gaining sisters

This is a bit of loose prose I put together at the end of my singlehood. Nothing very poetic or grand, I am just feeling nostalgaic tonight about the wonderful women God has put into my life since moving away from home - and the wonderful ones I grew up with there. I am thankful.

six years away from home -

(college and then work)

sharing living costs and life

with other girls on their own for the first time.

and now

I feel like I have so many more sisters

young energetic beautiful

weary questioning longing lonely

laughing hilarious different-from-me

sisters

who have cooked at the same stove

and scolded each other for leaving dirty dishes

or the door unlocked

and woken each other up in the middle of the night

with pain or laughter or stories of What he said to me

sisters

who have split the chores of emptying the trash

and cleaning up after the communal dog

and mowing the grass

sisters who have cried and sighed and cried again

late at night

and woken each other by preparing breakfast too noisily

and tried to figure out how to fix the garbage disposal together

and been creeped out by the same dark basement

and huddled on the same couch

when the house was cold and the heat bill already high

in six years I have accumulated

ten new roomie sisters

[Jordan, Emma, Tali, Jonte, Gigi, Bailey, Mel, Sara, Susanna, Jenny]

plus the eight baby sisters at the houses I boarded

[Lottie, Flora, Iona, and Opal, Cat, Ellie, Hazel, and Laura]

and their mothers, who became something like older sisters to me

[Mick and Heather]

and these non-related sisters

deepened my love for my blood sisters

[Vicki, Maria, Becki, Laura, Emili, Elsi, Abbi, Lydia, and Naomi]

and helped teach me how to love my sisters-by-marriage

[Brianna, Theresa, Claire]

and all of whom have reminded me

daily or weekly in their own ways

what sisters are for:

help and honesty, silliness and support, grace and giving

Growing Gratitude

Gratitude is important. Spoken gratitude. It helps us name the gifts. It makes us recall the graces. It shows the giver that the gift was noticed. It deepens the love between giver and receiver. It reveals to others the goodness of the lover to the beloved.

God commands us to be thankful, and not just in our hearts. He can of course read our hearts, and yet He wants our words as well. We're supposed to meditate in our hearts in silence, and speak of His deeds in the congregation, and praise Him in the gates, and sing aloud to Him with our whole hearts, and remember His works of salvation, and tell His words to our children, and preach Him and His goodness to the Gentiles.

I'm thankful for this God.

I'm thankful for a God who loves me enough to give me sweet things, hard things, confusing things, rich things, simple things, funny things. I'm thankful for a God who gives to the body and the soul and the heart and the mind, who created and loved our emotions, and who takes us, silly and noble, strong and broken and stretching, who sees our smiles and rejoices in our laughter and listens to our complaining and hears our pleas, and loves to heal our bruises and bleeding places and the aches that no one else can see.

I'm thankful for beauty in this world, and the mixture of fullness and incompletion that it swells in me. For music you fall into, for fireworks you feel almost more than see, for sunrise through dew and under cloud, for a congregation taking bread and wine as one, for leaves spinning slowly golden on a million stems, for eyes that look straight back into yours, for hilltops in a wind that pulls you like arms. Beauty - for how it gives me dreams and lumps in my throat, how it makes me forget to breathe, and makes me at once want to capture it for the world and certain that no thing and no person could ever reproduce this feeling.

I'm thankful for home, and a home that is mine.
I'm thankful for Bible Gateway and Facebook and Google and my iphone that help me through slow lonely times at work.
I'm thankful for family members who love me unflaggingly.

I'm thankful for life and even for death. For Maria and Jon and the life they have together, and the life of baby Francis, and the life eternal where we trust we will see those loved ones God has pulled to Himself. I'm thankful for their strength and for how they handle their weaknesses in this season of their lives.

I'm thankful for love and belonging and future. For Fraser and our 15 months together, the growing and the strangeness and the words through tears and the most comfortable silences I have ever known; the unknown of next year and the known of earthly forever together; the hopes we form together and the meals we create for each other; the overlooking and the looking after, and the many many things we have in common and hold to together.

I'm thankful for this Giver, this God, this Father of lights.

Ordinary

Well. I don't keep up with this blog anymore. I likely won't ever be a regular blogger, but once in a while I need a place to spill what's been marinating in my mind, or a reason to put together some words about feelings that I haven't been able to properly organize yet, or I figure a couple of my sisters who read this will like to hear I'm still alive and happy.

Today is a fairly ordinary summer Sunday. Sleeping in happened; church, coffee and snacks after the service happened; and coming home and tidying a bit and putting together a little lunch has already happened; it's warm and I'm about to switch to a cooler outfit, but am a little too lazy to do so just now; there's a ball game on sort of in the background; we're having a small group of people over later for a meal, and Fraser has done a lot of the planning for that; a nap is extremely likely to happen in a while. Ordinary Sunday stuff.

Sometimes it's on these ordinary days, when it feels so normal to be here and do what I'm lucky to be able to do, when the blessings are so thick about me that there's not much dark or difficult to contrast them against, that I feel the need to give purposeful thanks.

There are always so many more gifts than we can name, but these moments are some recent things I am specifically glad God gave me.

* * *

1. Thursday at Great Grandma Lilly's funeral, standing there listening to my grandpa (her son) who is usually so spare of words honor her with a speech longer than most of us would have wanted to give on such a hot day in such an emotional moment.

2. Going in to the work office Friday, and receiving kind and sympathetic words of a friend from my boss, as well as encouraging and grateful words about my work.

3. Spending so much time in the late afternoon and evening in our room, just relaxing, whether reading, napping, talking, or watching TV shows on a laptop. Our room is ever-so-slightly cooler than the living room, and with the ceiling fan on, and the box fan in the window bringing in air from the shady side of the house, it is just about bearable on a 95-100 degree day.

4. Walking through Farmer's Market with my husband, that half-wandering, half-purposeful amble that says This is Saturday and we don't really have anything that needs doing, but maybe we'll buy some things. The well set up booths, the pompous music in the square and the random person strumming a guitar or playing off-key violin on a corner a block away, the toddlers sticky and hot in their strollers, the kids wading in the fountain and their mothers scolding them, the fluxing stream of people going by and around you, the sunglasses, short shorts, loose trailing dresses, the scents from the spanakopita booth and Patty's Kitchen Mexican booth and the burger booth, all the greens and leaves and shapes of vegetables, and all the handmade, homemade things from wooden bowls to pocketed aprons to goat milk soaps to deck chairs.

5. Driving through the swells and dips of the hills turning from green to gold.

6. Standing in a cold shower after a long day, a hard workout, and a lot of sweating.

7. Running the other evening, and turning around to head home, and suddenly being hit with the realization that I have a place and it is my favorite place to be; that I have a husband and he is my favorite person to be with. Mostly, I thought back to when I was single and ached for what I have now, when (all through my twenties, and a good bit of my teen years too) I would see a couple, and when they shared a glance, or playfully poked one another, or she leaned her head against his shoulder, or (most poignant for me) when he put his arm around her next to him, and the degree to which I ached with wanting and hoping and praying and wishing and despairing of that ever being me... suddenly so very thankful.

8. Looking out our west-facing windows most evenings and seeing the most beautiful sunsets against the old seed mill on the corner - sunsets obscured a little by the town and trees about us, but always still fabulous.

9. Pulling a load of laundry from the dryer that is mostly white and light-colored clothes that smells so fresh and ready to be worn tomorrow.

10. Sitting in church, having just received the bread and wine from the person next to me and passed them on down the row, that moment of partaking when a lot of other people are also partaking but the hymn is being carried on by those who have already taken and swallowed or those who are waiting for theirs, and the sound is like a beautiful wave that lifts you without a bit of your effort.

A Year of Yes

A year ago today was one of the best days of my life.



Saturday afternoon. Winter and cold, with some sun occasionally breaking cloud cover. I was home, in the big house on Jefferson Street, and only 2 of my 8 roommates were there at the time, off in their rooms studying. The place was quiet. I had music playing from Spotify on my laptop on the kitchen counter and was putting together an apple pie, which we could eat that evening. Fraser had told me he was coming over in a while, and I was going to have this put in the oven before he came, or if I was still finishing it up he would keep me company and I would impress him with my cool kitchen skills (which is always fun, obviously, especially as we are both crazy about cooking and spent a lot of our dates in that kitchen putting meals together).

A knock came on the door, and it was him, but he seemed nervous and didn't even take his coat off. I kept working away for about a minute until I realized how agitated he was and right about then he said he 'was going to go for a walk' and did I want to come? Well duh.

After cooking, walks were possibly our favorite pastime together. Sometimes we had places to go; usually we just ended up places because we were going, or wound around neighborhoods, looking at houses and meeting lonely cats and speaking to them in the few French words we knew and speculating about history here and there and talking about stuff or just being quiet together. Walks are amazing. I still love them with him. Or anytime. But most with him.

This was the best walk ever, of course, although it started out nerve-wracking for both of us, and though we switched courses several times (not unusual, but rough for him because he couldn't decide where to go). At one point we decided we were going to this little park at the top of a hill, and I thought I saw a shortcut to it, so we took it. It wasn't. We ended up almost in someone's back yard, and it was muddy and messy.

We could have turned around and gone back down the hill and around the proper way, but that would have taken too long and so he made his proposal right there - near someone's house, in the mud, no fancy words but all the ones necessary. The sun had disappeared again. He didn't think of kneeling. I thought with the serious way he began he was about to tell me something horrific or devastating (are we breaking up? did he do something awful he's about to confess? did I???). I realized I had never heard his voice mean so much before. And I realized why his hands were in his pockets of his coat.

And I realized there was no way I would say no.

Eventually we ended up back home, holding hands and smiling so much. We kind of remembered the pie, but it was finished much later, and not eaten until the next day. The ring was sparkly and shiny and just dazzlingly pretty without being impractically ostentatious (he knows me), and I heard the story of how he got it and where the diamonds came from. I remember taking it off to start working on the pie crust again, and then realized I should call my family to tell them, and then remembered I had roommates home and wandering through the house to tell them my news and get hugs. That evening we drove a bunch of miles to join a bunch more of the roommates and friends at a campfire at the river, and made our announcement to them, and stared at fire and water and stars, and everything glimmered on the stones of that ring and everything was better than any best of my life before that day.

(engagement photos by Chris Walker, chriswalkerimages.com)

 

Yes is a good word.
It is full of hope and promise
and joy and honesty.
It is full of grace.

And my year has been full of grace. It has held learning: learning to give and to forgive, learning to read someone else's history that is different from yours yet brought you to the same place, learning to receive with appreciation the gifts that are disguised and the ones that are difficult and the ones that are confusing as well as the ones that are just what I've been hoping for, learning to live a new life and also an ordinary life in a glad and diligent and purposeful way. Learning so much. And not being content to stop there, but learning that I/we have a lot more to learn.

My gratitude to and for this man grows, and I know it will continue to. God has made a beautiful thing of two things incomplete, and His hands are making us more to His pleasure as time goes by.

May the next 50 go as grace-filled as this first.

on weakness

I hate being weak.

I like to feel like I'm the tough one who is unique in her do-it-myself-ness and farm-raised-muscle-ness and emotionally-not-needy-ness and easygoing-hard-to-offend-ness and show-me-once-and-I'll-do-it-perfectly-ness...

Truth be told, we are probably all like that in some way. We hate feeling helpless, feeling confused, feeling childish, feeling broken, feeling delicate and unable to handle the world and this life.

Lately I've been realizing that even though I might be able to do some things well, there are hundreds or thousands of millions of thing that I can't... and as I discover those things, feeling like I shrink in importance, interest, worth and even stature bit by bit. I hate feeling helpless. I hate not knowing something I should. I hate spilling and dropping things. I hate being in a conversation where I can't contribute something because it's over my head. I hate indecision, and tears, and worry. I hate not being able to think up something to do, or something to make. I hate feeling lost and asking for help, and admitting I was wrong, and realizing I will never be perfect, and realizing there are people closer to perfect in certain areas than I am. And I can get completely miserable dwelling on thoughts of my weakness.

And then sometimes I realize that I have been letting the unknown, the tiredness, the fear, the missing a turn or missing an appointment or missing someone and feeling lonely - that I have been letting those be bigger than me, by focusing on them and by letting them take over my thoughts.

But our God says He loves us even when we are small.
He says He loves us even when we are weak.
Because we are weak.
Because we are needy.
He comes and finds us because we are lost.
He says that in our brokenness He shows His power.

Joy in Him is our strength, and our identity, and our perfection, and our worth, not in these crumbling, broken bodies and souls, hurting and hurtful, losers and lost, trying and giving up.

It's ok if we are weak.
THAT we are weak. Because, you know, we always are in some way.

But His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Almost the Holiday(s)

It's the day before Thanksgiving, and my news feed and conversations with people and work with my student and everything I hear on the radio and everyone's decorations are all about Thanksgiving. Which makes sense. I myself am currently starting a giant batch of roll dough for the bajillion dinner rolls I am making to contribute to my Mom's Thanksgiving dinner, and we'll be driving there tomorrow to spend the whole day and celebrate.

But I'm also preparing for Christmas, hence the pictures in this post. We will have my husband's parents here for several days, and will be celebrating early Christmas with them on Sunday, so all kinds of shopping and food prep and festive things have been going on. My husband also just gave me a super early Christmas present: a schmancy new iphone, which is like magic to me. My old one was sufficient but simple, and this upgrade is a treat. :) It's a 2-for-1 holiday weekend, and there was much rejoicing.

Lights are strung across walls and around windows

Boxes that have been arriving, and some wrapping supplies

Our stockings, simple and practical with a little pretty on them.

Close-up of embroidery on his stocking

Close-up of trim on mine

I love getting out and using for the first time this lace doily my mom made. Cheap candles and votive holders found thrift.

Still alive, and it's Thanksgiving week

Yep, still alive and thriving over here. Just not as good at posting things as I used to be; sorry.

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means I've been married for almost 4 months to my favorite fellow on earth, and it also means it's going to be easy for me to write something here. All I have to do is list some of the things I'm thankful for and ta-da! How simple and how perfect for the week we are in.

1. I'm (still) so thankful for this man. Being with him is both natural and unbelievable, and this new life together is both simple and full of things to learn. Fraser gives to me every day, somehow, and sometimes (like when we go shopping) even wants to give more than I want to let him. I love when I can surprise him with something delicious smelling when he walks in the door from work. And when he comes up with a great idea like "let's drive to Spokane this afternoon!" And when he tells me I am not allowed to go to work because I'm so sick. And when he reaches out for my hand when we are walking somewhere - even if mine is in my pocket already. He makes me laugh, and can stop my tears, and his laughter is one of my favorite things.

2. I'm grateful for our wedding photographer Chris Walker and the great job he did. Here's a sampling of our photos. http://chriswalkerimages.com/blog/2013/7/27/1/

3. I'm thankful for cooking: for the spacious kitchen, the beautiful pots and pans, and the full cupboards I have. I like baking late at night, and making quick scrambled eggs on a late morning, and steeping tea, and chopping up onions so precisely and small, and leaning down over a pot or fry pan to breathe the fire and life that is simmering there.

4. I love this book we've decided to work through (over the next few years, probably. It's 300 recipes, after all!). Thanks to whichever roommate or relative or friend happened to leave this behind and left it for us to inherit! The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia. http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-definitive-professional-ingredients-techniques/dp/0681020377/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385073811&sr=1-3&keywords=the+italian+cooking+encyclopedia

5. I'm thankful for fabric and needles and thread and irons and patterns and the Joann's store. Currently working on our stockings. And I'm not very good at it. And sometimes frustrated. But I will one day have cute stockings to post a picture of, I'm sure. Not to mention, to put presents into. :)

6. I'm happy to have family - so much family, and more all the time, it seems. Thankful for my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, who have been part of my world since before I could understand who they all were. Thankful for the siblings who've been best buds and good competition and tagalongs and little shadows and adorable frustrating hilarious human beings. Thankful for a new set of parents and grandparents, and their love and welcoming, and for a new sister and brother and the different surprising perspectives they give me on life, and things, and my husband. And thankful for all the kids who call me Aunt Bobbi, and the new ones who will someday. They steal my heart over and over.

7. Electric heaters. No explanation necessary.

8. Paychecks.

9. Winter sunlight. I'm about to take a walk to do a few errands, and thing that'll perk me up just about as much as I need for the rest of the day, and the week.

10. Chocolate chips. Seriously, when there isn't a good solid chunk of chocolate bar to grab, a handful of these little dudes is pretty much the best thing I can think of. I'm off to raid the cupboard and pop one at a time as I head out to do those errands.

To always remember

When grace rescues you, then giving thanks is the responding action.
When grace delivers you, then action defines you.
When grace takes you in right where you are, then you act out your gratitude wherever you are.



I found these words on Ann Voskamp's blog today. Sometimes I forget things like this. In the same way I forgot that I was reading Isaiah because I hadn't actually picked up my Bible in several days and opened it to where the dark red bookmark hung, I forget His grace. When I look at it, I am overwhelmed by God's goodness, but sometimes I forget. I forget where and how His grace found and still finds me, and I forget what I need to give Him back. 

This day...

Life is not a stroll through a perfectly-manicured flower garden. The sun doesn't always shine, and sometimes you have  nightmares rather than daydreams. Sometimes snow means sledding and pom-pom hats and happily rosy cheeks, but sometimes it also means not being able to get to work and having painfully cold toes. Life includes stumbling and falling and getting dirty and thinking you're lost, and getting really lost and blubbering like a baby about it; it includes realizing you're inadequate and that horrible knotted feeling in your middle when you have to apologize to someone you care about, and the even worse knot when you have to ask them to apologize.

Life is not always fun and adventurous, or sweet and peaceful. But it is always just what God has appointed for you. Let His gifts fall thickly about you, and let your hands not clench when your heart feels cold, nor your feet stand still when your knees feel like folding. He is your all; let all of His love push you down the way He set for you.

Thankful and prayerful today:

-for 4 cups of coffee from the french press for 4 cold roommates
-for our good dog Patch, and that he would be found and returned to us soon
-for flicks to comfort the sappy chick soul (saw The Vow last night)
-for beautiful songs (http://grooveshark.com/#!/artist/Amy+Adams+and+Lee+Pace/748111)
-for Mel's family far away, and seeing them with her via Skype
-for tire chains and a chivalrous eldery man who helped me get my car from the ditch, and that I'd stay out of it from here on
-for the way a wet cold morning makes you love dry clothes
-for the bright and cheer of christmas lights around our front window
-for being unsatisfied (and hence depressed) about how I've been doing with life: may it make me change and grow and do better
-for His grace and His faithfulness

Around here

It is summer around here, and these are good times for exploring. For going to a lake

for walks in the lively green woods

for campfires

for cooking in cast iron, for veggies

It's a good time for photography with friends, and for staring at sky and earth

for finding patterns in things

for discovering new flower faces in the yard

There are so many things I haven't photographed. Granite Point on the Snake River. Maria sketching in the backyard. The yard after I mowed it diagonally. The eagle and owl and snake at the Reservoir. My brand new niece open her eyes straight into mine. The fireworks in my grandparents' yard.

There are so many times that are good and can't be captured in pictures, but need to be remembered.  Iced coffee with my sister and talking about our work like grownups. TV shows that are completely ridiculous, but fun because of who I'm watching with. Going to the nursing home in Pullman and having Dodie not want to let go ot my hand. Meeting new friends in a coffee shop and having them feel immediately like old friends. Conversation with Dr. Wilson about snakes and toads. Heaps of chunky sauce. Laughter with my student. Convicting sermons. Singing with all of the strength in me. The relief of cutting yourself off from something unhealthy and knowing what it's like to pluck an eye and throw it from you. The heat rising from the pavement under the thin soles of my sandals.

God is mighty. I am broken. Christ is grace. His world is gorgeous.

Garfield Girls

     Summertime. School is out. The Loving Roommate Society of Garfield Street has by necessity dissolved and will, alas, never be quite the same again.

     It is always strange being here when the other 4 girls are away, and I'm going to be here all summer while they are gone or will soon be taking off on their varied and restful and exciting lives. I shall miss their lovely persons, all their delightful quirks, our funny conversations, our movies while we're all crammed onto one ordinary-sized couch, and the crazy moments in my car when accidents seem inevitable but are always avoided.
     I'll miss waking up to Tali putting away dishes in the morning, and when we gang up on a huge pile of pots and pans and plates and cups and wine glasses after an epic weekend. I'll miss the rommmate dinners and the hospitality dinners, crowding too many people around our tables and asking the smallest person to sit on the high wooden stool, and passing the food and laughing at Emma's salting techniques and the ever-present problem of the water filter pitchers falling apart as you pour your water. I'll miss the after-dinner festivities: playing with the candles, snacking from the last piece on the serving dish, messing with the guitar and the mandolin, newspaper and seven pencils games, watching the fire and re-stoking it, or going out into the grass in the nice weather. I'll miss the walks at midnight, the pumpkin pie at midnight, the peanut butter cookies at midnight, watching House far past midnight, and laughing until we are almost sick at many of those crazy hours.
     I'll miss Emma's beautiful voice coming from the bathroom, Maria's Italian playlist coming on when she needs a perk, Becki's singing along with her country music while she has her earbuds in, and Tali's loud sunshine music on Saturday morning cleaning sprees.
     I'll miss the mountain trips, the Winco trips, and going to church together. I'll miss how we keep our food in separate cupboards but share something at least once a day. I'll miss asking for help with hair and what to wear to a dance. I'll even miss the little pregnant squaw and her legacy.
     I'll miss reading the funny-page together. I'll miss talking about guys. And talking about church services. And talking about our families. I'll miss Emma's generosity with MnM's and with the hilarious frosted mini-wheats. And Becki's sudden urges to make pudding or elaborate dinners when she is stressed. I'll miss Ria's snark, and Tali's scandalousness and obsession with putting pepper into things.
     I'll miss pretty much everything about the last nine months with these lovely ladies. It has been one of the best years of my life, and probably mostly because of who I spent it with. God has used these servants of His to sanctify and gladden me time and time again. What a gift, our year in the corner house together.

Heaps of Grace

Yup. I'm gonna do it.

It's been ages since I've written much for a blog post, and all I'm going to do now is count some of the blessings and glories of this life of mine. God is, of course, genuinely good all of the time, but some seasons of your life you just *notice* that goodness more.

I'm thankful these days for:

Maria's graduation from college 

the way grass feels under your bare feet 

how stained green those feet can get 

mowing the lawn in straight, even rows 

little brothers who still like to give hugs and even initiate them 

cold Sangria in a bell of a glass 

a child's pencil cursive on thin blue lines 

paychecks that are twice as much as you expect them to be 

a head of white hair with a tinge of red left in it 

seeing Melissa and Steven with two children in their row at church 

cut-offs and the feel of the sun on skin 

hot crisp burritos fresh from blackened tinfoil and a hot campfire 

the sun sinking behind you, watching the shadow of a mountain grow 

hugs from good friends as they say goodbye 

seeing pictures on facebook of friends I haven't seen in a couple of years 

frozen yogurt 

midnight ice cream 

even the coughs that result from laughter 

dirt roads and headlights 

the weight of the backpack's straps on your shoulders 

the sound of water 

sunglasses 

Spotify

Wonderful Works

Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
Psalm 107:8

Thankful for:

Forgiveness
Guitars
Legs to walk with
Blue sky afternoons

We cringe before we wonder

This morning, in the midst of my weariness from a crazy weekend, in the middle of my much-needed cup of coffee, while partially done with a page of math problems with my student, during the sparse white snowfall that contrasted with the sunshine of last week, God sent a moose calf to catch my eye.

I was surprised, but not nearly as surprised as my student. When I tried to point it out to her as it loped slowly across the crest of the hill and further from us, I startled her, and in her the stress from that fright, she wasn't able to attempt seeing it until it was too late. Then she was sad, as I've always been when I've missed an unusual or beautiful sight.

We, all timid and easily frightened children, do things like this. We miss things that we later wish we hadn't, because we were scared. We cringe before we wonder. We falter before we try. We turn away before we taste and see. And so we miss some of the little things, and some of the great things, that are put before us. But how does faith factor into our reactions to these things - these sudden, sharp, frightening, unknown things? How much should we ignore our human weaknesses and hesitancy, and give things a try when we might not feel up to it? This I ponder.

Meanwhile, I am thankful for the unusual or surprising gifts of this day. #278-287

A small black moose ambling from behind the chicken shed and down the hill out of view
That morning cup of coffee, freshly ground and brewed, to interrupt my yawns
Raindrops on my windshield that make the world look shimmery, distorted. And windshield wipers that kind of work
Milking a goat for the first time in 8 or 10 years
A monster cookie, warm and soft
The surprise of a good simile, via Jesse and his commonplace book
Hearing the back door slam open and shut, a roommate's familiar step, when I've been home alone for a long time
Figuring out how to make the iron steam
The blink of facebook chat starting when it's a friend I haven't seen in probably a couple years
The classical music station working all the way to and from work

Chesterton, Faulkner, Roosevelt

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. - G. K. Chesterton
Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. - William Faulkner
Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.
- Theodore Roosevelt

264-277 giving thanks
- I have a job. It pays me, it occupies me, it blesses me, it supports me, and it allows me to do some of the same to others in return.
- My grown-up little sister still comes to me to ask for advice and thoughts on her outfits, her hair, her college papers, her life. I love her.
- God's written word lives in my home. Through it, He spoke to me at breakfast, word by word, line by line.
- Tortillas are a wonderful thing.
- Scrabble breaks online with friends hundreds of miles from here
- The old ladies in my Madeleine L'Engle's novel
- Bucer's coffee
- Hearing my sister's voice from the next room as she works
- Classic rock stations on my car radio
- Warm sweaters with sleeves that come half-way over my hands
- A weekend of good movies: the fun and funky, the rough and action-filled
- My faithful pastor and his good words
- Reeses MnMs
- The luxury of leisure time. May I learn to use it more and more profitably.
- Enjoying Moscow Mountain yesterday with friends. This is a beautiful place.
picture by Andreas Leidenfrost

fondness for faux-spring

Early February in Idaho. A sky as cloudless as midsummer. The massive snowfall from a couple weeks ago has melted completely off some peoples' yards. Birds are singing.
The sky is light a little longer every day, and the growing daylight makes dinner and other evening activities sneak later and later.
The sun melts down the snowpack a little more every day, and then it freezes up again during the night. The sun falling on your skin says nice things to it, and a step on the bare, dry pavement brings warmth through the soles of your shoes as noticeable as the cold when you cross a patch of leftover snow and ice. When you go to the car, rather than putting gloves on and spending ten minutes scraping frost and wiping fog and warming up the engine, the seat and steering wheel are pleasantly warm.
The birds have been congregating in the bare branches of the trees and swinging across the sky to their own dance music. Their flute-silver child-like voices and their miniature wavering operatic voices and their pastel-soft, twirling voices never stop.

In all its delight, this springtime weather is messy. Where there is no longer snow, there is dead grass and chocolate-colored mud. A forgotten newspaper in its plastic sheath was discovered this morning just beside my front walk where the snow used to cover it. Other trash is likely to be still hidden under our sinking snowbanks and splotchy yard. My car is splashed with the grime of the city streets. The windshield is grey-flecked and smeared. And the entirety of my car is fouled with the various colored and textured poop of the charming birds that have been hanging out in the tree by my parking spot. The top is liberally, if irregularly, splotched. The trunk is lightly decorated. The slight curve of the hood's length is splattered with interesting piles and drops. Looking through the windshield means looking past the off-white and construction-orange and mustard-brown and different greens splashed on there as if it were a clear canvas for a modern-art painter.

Thankful this faux-Spring day for (#254-263):

dry socks
the magic a hose and some soap and a rag can work in the driveway
glass after glass of cool water
cuffed-up jeans
Louis Armstrong, The Temptations (My Girl), Dean Martin, and Bobby Caldwell
the pale grey of dry pavement, smelling almost dusty
turning off the heater and rolling down the windows
the mixture of windchimes and birdsong outside my house
sunshine almost too bright to look at even through the white curtains
realizing that if it snows on this hopeful town, that's ok; we have a couple months until the season really should be here

Leithart: enlightenment gratitude

Peter Leithart's most recent blog post: read it here.

In which he quotes various people including Descartes: Gratitude is “a sort of love, excited in us by some action of him to whom we offer it, and whereby we believe he has done us some good, or at least had an intention to do us some. So it includes all that goodwill does, and this besides, that it is grounded on an action we are very sensible of, and whereof we have a desire to make a requital.

January Monday: old faithfuls

Beginnings.

They happen all of the time. Every morning, you sit up and yawn and brush away the dark, and another 24 hours curve out in front of you all shiny with the sunrise and silver with dew and heavy with dreams and pressing with things to do. Every Saturday night, you lay down your work and prepare to meet God in the company of His saints, where you are re-enabled to love and serve Him another week. Every Monday, you take up your cross of labor and assignments and teachers and bills and traffic and boss and co-worker and family responsibilities. Every Christmas you rejoice anew at the gift of God in our form that happened to renew us into His form. Every Easter you are reminded of the grime that was stripped from your soul by that One Sacrifice, and every time you confess your sins you feel the lightness again and can stand up and go out with a fresh slate. Every January 1st we pledge to do or not do something great or ambitious, something that will change us into better people, and whether we stick with it throughout the next 365 days or not, we start feeling like we can do anything. Like we are new people.

It is January, the first month of the year. And it is a Monday, the fresh start to the week, even if it is the hardest day to get out of bed. But today is the second Monday of the year. And today I am grateful for the things that are the same about my life as they were a while ago. I am, of course, thankful for many things that are new and different about this year, and am also hoping to see change and wisdom and joy grow in me and around me. But there are so many things that are good, solid, glad, reliable, proven, peaceful, funny, comforting about my life both today and days gone by.

Thanksgiving #245-253

-Good Earth Original tea, no matter how tired I think I am of cinnamon and similar spices, still tastes good.

-my dad will never stop taking care of me like I am his little girl.

-my awesome grandparents at Christmas: Grandpa talks to everyone and has the best dry sense of humor around, but he doesn't get emotional or huggy very often. Grandma bestows hugs and thank-yous and all of the presents to so many people, but you can also look across and see she is just looking at you... without saying anything... for a very long time... and not ever meaning to say or do anything at all... just admiring something about you probably. And if it were anyone but her that would be a little awkward.

-after a month away, all the roommates will congregate back here, still the same people with the same strengths and personalities, no matter what has changed in their lives.

-George Herbert. Can I just say, his poetry will never cease to be amazing? I can always find something that says just what I want to say to God.

-coming back to a job and having people be happy to see me, having my work waiting for me like a faithful puppy.

-no matter how empty my fridge is, I can still go into the grocery store and find exactly everything I need right there on those shelves, and when I give the cashier the right amount of papers and coins, she lets me take it all home and put it comfortably onto those refrigerator shelves.

-O Brother Where Art Thou makes my whole self happy. Homer was awesome, the Coens are talented, the music is perfect, George Clooney is ridiculously good-looking even in middle age, and having sisters who like to compare book and movie just make it better.

-the Christmas lights are still up around my windows. I think they should stay there indefinitely.

fairly recent writings

I'd love to hear thoughts on Rain-Washed, especially.

anfechtung
this night is dark
no snowflakes fall to lighten the world with their white weight
and the stars won’t show their far, faint light

-
Rain-Washed
When the rainfall comes to the streets, the sidewalks
and the asphalt are cleansed from the grey-brown of dust
to almost obsidian sheered with a layer of light.

My soul is this street where the dust of ungrateful
has slowly replaced my wonder with apathy,
has covered and blurred the magic to commonplace.

Your grace is the grey that falls finely around me,
and shimmers in silver in thousands of puddles,
and washes the soil of complacency from me,

until all of this street rejoices to be
and to soak up and shine back the clear light of heaven.


thankful today: #233-244
-the sweet and strong of wine
-fumbling through part of the Messiah with my choir. We sounded nothing like this, but we are going to a Messiah sing-along on Sunday and are hoping to enjoy ourselves. :)
-Levin in Anna Karenina. (‎"...there was another voice in his heart that said that there was no need to surrender to the past and that it was possible to do anything you wanted with yourself. And in obedience to that voice he went to the corner and began exercising with the two thirty-six pound dumbbells there, trying to make himself feel vigorous.")
-Christmas essay by Rachel Jankovic! Funny, sweet, realistic, encouraging.
-extra work at Christmastime
-a car whose belt still whines sharply, because it hasn't broken yet! Need to get that fixed...
-tall stretchy striped socks
-Mr. Appel and his beautiful prayer at my graduation 7 months ago
-crazy-laughter time with roommates
-that moment you put the last piece of tape on a Christmas package
-co-op chocolate
-beautiful sad songs like The Dimming of the Day (Alison Krauss)

Even now

After a weekend of unbelievable craziness, I am here on a Monday morning, sick, tired, unable to go to work.

Saturday I drove home. The rest of the day included a whirlwind amount of Stuff. I know I usually write oodles about the good times I have, or write a never-ending thankful list about it, but this time, I'm just gonna say - my 5 year old niece asked me to give her piggy back rides twice and sat with me on the couch, and my 5 year old nephew sat and drank hot chocolate with me and talked about his birthday and what he wanted for Christmas and held my hand for a while as we tromped around looking for a tree. Those were two of the best things about the day. And I have to say - getting to see my friend's Thanksgiving baby, and finding 5 Christmas trees with all my siblings, and getting the lights on Mom and Dad's at last, and eating pizza made by Laura, and singing happy birthday to the best 8 year olds in the world, and watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, were also definitely highlights of the day.

Sunday I drove back to Moscow. Sunrise on the way, advent sermon, Winco shopping where we ran into dozens of friends, mid-day dinner at Fraser's, walk around the lovely UI campus with friends, lots of coffee, baking cranberry-walnut-orange muffins, stringing popcorn and setting up our tree, Lisa's Thin Man movie party and eggnog, and more time with friends. All very good.

But last night I felt horrible, and this morning still pretty sick. You know those mornings where you are coughing up the grossest stuff for at least an hour and two cups of hot tea and a steamy shower don't really help your congestion or throat that much... Too sick to go to work, and cold enough I'm staying under this blanket-robe Snuggie thing, and late on my rent bill, and my computer also decided to die yesterday and needed to be all backed up to save things that are important. It's an UGH morning.

Perfect time to write a thankful list, and to pray. Yes indeed.

(220-232 giving thanks)

-This weird Snuggie that my arms go through and that drags on the floor behind me when I walk, making me feel like a little kid in a grown-up's bathrobe

-Apple cider and apple cinnamon tea

-A gracious employer who cares more about how I feel than that I am missing work

-A gracious landlord who accepts late rent

-The book of Matthew, especially the Beatitudes (my reading this morning)

-A tree with lights, popcorn and ornaments in my living room

-Tylenol and Benadryl, allowing me to sleep last night

-Tali making lunch for us both

-That there is no snow; although I personally want it, its absence means Tali can borrow my car easily

-That I am at home; although I hate missing work, if I was there I would be spreading germs and not getting rest.

-That I am not in the choir for the Christmas concert this week; although I miss it like crazy, if I was a member of the choir I would be stressed about being sick, and when Thursday comes I would not be in the audience getting to enjoy the music in a different way than when one is presenting it.

-A way to back up computer files

-The possibility of a new job