Almost Two Months Later....

Well, once again, many weeks have passed since my last blog post! I'm not sure what happened to the concepts of quiet winter evenings by the woodstove, but they have been rather infrequent around here!

To be honest, though, my busy schedule hasn't been the only reason that I didn't write. There just didn't seem to be much to write about. The view from the kitchen window could be described as variations on the theme of brown, and my schedule, although full, has been the same way. At least, from the kitchen window view.

Yesterday I actually pulled on my boots and went for a walk, to explore that world of brown.

The fields and I have had a new kinship lately. An early thaw melted the snow, leaving hummocks of dead grass, punctuated by muddy patches, ingloriously exposed. When dressed by a scouring wind, and overshadowed by gray skies, the fields provide a perfect environment for musing on all that is wrong with oneself. I've come to appreciate the unadorned humility of the world at this season. Never was it more shabby and miserable. The refreshing thing about humility is that it is nothing but the truth. The exciting thing about humility is that it is all that's required for the growth that a wise God desires to bring about. Never were the fields closer to the explosion of beauty and fruitfulness that we call summer.

As I trudged along the muddy cow paths, marked with tracks that were frozen into the ground last fall, I began looking for any beauty that could be discovered. And I found it! There was beauty in the faithful evergreens, proving that the otherwise bare woods were not dead. There was beauty in the variations of dull green and brown juxtaposed on neighboring slopes. There was a certain beauty in the dark fingers that streaked the ice on the pond, betraying that the sun had begun undoing the lock that concealed the glistening water beneath. In one pond, it had already been victorious, and the open water, roughened by the gusty wind, was chewing at the ragged edges of ice that remained. I wandered toward the sound of a little brook that ran through a drainage pipe into a small area of woods. With a surge of delight, I saw that the water was running free now, leaping joyfully into the pool. The cap of ice that once enclosed it, had fallen away.

The giggling brook, the green that has started creeping into the fields, the melting ice, all betray the great changes that are beginning to come about beneath the drab exterior. The weeks seem to pass in a monotony of half-hearted frosts and dripping rain, mud that freezes at night and ferments during the day, fed by reluctantly eroding snowbanks. Occasionally a violent windstorm provides an exclamation point, tearing down some dead branches and making everything tumultuous. But otherwise, the changes are subtle and hidden. The orientation of the earth's axis to the sun changes a few degrees, the days get a few minutes longer, the ice crystals underground begin to melt.

There isn't much hope or excitement in the kitchen window view. But the rubber boot tour reveals the beginnings of something grand, something so wonderful that it seems completely impossible in such a dingy landscape.

Recently I discovered a verse that whispers of spring coming, of big things beginning to happen while the rain is still dripping and the ice melting. "For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him." (Isa 64:4)

The kitchen window view: me, in a constant battle between faith and discontentment, sunshine and rain. Spending my days cooking meals that are eaten in a flash, washing laundry that's dirty again in twelve hours, changing linens and writing down vital signs at work, trying to figure out what to cook, and dealing with the frustrations and difficulties of daily life, thinking that my share of annoyances should provide enough grit to produce several strings of pearls. Noticing how exciting and dramatically useful some people's lives are, and recognizing that there's a whole lot of the old sinful flesh in what other people admiringly call my service. Drip, drop, slip, slop, slush, slosh, brown, browner, brownest. Just like spring!

But then, there's the rubber boot tour: A loving God in heaven, Who knows exactly what each of my days hold. (Psalm 139:1-4) The sunshine of His love at work in my life, beginning to melt the icy spots, and turn hard ground into usable soil (it's in the mud stage right now). The winds of inconvenience and exhaustion, breaking off dead branches and tearing away sodden leaves. The greenness of fellowship with God, beginning to brighten the brown fields.

One day soon, I'll look out the kitchen window and be startled by fields of waving grass, fringed by leafy forests, and bathed in warm sunlight. I'll say, "How did summer get here all of a sudden?" Yet I'll know there was no "all of a sudden" about it, but long, boring weeks of dull, imperceptible change.

And I can't help but think, with a thrill of anticipation, that during these days of waiting and trying to simply be joyously faithful, God is acting on my behalf, just like Isaiah says. Someday, and perhaps it won't be long, He'll let me in on the secret of what work He's preparing me for. He's already told me His over-arching goal, which is for me "to become conformed to the image of His Son." (Romans 8:29) But even His Son had a specific work to do here on earth. At some point "beforehand," God prepared good works for me to do. (Ephesians 2:10) I'll admit I'm getting pretty eager to find out what they are!

The knowledge that summertime is on its way lends beauty and purpose to the rain and even the mud. The knowledge that God is working on my behalf, lends joy to the waiting. I'll keep my rubber boots on for a while yet.

Now THAT'S Ambition

If you had peeked into the farmhouse kitchen tonight, you would have spotted me sitting with my back to the stove and my Bible in front of me, grinning away with sheer delight. The Lord had just unfolded Philippians 3 to me in a way that I never saw it before--and it made me laugh because of how obvious, and yet how breathtaking, it all was!

Paul begins by exhorting the Christians to delight in the Lord--the surest safeguard against settling for less than God's best. Paul then describes how he put all of his natural assets into the "liabilities" column of his life's account book, because although they might take him far, it would be in the wrong direction, away from his ultimate goal.

Then, he seems to lower his voice as though he's about to share something shocking.

The people who knew him when he was a zealous Pharisee, shook their heads when he abandoned them and their legal religious system. "We had high hopes for that young man," they said. "He could have been the foremost among us--but look at him now! Ready to waste his life hanging around with these nobodies who call themselves Christians! What happened to his ambition?!"

Then the tide begins to rise. Paul is now ready to reveal to the world his ambition. Like waves crashing relentlessly higher and higher up the beach, he lists the the components of his goal

At the very outset he promises that the thing he's aiming for, is so valuable, he is glad to give up absolutely everything that he ever had going for him, and the enjoyment of every human, physical comfort. What for?

"For the sake of Christ...the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...that I may
know Him, and may be found in Him...having [righteousness] which is through faith in Christ...that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead...that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus...the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

And as his bold voice rings out, I laugh with glee--laugh at the idea that any earnest follower of Christ could ever be said to lack ambition! Why, Paul has just listed almost ten things, each one of which is unattainable by the human efforts of the best person on earth! No person can be good enough to attain God's righteousness! No one by his own efforts can know God! Certainly no one can provide themselves with resurrection from the dead! And yet each one of these things, and more, is within reach to those who have been redeemed and justified by faith in God!

Christians have for centuries baffled those who strive for wealth, power, influence, and ease. In every age, God has had His faithful ones, who were content to work hard for little money, be overlooked in public affairs, go unrecognized by the crowds, and "waste" their talents and genius, laboring in jungles and deserts, for the sake of Christ Jesus. Yet I think it is safe to say that every child of God who "suffered the loss of all things" for Him, also would join Paul in "counting them but rubbish," in view of the spiritual bounty that God gave them in return.

It makes me wonder--do I have any ambition at all?

Winter Sunset

I haven't been out to take a whole lot of pictures lately, but the sunset tonight lured me out, despite the frigid temps!

The birdfeeder handle provided a handy frame...

The hayrakes are waiting for summer!

Wish I could have captured the pastel colors more perfectly...

The hens are waiting for summer too!

Stars

There’s no question about it. Tonight was a night worth braving the wind chill below zero. A brilliant moon hung in the clear sky, and a brisk wind stirred up the powdery snow into fanciful sprays. As I stepped out into the open field, the whole world was reduced to black, white and blue grey. Civilization became nothing but a border to the scene, which seemed to be composed mainly of sky, and the field spread like a white tablecloth beneath.

There is a beauty in winter that is lost in the verdant embellishments of the other three seasons. It is beauty borne of utter simplicity, and invigorated by the austerity of wind and ice and snow and cold. It provides a perfect setting for thinking.

I set out into the field, perfectly alone, except for my shadow, traced sharply against the snow. The snow had been chiseled all day by the wind, cut into scalloped ridges that looked like the frozen ripples of a wave, suspended in the act of flooding onto the beach. In other places, dips in the field had collected the powdered snow like fine sand in the wrinkles of a picnic blanket. Restless wind occasionally picked up some of the snow and tossed it a couple yards away, or shooed it along from its resting place, making it slither across the crust.

I had mourned the fact that there was no one to join me on my walk, to share the beauty and the wonder. Yet as my solitary boots crunched and squeaked in the snow, the night, while leaving me utterly alone, seemed to keep me company. Or perhaps more accurately, when the coming of night had stripped away the usual distractions of daylight, I was more ready to sense the presence of the One Who had created all the beauty before me.

I looked up at the stars, and thought of a scene in one of my favorite books, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. A girl, recently bereft of her father, was standing on the widow’s walk with Nat, the main character. Together they looked up at the stars, and he said something like, “Somehow, whenever I look at the stars, they make my problems seem smaller.” And he was right. When I look at the stars, they make my conception of God bigger, and suddenly my problems shrink to infinitesimal size.

I found a crusty patch of snow, and lay down, in order to take in the full scene. There they were, the stars, not very plentiful because of the brilliant moon, but bright and clear nonetheless. How long they have been there, and how much has happened beneath their distant gaze. How many men have looked at those same stars, to navigate their way to distant lands. How many minds have wondered at their magnitude and beauty, when they aimed their telescopes into the darkest corners space, and found the stars looking back at them.

How many people have lain on their backs, just as I was doing, and read in the stars the witness that God is present in the loneliest places. The apostle John must have beheld them from his exile on the island Patmos. Perhaps he wondered whether the God who had made those stars had forgotten about him—and then there came a day when he saw “one like a Son of man…in His right hand He held seven stars.” (Rev. 1:16)

They are the stars that lightened the ways of patient shepherds resting on the hills of Galilee, until the glory of the Lord blasted the starlight into obsolescence while angels announced the Savior’s birth. Perhaps those very stars were waypoints along the way of the Lord Jesus, descending to this earth to be the sacrifice for the sins of the creatures He had made.

These are the very stars that shone over a Middle Eastern desert, on the night when God took a man named Abram outside his tent, and made him look up. “And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Gen 15:5-6) And for the next decades, as Abraham travelled through the wilderness, perhaps wondering sometimes whether God had forgotten His promise, he must surely have looked up at these very same stars, and found in their steadfast presence the assurance that God had not changed.

A few short years, and each of these men passed on, yet the stars have remained, silent witnesses to the majesty and faithfulness of God. And tonight I lay in the snow and looked up at those same stars, and thought how each one of them has a name, and is led forth by God through pathless space, with changeless precision. (Is. 40:26) His intellect is so vast that He has perfect knowledge of each of the countless stars—and, indeed, of each snowflake that blew against my face. Then I thought of David, the shepherd boy, looked at these stars and wondered, “What is man, that you take thought of Him?” (Ps. 8:4) He went on to exclaim, “How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God, how vast is the sum of them!” (Ps. 139:17,18) Again, in Psalm 40:5, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, and your thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.” Kind of like the stars. And if each star should stand for one thought that God has had toward me--?

Suddenly, the idea that God has forgotten about me, or about a single one of my needs or desires, seemed ludicrous. If He has thoughts to spare to name the stars, surely He knows about any one desire of my heart, though it seems sometimes to occupy my whole little mind.

I got up and continued my walk. Like the old time sailors, I had gotten my bearings again. Not from the stars, but from the God Who moves the stars. And the winter night was no longer lonely.

Winter's Victory

Well, winter has finally won the argument! Softly, silently, and swiftly, he rearranged the stage, one snowflake at a time. I sat by the window during my lunch break at work, and watched the mesmerizing cascade. Hard to believe that such a tiny, frail thing as a snowflake could help to effect such a dramatic transformation!

Autumn had not quite given up. Upon the downy puffs of snow, he sent his raindrops, cold and crude, to crush the intricately sculpted snowflakes. The world began to look sodden and miserable. But winter had not given up. He retreated to the corner and ever so slyly, and while autumn was gloating over the mischief he had done, winter reached behind his back and turned down the thermostat. By morning, the rain had become only a dazzling glaze of ice upon the snow, radiant and glinting and making it more glorious than ever.

Today I ventured out on my cross-country skis. I had to break the trail, and my muscles and coordination were both out of practice, so that by the time I turned toward home, I was tired, though exhilarated. Home seemed so far away, across the fields.

Then, high, in the sky, I saw them. A great V-formation of Canadian geese, heading due south. My heart was filled with awe as they pressed on, undaunted by the smallness of their wings and the vastness of the distance they had yet to go, not discouraged by the icy ponds and snowy fields below them. As I thought of the journey they had already made, it seemed that surely, even as I watched, one of them would become exhausted or give up, and flutter to the ground. But no, they kept on, their wings beating, beating, beating, beating. They called encouragement to one another and occasionally changed formation for the sake of variety, perhaps, and rest. Now the leader changed direction slightly, and one whole wing of the formation altered their course to stream along behind him. Farther and farther they traveled, into the clear sky, until the undulations of their file looked like light ripples on the surface of water. Then, they were gone, still flying, still heading south. And I looked back at the farmhouse lights twinkling away across the fields and figured I had enough energy to get there, after all.

The evening was very silent after they had gone, as though the last vestige of the autumn had flown away with them, and there was nothing more to say. Winter is here.

Change

"I'm too old for changes," said Bilbo, the famous hobbit, "especially unpleasant ones."

It's a strange, changing time of year. Autumn is gone; the trees are bare, the grass is yellowing, and the air doesn't have that crisp fall smell. Winter is not yet here; the days grow relatively warm when the sun is out, and there is no snow. It's that awkward in-between time, like the pause between two movements in a piano sonata, at a piano recital. Half the audience is inclined to clap, because they think it is the end of the piece, and the more knowledgeable half of the audience hopes desperately that nobody claps, because they know that the young pianist is only collecting himself to play the next movement.

Or, it is like the time between conference sessions, when the speaker who has just finished is exiting, and talking with the next speaker in the hallway. Nobody is really in charge, and the audience stirs restlessly until, to their relief, somebody gets up to inform them of the plan for the next hour.

It's a time of year when the world outdoors is changing rapidly. The other evening, a winter wind came slamming across the fields, knocking me off balance and moving everything that wasn't fastened down. I shuddered, and thrilled at the same time, because the austere winter is such a splendid time of year. Tonight, the wind blew again, but warm and gusty. The other morning, I saw ice on the pond. Today, mud gurgled around my boots. The other night, there were snowflakes on the laundry I had hung out. Today, I didn't hang any laundry out, because of splattering rain. Autumn and winter are having it out with each other just beyond our hearing. And until winter takes charge, we have no choice but to accept the changing moods of the weather.

I was thinking about change today. I thought of the childhood friends from whom I never intended to separate--but somehow, they slipped out of my life, or I out of theirs, until we rediscovered each other on Facebook several weeks ago. I think of the people who are in my life now, the everyday people, who give me their smiles and hugs and greetings. It's hard to believe that someday they, too, might drift out of my life--not because of any kind of clashes, but simply through the changing circumstances of life. Their influence on me, and the love they gave me, will always remain, but my relationship with them may change. And I'll admit I kind of want to agree with Bilbo.

And yet, change comes. And it's a good thing, after all. Burdens become lighter when there is promise of change eventually. Relationships with people, and opportunities to enjoy them, become more precious when you know they'll be gone one day. Earthly things--"stuff"--becomes less important because time and change, if not death, will soon snatch it away from us.

So change comes. And just like the passing seasons, each new change brings its own challenges-- and its own delights. And our chiefest delight is the One Who never changes--the One Who created the magic of changing skies, and changing sunsets, and changing seasons.

No photoshop effects, I promise. :) Aren't God's colors amazing?!

"For I am the LORD, I change not." Malachi 3:6

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8

A Few Pictures

Sorry I haven't been posting on here much lately! The other day I finally managed to get out for a walk and capture a few images of our glorious autumn season!

Now THAT'S orange!

I looked in a puddle...and saw a cloud! Must be analogy there...

Maybe this is stretching it a bit, but I thought it looked as though the light from the setting sun had started the cattails burning...

It was so utterly peaceful beside the pond..the water still, the air quiet, the sun setting silently...

The King's Highway (from Pilgrim's Progress)

More beauty in a mud puddle