Peace

Feeling a bit bruised and weary? This second week of advent with its theme of peace reminds us to seek out the quiet moments, drink them in, cherish the small, ordinary everyday gifts.









Peace

I chanced upon it once

In a glade,

near a brook

Or in a book;
I can't recall.
But this I know:

It was beauty,
Grace,
Mercy,  redemption
All in one sweet
Ephemeral embrace.

Peace Wonder Ones. Enjoy the snow forecast for this weekend!

Searching for the Pole of Inaccessibility

“A pole of inaccessibility marks a location that is most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features that could provide access. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline. The term describes a geographic construct, not an actual physical phenomenon.” --Wikipedia

I long for this season of Advent to be my journey towards a spiritual pole of inaccessibility.

I imagine this pole of inaccessibility to be a frozen wonderland, out of cell range, away from the noise and confusion of the world. A place where silence, a clear conscious empty of troubling thoughts awaits.

I'll leave behind busyness, the shopping lists, lights to string, holiday parties, cookies and decorations. I want the arduous, soul-cleansing journey to the heart of being, to the heart of faith.

Yesterday on the radio as I drove around running errands, steering my creaky ship around icebergs of duty and responsibility, I heard a very smart and accomplished film maker say, “This idea that God is going to take care of you and comfort you and relieve you of your burdens, and relieve you of your sorrows is a wonderful imaginary idea.”

God is as imaginary as this magical pole of inaccessibility. It is imaginary only if your definition of relief of your sorrows and burdens means taking them away; poof-like, with an Abracadabra, and a may-the-Lord-hear-our-prayer and suddenly what troubles us is gone.

Our burdens and sorrows are exactly the places to most directly and easily find God. Difficulties create the opportunity to experience God's mercy. Not because God doesn't offer it unless we first suffer. We're just more likely to be open to mercy when we are burdened.

God's grace is so easy, so every day, so small, so abundantly available that we often miss it, or dismiss it. That smart film makers says, “There is something in the world that does that (provide relief) sometimes its nature, and sometimes it's music and sometimes it's love from people who care about you, sometimes it's just quiet. I don't know what it is.”

That crazy God of ours wears everyday clothes. God wears the faces of those we love (even the faces of those we dislike). God comes disguised as nature, music, quiet, I don't know what.

God comes in the middle of a fight when we remember we love this irascible person arguing with us. God comes in the distractions, the twinkling lights, the smell of cookies baking. God comes in the quiet moment when we catch our breath from carrying a bucket full of duty. God comes in the middle of the hardship to the pole of inaccessibility.

“A pole of inaccessibility marks a location that is most

 challenging to reach.”

Life is shockingly hard for me. Especially since God gives everyone else a pass. Everybody else floats above the chaos and muck of life while I plod, hip-deep and sometimes stuck fast, in the muck. I've spent a lot of time sulking about the injustice of this system. Sulking has the advantage of keeping you quiet and still. As I sat sulking, friends and family started using words like surgery, divorce, tumors, job loss and they were talking about their life, not mine. Life taught me no one gets a free pass. Life is hard on all of us.

I want to lift Advent out of the muck of responsibilities, committee meetings, errands and cleaning the house. I want Advent to shine like a candle of hope, unsullied and remote.

God has other plans. It is challenging to reach this place of hope. There are mountains of tasks, swamps of despair, swarming clouds of the gnats of responsibilities.

“Often the pole of inaccessibility refers to the most

 distant point.”

I long for a bigger faith life than my wishes for the magical, the perfect, the care-free. This distant point that I've set my compass to is a small pole in the daily choppy, icy seas of life. It is so easily missed. What I want is acceptance of a daily routine filled with noise, opposition, anxieties.

I suffer because I want to be alone with silence, with perfection. Instead I'm knocked over by the winds of change, the wave of turmoil. I am prone to see these winds and waves as defeats when they are really training in the art of living. They are the path to the pole of inaccessibility.

Wishing you God speed, sweet pea, on your journey to your own pole of inaccessibility.

From balmy to blustery

Can blizzard be far behind?!

Last year's first snow

Yesterday the high here was 74, almost 30 degrees higher than normal.  Today the North Pole is sending us a wind postcard.  When we woke it was 64 and calm, just a few hours later, the wind is howling.  Forecasters are using words like blizzard.

Sadly, for me, the blizzard, this icy kiss from the North, is missing us.

Prince Charming couldn't be happier about dodging this storm.  But if we're going to have wind and cold, I want snow too.

Ice covered windows

I love big weather.

“For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully..."--Henry David Thoreau

Though I have to admit this fall with its 

warm, 

dry days 

has been delightful!

It's good to remember that change is the only constant. It's good to open our arms and hearts to the rush of the north wind, the plunging thermostat. There's no cure for cold or hot.  When I'm irritated by things as they are, I'm the one who must change.

"There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms."--George Eliot


Wishing you peace and love in the life that you are in right at this moment whether hot or cold or just right, dear one.

Super Moon Joy

I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.Henry David Thoreau

                

                   Super

Moon

                             Joy!

What Joy Looks Like

Here's what Joy looks like today

Sheets drying on the line. Maybe for the last time this year?!

Viburnum arch between my yard and Marijo's showering us with golden coins as we pass the love of friendship and neighborliness back and forth.

Dogwood dressed in its best fall foliage!

Twist and Shout Hydrangea putting on a last show.

Roses still blooming in mid-November!

What's Joy look like in your neighborhood?

When Joy Visits

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This week some of us are euphoric. Some of us are very afraid.  My hope is that for those of us who are euphoric, the good that we hope for the nation is good for all of us.  And for those of us who are afraid, that our fears prove groundless.  And for both the happy, sad and angry I pray for open minds and open hearts. I pray for us to remember that at our best we are a united states, each of us trying to live our best life.

And now I think it's time to move onto other topics, something away from politics, something from the marrow of each of our lives....like Joy.

Joy doesn't come easy to me.

Occasionally Joy sneaks up on me and catches me in her embrace when I'm not prepared.

I don't trust joy. I think she's a two-sided coin with heart break, or catastrophe, or something onerous on the other side.

I'm always waiting for that trickster, the Universe, to hand out the punishment for enjoying Joy too much.

Just for this week, as an experiment, I called a truce with Joy.  I said I'd take her by the hand when she showed up. I'd stop looking for the dark cloud in all that silver lining. I'd sing her son, walk her walk and see what she had to show me.

It's not an easy truce, old habits die hard.

Just this morning I tried to escape Joy's clutches by:

• slipping out of my husband's loving embrace
• wishing to hurry along a lovely chat with the neighbor as she paused from raking the leaves in her yard, warmth and sunshine burning off the chill of an autumn morning.
• waving at a distance at Annie as she hailed me to ask if  I wanted more home-grown squash

Then I reminded myself that Joy and I are working on our relationship.

I need to stick around and see what she has to offer.  In just a few short hours Joy delivered:

• A happy husband who feeling loved, was eager to show me love by running several errands that I usually run.
• I learned a bit more about my neighbor, her family and the people she loves while we lingered in the sunshine.
• Annie provided enough squash for lunch, the pantry was empty, and enough to make soup for friends.

No lightening struck,

nor tragedy

nor angst,

just Joy

Wishing you a visit from Joy!

Here's a recipe filled with joy and love....Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 Butternut Squash

1/2 C butter

1 small onion

2-3 stalks celery

32-64 ounces Chicken Stock

1-2 cups of milk or cream

salt, pepper and pumpkin pie spice to taste

Heat oven to 375.  Cut squash in half. put in a shallow baking pan filled with 1/4 inch of water, water shouldn't cover squash, just provide a little moisture.  Bake for an hour, or until squash is cooked through, fork inserted comes out.

Let squash cool.

Chop onion and celery. Heat butter in a large stock pot and saute onion and celery for about 5 minutes.

Peel squash.  Put squash in stock pot, add enough chicken stock to make preferred thickness of soup.  Amount of stock will depend on size of squash.  Use immersion blender or regular blender to blend ingredients.  Warm on medium heat, add cream or milk, salt, pepper and pumpkin spice to taste.

Wishing you a weekend of Joy Wonder Ones!

Finding Awe

The most beautiful thing
we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source
of all true art and science.

-ALBERT EINSTEIN

In these days of cacophony, 

unplug, walk outside. 

Catch the scent of frosted air,

 the play of dappled sunshine.

See the stunning beauty 

of nature. Feel the cool

 autumnal air ease

the constrictions of your 

worries, your cares,

 your responsibilities.

Let nature be the bridge 

to a world of sublime beauty,

 your world.

Share a moment with a friend.

Delight in your place in the 

universe.

Allow your ego to shrink, 

your 

imagination to expand.

Mathew 13: 3- 9

Then he told them many things in parables, saying:“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

I've often read this passage without humility thinking about all the ways I'm the good soil. This past week, our Sunday School teacher, Cathy Young, urged us to read this passage in a new way.

“Where is the soil in your own soul hard, rocky, shallow?” Cathy asked. 

 Wow. 

I instantly felt humbled. Because I knew exactly where I'm hard. Exactly where my heart is like a rock. The precise circumstances in which I am shallow or catty or mean.

And then I wandered out into nature and saw all the ways that God uses the circumstances of life, the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows to split our rocky hard hearts.

 God uses daily life to split us open, soften us, work us into the good soil which can accept all circumstances without trying to change them or others. So we learn to love unconditionally, starting with accepting those hard, rocky, thin-soiled places in our own souls.

So that we can say with joy and honesty:

All is well

Get outside Wonder Ones, enjoy God's creation, especially the creation that is you!