Its sunny but cold. The breeze plays with the windchime, the leaves, and my hair.
Today I need to sort vegetable seeds to plant and maybe prepare flower beds for flowers.
School was canceled 8 weeks ago and while our family is no longer following extreme quarantine measures its hard to say things are normal when kids should be in school.
Yesterday my son made a campaign video to run for class representative. If I’m allowed to share it I will later. I’m not sure how they would normally do Student Council Elections but I doubt there is nearly so much family involvement. It was fun to help shoot the video.
Next week my teens need to have all their school work turned in. Which will be a relief, they have lost all motivation for school and my motivation powers have dwindled.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and as a Mom l don’t even know how to feel about it. I’m not even sure why I don’t know what I feel.
As a daughter, though, I’m very greatful for a loving Mom who raised me and loves me and my husband and kids.
That’s my random update. I suppose my mind still hasn’t stopped spinning from one thought to the next from yesterday, but I see movement in the right direction.
I listen to the morning sounds and take deep breaths trying to focus on the moment and the day instead of my whirling thoughts.
Its not working. I look over and see that two of the boys left out 2 jars of peanut butter on the porch, I remember I left something on the porch that I need for a project and I am suddenly off into another place and time all theoretical imaginatings of how to do the project and how to deal with the peanut butter boys.
Deep breath what is today?
Peanut butter and projects School and motivation Chores and dinner Lunch and landry And….
I won’t get half of all I want done but will work on half of the things I don’t want to do and another one half will be what everyone else thinks I should do.
I hear the swing squeak back and forth. I can feel the squeak vibrate the seat. I hear birds and cars. I feel the cool air creeping through my sleeves. I sip my warm coffee and hear the leaves flutter and gentle dings from the chime.
Sum and Recap
Thoughts and thinking and swinging porch swings, Birds and sunshine and windchime sings, Mugs and coffee with cream dreaming dreams, Buds and flowers bloom beneath sunbeams. Socks and boxes and little boy shoes, Books and paper planes, other things too. School and schoolbooks and more assignments, Work and study, Did it make a dent? Squirm and fidget, plus focus and try. Sounds and letters and then cowboy’s pie. Sweep and dishes so many more chores, Stuff and clutter and landry galore. Wash and repeat so sleep a good night, Sun and the rise, a lovely first sight. Once and again, new with no mistakes… Yet. But mercies anew He does make.
I’m watching the long morning shadows play across the front porch from the swing this cool morning. The breeze flutters the branches and leaves and the windchime. My second cup of coffee is full and warm.
Yesterday, I helped a friend paint her living room after having had substantial unexpected repairs to her home. Chaos ran ammock of their home and its still fighting for control, but winning is so close and so far away at the same time. Painting is tedious but the day was fun being with a friend. I look forward to helping her again today.
We are lifting many our self imposed social distancing measures as our state is lifting many as well. Many are still likely to be in place for awhile…no news there.
I’ve learned that it has been incredibly nice to not have any activities but I’ve also learned how much we need real relationships and community. I’m not sure if it’s true for others but sometimes for me I think many activities are not real community but just busy things that are supposed to imitate community. Maybe I’m just not good at turning activities into meaningful moments that last beyond the activity itself and brings more energy than the energy expended to participate in the activity. Can I learn that skill?
Its a warm overcast day. A gentle rain begins to fall. A bird calls nearby. I wish I new the calls of birds so I could identify it. The windchime hums softly.
I’m thankful for a few moments to myself in the morning to think and notice nature around me. The figurative idea “of being grounded” has an unusual connection to the literal. Connecting with the ground and the organism that spring from the ground, does tend to give us a more figurative groundedness.
This morning I’m think of what im greatful for I’m thankful for the chance to be with my family more, thankful for hard work, thankful for rain, thankful for homeschooling, and also I’m thankful for pseudo-homeschooling through the public school, I’m thankful for hard conversations.
Those are not all easy things, but easy isn’t always better, and sometimes unexpected fruit comes from derailed plans.
A gentle breeze wakes the leaves of the tree to wave good morning to me. The windchime echos the greeting. I smile back and all goes still. The birds are busy singing to each other and a dog barks in the distance.
This Sunday marks the 8th Sunday in a row we haven’t gone to church. Its just feels strange to not have seen our church family, our friends, in so long. I’m sure that in a normal 8 weeks of spring we would have missed a few Sundays, we probably would have made it to service and not Sunday School at least once probably more, and I probably would have been on time… umm…
About 5 or 6 years ago when my oldest was 10 or 11, the youngest was a baby, and my husband worked night shifts on Saturday night into Sunday morning, I would tell the kids “we aren’t late for Sunday School, we are just early to Service.” Its the best I could do. And really that’s has a lot to do with the Christian walk. Its not that a Church goer is better than those that don’t because they do some pius thing. Its not like it should be difficult, between my family of origin and the southern cultural, I’m kinda swimming with the tide here. But I still fall short even in the smallest things (falling short is the literal meaning of sin) in every way. The payment of that is death (meaning separation from God forever), but salvation is a grace gift of eternal life. We receive it in faith which makes us new and we walk in that newness attempting our best and relying on his grace. The best I can do on Sunday mornings, is get to church most of the time, but not necessarily on time.
….and we might have been late to the living room once or twice in 8 weeks.
“Help me Jesus Christ, You’re my only hope.” And the movie, book, and song references never stop running through my head.
Ok, Here’s a better one, “Great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see.” Neither his faithfulness nor mercy relies on mine. So as I try to walk as the new creature his love made me, I remember each day is new (“with no mistakes in it….yet”) and I can rely on his grace to do the best that I can in his strength.
Its warm this morning. The air is calm and still. The birds call loudly. The sun shines brightly but with softness. The coffe mug is hot.
Today marks 50 days. I started counting the days we were practicing safe at home measures (though I think at the time I called it social distancing). As restrictions are lifting the count will be more about the number of writing days than the count of isolation. But when will that be? When I socialize with friends? When I can go out to dinner (and I don’t mean drive through)? When I can go to church? When I can go to church with my entire church at the same service?
I’m not sure but I’m guessing it will be when we can go to church again. Our church has a pavillion surrounded by trees and I wish we could have church under it. Maybe that has more do with my sense that forests are natural cathedrals that grows right out of the ground drawing our eyes to the heveans causeing us to contemplate the eternal things and transcend our focus.
“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,” 2 Corinthians 4:17.
Affliction in my mind is usually a heavy burden, not light. And I usually think of glory as a celestial light, or some kind of ethereal glow having no weight at all. Its like something that exists in fantasy and our imaginations but hasn’t substance. Even C.S. Lewis said,
“I turn next to the idea of glory. There is no getting away from the fact that this idea is very prominent in the New Testament and in early Christian writings. Salvation is constantly associated with palms, crowns, white robes, thrones, and splendour like the sun and stars. All this makes no immediate appeal to me at all, and in that respect I fancy I am a typical modern. Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. As for the first, since to be famous means to be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become a kind of living electric light bulb?” “Weight of Glory”
As for Lewis’ answer to this it is inspiring and eloquent as usual. I highly recommend going and reading it now. You can download a pdf of it for free. Yet another thing I discovered was that glory in the Hebrew (Old Testament) was associated with gold, which neither tarnishes or rusts. We once had the gold standard in our country. So gold represents something that lasts and has certainty. But also gold is quite heavy. In fact my closest association of glory and gold in my mind is that of Olympians. I remember once hearing a story of an Olympic gold metalist celebrating with his fellow teammates and jumped in to a lake with his medal on. Forgetting its weight, he lost the medal as it sank.
My modern notion of glory is actually the opposite of what is meant. Its more real, has more substance, more weight in comparison to whatever affliction we face now. I’m sure its no coincidence Lewis published the book “The Great Divorce” about 4 yrs later, which describes the divorce between Heaven and Hell. Hell is gray, dreary, lonely place that seems real enough until some of its members experience the vivid, solid nature of heaven in which they operate more as ghost. The grass peirces there feet. The ghost like people desire what Heaven has or is but have no way of enjoying it with out giving up their view of the Gray City and themselves as the standard of reality. In fact they and the city are less real. This idea is echoed in “The Last Battle,” the final book of the Chronicles of Narnia. The old Narnia passed away but those following the Creator of it were greated into the real Narnia the one that the old Narnia was patterned from.
The sun is hot now, the air still lazy, my coffee is gone and the children and my husband have begun to join me. I have no time to conclude or wrap up my thoughts between writing each day, going to chuch, cathedrals, forests and glory. Maybe there is nothing, or maybe whatever it was I lost it somewhere in the Grey City. The best I can do is a picture of my iris blooms resting beneath the trees. I recently posted a picture of the buds which felt like promise of something better, something that now that the reality of their flowers are seen, the hope for them, that was real, now fades to memories.
Its a still morning except for the birds, they are very busy.
I’m thinking about my parents this morning. A year ago my Dad was starting his 2nd month living in a rehab facility. Six weeks before, he had suffered a stroke that affected his left side and speech. I wrote this while he was still in the hospital, and posted it the day he went into rehab.
And as I shut the door I heard the thousands memories of him adding those words echoing in my mind; tumbling into each other like falling dominos into one moment. This moment.
And Grief thought it his turn to take control.
Last year, as hard as it was, I had no idea how much harder it would have been if the stroke had waited a year. Though at the time, I’m sure I would have wished it later. Now, I see it was better sooner.
And I wrestled back control as I walked down the hospital hall. …
I’ve thought (prayed) many times over the last month and a half how awful it would be if he has another stroke during the pandemic. I wouldn’t be able to be at the hospital with him. I wouldn’t be able to have a conversation like this one I had with his emergency room nurse last year.
“Is this [behavior] normal for him,” the nurse looked me in the eyes. She was clearly stressed that he wasn’t cooperating. We all were. He was frustrated too. I met her eyes, she was younger than I, “Did you ever watch Mr. Rogers?” “Yes,” she nodded. “Well, basically, I was raised by a Mr. Rogers.” She breathed in, her shoulders relaxed, a look of surprise and almost sadness washed over her expression, “So, this is not normal.” “No. Its not.”
If this happened now he (and my mom at home) would be forced into isolation while facing the discouraging affects of the stroke itself.
Yesterday the sky was an odd yellowy rose color that made the world glow like memories in a movie. The colors and feels couldn’t be captured by my phone camera and movie effects don’t capture the glory and surreal feelings that it brought. It could have felt foreboding but it was also beautiful.
I saw touches of the same in the sky this morning but only a few, like a single breath of nostalgia in the air. We might search for it but never find it again. Like a shadow that shifts and changes it can’t be counted on for immutability. Nostalgia can not be created or destroyed, nor can the events be recreated or relived. If they ever were, if they were ever new again, ever the present again, they would no longer be nostalgic. Its not that we wouldn’t long for it because we had it, but the reason we longed for it destroyed. It would bring no better joy and the joy may be lost completely.
The past can not be changed, nor relived. The future is not ours to see. Today we have, and it is new every morning with no mistakes in it….at least not yet, Anne girl.
Rough Draft ¶aragraphs 