Like snowflakes and bubbles
no baby is like any other
bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh
each son unique, each his own
butterfly kick in my womb
breath and yell
word and step
skinned knee
broken heart
never the same
nothing twice
in a doubling unlike repetition
You lie in my arms
I look deeply into your shining eyes
and think for the briefest second
everything again
Nora, March 19, 2014
Grace
“After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There’s nothing YOU have to do. There’s nothing you HAVE to do. There’s nothing you have to DO.
The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”
There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”
from Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith by Frederick Buechner
One of the things we love about Advent and Christmas is doing things the same way we have done them for many years. There may be minor changes and adjustments, but there is a sweet remembering in the things we do each year. Even more, a balm for rough times and a surge of hope as we repeat the journey of the heart. I found this entry in a journal i kept 6 years ago. It is dated December 17, 2007, but it could have been words I wrote today. These thoughts were in my mind then, and now again.
“…the most important things that occur during my day usually aren’t on the to-do list. This Monday morning I am reflecting that fact as I finish my Old Testament reading and pray. My heart is preparing – more important than the myriad things that will get done as the day unfolds: laundry, house cleaning, finishing gifts, mailing cards, baking – each becomes an expression of my heart’s preparation. I am so full of awe and wonder and gratitude for the great gift of Christ, the gift of God himself. My home is full of Christmas music, Christmas color, Christmas light. Christmas Light.”
Two of our granddaughters have been with us this week. Maddie and Jordann fill the house and our hearts with energy and laughter. They love playing with their cousin Skye, being in our garden, feeding the fish, gathering herbs, picking flowers, and tending plants. Maddie helped me make pumpkin waffles. Jordann drew everyone’s picture. We sang songs from The Sound of Music and then watched the movie. They love to play board games with Joe and me. They like to take out the Story Cube box and make up stories from the picture cubes. But they didn’t even know what a powerful story they were telling when I took these photographs. They asked to visit our church’s prayer garden, so we did. In one corner of that garden is a bench and a sandy area that contains 12 smooth stones and a clay marker engraved with the word “Peace.” When we arrived on this afternoon, one of the first things they saw and exclaimed about was that the marker was broken.
As I watched, Maddie put the pieces back together and smiled as she read “peace.” Then they began picking up the river stones and trying to dust the sand and gravel off, but decided to take them over to the small stream nearby and dip them in the flowing water. One at a time, the stones were washed and brought to put in a circle around the Peace marker.
When all 12 stones were clean and in place, I asked them if they would like to use the stones to help them say what they are thankful for. Without a moment’s hesitation, each girl walked the circle, saying, “I am thankful for…” They named each other, their Daddy and Mommy, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, their cat and dog and home, the trees and flowers.
Their story is fresh and new, because they are. But it is also an ancient story, one that speaks of acknowledging brokenness, restoration, transformation, and redemption. And that this prompts deep gratitude.
I am thankful for unbroken peace. And Maddie and Jordann.
Announcing Autumn on my porch,Duranta berries are reminders of the beauty and importance of small things. Birds love these berries, so I welcome cardinals and mockingbirds as morning visitors. Their thank you notes trill as they perch on my kitchen windowsill. I enjoyed the plant’s summer blooms, but the small berries they left are an enchanting reminder of joy we find when we watch for life as it is made up of moments.
I think of [my life] in all its small component parts: the snowdrops, the daffodils; the feeling of one of my kids sitting close beside me on the couch; the way my husband looks when he reads with the lamp behind him; fettuccine Alfredo; fudge; Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice. Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.
~ Anna Quindlen, in A Short Guide to a Happy Life
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” ~John Milton
Today, as we celebrate July 4, 2013, I am thinking of ways I show gratitude for the land in which I live and considering the ways in which I experience life in this place. I have lived in another country, gaining a world view expanding experience and a new awareness of the freedoms that are often taken for granted in this country. As I gather my red, white, and blue bouquet from the garden this morning, I am thankful for the everyday blessing of my home, my community, the country I call mine and those who have given themselves through the years in unselfish service.
“It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.” ~ Helen Keller
Today is the birthday of Helen Keller, who could see nothing physically, but who had vision that has blessed many. She might have held this shell without knowing its color and spots, but knowing in tender touch its roundness, spirals and ridges, the precious point where they ended, the way it nestled in her palm and told silent stories of the sea. If we are attentive and tuned to all our senses, we may find new dimensions of beauty in our surroundings. One way of showing gratitude is by using all the senses I have been given to be aware of the world around me, to have vision beyond sight.
Photography by Skye Parker, my granddaughter
These windows at the back of our house mirror a rose arbor covered with blooms just a month ago. But summer arrives today says the calendar as well as the temperature, so the scanty blooms that are still there are pale and dried. The reflection today seems to say “all gone away.” But I know this rose. It is hardy and tenacious, with a reputation for surviving even a hurricane. I know it will bloom again. I will not mourn for lost blossoms. I will enjoy the many shades of green in its leaves, admire the lacy intertwining of its branches. I will wonder at the raindrops caught in spider webs woven in rose canes. I will count the bird nests perched inside the arbor’s protection, and rest in the shade it gives me. And I will be grateful for eyes that can see the rose bush reflected in the windows of home.
“Whether one looks at a star, a child, a moment of sorrow, or a time of gladness, blessed is the ordinary…I believe the small moment is the carrier of God’s most endearing gift, and that it must not be permitted to slip away unsavored and unappreciated…If one accepts each day as a gift from the Father’s hand, one may sometimes hear a voice saying, “Open it. I invite you to share with me in these little appointments with myself as we try to unwrap the hidden beauties in an ordinary day.” Gerhard Frost in Blessed is the Ordinary
“Sweetly breathing , vernal air,
That with kind warmth doth repair
Winter’s ruins; from whose breast
All the gums and spice of the East
Borrow their perfumes; whose eye
Gilds the morn, and clears the sky.”
When I read that Thomas Carew wrote this in the 17th century, I liked thinking how throughout time Spring has brought gladness and gratitude to men’s hearts. I grew up in Northeast Texas where Redbud trees are among the first signs of Spring. I have one planted in my front yard here, and I always watch for those first purplish buds to swell – sign of resurrection, of new life, promise of the greening to come.
Gardening is an instrument of grace. – May Sarton
Stones and Feathers 