Saturday, April 24, 2010

Running in Circles



Clay got a new job and a new apartment in a town about an hour from here. She doesn't drive yet, so we found an apartment close to work and close to church. Moving furniture wasn't too bad, but I've been down there now four times in the last three weeks.



Today, Turtle and I, Art and Carina, and Zaya and Mim all went for a visit. There was a rattlesnake festival up town, and cowboys everywhere in the streets...a little too exciting for my taste--since I had come to help out with laundry. (she doesn't have a washer or dryer yet) and the only laundromat was closed so the owners could go have their pictures taken with a rattlesnake, eat rattlesnake meat, or participate in the "snake of the day" contest. Anyway, I drove for about twenty five miles looking for a laundromat and finally gave up, so I could go spend some time with the grandchildren.




When I got back to the apartment they were exploring with their father and had discovered a tunnel under the street nearby. It was really an enchanted looking place, and perfect for taking pictures--the graffiti and cement making the door at the other end look like an inner city exit to Narnia, so I explored a while with them, but, being a proper grandmother, I became a little nervous and afraid they would stick their hand up through a crack onto the highway, so I steered them gently back toward the little park and apartment complex.

Zaya and Mim told me they had made two major discoveries on their field trip with their father:

First, that large mound of black stuff they were standing on in the tunnel was safe to stand on as it was really just hardened asphalt, and second, that horse poop floats. That's how it got all along the grassy ditch. Recent rains had washed it down from the stables up the street.

Interesting stuff.

Snowball Bush





For a week or so in April, this bush bears snowballs. They start out small and greenish, then suddenly flower into round dripping white blossoms. For a few days, or until the next high wind...they are gorgeous.




She's at that Age

If you get her picture before she sees the camera, she looks like this:





















but if you wait until she sees you...she looks like this:
















See, here it is again:
Before she realized I had the camera out:













After she saw the camera:

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Strange Looking Shrubbery




My neighbors have a strange little shrub on their front lawn. It boasts a sunken middle--rather like a green leafy pudding-filled breakfast roll. Like a fearless investigator, I sneaked over there with my camera early one morning when my riders were late for the commute.

Ah. Poor meter reader guy. I'll bet he remembers that one.

















It causes him no end of trouble--
That bush which resembles a bubble.
Each month when the reader
Examines the meter
He thinks about making shrub stubble

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Spoonerism


Turtle just created a spoonerism that made us both laugh. He said:

Well, it's 200 miles away...as the fly crows.


I tried to locate a picture of a crowing fly, but this was the closest I could find.
He does look like he is trying to
say something, but not wake the world in the
early morning.

I think I know the subconscious reason for the slip though: Turtle has a new hobby; he ties flies. Flies, yes. Like fly-fishermen use at the ends of those long whips they call fishing lines.
Anyway, he wrestles with string, scissors, wires, fluff balls, and silk to create little poofs of fuzzy stuff that resemble an insect or a baby mouse and hide mean hooks. He has to use tying tools for making tiny knots and magnifying glasses to see them. He calls it relaxing. Go figure that one!



Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Sounds of Early Morning

A moisty, overcast morning is perfect for listening to bird orchestras. Today I heard a woodpecker playing percussion, robins twittering in soprano, and--from the high swaying vestibule of newly-leafed branches--the hollow-piped baritone of cooing doves.

Enjoy.

Monday, April 12, 2010

It Must Be Green Again

My husband Turtle is colorblind.
Not totally colorblind, mind you, so that his world is black, white and all gray in- between, but a faded sort of colorblind that can't tell the difference between red, orange, and yellow; that only sees the blue in aqua and purple (making them the same color); and that cannot tell the difference between green and brown.

Poor guy.

I feel sorry for anyone who can't see green. Especially at this time of year, when glorious green sings mightily under the pale blue sky.

I sigh contentedly out the car window,
"It's so beautiful out there."

He says: "What? Oh. It must be green again."



Sunday, April 11, 2010

A Full Week








Starting with Easter morning and seeing the glorious sunrise as I walked up the hill to church, and ending with a joyful phone call from my daughter announcing that she has found a church to attend that she likes and is comfortable with, my week has been too full for writing. The next month promises to be more of the same, so I'll have to take each moment as it comes.

After a great Easter service last week, we journeyed to the home of our son's fiancee's family. They live a few miles from the city, on a beautiful couple of acres where birds swarm to the feeder, and the volleyball court fills a corner of the back yard. Our older daughter, her husband, their two children, our second daughter, and our son were there...as well as a family reunion about the size of our congregation on a good Sunday. There were so many people to meet and absorb names for, that I gave up. Hopefully, we'll renew acquaintances at the wedding. Anyway, it was a great time for relaxed visiting, and I give Beverly and Brian thanks for hosting it.

Monday, Claye and I headed to a little town about sixty miles from here to investigate the art scene and beg for a job. Believe it or not, we came home with a job and an apartment only three blocks away. All week, Turtle and I have been taking loads of stuff down and finding room for it in the tiny apartment, getting electricity and water on etc. etc. etc.

At school, I'm preparing for four things--concurrently: We have an accreditation visit for the next three days, so, of course we wanted everything spick, span, and ready; I'm working with my seventh and eighth grade Bible classes on a two hour program/performance for the 26th of April; I'm hosting a junior high level academic tournament on the 21st; and I'm preparing for the senior graduation. Life is tooooo full right now.

Ah well. It isn't too full for pictures so here are a few that I took this week.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

My Lively Spring

On this glorious Easter morning everything silently whispers the thrill of new life...resurrection! Yes, it's true. I took these pictures in my yard. Everywhere--through the dry grass and the bedding of last years leaves--there's fresh green, and vibrant spring colors. The ancient peony is poking her knobby fingers up in a grab for sunshine, and new rose leaves dress yesterday's dry, dead vine. Pink tulips sniff at the air; the first little lilac dares to open; dandelions and daffodils shout joyfully in brilliant yellow golds.
The pear tree's thin white blossoms sing,
and blue-grape hyacinth bells all ring--
a tremolo against the wild warm winds.
It's Easter.
The day Death died.




And I can't help but think how I, too, will one day rest beneath the fall leaves and the winter snow. I'll leave quietly then--no frenzied bucket list to clutter my last days.
No. I plan to come back.
So all the things I haven't done can wait for that long morning in the sunlight.
My lively spring.
My resurrection day.



"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime." --Martin Luther.





Friday, April 2, 2010

Good Friday


I lowered my face and cried, there in the dark
The shame was palpable, and long I stood.
My highest shot had somehow missed the mark,
And furthermore, I knew it always would.

Is there no exit from this wretched place?
Must I embrace despair and call it mine?
I know there must be higher and better ways,
But I can't see them. Lord; you know I'm blind.

I stretched for Heaven. He bent down to Earth
In a feat that seemed impossible, yet stood
And, paying a price beyond what I was worth,
He sanctified this day and made it good.

He took my guilt, so say whatever you will.
He took my hand. He leads. I follow still.




jc-a sonnet--4-2-2010

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Some Things are Wrong



I just said it and I’ll say it again: wrong, wrong, wrong.
It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t there to see and understand it.
It doesn’t matter that it isn’t from my culture.
It doesn’t matter that it happened a long time ago.

Some things are just wrong.
And we should speak out against them.

Strangling a person who happens to be walking in your area of the park is wrong.
Beating your wife senseless is wrong.
Abusing children is wrong.
Turning another human being into your slave is wrong.
Sacrificing a human to appease a god is wrong.
Forcing a widow to throw herself alive into the funeral pyre of her husband is wrong.
Hating someone because of his skin color or nationality or social status is wrong.
Exterminating a race of people is wrong.
Bullying someone into suicide is wrong.
Getting pleasure from someone else’s pain is wrong.

We should be intolerant of these things, not excuse, glamorize, condone, and ignore them. All humans feel terror, pain, injustice and outrage. That doesn’t change from tribe to tribe, city to city, or century to century. We can say: “what happened was wrong.”
We should say it.

Are we judging? Certainly. And let the judgment come right back to us if we do these things. Oh I know it’s not the polite, the politically correct thing to do.
It is the right thing to do.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that hurt.
It said “Against abortion? Don’t have one.”

That’s like saying: “Against slavery? Don’t own one.”
“Against cigarette smoke? Don’t breathe.”
“Against drunken driving? Don’t drink and drive.”

It says: “don’t call anything wrong, and we’ll both be ok”.
But we won’t.
Most victims didn’t plan to be one.
Innocents are hit by drunken drivers. Innocents die of lung cancer. Innocents are caught by slave traffickers.
When innocents are sacrificed…innocence is sacrificed.
In every culture. In every time.
It’s wrong.




Monday, March 29, 2010

Hosanna

Here's an old hymn for this week

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Hosanna to the royal son
Of David’s ancient line!
His natures two, his person one,
Mysterious and divine.

The root of David, here we find,
And offspring, are the same:
Eternity and time are joined
In our Immanuel’s name.

Blest he that comes to wretched man
With peaceful news from Heaven!
Hosannas, of the highest strain,
To Christ the Lord be given.

Let mortals ne’er refuse to take
The Hosanna on their tongues,
Lest rocks and stones should rise and break
Their silence into songs.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Alchemy

Earth
Rain
Seeds
Sunlight
Warmth
Breeze

Fragility
that cannot long survive
In grubby palms
Or dingy pockets

Yet every spring
We see again
The alchemy of God
As He turns hidden things to Gold