Rain, Rain, Go Away

Saturday.  Sunday.  Monday.  Tuesday.  Rain, rain, rain, rain.  Day and night.  Light rain, heavy rain, misting rain, dripping rain.  Rain.  

Rain is necessary for growth, yes.  But so is sun.  So weary of the rain.  Thanksgiving, but willed against the wet grey of the world.

Wednesday dawned.  Or at least one had to assume it dawned.  Still grey, dreary.  But -- hope: no actual rain.  A slightly lighter tint to the clouds.  A chill wind and the ground still sopping.

Finally, sunlight competing with the rain clouds, visible at last behind them, and spirits lifting a bit.  Maybe it wouldn't really rain forever.

Wednesday night, midnight.  Almost in bed, but seeing light through the curtain.  Pulling it back and there she was -- Phoebe lighting up the cloudless sky and bringing the landscape to life.  Reflected light promising the sunlight to come.

Thanksgiving from the heart instead of the will.

And finally Thursday waking to a clear sky, a visible sunrise, the clarity of hope made real.

More Gems of Joy

Yesterday, driving home from work as my Thanksgiving break began, I came up to the long curve on the old ferry road and there she was, Phoebe hanging in the afternoon blue sky, nearly full, so lovely I almost drove into the ditch drinking it in.  She's been missing lately, my muse, and I've been feeling it.  Grey skies and more grey skies, and even looking for the beauty in cloud formations and acknowledging the need for bountiful rain had pretty much worn thin.  We've all been longing for sun, and at last Apollos shone out and skies cleared and there Phoebe was, too, celebrating with us.  And just now, alerted by my husband, I opened the garage door and there she was again, very close to the full now, in the darkness of the star-kissed night, a glowing crystal to lift the heart and soul.  Thank you, Lord, for gems of joy and days of rest.

Fall Break

Fall break is right around the corner, and everyone is feeling the need.  It’s been a hard week for most of us, though sunshine after weeks of grey has helped to raise some spirits.  For me, the old darkness seems merely to have deepened, the fog grown denser, as the skies have brightened; and the sun’s promise just makes the mood worse. 

The promise is real, of course, and it keeps me alive and functioning; some days I do this well and others not so much.  The ones closest to me pay the most in having to endure, and I am grateful more than they will ever know for their love and laughter and the simple comfort of knowing they will now and always refuse to be driven away.  Their reward shall be great.

I’ve written before that the sun can seem too bright, too harsh, despite its gift of life.  “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” Emily Dickinson wrote; “Too bright for our infirm delight / The Truth’s superb surprise [. . .].”  I am indeed infirm, and the moon eases me more, offers me light in doses I can survive.  And this morning there she shone as I left, in the early still-black sky a lovely crescent in direct line with Venus and Jupiter to bid me good day and remind me of all I am – mere reflected light, and if today is closer to the new moon than the full, I am still His, to do with as He will, to shine if and as He pleases.

Strength for all of us, Father, in facing the various demons that plague us.  Strength to do the next thing, to smile when it hurts, to love and accept love when feelings scream against it, to let ourselves remember and be what we are.  In Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words:

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Christ in us – all that matters.

Saving Grace

The only saving grace of my early hour drive to work this morning after a week of lovely break was the fiery coral above the mountain announcing the sun’s journey and the crescent moon glowing in the dark above. 

This is a day of discouragement, for many reasons from work to personal, and the ever-vigilant depression stirs in wait to rise and encloud me any moment.  These are the days I lose sight of joy, though it too stirs below the surface.  These are the days I hate even more than usual the clichés and perky songs and proverbs, no matter how actually profound they may be.  And those that are mere glibness, that ignore the brokenness of this world . . . those I hope not to encounter in any public forum. 

The worst is “count your blessings.”  I know full well I have innumerable blessings, and even on a day like this I am grateful for them all.  I also know that any and all of them can be taken from me in a split second.  On days like this, counting the blessings I have only makes me aware of their fragility, and more acutely aware of what brokenness has stolen.  But in any case, and on any day, while gratefulness is always in order, it is not the blessings I can count that count.

There is no counting the love and grace and mercy of my God.  There is no counting the mystery of the Incarnation, nor the Cross, nor the Resurrection.  There is no counting the knowledge that the God of the universe deigns to know us at all, much less love us so much that He gave His only Son to die for us, that the Son willed to be separated from the Father by our sin taken on Him.  There is no counting the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell us, giving us light and life.  There is no counting the fact that He uses us – me! – to accomplish His will, even on days like this.

Because it’s all about Him, not about me.  The announcement of the rising sun reminds me of the fierce beauty of the Father’s love; the moon reminds me I am His reflected light.  And even just a crescent, even barely visible – as she was when I arrived at the college under the sun-lightened sky – it is His work, not mine; His light, not mine; His joy, not my happiness, that counts.  Perhaps this day my light will reflect His less clearly and brilliantly.  Still it is His light only, never mine; I have none.  May it shine as He gives grace.

Gratitude

The other night, I didn’t want to set the alarm; I knew I’d wake in plenty of time anyway, and there was an hour’s leeway before urgent tasks came into play.  But still I did ask the Lord to wake me at the “right” time for the day, whatever He saw fit for that to be.  When I opened my eyes groggily to see the cheery scarlet numbers greeting me, I admit that my thanks was a bit grudging.  Really?  I didn’t have to get up till 7:00 and You wake me a full hour earlier?  But I rose from the bed and I did give my grudging thanks – and asked for help to mean it.

And leaving the house a half-hour later, there was the nearly full moon, just a day or two on the wane, shining with a gem-like brilliance above the tree line as I reached the top of our street.  And when I arrived on campus, she shone like a beacon directly between the tops of the trees just above the chapel roof, beside the soaring cross.  Fifteen minutes later and I would have missed it. 

Why is simple, full-hearted thankfulness so hard?  The mind knows that He is sovereign, that even in the brokenness of this world, He is to be trusted.  Yet the heart sighs and complains; and how many times must I miss the beauty He offers because I refuse to look?

Yesterday and this morning, the moon again in a clear just-lightening sky, shining her reflected light for us to see if we have eyes, to hear if we have ears.

Beauty, beauty, beauty . . .

The last few days:  clouds and dark fog, clouds and mist, clouds and rain -- mirrors to my sad-weary heart.  But this morning:  a crescent moon shining joy into the early-morning, still-night sky, lifting the weight from my soul and making another day seem possible.  Thankfulness for beauty and eyes to see.

Lightening the Heart

The nearly-full moon accompanies me down the old ferry road this morning, her brilliance shining out from the thicketed limbs of winter-denuded trees, the contours of her mountains and valleys clear to the naked eye in the indigo of early morning.  Opposite her the horizon is tinted deep orange shading into pastel coral, the sky lightening as the sun announces his coming.  I enter the building with joy, images of beauty lightening the heart to begin the day.

Gratitude

photo courtesy of Public Domain Pictures     

This morning moonlight radiated through hazy clouds as Phoebe hung at the tip of new-growth twigs on a winter-bare tree.  The clouds dissipated, her light growing stronger as I drove the old ferry road to work, until she shone unswathed by the time I walked from car to building.

Earlier, making my stumbling way through the dark house to the garage, I had been thinking about the beauty of the plants the college sent to my brother’s memorial service.  Mother called last night, and after we chatted about nothing and everything, she suddenly said, “You should see the plants your friends sent!”  After she had liberated them from the lovely basket the florist had used to send them, they now fill the entire house with beauty and hope.

The white kalanchoe, its waxy blossoms like stars among its greenery, sits on the bureau in the living room, across from her usual chair, where she sees them each time she looks up from her book.  The ivies and ferns liven the hallway and bedroom windows.  And the plant with the glossy deep-green leaves, whose name we sadly do not know but whose beauty captured us from the moment we saw it, holds pride of place on the dining room table. 

Mother has lost three close family members in three years:  her husband of 67 years (my beloved daddy) two years ago September; his sister (the last of their generation) last year September; her only son (my only sibling) this November.  Between the deaths of her husband and her sister-in-law came the death of her great-granddaughter, my middle son’s 17-year-old severely handicapped child.  Many would droop into discouragement or worse, but she learned through a difficult childhood in the Great Depression to simply do the next thing, serve and love where she is, leaving what cannot be understood or accepted in merely human terms to her Lord, whom she loves and knows she is loved by.  Time will not take away sorrow, but it will heal the bruised spirit; and serving others aids its process and grows the soul closer to Christ's.  

Oh, there are no doubt tears in the night, and all the human regrets and frustrations alongside the sorrow of loss.  But these are not what define her.  Rather, the plants that now bring their physical beauty into her home – sent by deeply caring brothers and sisters she has never met but who have prayed for her and her family again and again over these last years – these remind her of the beauty of the hope which does define her, the Lord and His family who sustain her day by day, moment by moment.  Her gratitude is never-ending.

And this morning, as the moonlight mirrored the radiance of the kalanchoe flowers, reiterating the hope they represent, my own heart opened in a psalm of praise.

Glory

Yesterday:  fog and clouds and I never even thought of Phoebe until I reached the stop sign and looked west to check for traffic -- and there she sailed, only slightly past the full, lighting the grey morning and lifting the heart.

This morning:  a denser fog and deeper darkness, as the days grow shorter, gave little hope, but there she was, haloed in gleaming pearl within a sepia frame, obediently shining beauty into the mists of early morning long before dawn.

Last night:  a decent sleep for the first time in weeks (and I know who prayed and am thankful); so much easier to face the draining needs of the week's final days.

There is always good if we remember to look for it, always beauty, always the Son's light reflected into the brokenness.

Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Sepia Moon

This morning’s moon shone confidently above and over the clouds filling most of the deep sky; not even the ragged bits of ebony left from the night’s attempt at rain could cross her surface. Clear she shone for the full ten minutes of my drive, creating her own sepia frame that rebuffed all darkness. Surely beauty will save the world, for who that has eyes to see can see less than its Creator, do less than fall to the ground before its burning Truth . . .

Full Moon

Phoebe hung in the sky this morning like a luminescent jewel, like the promise of God's providence lighting my way into the day . . .

First Day of Classes

An alabaster crescent moon in the unclouded just-dawning blue, a blessed reminder of our purpose here and always: to reflect -- however imperfectly or partially -- the glory of the Lord in our service to our neighbor.

SuperMoon

This is the closest the moon has been to the earth in 18 years, and the closest it ever gets -- called a supermoon. We stood on the porch and watched it rising behind the clouds, astounding beauty in the night sky. The world seems to be going up in flames, but we can't destroy God's creation, no matter how hard we seem to try . . . I am reminded again of Gerard Manley Hopkins:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Crescent Moon

I've been feeling sad and out of sorts, irritable, with circumstances and physical pain weighing me down. I'm tired of it all; I just want to curl up under the covers and sleep the rest of my life away. But one can't, and so I got up early, as I usually must on Tuesdays, feeling sorry for myself, and prepared for my day.

Then I turned from the driveway into the street to be greeted by a crescent moon brilliant before me in the blue-black dawn, the morning star saluting her from above and to her right, the mountains below them barely tinged with delicate pink.

The vision repeated itself as I drove up the hill to work and then I found it again, framed in the bare branches of the tree rising above the student center.

How you feel is not important. Be like the moon: be where you are meant to be and let the sun pour out its light for you to catch his rays and reflect them where and how he directs.

Joy entered my day and I hope shone at least a crescent's worth of light into the world despite how I felt.

Light Beyond the Clouds

The morning after the full moon, which I had missed in the evening, I was driving along without thought of anything but the classes coming up, when I rounded the curve on the ferry road -- and there she was, Phoebe in all her harvest-moon glory, brilliant gold-orange, shining hugely behind the tree line. For a moment I literally couldn't breathe.

That was it. I couldn't see her any longer behind the trees, she was nowhere to be found when I reached the highway or the school. I wondered if I'd really seen her or she had sprung only to my imagination.
Later, K told me he'd seen her that morning, too, and she had disappeared almost instantly behind the horizon. I felt a little better about the state of my mind.

Yesterday, I glanced for her as I drove, hoping for a glimpse of her in her still near-full phase -- but the sky was cloudy and there was no sign. Nothing -- until I got out of the car in the parking lot and looked again, able now to concentrate on the sky, and there was her tell-tale glow beneath a raft of clouds. They passed and she came into full view, soft white lighting the clouds. I watched her as I walked to the building and then stood on the patio for several minutes, marveling at the way she seemed to sail through the sky and the clouds to be still. At last, black clouds obscured her again and I forced myself through the doors to work.

Light above and beyond the clouds, always.

Reflections

Having spent most of the break ill with one thing or another, I’ve begun the spring semester inordinately weary, even for me. And it started with snow and ice and gray skies for two weeks, and so I’ve been in a low-level funk, not even overcome by finding that my classes are going to be some of the best I’ve ever had.

Yesterday, I pulled out of the driveway in the early morning darkness to see a single star shining brightly above me, and my heart lifted a moment in the hope of clear skies for the day. I thought of Sam and the star above Mordor and was glad. Then I came around the circle of our neighborhood to be stunned by the sight of the full moon filling the sky with her glorious misty light. She lit my way to work, glowing behind the branches of the trees on the old ferry road. By the time I arrived in the parking lot, she was muted by dark clouds, but glowed faithfully behind them in a reminder of the light always above darkness.

This morning I watched for her as I came around the circle, and there she was, an alabaster glow this time in a clear sky, triumphantly brilliant. Again she lit my way to work, and in the parking lot I was able to sit for a few minutes and simply watch and be filled with her light. A small tree stood beside my car, and as I leaned against the head rest, its branches, bare except for a few clusters of dead leaves waiting to be dropped by new growth, created a dancing frame for the moon’s glow. White clouds sailed below her, lit by her light, and even the dead leaves took on some of her life.

As I finally gathered my things and walked across the parking lot to the building, the moon bright behind me, I realized again her call to faith. She has no light of her own to offer; she does not choose where to be or what to do: she only faithfully keeps the orbit she has been assigned and the sun does all the rest as he sees fit.

(photo by my husband, yesterday morning)

Christmas Eve Musings

Last night we drove around town looking at lights. There aren't as many as usual this year, but still we saw some beautiful displays, and the toyland folks aren't stinting: on the roof a blinking-red-and-green train filled with toys, Santa waving alongside it, the yard filled with gingerbread men, a creche, a tree and a star, candy canes and lollipops blazing in a garden, reindeer pulling a sleigh, the house and fence outlined in bursts of color, and 10-foot toy soldiers guarding the scene -- a display that makes me sigh with delight every Christmas at its extravagance of joy. Yet just as moving were the white-lighted trees framed between golden curtains in bay windows and the simple wreaths on front doors, quieter celebrations of the same joy.

I missed my parents -- I would like to be with my mother looking at the lights in her town, and it's hard to think that I'll never look at the lights with Daddy or with my beloved mother-in-law again. But the beauty doesn't change for the sorrow; it only takes on a greater poignance in its promise of eternity to come because of the One we celebrate this season. And I rejoice to know that I will see them again and that day not so far distant as it may seem.

We missed the lunar eclipse the other night because of cloud cover; Phoebe hasn't been spectacular for me for a while now, but rather teasing with the occasional glimpse of a sliver or so. This morning, however, as I was leaving around 9:00 to do some shopping, she showed herself uniquely: still near the full, she floated among the softly mottled, gentle cirrus clouds in a light blue sky and matched them precisely in color, only her perfect shape distinguishing her. I'm still here, she seemed to remind me; just keep your eyes open. And I rejoiced in her quiet, demure beauty in the daytime sky.

In the parking lot, loading the bags into the back of the car, I heard the cries of geese and looked up to see them forming into v-shaped flocks, celebrating flight in the clear sky, and I rejoiced in their patterns of beauty and fellowship and teamwork and freedom.

On the way home, a squirrel with some huge prize in his mouth ran across the old ferry road in front of me, making it safely only because the traffic was light and I could I lift my foot from the gas and let the car slow just enough to offset his miscalculation. A few yards on, another started to enter the road directly in front of me and then jerked back just in time; I like to think that his neighbor dropped his precious burden long enough to squeal out a warning. And I laughed aloud at the thought and rejoiced in not taking even a squirrel's life on this lovely, anticipatory day.

photo credit: Daniel Impson

Morning Beauty

When I was driving to work, the loveliness of white clouds damasked against the still-black sky brought a smile and a thought -- I'd like to see the moon this morning. Getting out of the car in the parking lot, I felt more than saw bright light above me and looked straight up to see a quarter moon brilliant in a cloudless space. Gems of joy wherever we look, if we only look.

Harvest Moon

Driving home from opening convocation last night, dusk not quite yet falling into dark, I rounded a curve on the old ferry road to be greeted by a harvest moon, just above the horse pasture, huge in the sky and a pale coral I've never seen before. Back home, I ran onto the porch to see it again, although, higher in the sky now, it appeared only its normal size and darker in color. Still, so much beauty to begin the semester, such a lovely reminder of our place in the world as reflected light. This morning, Phoebe still sailed in the sky, lighting the scudding clouds with her faithful glow, blessedly marking the day at just-dawn.

Signs of Spring

When I got out of the car in the parking lot this morning, the air was a bit warmer and birds sang hopefully of spring. In the heavens, an almost-full moon shone, fragmented clouds floating through her brilliance but not over her face. Another reminder of beauty always ascending.