Winter Dance

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?

Rw

image: Olga Deeva on Unsplash [more]

Jordan B. Peterson, psychologist and author [more]

Third Chair

Back in the day, clarinet was my instrument ... high school marching band and playing concerts in the gym. I wasn't very good. In all honesty, I loathed practicing, and when the new young band director came on staff, my upperclassman status didn't count for much. He held auditions. Shuffled things up a bit -- and me down a bit -- from first to third clarinet part. 

I quit band at the end of that semester, choosing instead to audition for the newly-forming flag corps. This kept me in the loop with marching band and football games, without the drudgery and expectations of clarinet lessons.

The flag corps was fresh and fun, requiring skills that came more naturally -- dance, movement, rhythm, precision. Practices flew by as we developed choreography and worked out the performance details -- like the "how to" of ditching our togas after a selection from "Animal House" under the Friday night lights.

No regrets.

As I listen to a podcast from The Allender Center [more] a quote opens a barren chamber in my heart:

"The most difficult instrument to play in the orchestra is second fiddle." 

- Leonard Bernstein

 
As I struggle in this season of grief and depression, when hopelessness comes in huge and unexpected waves, when drowning gruesomely promises to be easier than breathing, when it feels as though nothing will ever be fresh and fun God opens a barren chamber within my heart.

And I am reminded of the words from the bible that first captivated me:

... what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. [more]

I surrender. I will breath. I will wait. 

Rw

Photo: Miss Jacobson's Music blog "Music Stand Humor"

Being Human

The sun is setting over the Meramec River outside my bedroom window, palest pink over a foundation of gray clouds. The trees are just budding out, dark leafless branches silhouetted by the light. The sound of coyotes woke me just before two in the morning, and still resonates a primal predator-and-prey choreography within my being.

The temp will drop to 47 degrees overnight, from the balmy 78 we're enjoying right now. The windows are open and a cool breeze from the north caresses us. Harley, my 12-year-old Papillion, snoozes on the bed next to me. Born in Texas, Harley never really acclimated to the winters in Wisconsin, and he is flourishing here despite his old age.

Ruminating, I become keenly aware that in the midst of the first two work-is-everything decades of my adult life, I rarely paused for sunsets. We rarely paused at all, my husband and I having bought into the American dream, chasing careers, raising kids, house payments, orthodontics, hours spent commuting.

As the sun sets, I am thankful for the third decade, a time of drawing closer to God and to my husband, for putting careers several notches lower on the list and spending more time just being human.

And tonight, my soul longs for Eden.


   Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26

Rw

Surrender

I run from the sanctuary, exit the building, find myself under a tree. I am undone by the music – a saxophone playing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, your song, the first one on your playlist, the first song selected as we planned your funeral, the song that drifted through Demmler Park at 2pm on July 2nd as mourners gathered to celebrate your life.

Session Six: Leadership Illusions opened with Bill Hybels challenging us to explore our blind spots through in introspection, reflection, taking inventory, recreating, re-creating, being with God. The invitation to this conference was a gift. This is our second day and it is good to be here. Bill invites us to reflect on the illusion that growth in leadership capacity and growth in our souls can be achieved simultaneously and at the same rate, that as the leadership capacity/speed curve swoops upward the curve of growth in our souls will keep pace. The truth is that the growth curve of our souls flattens, perhaps turns downward, as in our broken humanity we neglect the spiritual nourishment practices essential to flourishing.

My pen was poised over the designated page in our Summit Notebook, my first-born perfectionist ready to meet this challenge. Bill promises beautiful music. A saxophone begins playing ... it only takes a few notes for me to recognize the melody ... it your song, the song ... Hallelujah.

I run from the sanctuary and exit the building. I need to be outside in the open, to feel the sunlight, to see the clouds, to breathe fresh air. I sit on the bench outside the entrance and give myself over to the messy snotty cries rising up from deep within me, embracing what is illusive and rare for me – a complete surrender to grief.

Time passes. I open my eyes and look up. I see the tree. I lie down on the bench. The shape of the branches above reminds me of the broom tree in Elijah's story. My tree is mature and young and healthy – flourishing – with rich green leaves and strong limbs. As I kick off my shoes and get more comfortable, I am thankful for the early-morning decision to wear pants instead of a skirt, and find myself embracing the freedom to recline without shocking someone who may walk by – feeling in the moment that even as I dressed this morning God was with me.

Beneath my broom tree I envision the curves on the screen in the sanctuary, my friends continuing on inside the building, my own curves of speed and soul growth. My speed has slowed and flat-lined in the weeks since your death. My soul growth has risen to meet the speed curve then also flat-lined, God weaving the two together for strength and endurance.

In the quiet of surrender I look up and see two large branches that meet, twist – making a knot before separating – one growing toward the sky and the other bowing low to earth. You are the upper branch stretching to understand the universe, eager to learn. I am the lower branch left here on earth, embraced by gravity, caressed by the rain, brushed by the wind, living apart from you.

Abandoning my recent prayers of please take me too, I accept God's call back into creation, here on earth for as long as life endures.

Rw

blackest night

The railing is more substantial than expected. I'd driven across the bridge a thousand times, but this night for the first time I walk it. I am close enough to the railing to touch the smooth, round metal. The circumference is more than twice the distance measured palm to fingertip; my two hands together look too small to fully grasp it. 

Walking the 4½ miles from a friend's spare bedroom in Camino Park to the bridge on South Hastings Way did not alleviate my desperation. Step followed step. Seconds gathered into minutes. An hour passed without memory as though a dense fog had swallowed up the visual and visceral cues that life exists. I experience myself without dimension from somewhere deep within, a heart beat slows and grows loud, pulses a primal accompaniment, intensifying my need for escape. 

The air is cool. Its breeze delivers a hint of fall. The river below is still and soundless, lifeless and black. Day has turned to evening. 

The night is swallowing the sun. 

My hands move toward the railing. Headlamps on a passing car illuminate a large black spider, the builder of an intricate web anchored in the smooth, round metal. I am startled and fearful, eyes alert and intent on this unexpected adversary, hands now motionless in midair, heart and soul moving as though in meditation: behold the delicate web. 

The bridge had been my destination, the inky black river my intended tomb. 

Behold the delicate web: intricate and anchored, woven and unwavering. 

Blackest night cannot devour the sun. 

Spiderweb in Sunlight by Nicko Margolies

When you beg the Lord for help, he will answer, “Here I am!” Isaiah 58:9 CEV

Rjw

it was 1985. a brutal battle for custody in the midst of shattered dreams. the isolation of divorce. economic poverty. an overwhelming sense of failure as a parent and a person. 

semi-precious stones

Standing in the beauty of creation on a crisp fall night I feel so alive. The rich dark sky embraces my senses, brings the stars almost within my grasp. God is close.

A few hours later, as I am tossing and turning in anxious sleep, satan hisses. The self-contempt that slithers into my consciousness are earthly things: temporary setbacks, imagined obstacles, past regrets, impending shame. Exhaustion has opened the gate. Like stones taken from a quarry, crushed and spread as base beneath a newly paved road, I am being smothered by layers of lies, oily asphalt.

I wake and God seems so very far away.

My heart beats loudly in the anxious silence.

God hears the voiceless prayers of my heart, invites me closer, shifts my focus away from obstacles, setbacks, shame and regret. God melts the layers of lies, opens my eyes to see that what I fear is temporary or imagined, not impending but tethered in the past.

I find comfort in the necklace I wore for the funeral of my niece, a time when hopelessness, grief, loss and fear gave way to a celebration of her life and her New Life.

In the darkest of moments, when we are feeling less than precious, when we fear death and darkness, God hears our hearts cry. God is already there.

... the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:26-28 NIV

Rw