a woman ... tentatively exploring the Creator who intelligently and divinely grants her the dignity of
free will while laying out a plan for every breath of her life before she was a heartbeat in a living womb
I am living Up North, in the State of Hockey. The sunlight is fleeting. Each night is getting longer; each day growing shorter as December moves us toward Winter Solstice. Honestly, I miss the quickly melting snow of Oakville, Missouri... and the innocent childhood joy of snow days in Cornell, Wisconsin.
I am feeling... well... a bit blue.
This morning, over coffee, I typed "Mental Health" into the DuckDuckGo search bar which yielded multiple websites listing illnesses, disorders and symptoms, and referencing the DSM V. Ugh! After a few minutes of frustration, I discovered that "Mental Wellbeing" is the key phraseology.
Here I found concepts to embrace.
"The World Health Organization (2004) defines mental health in the following way: It is a state of wellbeing, in which the individual realizes their abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can contribute to their community." - Positive Psychology
How do we signal our support for mental health awareness? A green ribbon, which serves as a conversation starter. The color green is also a symbol of nature, growth, renewal and hope.
In this season of Christmas green and red, with Winter Solstice fast approaching, I'm embracing the green.
A blue jay chirped angrily at me this morning apparently upset
that I moved the corn cobs it feasted on yesterday. I
looked up and found its white breast in the tree overhead, its blue head jauntily
tilted, its piercing eyes looking down on me. I responded, “If you wanted breakfast,
you should have gotten up earlier, before I started raking these leaves, after
all it’s almost noon.”
Today is Sunday, a stunning autumn day with warm sunshine
and a bright blue sky—the kind of day that beckons, Come outside and play.
I locate the rake and clear leaves from the curb that lines our street, pulling
my quarry up onto the front lawn, adding it to the shallow piles the wind has gathered overnight.
As I begin to bag the leaves for transport to the community
compost site, the blue jay takes flight, perhaps in search of another autumn display
of gourds and field corn, a breakfast buffet.
The earliest memories are of a garden at my parents' home in Medford, Wisconsin, in the backyard, between the house and the huge pine tree-- circa 1967. I don't remember what vegetables my mother planted in her tidy rows. Nor was I old enough to reliably weed and water. My most vivid memory is of the rhubarb, tucked in the far corner of the garden, and the bees that chased me into the house one summer morning, after I'd pulled a stalk of rhubarb from the plant that shaded their underground nest. Ouch!
I got stung several times. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
While the incident left me less-than-fond of proximity to bees, my heart remains true to rhubarb. I planted some yesterday, on the southeast corner of the foundation that will become my she-shed. This is my second year gardening in this place-- in the rich loamy soil of Renville County, Minnesota.
My partner, who's lived in this place for most of his life, expanded the garden to a third raised bed this year, and we're attempting to grow red potatoes. Earlier this week, I selected the two Big Beef tomato plants he'd requested ($2.29 each) and left Babe's Blossoms with an additional $89.44 in plants including the aforementioned rhubarb.
The morning glories from 2023 left behind enough seeds to propagate 8 tiny green butterfly-shaped plants, more than enough to fill the trellis beneath the picture window. What was a dirt pile covered by weeds on the north side of the deck barely a year ago, is nearly weed free with a 3' volunteer lilac and several clusters of violets-- an interesting combination as lilacs prefer sun and violets grow best in shade.
The containers that in 2023 held the colorful blossoms of annuals, are repurposed to nurture tiny trees, both maples and pines-- an Earth Day gift from a friend.
On social media are photos of my friend's garden harvest in Victoria, Texas, and photos of blossoming honeysuckle in another friend's yard in Oakville, Missouri. Meanwhile, back in the raised beds, the onions sets are thriving. Sprouts of radishes, peas, and green beans are breaking through.
God also told them, "Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant that grows
throughout the earth, along with every tree that grows seed-bearing fruit..."
Overnight the snow silently shuffled across the patio gently
covering the brick pavers with a thin blanket of white, an inch deep at most. High
above me in the grey pre-dawn sky, a small dark leaf takes flight, plucked from
the branches of a bare tree by a gust of cold wind, then beckoned downward to the
snow-covered earth by gravity. The leaf waltzes with the wind, dancing in a
perfect circle, before breaking away and twirling free, moving southward toward
the fence and disappearing into the shadows.
I stand quietly for a moment, then open the door and step
out of the garage. The cold wind greets me and does not invite me to dance. Instead
I scurry to complete my task, bringing dry food to fill a dish for the white-and-gray
semi-feral cat, one of three cats that roam this small rural community—a
cluster of 500 households located 92 miles west of Minneapolis. When we first met in the warmth of summer I had refused to feed this cat, yet in the depth of winter my heart moves toward compassion. The weather has turned bitter cold. Wind chills of 20° below zero are forecast for today
and I am reminded of Jordan B. Peterson’s insistence that Mother Nature is a
cold-blooded killer, even as she nurtures life on earth.
In past years, six decades of living actually, I’d embraced
and asserted that people should not be feeding feral cats as it simply supports unsustainable breeding/birthing rates. Yet on a recent morning as I
stood warm and dry looking out the kitchen window watching this one make its
way across the snowy landscape, my heart moved toward intervention or perhaps interference—which however well intended often is not a kindness. Am I painfully prolonging misery in the cold
shadow of inevitable death Mother Nature brings? Or is my meager offering a welcome and simple kindness?
"It is widely reported that, a person at rest takes about 16 breaths per
minute. This means we breathe about 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a
day, 8,409,600 a year. The person who lives to 80 will take about
672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime." - Randy Clare
This morning with what feels like a giant leap forward in the writing careers for two women in my circle of friends [see The Bible App], I am thinking about breath and breathing and how quickly our time on this earth is passing.
From the modest bookshelf in the corner of the living room I retrieve the first book ever to cross my desk as an editor, Dual Obsessions by Don Jacobson. The note tucked just inside the front cover was written 21 years ago—and in my soul the journey with "Ole" and "Lena" resonates with a freshness that belies the passage of time. Can it really be that over two decades have passed? It feels more like a breath in time, that just yesterday I was sitting at the conference table in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, laboring beside the author and his amazing wife as the book emerged from the manuscript.
Referring to myself as an editor is a rather recent development, with my preferred self-title being assistant to the author—a behind-the-scenes girl Friday—part of the support-and-encouragement sisterhood. For the most part I play a small role in a collaboration of authors, designers, editors, photographers, illustrators, proofreaders, cheerleaders, mentors, friends, and prayer partners.
The partnership with my friend and most prolific author is a 25-book journey that began in 2011 with Touch Stone. Though a Facebook page still exists, the website for my sole proprietorship Renew Collaborative was taken down when I realized that the proofreading and editing work that has blessed me with more than a dozen delightful authors has come by referral—personal and professional.
So, today I am grateful—for a breath in time, for the work that is on my desk, for those who've worked beside me, and for God's undeniable blessing on our lives. Go God!
Rw
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14 NIV
This
morning I opened my blog to find what I wrote seven months ago -- "God
brings clarity to chaos and peace to our frail and hurting humanity" --
has come to pass.
As
I sit on the deck I am surrounded by bird song so delightful it rivals
any music created by humanity. As darkness ends and the sun gently rises in the east, the birds take flight or grow quiet. The morning is infused with a now familiar
symphony within my heart: surrender.
WidowSpeak: Surrender is a story being cherished within my heart, a story that began in the early days of January when I surrendered control, ever-so-slightly opening the door to whatever God would bring in the new year. Though the story is the third (and likely final) installment the WidowSpeak series, it will not be written or published.
God gently and purposefully blessed me with a new and unexpected life partner 133 days ago, and in a moment of surrender, I agreed to his sincere request: No book.
We laugh now as I playfully suggest he write the book and I will take the role of editor, but as today opens with bird song in the gentle morning sun there is no need for another book. God will do what God does beyond all we hope or imagine.
We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.
It is Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent. The topic is PEACE and it is my turn to give the message, to stand in front and share insights with our church—friends really, all of them, to varying degrees. I am being apprenticed by our pastor and I am new at this "preaching" thing.
Truth be told, I struggle with the idea of preaching, being a preacher or pastor, preferring instead shepherd, better yet exhorter or encourager. But I digress. My point is that in this time and place I see and experience myself as more of a messenger, checking my unhealthy need for control throughout my preparation and presentation—attempting on so many levels to stay out of the way of the Holy Spirit, trusting that God will do what God does. God brings clarity to chaos and peace to our frail and hurting humanity.
Our Advent will unfold weekly: peace, hope, joy, love. My preparation time for PEACE prior to this particular Sunday morning has been about 10 days and there was a night when I dozed off in the living room only to find my mind working with the scriptures much like human hands kneading bread. At this point what I'd gathered included: Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6, Mary's Psalm (Luke 1:46-55), Elizabeth's blessing (Luke 1:39-45) truncated to end with “Blessed
are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42).
At some point leading up to this Sunday morning I added Isaiah 55:13 (that's the cypress and myrtle reference) in which I now hear a hint of Living Water. Yet, the focus remained on Mary's Psalm, her response to Elizabeth's greeting. Mary sings of the future, when, finally, God's justice will come. She reflects the deep and abiding hope of the people of Israel, that God's salvation will bring justice to the land, wholeness, and peace.
I am in awe of Mary's faith in that moment when God's plan (the birth of Jesus) is revealed. I am both humbled and inspired by her ability to be so at PEACE in the promises of God that when Elizabeth acknowledges the miracle, Mary bursts into song.
I conclude that perhaps her peace is the place for us to begin believing we too are forever blessed.
As the thoughts I'd gathered come to an end I invite the people to pick up a scroll of sorts, a collection of scriptures on PEACE printed on plain paper then rolled and secured with a blue or purple band.
My next stop is the closing prayer. I did not prepare anything in advance, trusting that whatever is on my heart in the moment will manifest in my words spoken aloud. I begin:
Lord, Thank you for this time together this morning...
I look out to meet the eyes of the people gathered and see a cloud (or is it a constellation) of pink and silver stars, an orb large enough to fill the theater, floating mid-air, above the people. In the seeing I understand that each star or point of light represents a life changed by passing through this place, generations of people changed by the Holy Spirit working within this community called Fellowship.
I am overwhelmed by this magnificent manifestation—the Holy Spirit revealing God's glory. Tears of joy push up from my heart and I cannot speak. There is a pause, a silence, a waiting. I remember the price Jesus paid, how God prepared then freely gave this Divine Gift. When the tears subside and my words return, the prayer continues:
... thank you for giving Jesus Your Son, thank you for Christmas, for the Resurrection, the beauty of a Church in unity. We ask your continued blessing in Jesus' name. Amen
