Holding on to Gratitude

Thanksgiving was a couple of days ago here in the United States and I’ve discovered that with each passing year, this holiday becomes more and more my favorite.  Most other holidays have a commercial component to them now and each one involves gifts except for Thanksgiving.  

Even though each year Thanksgiving grows on me on a bit, this year I think I finally understood why.  In church on Thanksgiving Eve, we were challenged to list all that we were thankful for out loud.  Pastor assured us to go on as long as needed and to not be shy.  As I started to say those people that I was thankful for I realized that after a short time, I could no longer speak.  Tears streamed down my face because how can you thank a great God who owes us nothing for everything we have?  I am breathing right now because he allows it.  Where can I even begin?  Pastor encouraged us to start small and continue to live a life of gratitude.  I was profoundly moved by this. 

Where do we begin?  First, start with our smallness – start with the fact that we are dust and then thank God for life and health and air to breathe.  Maybe family is next and then possessions.  But here is the tricky part – thanking him for pain and loss and all that challenge us in this life.  This is not easy, but if we are still breathing, that means that God has a purpose for us and he promises to be with us to help us.  

While the concept of constant gratitude is something I have been studying for nearly three years, I realize that I have much to learn and will probably never get it right in this life.  But starting somewhere is all we have to do.

The food is gone, the family has left, and I have almost recovered the kitchen from the madness.  The kids want to decorate for Christmas.  Me too…but I’m hesitating a bit.  Looking around at the simple orange pumpkins, cornucopia, leaves, and grasping the gratitude for just awhile longer. 

Labyrinth + A Snake = God's Heart

I took a walk yesterday – in a garden – alone (except for the snake) – isolated in the woods.  All things about that statement pretty much terrify me.  I’m not a nature gal, but appreciate it.  I’m rarely alone…so much so that my ears ring when it is quiet.  And snakes – don’t get me started!  I drive into the gardens and trails with an air of fear agitating me.  I pay to park, seeing only a mother and her young boys and the guide in the welcome center.  He says, “Take this path to the labyrinth…it’s…um, just better…you’ll see.”

I step forward, all fear dissipating…the beauty and wonder before me.  It is a blue sky, breezy, sun prism day – early fall, the crunch of leaves under my feet – not cool, not hot.  I head down the path, past the tended gardens, into the woods; enveloped in greenery overhead, beside, in front.  I turn and see the wooden bridge over the algae blanketed pond.  Noises of crickets and katydids welcome me.  I cross and enter the path.  I listen to the babble of the brook, the steady rush of the waterfall into the stream.  

I almost step on his chain-linked pattern body – tiny snake in the path.  He has heard me pounding up and is still…head poised up, listening.  I can’t resist him and stop to take a picture – the only picture of this trip.  He enchants me and I whisper, “You are so cute!”

I twist and turn on the path…the leaf and tree markers a blur in my peripheral.  As much as I would like to read them all and linger, I’m keenly aware of my mission and the fact that the sun sets earlier these days and I’m alone in this desolation.  

I approach the last bend before the labyrinth.  I pause at the opening and read – instructions, etiquette.  Labyrinth – “an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit.  A maze of paths bordered by high hedges, as in a park or garden, for the amusement of those who search for a way out.” (www.dictionary.com)  While this is the formal definition of the area I am about to enter, I made the pilgrimage here to find something and rest in the confidence that I am not lost.  In fact, I am sure I am found.

I pray as I walk into the limestone labyrinth path…silently, surely…trudging quietly; grasshoppers and locusts spraying outwards from the prairie grass as I disturb their rest; sun warming my face.  I am euphoric in my thanks and praise – not the usual tone of my discourse with God.  I listen, crunching feet, sun hiding in a small rainbow behind a cloud.  God tells me he loves me.  Of course, I knew, but like any relationship, it is important to be reminded.  He keeps saying, “Be quiet, my child.”  Why is this so hard for me, for us?  I prattle on in my mind.  I pray quietly and slowly.  In the middle of my quest God says, “I am mighty and strong and it would do you well to remember.”  Oh how often I have forgotten!  Put God in a box – limit him to my own understanding of the circumstances and situation.  And when we hurt – don’t we restrict him further?  Our pain in constant focus and his universe blurred, distorted…greatness lost in our human amnesia.

Somehow this makes me laugh – because I am his child and there is a bit of scolding in his voice.  I promise that I will remember.  I reach the center of the labyrinth.  I sit in the quiet – sun blazing past the cloud…I move to another boulder, to feel the heat on my back.  

I don’t want to walk out, but I perceive the sun sinking.  I am quiet now and I hear the words to an old, old song my mom sang in church.  I see a shadow pass over me – a hawk.  The song echoes in my memory, “And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breadth of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.”  A reminder, promise, wonder, majesty, glory, our smallness, his infiniteness. 

 

I take the sunny path back through the prairie grasses.  I hear the crackly, ocean-like sound of the breeze blowing through the birch trees.  This experience so ordinary from the outward appearance, such mystery, and over abundant gift to my inner psyche.

Sounds of Summer

The last couple of weeks have been agreeable and cool enough to have the air conditioning off and windows open.  I love this time of year – mid August – sounds throughout the day and night – creaking crickets, chirping birds, clicking bugs.  These outside sounds enhance the rhythm of our days inside and about.  These sounds remind me of moving into our much-too-suburbia home years ago.  We were floored by how many crickets we heard that first night – soft ones, noisy ones and the one we were sure was living right outside our window gracing us in vibrant serenade.

I was pondering this morning that I have never spent so many days outside as I have this year, playing, reading, running, eating, gazing, and smelling the smoky goodness of a fire.  Outside is the essence of summer.  I recall the baby bunny and blue heron I saw this morning when running, but it is the heavy, steamy smell of dew and the rhythmic thudding of my feet on the pavement that put it all together. Sights and smells and sounds woven into this summer symphony carrying me on.  

The other day we sat under trees at Independence Lake talking.  Before the park became busy and loud, I could hear those familiar echoes from home paired with the soft waves and rippling water in front of us.  As much as these sights of summer serenity bring me peace, it is the sounds that link each day and experience together into a seamless season of outside brought in, inside brought out.

I think of the years I spent too much time inside working, closed windows deafening the sounds, HVAC drowning out the life right outside. I am grateful for everyday that I am here, listening, living alongside these beautiful gifts of wonder that God has given us all.

 

Some days I crave the quiet, but when winter’s silent snow falls, I will wish for the crickets, the long crisp call of blue jays, tweet of robins and long to relive these summer days and nights.

When It Is Dusk

I’m sneaking away from bedtime for a moment…two little girls aren’t ready to quiet down yet.  And I’m looking outside at this hot summer day ending…orange light reflecting on green leaves and baking on orange bricks and turning burnt grass to gold and trying to soak in the last of this day.  When it is dusk and the day is ending and the night beginning is when I recall all the things that are finite around me.

 

Littles only stay little for a time and they are growing in front of me quickly and quietly yet steadily and my mind is changing and shifting and realizing that maybe I don’t really know what I should be focusing on. 

I look around at the living room strewn with forgotten toys left after play…the kitchen with never-ending crumbs…outside with toys peeking out of buckets.  My everywhere is full of little lives and here is my own life that I’m not really sure I’m living – but I must be if I hear them laughing and playing and jumping and hugging me…feeling their little arms around me.

This life – the days run together into a quiet rhythm of cooking and cleaning and picking up and folding and sweeping so that all of a sudden it is dusk and I realize that a year has passed since I have been home with them.  I wish I had something profound to say – a way to hold onto this day as the light grows dim – but maybe that is the trouble with me anyway.  I always know what to say and when to say it and I’ve found these past months to be strangely without words. 

I write best when full of angst and this year has been one of the most profoundly peaceful and joyful periods of my life and like this sun fading I’m holding onto it with dear life unsure of how to process it all to say what it all means and to fold it deep into myself forever.

I can only be thankful for it all.  But isn’t thankfulness everything?  The first stars are appearing and I look up to them anticipating the gentle night ahead.  

Looking for Green Things When I was a little girl, one of the things I loved most was exploring our yard during the spring and summer. Our house was about 20-25 years old at that point and there was so much vegetation on the perimeter of the yard that there was always something new to discover. Spring was always exciting – buds popping out here, flowers pushing through the earth there. Now that I’m older I’m teaching my kids to look for green things in our yard. Already there are tiny daffodils, hyacinths, tiger lilies, and lily of the valley barely pushing through the dirt. If you look closely at the trees, tiny buds are appearing. Birds are chirping, worms are wiggling, bugs are scurrying. If you look hard enough the earth is coming alive right in front of you. These seasons – I’ve never realized until this year how attached I am to the changes they bring. Winter is my least favorite season, but the beginning of it this past year was cleansing, exciting to me. I can’t say enough about this spring. Being outside tonight with the kids sharing their excitement in finding these green things – Abby’s laugh as she was swinging, Zach going head first down the slide, Kayla searching for worms under rocks – this is what life is all about. So many other parts of my life have turned to drudgery and the last few days I haven’t let this joy, this discovery of what is most important penetrate through the sludge. But today the light finally broke through. This is the year of joy, right? Enter in – JOY – my heart and hands are open.