Uncertain (Saturday Sort-of Plans)

I'm wondering what this day will hold.

I have plans off and on today that have left me feeling uncertain. Not nervous exactly, but tentative.

I woke too early, but was glad, when I caught one roommate before she left for the day, and managed to snag a check from her so that I can pay the telephone and internet bill.

I went to bed quite early last night. I was (sort of) watching a movie with my roommate and her fiancee, and found myself falling asleep on the couch. After tugging myself awake several times, I decided it would be a better idea to simply relocate to bed. And thankfully, I slept.

With many dreams. I've been dreaming about my family a lot lately, and a few friends.

Last night's was odd and poignant.

I woke, and startled for just a moment, staring at the tiny gap of light peeking around the edge of my blind. The tree branches were white, and I was ready to groan, "Snow, really? It was 25 degrees when I went to bed. Will winter never end??" And then coherency returned, and I realized that the crab apple tree outside my bedroom window is in full bloom. White blossoms everywhere. And that certain sign of spring made me smile just a little.

Eventually I tugged myself from bed, and showered, enjoying the fact that thanks to the massage I had last night, I can move my neck with somewhat less pain at the moment.

And, in between the uncertain things of the day, I'm going to clean. To sort through my closet and figure out which clothes are to be kept, and which can go. I'm doing laundry. And I'll take all the excess clothing to a thrift store for re-use or re-sale.

I have a writing project in mind, that I'd like to find time to sit and work on.

I may go grocery shopping.

And I want to plow forward in the book I'm reading.

I may go for a wander in the park.

Sunday

It's Sunday morning again.

When I woke this morning, I had a severe headache and stiff back, neck and shoulders. I got up just long enough to take painkillers, and then went back to bed to wait for them to become effective. The combination of the painkillers and a hot shower once the drugs had kicked in seems to be working, and I'm feeling pretty good at the moment. I'll make sure to stay well hydrated through the day, and hopefully keep the headache at bay via that method.

I'm sitting in the kitchen, near the patio doors, and paused just a moment ago when a robin landed on the deck railing, and preened before flying off. It finally feels a bit like spring here. Finally.

It's Mother's Day today, and in a few hours my brother will come to pick me up, and we'll have lunch together with our mom and grandma and family. Dad is barbecuing steaks, and there is other tasty food planned as well. I still need to write a card for my mom. I bought the card, but I need to put a message into it.

I actually feel like reading this morning, or working at least a little on a creative project, so I think I'm off to do those things.

Happy Mother's Day!

Still Waiting for Spring

another thought from Henri Nouwen.

The Autumn of Life

The autumn leaves can dazzle us with their magnificent colors: deep red, purple, yellow, gold, bronze, in countless variations and combinations. Then, shortly after having shown their unspeakable beauty, they fall to the ground and die. The barren trees remind us that winter is near. Likewise, the autumn of life has the potential to be very colorful: wisdom, humor, care, patience, and joy may bloom splendidly just before we fall to the ground and die.

As we look at the barren trees and remember our dead, let us be grateful for the beauty we saw in them and wait hopefully for a new spring.

April Fools?

It's a new month.

It's also the day famous for practical jokes. Not being a huge fan of the practical joke, I was reflecting this morning on two memories from April Fool's that don't involve jokes.

There was the day many, many years ago (not even sure how many now) when April Fool's also fell on Good Friday, and our family received a phone call telling us that some dear friends were about to have a long desired baby. The trouble was, the baby was coming about 4 weeks early, and because it was April 1st, it took the poor dad to be (who also had a reputation for enjoying a good joke) quite some time to convince my mom that his wife was in fact, in labor. It was an odd mix - the remembering of Good Friday's suffering, with the anticipation of welcoming a special little guy into the world. Many things have happened in the years since that day, and our two families have become disconnected, but I don't think I'll ever forget the emotions of waiting for that little guy to enter the world.

And, a year ago tonight, I received an email from a friend on the other side of the country. A happy email. She wrote something to the effect of, "Shh. We haven't told many people yet, but thought since we'd chatted about our relationship in Malta that you should be among the first to know. P. proposed to me tonight, and he assures me that it wasn't an April Fool's Joke!" I had the privilege of attending their wedding in Newfoundland last fall.

I'm needing some happy memories today.

It's a new month.

The first quarter of the new year is now past, the "newness" of the year is wearing off, and it hasn't brought with it any of the things I'd hoped for or expected.

And, it snowed again overnight.

So, this morning I'm focusing on happy memories, and praying for the coming of new things, the restoration of hope, and the arrival of spring - physically and metaphorically.

Spring???

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I was feeling like my heart was caught in the sort of "Narnian" situation that Lucy first encountered when she stumbled through the wardrobe. "Always winter, but never Christmas." Lots of cold and ice and never the anticipation of celebration and spring and new life.

The first day of spring came and went on Friday, and for a rare change, the weather here seemed to cooperate. It offered out a teasing hope that perhaps, even in my cold and tired heart, spring might come.

Turns out the weather is a bit of a tease. Most of the snow was melted yesterday, and there was dry brown grass, waiting for sunshine to perk it up and turn it into the green of spring.

This is the view that greeted me when I looked out the front door this morning:


That, my friends, is about a foot of snow, which fell sometime between midnight or so last night and 8:30 this morning when I looked outside. Or at least 8 inches anyway. And it's still falling. It was over the top of my boots. It took me half an hour to brush George off, and I'd only driven about 10 minutes when I hit an icy patch, slid into a guard rail, mashed up the front driver's side of my bumper (though thankfully without damaging anything essential) and decided to turn around and come home.

So. Always winter...

And I am praying and waiting again for spring. I am clinging to the fact that even in the deep, still falling snow the sparrows and chickadees were singing, trying to announce a change of season to the heavens. I'm finding the tiniest bit of hope in that.

And now, I'm off to lay in a bath. I haven't quite recovered from the new onslaught of winter. And I haven't quite recovered from the onslaught of adrenaline from another car accident of sorts this morning. I'm cold, and feeling shaky again. So, I'm going to try and treat myself a bit gently, and just relax for a while.

More thoughts to come... there are blog posts brewing...

Spring

It's the first official day of spring today, and just for a change, the weather here has decided to give us a temporary reprieve and reflect that a bit.

I'm praying still for the coming of spring in my life, and in the lives of so many I care about.

Perpetual Winter (will spring come?)

Sometimes I feel like the season my heart has been existing in this last while is the season that Lucy found when she stumbled through the wardrobe into Narnia. Always winter, but never Christmas. Just the frozen deadness, without the celebration of new life.

The climate in Calgary and the Lenten season aren't helping with that. March is a teasing sort of month here, where we can easily have snow storms well into May. But in March, the temperature will begin to rise. We'll have a few days above zero, and then we'll be plunged back into the depths of the frozen climate that comes with our somewhat Northern location on the planet. It was -25 below zero this morning when my roommate and I left our house, without the windchill factored in. (I was so not made to live in this climate!) And Lent is a season that moves steadily towards suffering and death. A season that culminates in Easter, but must first traverse the pathway to the cross. A season that the early Christians marked as a way of preparation for baptism, a death of a more symbolic sort I suppose.

And so I find myself existing in a sort of perpetual season of winter, and I alternate between moments of calm acceptance and waiting for the restoration of spring and life, and moments of railing against it. Kicking and screaming as if my own discontent could somehow speed the healing work of God and match it and the changing of the seasons to my own preferred timetable.

I heard someone say the other night that "fasting teaches us that if we don't immediately get what we want, the world won't end." How's that for a challenge in a culture where instant gratification is king? And how much does my instant gratification need for "stuff" also extend to a demand that Jesus work and gratify on my instantaneous timetable as well?

I have watched these last few weeks as it has seemed that spring has begun to arrive in the lives of a few different dear friends. People who I know have walked long paths of winter and suffering. And I'm truly happy for them. But struggling at moments, too, with jealousy of them and anger at God. Wondering when my own spring will arrive.

On the other hand, as I mentioned to my roommate last night, I feel like these last few weeks, though it may not show on the outside of my life yet, I'm beginning to find my footing again. To find myself walking with Jesus, in the midst of the storm.

So maybe, just maybe, there is a hint of spring, far off in the distance. And that is just enough of a tiny hope to rest in.