these beauties, 

and had a bit of a reaction after deadheading today.

 This is a new plant that I have no experience with.  Malva zebrina.  The literature says it is tough and easy to grow.  Almost invasive, says one source.  

I can only hope that such a pretty (and butterfly attracting) plant will be invasive!!

That's my front yard, my August joy.

When I'm lonely, I can putter in the dirt.

I suppose it is not a strange thing that older women 

turn to plants and pets 

when their children leave home.  

Something to fuss over and care for.

My beauty strategy

So.

It is said that, over time, dog owners transmorph to look like their dogs.

Growing up, I had a Boston terrier.  This made me insecure and paranoid.  When you have a dog that is known for being "so ugly, it's cute," it is not a comforting thought that you might conform to that ugliness in your own appearance, eventually--even if it is supposedly a "cute" ugliness.

As an I adult, I decided to get the prettiest dog I could find, in hopes of improving my own appearance by osmosis.  This is my style of beauty therapy, my kind of strategy.  No waxing, tweezing, tinting, contouring, highlighting or wrapping for me.  No, I just want to sit and hold a dog, thank you.

Piper was a gorgeous dog.  Dear little Pi.

Then we got Schubert, who is as cute as a dog could possibly be.  He's not "pretty," exactly, but he is absolutely darling.

This gave me hope.  As I go out with my aesthetically stunning dog, and reap compliments (once at the vet, another dog owner looked past his own pup to our little Schu and said, "That is seriously the cutest dog I have ever seen"), I have hope that the aesthetics will rub off.

The other night I was brushing Shubert's teeth before bed.  Shawn holds him for me in our hallway, and I brandish the toothbrush.  Wielding a brush laden with poultry-flavored toothpaste, I looked at these two guys that my heart throbs for, and I noticed:

Shawn is the one who looks like Schubert.  Shawn.  Not me at all.

Oh well.

Thankful for beauty

Today we took a November walk in the park.

Many of the leaves have fallen.  In the aftermath, trees stand exposed, their bare twigs branching delicately off the ends of limbs.

Here a tree reaches for the vast blue sky, spots of red color lingering, embellishing.

Even weed seeds have some glory when the sun strikes them at a certain angle.

Space, lacy trees, blue sky.

Bright red berries shining just before evening.

More weeds, standing golden before the edge of the forest.

After 25 years in the Northeast, I never seem to tire of open space and big blue sky.

Magical sun dispersing slanted beams through the thicket and onto the path,

lighting up some last golden leaves on the way.

Layers of shadow, vertical trunks, illuminated meadow, far off tree row, 

slices of space and light.

Trees and space and so much sky.

A wild-flower blooming in November, and who would have thought blue?

This is where we live.

So much beauty, right outside my door.

And that's only this beauty, here, today.

There are also babies, puppies, roses,
Waterfalls, lullabies,
A tiny rainbow reflection from a piece of crystal near the window,
Songbirds,
Always the sun and the sky.

When other things are wrong and terrible, we can turn our eyes towards beauty.

I believe that God made beauty so we could find some hope when our souls are in distress.  Beauty is a sign of His presence in this world, and His promise of infinitely more beauty in the world to come.

Finally, brothers, 

whatever is true, 

whatever is honorable, 

whatever is just, 

whatever is pure, 

whatever is lovely, 

whatever is commendable, 

if there is any excellence, 

if there is anything worthy of praise, 

think about these things.

~Philippians 4:8 (ESV) 

I am thankful for beauty.

Thoughts about reality

Shawn has been a business traveler for the past two weeks, but he is en route home today, hallelujah.

It gets lonely when he is gone, especially after the sun sets, and especially when I am sick.

The upshot: I've watched more HGTV than usual.  For anyone who isn't familiar with HGTV, that's the Home and Garden channel on cable, but I don't think it has much to do with gardens.

With Shawn gone, I had the opportunity to glut myself on HGTV, which I did, until I got sick to death of if and stopped.

HGTV is simply an advertising vehicle designed to make people feel insecure about their houses and frantic to spend all kinds of money on paint and funky furniture so they can be updated in their homes, too!

It doesn't help that I am not enamored of the current trend towards everything cold and white and gray and stainless steel.  That's not a home!  That's a hospital room!

The last night I watched, the people on the show delightedly attacked a beautiful travertine bathroom with a sledgehammer.  They replaced it with something "sleek and modern."  I thought I was going to throw up.  Our bathroom has a beige fiberglass shower unit.  It's not very pretty, but it's in good shape, and it's easy to clean.  As we make other updates to the bathroom, I am choosing simply to ignore it.  I would be very thankful if I had a beautiful travertine bathroom.  I would not smash it out.

I can't stand when first-time homeowners (HGTV has a show called "Househunters") walk into a house with a lovely oak kitchen outfitted with perfectly clean and functional--even matching--white appliances, and say, "Ugh!  It will cost so much to update this!"  Has no one ever considered that cabinets can hold your kitchenwares, even if they are not shaker-styled white particleboard?  Also, I understand that while you love white cabinets, you hate white appliances, but a white refrigerator can keep your milk just as cold as a stainless one (and a stainless refrigerator will get just as dirty as a white refrigerator if you don't clean it).  Has nobody ever thought, "Well, this isn't exactly what I would choose, but it's in good condition, and functional, and it's not even a garish color.  We can certainly live with it until it wears out."

I noticed awhile ago that the HGTV numbers are all wrong, too.  Back in the day, you used to see a list (who had it?  Realtors?  Contractors?).   Anyway, it had things listed in terms of the value of the remodel.  For a kitchen or a bathroom, you could recoup up to 85% of your remodel costs when you went to sell.  A basement was only 50%.  Everyone knew that you didn't get your money back on home improvement projects, and you had to be wise as you decided what you would do with your house.

But now, now that HGTV exists to sell advertising to the home improvement industry, suddenly they are featuring shows about houses where the people start a remodel, find a water problem in their basement, spend half their budget fixing the basement, and end up raising the value of their home by twice what their original budget was.  Seriously.  They make it look like you can waterproof your basement and reroute your plumbing, and recoup 200% of what you spend with the increase in home value you will reap.  Ludicrous.

Anyway.

Yesterday I got the mail.  There was an ad from Vistaprint  about saving 50% on Christmas cards.

Sucker punch.

Nope.  We're done now.  Who knew the nest could empty that fast?  Move in 2013.  Wedding in 2014.  Boom.  No more cute kids to photograph.   No more newsy updates to write.  No more funny family stories to share.  They are all independent adults, living in scattered corners of the country.  Their stories are their own to tell now.  As far as Shawn and me -- ha -- it would be just ridiculous for us to send out a picture of ourselves, at our age.

If we send Christmas cards, we will probably buy them at a store, in a box, and simply sign them.

On a bright note, I made a crustless quiche on Sunday, and it lasted me all week.  This morning I woke up hungry.  The quiche sat in the refrigerator, fully half of it still in the pie plate.  I cut some for myself, microwaved it and enjoyed it with a cup of tea.

Schubert keeps watch at the sidelight by the front door, a constant low rumble in his chest.  Piper sleeps hard on the floor, a melancholy whistle in his chest as he labors to breathe.  I type away at my computer, glancing out the window in front of me at morning sun on autumn leaves, a cold in my chest, but also contentment.

That poem Grandma Rainbow had hanging in her bathroom.  I loved the rhyme scheme: ABCD, ABCD.

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven—
All's right with the world!

   ~Robert Browning 


Well, it's not spring; it's autumn.  
Still, beauty surrounds us.
Even were it not beautiful, 
God would be in heaven.
God is also here, with us, near.
There's plenty wrong with the world, 
but our hope is in the Lord.
The Lord is absolutely faithful;
Hope in Him will be fulfilled.
Peace and joy mark our walk in this life
because we look forward 
to the New Heaven and the New Earth
where everything really will be all right.
Everything beautiful now 
simply points to then.
It's coming.

 

Grace and Beauty

One of my friends is dying.

When we moved to Syracuse in 1988, she and her husband were almost our very first friends.  They'd moved here from Great Britain and I don't even know how long they'd been here.  They had a new baby girl, Diana.

Her name was Fizzy, which was a nickname for Frances.  I think she didn't like the name Francis, because years later, after they had moved to Pennsylvania, she changed her name to Elizabeth.  I am sure that this was easier to explain when meeting people for the first time; and yet, I will always think of her as Fizzy, because the adjective suited her so well.  She was bubbly and bright, witty and charming, refreshing like a perfectly chilled carbonated soda.  Effervescent.

She hosted a baby shower for me when I was expecting Shannon.  She was fun, so it was fun.  I remember coming into her house and seeing a large punchbowl on the counter in her kitchen, with fog rolling out of it, over the edge of the bowl and the edge of her counter, creeping down to the floor.  They'd put dry ice into the punch to make a big impression, and it worked, because 25 years later, the image is etched in my memory.

My life, during the time that we knew her best, was consumed by nauseous pregnancies, so my memories are hazy.  I do remember that they helped us move from our apartment into our first house.  By "helped," I mean that they did the work, along with Shawn and two other couples, while I lay, nauseated, on whatever horizontal surface was available.  At the time, I had a job with an advertising agency and I was storing my ad clippings in a box under my bed.  One of our other volunteer movers found this box filled with pieces of newspapers, and went to toss it in the trash.  In the nick of time, Fizzy recognized that it was significant.  She quietly saved it for me, and then alerted me to where she had put it for safekeeping.

Oddly, many of my memories of her are of stories told after events that I missed, like the time she met the actor who played Javert in Les Mis (Shawn and I couldn't go because the show conflicted with Shannon's birth).  I've written about it before.  She was always sort of charmingly brash and witty, and she'd had dinner with the actor before the show because he was the brother of a friend of ours.  She joked and jibed with him, unselfconsciously, just being her sparkly self.  But after the show, after she'd seen him perform and heard him sing, she was dumbstruck.  Everyone got quite a kick out of that, the idea of Fizzy being dumbstruck!

Another time, a group of us girls were going to go out for dinner together.  For whatever reason, I wasn't able to go in the end.  But I heard afterwards that Fizzy had turned up to the restaurant in a gorgeous deep blue evening gown and sparkling jewelry, completely out-dressing everyone else.  If it had been anyone but Fizzy, it might have been interpreted as an attempt to intimidate.  However, she was not like that at all, and thus everyone found riotous delight in her glorious finery.

They had a spacious blue living room with comfortable blue furniture.  We sat around in that room and had small group Bible study.  It was usually at their house, and it was my favorite when it was at their house.  Anthony was a good leader, too, well prepared and organized, insightful in his questions, but never dominating as a teacher.  They had a blue sofa and a blue loveseat, and at that time in our lives it became a joke that Shawn and I should avoid sitting on that loveseat together, because every time we did, I seemed to turn up pregnant shortly thereafter.

I even babysat her children for a short while, when Laura was a little baby.  I remember teaching Timothy that our baby's name was "Baby Lo-Lo." I was pretty overwhelmed with life at that point in time, and the babysitting gig couldn't last.  Still, it was truly a high point of each day when Fizzy poked her cheerful face in my door while dropping off or picking up her children.  Shawn was a direct report to Anthony at work in those days, and Anthony was an excellent boss who has remained a life-long friend.

Time passed, and they moved to Pennsylvania.  Each year, faithfully, a Christmas letter would arrive, full of news and humor and Elizabeth's unique way of finding joy in the paradoxes of life.

She changed her name sometime after moving to Pennsylvania.  I have never before known anyone who changed her (or his) name, but then, I have never known anyone like Elizabeth, or Fizzy-Elizabeth, as I have cataloged her in my mind.  It has a ring, doesn't it?  Fizzy-Elizabeth.

Every year, her Christmas letter would arrive, and this past year it arrived as well, witty and upbeat as always, but candidly explaining that she'd come home from a cruise last summer with what she thought was a stomach bug and discovered it was cancer of the appendix.  It was so very Fizzy-Elizabeth, the way she spoke of it. Right there, in the middle of the letter, no pussy-footing around, no complaining, a well-placed joke here and there to keep our spirits up (she would be very concerned about that).  She thought it would have been handy if one of her kids could have found a cure for this a year or so ago, but it wasn't the kind of research they did.

That was December.  They were also in the middle of selling their house, for Anthony had received a job-transfer to Denver.  Pennsylvania to Colorado, trans-continental move, with incurable appendix cancer (there was so much cancer, they couldn't even take out her appendix; it was like salt and pepper, the surgeon said).

In March, they moved.  Thinking back on the trauma of my own move in 2013, I cannot imagine how this came to pass, but I do know that God works miracles and gets you places you never thought you could go.  I think back to how Fizzy helped me move when I was incapacitated with pregnancy in 1989, and I just pray, because when you want to be the hands of Jesus, but you are separated by so many miles, then prayer is the thing to do.

Since the move, things have gone downhill.  Elizabeth can no longer update her own Caringbridge journal entries, so Anthony has taken over.  Of course, Elizabeth used to write with cheeky humor, noting such things as the incongruity of how they put her on a clear liquid diet, but still made her drink barium before her stomach scans.  Anthony writes with quiet realism and perceptive awareness of the punctuating details as this journey progresses--a neighbor's dog following him home from a walk and into their house, a golf ball bouncing onto the deck between them as they sat enjoying the mountain view.  It is real.  It is happening.  Our friends are experiencing this in all of its oddly intermingled pain and strangeness and ordinariness and excruciating beauty.

She may have hours, or days.  They are all together, there in Colorado, Anthony, Elizabeth, Diana and Timothy.  I imagine her formerly robust self, now cancer-skinny and wordless, hooked up to tubes, unable to move her limbs, each breath a miracle of a sort.  Anthony writes that they are quite sure she is not in pain, not that they can tell.  Yesterday she rallied and walked to the bathroom, with support.  She has fought the good fight.  Today she is resting.

I think of a beautiful life, a life lived in kindness and hospitality and concern for the hurting.  She served, she prayed, she encouraged, she cheered.  Now it is time for the rest of us to do these things for her.

God gives us flowers and sunsets across billowing clouds, mountain views and skies of azure.  He puts beauty in the world around us, and somehow, this comforts us.  I don't know why, but it does.  Perhaps it is because He is beautiful, and the beauty reminds us that He exists, and He has a kingdom, a perfect, beautiful kingdom.  Fizzy-Elizabeth will be there soon, but we will get there, too, by faith.

The righteous perish,
    and no one ponders it in his heart;
the devout are taken away,
    and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
    to be spared from evil. 

Those who walk uprightly
    enter into peace;
    they find rest as they lie in death.

~Isaiah 57:1-2

On the idea of the Life Force and wasted maple seeds.

On Tuesday I swept bushels of maple seeds off our deck.

In Liverpool we had a maple tree, and it dropped seeds, but somehow it was nothing like the maple seed profusion we have here.

Maybe it's because we have two trees?  I don't know, because it seems like significantly more than twice as many seeds.  They pile in the landscaping as thick as mulch, and I halfheartedly try to scoop them up with my hands when I go out to weed.  They litter the roof and stick up out of the "gutter guards" that are supposed to shield our gutters, like a scabby blond fringe.  If we don't get up there and clean them off, they might produce a vagrant crop of little maple trees sprouting on high.

A couple of weekends ago, Shawn and I sat out on the sun porch while maple seeds flew off the tree in back, filling the sky like a swarm of spinning insects, catching the sun on their glistening backs as they spiraled madly through the air, droves of them, glancing off the windows with sharp pings.

More will germinate than I would wish, but even so, it is overwhelming to think how many will simply decay and come to nothing.  So much plant potential unrealized.  How much potential life is squandered in this world, I wonder?

Springtime and seeds, new life, goslings, fawns, baby bunnies (Shawn saved a rabbit litter the other day while he was mowing), nests filled with eggs, unfurling leaves and flowers and blossoms, weddings and honeymoons and newborn babies, all these things are precious reminders of the grace of God in our fallen world.

God left this life-force at work in the world, even after sin had stolen in and sullied perfection.  Even though all creation hurtles towards ultimate destruction under the death-force of the serpent who deceived and stole, even though everything in all creation is on a path towards death and decay, God left a life-force in the world as a witness of Himself:  Beauty.  New Birth.  Hope.

I once knew a lady who told me that she particularly loved music and flowers.  "Music and flowers," she told me, "are special gifts from God because they aren't good for anything except just to be enjoyed, just to be beautiful."  She wasn't married, so I was embarrassed to tell her what occurred to me--and I kept quiet--that flowers are the seed-producing part of the plant.  Flowers are all about reproduction, or, you know, sex.

Sex, sunrise and springtime are the beautiful things, the hopeful things that God gives us for encouragement, to bring us joy and hope eternal.  It isn't any wonder that the crafty old serpent does everything he can to mess up our encouragement and our hope.  He can't affect the natural rhythms that God built into the cosmos of a day or a year, but he can get to us where our ideas of sex are concerned.

Sex is good.  God gave it to us so that parents would bond to one another in love and loyalty, and so that people would want to populate the earth, enjoying, marveling in the miracle of new life.  The life force, under the design of God, is a very good thing.

I've been studying Romans, and it is interesting to look at how the descent into sin progresses.  First there is a denial of God, a refusal to acknowledge who He is and that He exists.  Second, after denying God, the person begins to worship something else, a created thing rather than the Creator.  This is also known as idolatry, but it doesn't necessarily involve worshiping a statue.  We were created to worship, and so we must worship something; if not God, then perhaps money, fame, power, popularity, entertainment, pleasure, comfort or even straight-up self.  Third, as humans devalue themselves by worshiping worthless things, they become consumed by trying to fulfill their own pleasures, which leads to sexual sins.  Fourth, the descent into sexual sin opens the door to all manner of sins: lying, cheating, arrogance, backstabbing, murder, hatred, mercilessness.  Fifth, they become recruiters, encouraging others to sin with them.  (See Romans 1:18-32 for more details.)

It is interesting that sexual sin is third on the list, a subtle sin on the way to obvious sins.  This does not mean that sexual sin is less significant.  According to Jesus, the most important commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; to break this command is to be indifferent, to refuse to acknowledge God.  To break the most important commandment must be a very significant sin indeed, but it is the very first sin in the chain of events, a "gateway sin" (like a gateway drug) that leads to uglier sins.  So, I'm not saying that sexual sin (at #3 in the chain) is less serious than other sin.  Rather, I'm saying that sexual sin is sufficiently surreptitious that it draws people in such a way that they do not apprehend the danger.  Sexual sin is harder for the average human to recognize as sin than, for instance, murder or even slander.  Sexual sin appears not to hurt anybody.  But really?

Sex is good, a life-force in opposition to the death-forces that are mostly at work in our fallen world.  God gave it to us in grace, with parameters and safeguards, so that we could see that there is hope of new life, new birth, happiness, love, beauty, pleasure, safety and security.  Of course the devil wants to pervert this.  Of course he does.  It is a picture of the beauty, goodness and faithfulness of the Lord, so the devil wants to scribble all over it and make God's reflection in it unrecognizable.

I think perhaps that the sins God finds ugliest and the sins we find ugliest are at opposite ends of the sin spectrum.  We have more repugnance for sins that show up as ugly, leaving bruises, blood and tears in their wake.  I think God despises the sins that are camouflaged, because they are the ones that lead us astray, deceiving us, and He pities us.  God created both the laws of nature and the laws of morality, the physical universe and the moral universe.  He understands how it all works, while our understanding is very limited.  God knows that all sin leads to death, and someday He will bring an end to all sin.

For now, He is patient, wanting all men to come to repentance.  Yet, He is not patient forever.  In His perfect knowledge, God knows which people will never turn their hearts to Him.  As He waits and prepares for the final Day of Reckoning, He allows localized days of reckoning, days when the end comes for a neighborhood hit by a tornado, a city broken by an earthquake, an airplane full of people dropping into the sea.  These people meet their reckoning, and they are either ready to enter the presence of the Lord in joy, or they are forever lost on that day, like so many billowing maple seeds, swept up and tossed away, never to germinate.

Sometimes survivors get very angry when they see these calamities come to pass.  They insist that the Lord has no right to do such things, no right to bring any destruction on the earth.  They do not understand that every day God holds back complete annihilation from this evil world is a day of pure grace.  This world has been marked for destruction ever since Eve bit into the fruit, but God, in mercy and forbearance, has been working to save and purify a people for Himself anyway.  God's children will not live on this broken earth forever; He will deliver us to a New Heaven and a New Earth, redeemed and perfect, where there will be no more weeds, pestilence, disease, danger or sin.  This present earth is not the New Earth.  This present earth will never be utopia.  This present earth will burn, and God does not want us to burn with it.

Sometimes God, in His great mercy, allows partial calamities, times when people lose much, but not their lives.  This is a mercy, even grace, because He is reminding them that their day of reckoning will come, but it has not come yet.  They still have another chance.  Choose life, He exhorts.  Choose Jesus.

Hope

Spring is mostly here, early spring.  This is a very good thing.

My daffodils are not poking up yet, although my neighbor's are.  I am a little bit concerned.  I do have the beginnings of some crocuses, some red shoots that might turn into tulips, and a few tips of rhubarb in the back.  But no daffodils.

Early spring is not the most beautiful time of the year.  It may actually be the ugliest.  Walking in the park or driving across Wisconsin (we went to Minnesota last weekend), the dull gray of snow-moulded leaves dusts the face of the earth and bare branches spread, fatigued, into the chill March sky.  On a walk in Minnesota, we passed a yard where someone had turned on a sprinkler, an attempt to green up the lawn, but the grass was still brown, and icicles glistened on the twiggy limbs of a young tree that came under a spray of water each time the sprinkler oscillated.  Still, there is hope, so much hope, so much promise of green and growth, flowers and fruit yet to come.

I am sure it is no accident that the Lord set Easter in the springtime. After a long, cold, dark season, it is right that the Resurrection celebration should accentuate the earth's new life at the end of every winter.

The earth is tired and worn.  All creation is subject to bondage and decay, as in the same way we are, in our frail and earthy human bodies.  Just as we await our redemption, the earth awaits its.

We don't talk about this enough.  We talk about "going to heaven when we die," but we don't talk about the New Heaven and the New Earth, the new bodies that the Lord has promised to us.  He says, "Behold, I am making all things new."  It will happen, just as Jesus rose from the dead, just as spring comes every year.  Total redemption for all of groaning creation.

I am so tired of hearing people claim that there could not possibly be a god, because there is suffering in the world.  Clearly they have not read the Bible in their quest for God, because He tells us there, over and over, that suffering is a normal and expected part of life in a fallen world.  This is exactly why redemption is necessary.  This is why there will be a New Heaven and  New Earth: because we broke the original heaven and earth through our sin and our pride, our desire to be like God and to make our own decisions apart from His wisdom.  We live in a broken world that our ancestors messed up, but God has a perfect plan to restore it all, and He invites us to be a part of it.  He is taking His time in the process because He loves us, and He wants as many as possible to learn about Him and believe in Him before the end of this world.

And so we continue in this place that is full of beauty and wonder because He created it, but also full of sorrow and horror, because we rebelled and brought in sin.  There are flowers and oil spills, newborn babies and wars.  We have mountains, sunrises, sunsets, grapes, horses, dolphins, puppies, waterfalls and vegetable gardens.  We also have hurricanes, tornadoes, child abuse, sexual predators, stomach flu, racism and thieving politicians.  We have love, and we have cancer.  How can all these things exist together?  It's because everything God created was good, but He gave humankind the freedom of choice, and the choices we made were bad, and the tarnish began and has continued to this day, the perversion of evil twisting the inherent beauty of God's creation.

Still, there is hope because He is faithful to His promises, and way back in the garden of Eden, before He even threw them out, God promised Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would rise up and crush the serpent's head.  After the fall into sin, the entire remainder of the Old Testament is about how God was preparing the world for Messiah, setting up pictures, patterns, symbols, ancestors, parables, signs and prophets, everything pointing to the One who would come and put things to rights.

And then He came, Jesus came.  He fulfilled the prophecies, teaching, healing, restoring, reviving, and ultimately dying and rising again.  He came to bring us back into fellowship with the Holy God who sent Him.

"Why can't I just do what I want, if I'm not hurting anybody?  Why shouldn't I be able to have premarital sex, and abortions, and be homosexual if I so choose?  Who says I can't do what I want?  How am I hurting anyone or anything?"

Couldn't Eve have asked exactly the same question?  "Who says I can't eat this fruit?  It looks so good.  I'm sure it's very tasty.  How could a loving god possibly tell me I can't have this lovely piece of fruit?  That would be so mean."

It all comes down to pride and humility.  Are you humble enough to surrender to the God
who created you (and the entire Universe), and admit that He knows more about how it all works than you do?  Can you believe that the Creator understands His creation and knows what is good for it, and what is not?  Or are you pridefully determined that you know better than God?

If there is a God, and if He created all things intentionally and intelligently, as the Bible says, then it is rather silly even to imagine that you might know better than He does.

Of course, if you don't believe the Bible, you don't believe the Bible.  I guess that's another choice you make.  But your choice does not determine the ultimate truth of things; your choice is either right or wrong.

If you want to explore more, you can read these posts from the past:

On suffering (start series here).

On the the existence of God and the Bible.

On God as Creator of all things.

Grace

Lately, I've been extra aware of the need for grace.

I need grace, and you need grace.

I need to give you grace, but I cannot

until I have received some grace.

Fallen and dark, this world beats us down.

Miserable all, we huddle, scrunch, self-protect.

Among rainclouds, cold wind, damp feet,

we try to breathe but the air is putrid.

Unable to suck air for ourselves

we are utterly unable to oxygenate others.

Selfishness, pride, dishonesty, fear and competition

drive us away from one another and into our own personal suffering.

Where does it end?

Where can we find the bright, shining freedom to love and give grace?

How can we learn that joy is multiplied when shared,

that kindness breeds kindness.

Beauty from ashes, that's what we crave.

I want someone to love me until I am beautiful,

and when I am beautiful, I want my beauty

to give me courage to give grace,

confident that my grace, given, will be powerful,

powerful enough to transform someone else's ashes into beauty --

and then to do it again, and again, and again

until the world has been changed.


We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19 NIV84

The story of Laura's wedding

Amazing.

Simply amazing.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, 

according to His power that is at work within us, 

to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, 

forever and ever!  Amen."  

~Ephesians 3:20-21

My father read that scripture in the wedding ceremony as part of a longer passage.  

My heavenly Father came through and did more than we had asked or imagined.  

And I just noticed today:  

"...to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations..."  

The perfect, everlasting union of Christ and His church, which is the ultimate reality that every marriage tries to reflect, was there, right there, in those very words.

For starters, the weather was perfect.  

The previous day (July 4, and, incidentally, Lu's favorite holiday) was sunny, dry and 72.  We had a fabulous time with our friends, Ann and Walter, and their two daughters.  Matthew and Lulu served root-beer floats to the bridal party and other friends in Lulu's hotel suite, securely closing the door to the bedroom where her dress hung, of course!  I thought, "Oh dear.  We got the perfect day today.  We can't possibly hope for two perfect days in a row."  But July 5--the day of the wedding--was sunny, dry and 76, just as perfect but a touch warmer, so I was okay even though I forgot my sweater at the hotel.

We were all nervous, and had trouble choking down our breakfast.  I don't think Lu ate a bite.

After showering and dressing in preliminary clothing, the first order of the day was to drop the decorations off at the reception venue.  Mind you, this was the first time I ever saw the reception venue.  We had driven past the outside during the deep freeze of last November, but I'd never gotten up to the door, let alone inside.  (I guess when you've bought a house sight unseen off the internet the previous year, it is not such a big deal to rent a wedding venue without looking at it.)

The bridesmaids all came and helped us carry 17 brown paper grocery bags, each with the set up for an individual table, as well as other things.  When we finished, it was a rush back to the hotel to gather everything we needed for the ceremony and get over to the church to meet the photographer.

We left the hotel in waves.  I said, "If Daddy and I stay back until last, you can call us and tell us to grab anything you might have forgotten."

My darkest moment was around 12:12 p.m. when Shawn and I were in the van on the way to the church, late and unsure of whether we had everything.  There was a lot of brown paper involved in this wedding, and right then I could have used a brown paper bag to breathe into.

Leading up to the wedding, time blurs in my mind.  All of the girls were gathered in an upstairs room at the church, braiding hair and getting dressed. Food sprawled all over the table, bagels and fruit, crackers, cheese, grapes, bottled water.  I remember feeling like I was going to die of thirst and going around heedlessly drinking the dregs of any water bottle I could find, against all better judgment... but that was actually later.

The photographer took pictures.  I hope she got some good ones, because I got exactly four.  Four.  Here is one of them:

After that, I forgot both my camera and my phone in the the upstairs dressing room, and later in the van.  So I have virtually no photographic record of the day.  Shawn reassures me that the mother of the bride never has time to take pictures and that this is, in fact, precisely why one hires a photographer.  So I hope the photographer took some good pictures, because I did not.

When everybody was ready, and the photographer was off photographing the boys, we took a moment to join hands in a circle and pray, a precious memory.  There could never be a more amazing group of girls than the group showering love on my daughter that day.

At just the right time, Connie, the wonderful wife of the church's pastor, came to get us and take us to the back of the church.  The church was a charming place, a historic building with an antique, working bell tower, but it also had a modern addition.  I am not sure how it was all laid out and connected together, but we were upstairs in a spacious room with a huge walk-in closet (the girls dressed in it).  Outside the room was a corridor with a kitchenette, and a bathroom at the end of the hall.  There was also an elevator.  Connie led us all into the elevator: herself, Laura, six bridesmaids, a flower girl, and me.  It was a crush of feminine excitement, that's for sure.

The church has a fantastic, well-tested system for keeping the bride and groom from seeing each other before she enters the back of the church.  We were to take the elevator down to the basement and cross underneath the church in a passageway... but somebody hit the button for the elevator to open on the first floor, right into the hallway where Matthew might be waiting to walk into the church!  The girls all hurriedly clustered around Lu to cover her up as the doors glided apart, but (whew!) the hallway was empty.

The doors closed, we selected the correct button, and soon the elevator delivered us to the basement where Shawn, waiting in his brand new gray suit, blinked back tears at the sight of his baby daughter all grown up and bedecked in her wedding finery.  We walked across the bottom of the church and up the curved stairway that opened to the tiny vestibule at the back of the church.  The event was upon us.

Standing at the back of the church, we waited for the appropriate music.  My brother was playing, and it was beautiful.  My biggest regret from the day is that I was unable to be in the sanctuary to hear the musical prelude; my brother Paul played piano, and my son David played some saxophone pieces accompanied by Paul, and I missed it.  I hope there will be another day.

Matthew's mother was seated, and then I took Jonathan's arm and he walked me into the church which was full of beautiful music and beloved friends and relatives.  It was surreal to be supported on the arm of my tall, handsome son, walking into my daughter's wedding, looking across the church at people from all over the country who had gathered there to witness the day with us.  They smiled at me, and I felt so much peace and love and beauty, I thought I might burst.

Paul began to play the processional, the very wedding processional that he had written for me twenty-seven years ago. The wedding party did what wedding parties do, and then it was time.  The music paused for a split second and then Paul's hands crashed down in triumph on the piano keys, embellishing the melody with runs and arpeggios.  The doors at the back of the church swung open with a grand whoosh, and there was Lulubelle, all perfectly bridal on her father's arm, white and pure, innocent and sparkling, smiling bravely as her dad's face crumpled just a little bit and he tucked her hand a little tighter into his elbow.  A loud rustle spread through the church as we all rose, and the piano thundered with grandeur, and Shawn and Laura walked steadfastly up the aisle to Matthew, who waited with tears streaming down his face.

I did not cry as much as I had expected to, only just a slight hiccup as she was coming up the aisle.  It was surreal, like you could taste the weddingness in the air and the beauty was not so much something you saw as something you felt seeping into the skin on your face.  The pastor was deep voiced and authoritative, not the pastor of the church (who was graciously helping with everything behind the scenes), but the pastor who had been Matthew's pastor since the day he was born.  Scripture was read and vows were made.  Rings were exchanged.  Traditions were honored.  Candles were lit and blown out, and hymns were sung with lusty gusto, from the heart.  I've never heard a congregation sing out with such fervor.

At the end, the pastor invited Matthew to kiss his bride; then he introduced the new couple.  The congregation burst into loud, vigorous applause that did not stop.  Laura and Matthew began to walk out of the church in the midst of the applause, and I put my hands out to try to signal them to stop, to wait until the recessional music began, but it was a like a tidal wave that would not let up.  Jon, who was to play Ode to Joy on his trumpet, saw them leaving and took it as his cue to start, imparting the glorious melody into the church, over the applause, as Paul joined him on the piano and the bridal party joyfully exited.

Jonathan and Matthew's brother, Andrew, dismissed the people row by row and gave everyone a small bell to ring.  We lined up on the path outside the church and waited.  As soon as everyone was out, Matthew and Laura went into the vestibule and pulled the rope to ring the antique bell in the bell tower.  They were supposed to ring it five times, but they rang it seven, because seven is the perfect number.  We clapped and cheered, and they came out of the church, walking between us as we rang our little bells and made a truly joyful noise.

Then there were some pictures with the photographer, and the overwhelming job of getting all of our things out of the church and over to the reception.  At this point, the platters of grapes and cheese and fruit looked delicious to me in the abandoned upstairs dressing room, and I spent some time gorging myself on strawberries and pineapple when I might should have been packing up.  Somehow, and with the help of certain kind and blessed people, we made it over to the reception where, again, we worked like dogs getting things set for when the guests would arrive.  My brother and his wife and their two (adult) children were there ahead of us, and we would have been in good shape except that I kept remembering things that I had forgotten.

When Lu and Matthew arrived to make their entrance at the  reception, I stepped outside to help Lulu bustle her dress.  Shawn was there, and the DJ joined us to ask some logistical questions.  This all happened at the same time, and I struggled to answer questions while trying to figure out which bustle tie went to which other tie.  In the midst of the chaos, up from the parking lot walked Mrs. Auser, our piano teacher of fourteen years, who is also a remarkable seamstress, and who fairly recently married off two daughters of her own.  "Don't worry about this," said Mrs. Auser.  "I've got this!"  God is so good, so good.  Who ever would have thought He would send Mrs. Auser just when we needed exactly her skills?

The reception was all burlap and barbecue, old glass bottles decorated with twine and lace, little wooden crates that Matthew had made that we filled with country-ish things, lemonade and iced tea and bottles of colorful sodapop.  This was when we actually got to see and enjoy our guests.  Instead of a receiving line, Laura and Matthew delivered plates of cupcakes to each table and spoke with each guest as they passed them out.

Near the end of things, while the joy was still full and the excitement still coursing, Lu and Matthew came to us, faces flushed and just a bit damp from exertion and elation, eyes glowing.  "We're leaving now," they said, and they did, hopping into Matthew's little car and driving off into the night.

And then came the point in the evening when I realized that the balls of my feet were beyond aching, that I was limping like a war victim, and that the entire place needed to be torn down and packed up.  As I rued the fact that I hadn't brought a sensible pair of shoes to change into, Sarah, one of the bridesmaids, came to me, still smiling and energetic.  "What can we do to help?" she asked.  And suddenly, there was a small army of people in their early twenties, bridal party and guests alike, sorting and organizing and taking apart, packing and loading things into our van.  After they finished getting our stuff, they even helped the caterers take down tables and stack chairs.  I pray that their excellent witness spoke Jesus to the people at the venue.

I was truly overwhelmed with wonder and thankfulness.  My heart was so full.  And, as we drove away--by then just Shawn and me in our van full of crumpled party paraphernalia--we saw fireworks going off in the distance over the tops of the trees, a perfect end to a perfect day.

Of course, we were too excited to go to sleep back at the hotel, so the lot of us sat around our room talking late into the night, until we got hungry again and I made fried eggs and fruit smoothies in our kitchenette, happy to use up the eggs and frozen fruit I'd purchased for our time there.

I still can't believe it.  I can't believe any of it.  But I think it's true anyway.

I need a nap.  I need a few naps.