Icing on the Cake

I am on my own for the entire day, and that's quite okay.  

Ken has left early to lead a paint-crew at the church, finishing off a big part of the kitchen reno on this cool and rainy holiday Monday.  I stayed home, out of respect for the 'rest' part of the advice of my doctor regarding my recent introduction to the world of the kind of GI issues that heal quickly if you do as you're told, and get nasty if you don't.  Since I'm on a positive path so far, I thought I'd be smart and actually take the day off and be quiet.

And then, just now, sitting quietly in the house as I am, I realize this is a rare thing these days. to be completely alone for a whole day.  And then I realize how much I'm looking forward to it!  It's been a really great weekend so far.  This is just icing on the cake!

Both Ken and I work from home now; have been since COVID.  We get along fine most of the time, and find we can give each other enough work space during any given week, even in our 'smaller' space. Even if one of us is out of the house, there's lots that happens for me in the course of my work that has me meeting up with people, in groups or individually.  It's really quite rare for me to have this many hours in a row on my own.   

So I'm curious to see how this day will unfold.  Open to whatever this quiet space might bring me. 

And.

I realize I am writing from a very different space than some.  For some, being alone all day is the norm, and a bit of company would bring the needed refreshment.  For others, especially families with younger children, or caregivers in other demanding circumstances, the idea of even an hour alone seems desperately out of reach.  So I want to acknowledge you.  I've been there.  Different seasons of life, different responsibilities, different life choices, beget different realities.  Life is not, it seems, evenly spread.

Sometimes I wish I had a way of smoothing out the 'too much' times into the 'not enough' times; like a giant spatula leveling icing on a cake.  Spread things around a bit.  Make each bite of life more consistent.  It wouldn't make the bitter times any sweeter, but it might make it easier to swallow.

But since life isn't like that, and since I trust there are good reasons, I wonder if the thing is to just embrace what's before us, resist the urge to control the things out of our control, do our best with any given day, and rest in the spaces we are given.

I'm hoping to get a walk in later, since moderate exercise is good for what ails me.  But I'll wait until the sun comes out, which seems more likely this afternoon.

Happy Holiday Monday friends.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

 

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, 

but God has been making it grow. 

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything,

 but only God, 

who makes things grow.  

The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, 

and they will each be rewarded according to their own labour. 

For we are co-workers in God's service, 

you are God's field, God's building." 

1 Corinthians 3:6-8

I'm all about the garden again today.  Which is interesting since I don't really have one.  And I don't even really call myself a gardener, not at all.  Except something is gradually starting to take shape in a few little spaces around the house, and so I guess that counts for something.

Remember, this is our first spring/summer season on this property.  Plus, the construction itself fairly decimated whatever else was in the backyard.  Mostly we're dealing with a bare sandy base on which various organic and inorganic 'stuff' is piled, a lot of it sorted, but not entirely.

Before

That's a bigger job, best left for the landscapers we've connected with who listened to our ideas and drawn out a map that will guide us over the next few years.  First stage work is happening soon, and I can hardly wait.

Meanwhile, I'm just putzing around on our front porch.  And also just this one section of the back fence that I see out my bedroom window.  That's the 'before' picture above.

With the huge help of some flowers I received for Mother's Day, and a bit more added under the creative guidance of my art-inclined, colour-and-placement-wise granddaughter Abby, something is actually happening back here.

After

The non-flowering pieces are an eclectic gathering of what was already lying around in one of the various piles mentioned earlier, and garden accents from the other house.  It still needs a birdhouse or two, I think.  And likely something written, maybe the English and Thai words for Garden, a suggestion I'm seriously considering, especially since in Thai the words for "garden" and "heaven" are so similar.

But what I'm also thoroughly delighted by, in my "I'm not a gardener" garden, is the other spring offerings that are coming up in spite of themselves.  Or rather, in spite of me.

They're everywhere, valiantly rising up out of the construction carnage, doing their thing whether anyone sees them or not.  And I so admire them for that.

 

And here's the thing.  I am all about intentionality and taking agency and being responsible for my own growth.  Especially spiritual formation.  That's really important to me.  But I am also keenly aware, and my not-really-a-garden=yet reminds me, that regardless of what I do or don't do, I'm not the one making it happen.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian church, made sure to give a fellow-teacher all the credit deserved.  He recognized his own part in the formation of the folks there (and elsewhere he served as a spiritual leader).  But there was no question Who was in charge.  

And it only makes sense.  Because what needs to be formed in me is not humanly possible to accomplish.  What still wrestles in the deeper places of self and ego is beyond my agency to deliver me from.  It needs the Divine components of grace and redemption and love-like-no-other.  It needs the touch of God, and His longsuffering patience with me, His power working in me.

Looks like we have a beauty day ahead of us.  Maybe a few more storms over the weekend.  I am so looking forward to doing some more putzing outside.  If I find any more little surprises in any little shady, hidden spaces, I'll take some pictures, don't worry.

Happy growing, whatever you're working on!!

And Happy Long Weekend!!  

Morning Mercies

 

There's a part along my walking route where I'm on top of a small hill.  This morning I turned around to this.  And while I much prefer a more natural setting from which to view the dawn of day, it seems to me that even cityscapes with large metal towers can't help but be brought into the glory of a sunrise.

That's two in a row now.  Morning walks that is.  In a 'before the move' season, a sunrise walk was a given once the weather was warm enough and the timing was good.  Usually that would have started way before now, but...here I am well into May and only out twice for a first in the morning go at it.

I gotta' say, being greeted by all the morning glory, and whatever shy company peeks out from the brush, is very motivating.  And something of a needed reminder.

It's quite a well-used trail during the day; back and forth to school, lots of bikes, a nicer way to get to the many businesses along Highland just before it meets up with Westmount.  In the mornings, however, it's just me and my forest friends.

I'm glad for the extra motivation to start my day this way.  More importantly, I needed the reminder of the holy hush embedded in the early hours.  There's something about the sky - at any time and in any state - that reminds you that you're not in charge.  That productivity is good but not God.  That lists might help organize your life but they are not Lord over it.  That I have so little to prove, and so much to be.

Forgetting these things over the past several weeks has left me tired in ways familiar and worrisome.  My body is suggesting to me, in various and obvious ways, that I may have asked too much of it lately, given a 'complicated' root canal was included amongst the other 'extras' on the calendar.  I don't think I took this into enough consideration, at least not enough to make adequate adjustment.  

As a result, it's not just my body that's tired.  My spirit struggles to keep up with unrealistic expectations.  My mind looks for a place to sit down and rest.  I'm just not the me I want to be. 

So yesterday, and today, I'm taking it easy.  Which isn't so "easy" for some of us.  But needful and good, and another way of honouring the humanity God has so lavishly gifted.

I don't know why, exactly, I keep needing these review lessons on my way to 'being formed into the likeness of Christ for the sake of others' (M. Robert Mulholland's definition of spiritual formation, and I like it a lot).  You'd think by now I would get this work/rest balance bit right.  But sometimes it sneaks up on me.   And that's when I am ever so glad for grace.  

And new mercies every morning.

My Spring Not Garden

Our yard is a mess so I gather some green and some colour for strategic placement --  

Outside on the porch, inside by the window, or here on social media -- 

to 'pretend' like it's spring.

I should say that out front there are pockets of pretty.

But mostly we have sandy dirt and piles of construction mess still.  

And, yes, in truth, this is all part of the goodness of this beginning.

It's coming.  

And we have plans.  

And some of the work has already begun.  

Like digging out old fence posts.  

That's a brute!  

Good thing we have extra hands and strong backs close by!

And that in itself cheers my heart the same as any spring garden.  

Because it truly is a gift to a Gramma's heart 

when she sees her family mucking about together.

 

It's Enough

"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance."

Psalm 16:6

Woke up longing for a Cognashene sunrise.  

Plans are underway for opening weekend.  

So I tell my heart, "Soon enough.  Hang on."

Still, I'm left with the longing, and in spite of the work ahead of me today, I find the need to sit in in for a while before I begin.  

Psalm 16 is a go to meditation for me, in these in-between moody moments.  In reciting it again, I land on verse 6 and this bit about the portions of the Promised Land allotted to each family.  Interesting, this idea of boundaries being "pleasant."  We often think in terms of restrictions, and not letting anyone hold us back from our freedoms.  And there is that.

But these words also describe the deep contentment of having 'enough.'  There is a lack of neediness; a lack of restlessness; a delight in knowing I am well taken care of.  

I sit for a moment in that gentle reality, like brilliance splashed on glassy waters quietly.

Breathing in.  Breathing out.

And yes, now I can bring a more grateful spirit to the day ahead, and all it might delightfully require of me.

 

Evelyn's Magnolia

Evelyn's magnolia was so much more in bloom this year.  May 3rd is early in the season, but I think this spring has had enough days with sunshine and higher temps to coax more colour from the small tree planted in Parkview Cemetery in Waterloo.

We were gifted this tree in memory of our little girl, with us so briefly in 2019.  She would have been six years old.  

Six is so much fun.

We gather here each year on her birthday, to light a candle and take some pictures and stand still in the reality that she's not here with us but we can't forget her.  

And we can't and don't even try to make any sense of it all.  We don't pretend we're okay now, because it won't ever be okay.  We don't pretend we understand because we don't.  We don't say anything trite or comforting, because that's not what this annual gathering around the magnolia is about.

The little boys blow bubbles.  That's part of our ritual.  And that's the part that brings the balanced reminder that life is fragile but good.  That our story isn't over.

One song says:  "We will dance on streets that are golden, the glorious Bride (that's us) and the great Son of Man (that Jesus)." [David Ruis] And I believe with all my heart that Evelyn is dancing now.  And that one day she will reach out her hand and say, "Come on Gramma.  Dance with me."

But that's not this day.  On this day, we leave the magnolia and go back for birthday cake.  And tell funny stories about how hard it can be to blow up balloons, and who's going to Zachary's band concert this week, and that Gramma will come to put the little boys to bed that night, and we play a game with Timothy's Bluey cards, and talk about our plans for the cottage this summer.  

Because life keeps unfolding in meaningful, hopeful, careful, joyful and tentative ways before us.  Ways we walk gingerly, knowing what we know, and trusting Who we trust.

And before we leave we make sure to hug everyone we have.

 

Root Canal Ruminations

 

Grateful for this valiant burst of colour outside my front door at sunrise before the clouds set in. Some cheer to begin this day as I anticipate part 2 of the first of two root canal procedures later this afternoon. Oh the joys.

Still, I found myself listing the glad things as I got ready for the day.

For yesterday's walk in the sunshine.
For a good night's sleep.

For today's sunrise.
For a clear morning ahead to finish up what's left of the list.
For vanilla candles to keep me company while I do that.
For a productive week thus far (in case recovery steals Friday).
For the fact that skilled dental care is available to me.
For learning how to make Cao Tom (savoury rice porridge) last time I was in Thailand (thanks Yupa Chaing Mai) because it's easy and delicious and fits the 'soft foods' recommendation.
For the *finally!* planned lunch with a good friend, before the root canal, to help distract me.
For the opportunity this afternoon to lay back, be tended to, and spend some time praying, something I've found helpful and calming to do while undergoing unpleasant medical procedures. I mean, why not? And it can't hurt to be praying for your dentist while he's working on you, right?

So however your day is panning out, hope it brings unexpected joys, opportunities to pray, and something warm and delicious to eat.