Journal Entry: Newly Sprung, Part 2

The latest from the handwritten log, or "nlog", of the happenings, prayers, and thoughts of my life.

Sat, April 9

Spring has officially arrived. Today I celebrated by cheering at the Goose Creek 5K for the fourth consecutive year, eating our community brunch, playing football in the rain, playing cards outside a coffee shop. And now I'm flopped on my belly on my quilt in my backyard, surrounded by violets – and by students, similarly situated, studying, resting, pursuing the Lord.

Have I mentioned that I love my life? Have I mentioned how fulfilled I am right now in my calling? This past week was busier, if possible, than the one before, and the grace to enjoy has been as thickly distributed as these violets.

I prefer nlogging to blogging, but I'd like it even better if it provided a simple way to upload relevant images, such as these:

Newly Sprung

Maybe it was the ten days I spent on the Mediterranean coast in February, but I wasn't craving spring yet when it showed up. The daffodils started smiling and nodding at me from the side of the road long before I thought to look for them. And the first violet? I didn't have to seek her out; she came to me in the fist of my favorite 12-year-old, and she didn't come alone.

The violets are everywhere, generously sprinkled outside my workplace, a pool of purple by the gate where I live. And I'm reminded of a God who gives grace upon grace. I'm not in survival mode; in the midst of chaos and clamor, I'm thriving. How many times have I heard it said, "He gives grace not just to endure, but to enjoy"? How many times have I said it to others? How many times have I grit my teeth and just endured?

But now by his grace I'm newly alive, facing greater challenges but somehow loving my life and my calling more than ever, convinced that he withholds no good thing.

Happiness is...

...hammocking in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

Especially when it follows some good Food-n-Fellowship (including an Easter egg hunt in which I decided to make a tradition of hunting violets instead).

Speaking of violets, the day after bemoaning their absence I found one! I was dashing back and forth cleaning up our community lunch so could only pause to cry "There you are!", snatch her up, and slip her into my Bible for safekeeping (as it happens, right next to God saying, "Open wide your mouth and I will fill it").

And here are Violets #2, 3, 4, & 5...


...and #s 6-15...


...and Karina sniffing #16.

On the Brain, Part II

The other theme in my mobile photo library.

More daffydills

When the carpet cleaners parked me in I made lemonade, so to speak, by taking a walk to the park. I asked this little tuft of grass to let me make a ring out of it, and to prove its undying devotion it complied, the whiff of wild onion upon being twisted and torn its olfactory equivalent to "Oh, happy dagger!"

A meeting in the basement? On a day like today?

I started blogging after I discovered the first violet this time last year and, as usual, couldn't keep quiet about it. For years that first blossom has become synonymous to me of our hope and God's faithfulness.

Last year the first violet caught me completely by surprise. This year my blogiversary came and went, followed by the first day of spring, and I've been keeping my eyes peeled. This has resulted in some clumsy walks and a discovery of quite a bit of dog poop in my neighborhood, but my hope remains deferred. No purple head peeks out by the sidewalk, the tree root, the bush.

Still, my hope is in Him and He's faithful, whether or not those sweet little reminders appear. Silly of me to look for the sign instead of the source.

Anyway, spring seems to have arrived without the violets.

First Day of Spring

"Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time."
- Martin Luther

"Daffodils were sunbeams in a previous life
and will be lemon cupcakes in the next."
- me

Sooner than hoped.

But definitely not daffodils.

Happiness is...

...an open sunroof.

Winter may remain for a time, but rejoicing comes in the spring.

Daffodils are not far off.

Snow Day, Part 2

Some offices have coffee breaks involving burnt Folgers and styrofoam. Around here we build snow creatures inspired by Dr. Seuss and sip lattes. Don't you wish you had my job?

Oh, and we definitely have the best snowman around. Those kids down the street didn't stand a chance.

Snow Day

It's the kind of snow that comes down in thick, wet flakes, sticking to my hair and my nose and my tongue (which, of course, is hanging out to catch it). It's sticking to the trees, too, transforming suburbia into fairyland. The boys across the street are building barricades and itching for a fight. The neighbor kids have the first big snowball ready for their snowman. I have firewood on hand and everything I need for a batch of homemade hot cocoa.

I love today.

Waking up to fresh-fallen snow holds the same wonder it always did, even though I'm a grown-up now and can't stay home and don't even own a sled. Suddenly the world is clean, and even the drab parking lot behind my cheap apartment brims with potential and magic. I know I'm far from the first to make this observation, but when I look out my window at the white-draped world I can't help but be reminded of how God blankets my dinginess with His purity. That's cause for a wonder that only grows, and with it gratitude and delight and awe.

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered." - Psalm 32:1

Happiness is...

...heading home for a white Christmas.

A Letter to the Fall

Dear October,

Could you please stay forever?
If you do, I promise I'll be good.

Sincerely,
Libby

Quote of the Day

It was too cold to go out
It was too wet to play
So we both sat inside
On that cold, cold wet day.

-The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss

It's been raining all week.

Say "Yes" to Cenotes

The hacienda was abandoned ages ago, when plastic rope made the sprawling hemp plantations obsolete, but the rusted iron tracks criss-crossing the acres still remain. Now the wooden, horse-drawn carts tote people instead of the smelly plants, creaking over the tracks through a jungle of tangled-up trees and the occasional remnant of spiky hemp.

Most of the carts are laden with Mexican families out for a Saturday dip, but we occupy four of them, a passel of gringos swatting horse flies. My horse is particularly lazy and prone to wander off the track whenever given an opportunity - taking after his driver, who is whiny and ready to be home for the day. Occasionally we meet cartloads of people heading back from our destination, and since there are more of us, they all unload and lift their carts off the track for us to trot by. When we do meet a group that matches our size, some friendly banter gets tossed back and forth by the drivers - "We've got more!" "Well, we could beat you!" Eventually we get out and let them pass.

I keep my eyes peeled for a regional tree - I've forgotten its name - that has the mystical property of causing dreadful welts on the skin of anyone who crosses its shadow. There is, of course, a scientific explanation - potent black sap that drips from the leaves - but legend has it that centuries ago, Mayans who had been left to die for refusing to convert were tied to this particular tree - and cursed it. The antidote to the black sap is the bark of another tree that always grows nearby. I love my wise Creator, always providing a remedy for the curse.

Finally we arrive at the first cenote. The whole peninsula is teeming with underground rivers, and countless openings and caves that used to invite worship (and, some say, human sacrifice) now beckon us: "Refréscate!"

The water is cool and fresh and impossibly clean, redefining "deep blue." Openings in the roof of the cave let light filter down, and tree roots dangle just above the surface of the water, tempting a climb. We float on our backs, admiring the view. We hurl ourselves from the platform ten feet up.

Eventually they call us out and it's on to the next one - this one accessible by a slippery, rickety ladder down a narrow hole. I'm amazed there's no liability release form to sign. This cenote has an island in the middle but no platform to jump off of - we improvise, balancing on the railing of the balcony before taking the plunge.

It's dusk by the time we leave, and before long the fireflies make their appearance - luciernago in Spanish, but the Mayan is prettier and much easier to pronounce: cocay. We creak and rattle our way home. I imagine the Mayan workers when the hacienda was in its prime, urging the horses on, anxious to be with their families. My "family", a hodgepodge of gringos and Mexicans, heads back to our home away from home, exhausted and hungry, but with a story to tell.

Sunrise

Good morning, old friend!

I hated time this morning, hated the floor that met my feet, hated being awake and alive, but then you came along, filtering rosily through the branches outside my east window.

The birds have been singing for hours, but did they get louder when you joined them? Like the child who thinks all grown-up company comes just to see him, they welcome their big shiny playmate.

Few things are certain - fewer, perhaps, than I once thought - but you never fail to greet me, hand in hand with each new day. I'm beginning to think, just maybe, that this one holds something worth getting up for, after all.

Spring Rain

It rained last night, and now the world is all fresh-scrubbed and green.

"The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful."
-e.e. cummings

Happiness is...

...a day that smells like rain, wet dirt, and earthworms.

Defining Atheism

atheist: one who has never seen the mountains

Indeed

We never hunted Easter eggs as kids. Mom and Dad hid jelly beans instead, and it still makes perfect sense to me - who wants an egg? Hardboiled eggs are only good in moderation, but hiding fried eggs would be impractical, and plastic eggs are just silly.

So Easter egg hunts are a new experience and usually make me miss jelly beans tucked between the black keys of a piano, jelly beans hidden amidst the cobwebs of a candlestick or a pottery vase, jelly beans frantically tossed into my basket before the selfish siblings could get them.

My community split up in different homes for “family meals” and then gathered at an open field for a (mostly) grown-up Easter egg hunt. Having no sense of nostalgia over scooping up garish little not eggs containing what I’m trying not to eat, I was unmotivated. But I didn’t want to be a bad sport, so I ventured into the field and before long began a different sort of search.

Our field was generously sprinkled with violets. Soon I was so engrossed in picking them that a green plastic egg hidden in the grass startled me. Violets are significant to me, after all, and on a day like today when we celebrate new life in Christ nothing could be more appropriate to hunt.


The scent of a violet is elusive - I have a distinct memory of being a kid of five or six, perched atop the slide in the backyard with my nose buried in a bloom, trying to take in as much of its perfume as I could. Maybe my sense of smell is aging, or maybe Kentucky violets are shyer than their Yankee cousins, but this spring it seems I can’t catch a whiff of anything.

The collective fragrance of today’s bunch, however, is filling my room. They smell like childhood days spent in a Wisconsin backyard, my imagination my playmate. They smell like happiness and hope.

Which reminds me of how much I enjoyed gathering with various expressions of family today.

• At this morning’s service my joy was increased by celebrating my risen Savior surrounded by others whose hearts hold the same hope - hearts that have become linked to mine.

• Shortly afterwards I marveled at the Gospel story as seen through the eyes of three-year-olds. (When talking to one wide-eyed little girl about Jesus dying on the cross, she asked, “When? Last week?”)

• Then I joined with a slice of community made up of friends old and new, savoring the mutual hospitality of a potluck meal, lingering in conversation long after we’d eaten our fill, sharing the burden of cleaning up when we were done.

• And Resurrection Sunday will culminate with a long-awaited Skype date with one of my dearest heart-friends. We’re separated by land and sea and time zones but share a similar quest to display His splendor as we keep His hope alive.

Together truly is better.

Happiness is...

...a Tennessee country road, the air thick with honeysuckle in the spring, tobacco in the fall.