Life is a vapor and all this beauty simple magic.~Text from a dear friend who sent me beautiful, funny images when I succumbed to illness during Christmas week
I lay in my bed, a campground of Kleenex, heavy blankets and honey-lemon cough drop wrappers. Orange and blue Equate Cold and Flu tablets encased in their hard-to-open silver packets sat perched on my nightstand. And I had not wrapped any presents. But really all I could do was stay under the covers, scrolling YouTube and playing WordScapes while mouth breathing. We all know the rigors of a cold, and gratefully, I was not Covid positive.
At some point, the cold remedy kicked in, and I was able to watch a movie, Three Thousand Years of Longing. The title intrigued me more than anything. Tilda Swinton portrays an academic who travels to Turkey to present some of her research. While there, she shops at a Turkish market and buys a blue and white bottle. The shop keeper attempts to sway her to buy something else, as the bottle is encrusted with mud. She cannot be persuaded to choose a prettier glass bottle. She promptly takes the bottle to her hotel room and begins to clean off the debris with her electric toothbrush. The top flies off and a rush of purple vapor emerges from the bottle. A djinn appears and grants the scientist three wishes (Played by Idris Elba). The djinn says he wants to grant her heart's desire. The woman resists, but eventually says she has wishes, but doesn't know if they are possible.
1. She wishes to be loved by the djinn. 2. She wishes the djinn to love her in return. 3. She wishes the djinn to always be where he is supposed to be, because for thousands and thousands of years he has been wrongly inprisoned in the bottle.
Her wishes are granted. They find love, and the djinn periodically is called away "to be where he is supposed to be."
I guess that's about as good as love gets in the movies, and maybe not near as good in real life. Humans are remarkable in their quest and longing for love and will do almost anything to lay hold of it--even dangerous things.
Now at Christmas, we celebrate that love has come. The message of the birth of Christ for many has become a cultural trope, the meaning of His glorious vulnerability to come as a baby diluted amidst the stress and materialism that freaks people out during this time of year.
Yet even so, He came because He loves the world. He loves individuals. It is only my experience, but even so, it is a real love that I have felt from Him. It is a feeling of not having to pretend, or be someone that I'm not, for He loves my personality, even with all the quirks and weakness. His love is an experience of being listened to and understood, of feeling safe. It is a love that can be fully received without obligation to give back, yet fully wanting to reciprocate, because in my humaness I love Him too.
There is evidence of His love all around--the sun and moon and stars, and the feeling you get when the sun goes down and the sky is orange and you've got a book to read. There's the time you said just the right thing in your presentation and knew you'd had divine help. And everyone clapped you on the back and said "Hurrah for you!" And then you meet with a friend and they listen and listen while you pour your heart out and they say, "I understand." You open your Bible and the words are not merely ink on the page--they sink right into your heart and you get through the day because you know--you really know and feel that God loves you.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.~John 3:16 (NIV)
In this imperfect, chaotic world, even with all the messiness and events and circumstances we can't figure out, He loves us. He loves this world.
Thankfully, I'm on the upswing and feeling much better. And thanks to you, kind readers, for your love over 2022, for taking time to read my posts, send me emails, tell me of your lives. I send my love to you. Merry Christmas.
LEITMOTIF/lite mow teef: A recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea or situation.
I keep a list of vocabulary words that I don't know. The word leitmotif emerges, and its meaning intrigues me as I reflect at year's end. What are recurrent themes?
Chairs keep coming up. I like chairs and have many sitting in corners of my home, most with a comfortable pillow to cushion the back. I even had a dream recently that I was given a chair, and I loved it--wanted to sit right down and rejoice in its comfort. Perhaps chairs symbolize rest and contemplation--themes I go back to again and again. Seated in a quiet corner with a book or reading the Scriptures. Praying. Connecting with God. Listening. Tuning into Him, like one of those old radios. Twisting the dial through all the hissing static until I find a frequency with beautiful music or a program that resounds for the moment. Vintage concepts, I know.
I think about the subject matter threaded through 2022 that I want to remember, want to keep for 2023--the beauty of God's presence, His constancy. His nearness. Seated with Him, enjoying Him. His mercy a sanctuary. His availability and ability to provide peace that transcends the world's chaos. His creativity to guide and Shepherd. His voice familiar and strong. "My sheep know my voice." His beauty. Even when there is misery and inexplicable suffering, pain and failure, there is His hand pulling me up, reassuring, warm and kind. "I lead you beside the quiet waters, take you to green pastures. Restore your soul." His grace my tether, my leitmotif for life.
May all your heart's desires manifest in 2023, your plans successful. Love and grace immeasurable. Rest and contemplation multiplied. God's peace your constant companion. Happy New Year.
To be quiet in spirit and believe in your pace, your way of doing things.~Journal entry, May 2022
It is December. Hard to believe we have turned the page to the last month of 2022. Many are taking their Christmas decorations from the attic and lacing lights through branches of pine boughs, stringing bursts of white light around windows. Last night I walked about our condo complex under a bright moon, soft tendrils of air blowing my bangs away from my face, warm for the last evening of November. I felt the embrace of the holiday season, lights blinking, casting blue and red shadows on the pathway as I made my way around the circle. I came home, lit a candle, made myself a cup of peppermint hot chocolate and grabbed my journal. I wanted to reflect upon the previous months of 2022. What had I come away with? What did I need to remember?
I wrote that I often live life attempting to control things I can't--like trying to eat Jell-O with a fork, the gelatin slipping from the tines. I people please too much and write out lists of shoulds that I never reach. I don't listen to myself.
I read further...
As I reviewed the journal entries, I realized I'd contemplated what I loved as a child. And that has helped my adult, been an antidote to loneliness and feeling less stressed out by our performance-based culture. When I was about five, I enjoyed a backyard with a swingset and a sandbox. I swung for hours, singing and thinking, my gray cat a companion. He sat in the grass, watching the blue jays flit amongst the oak trees. Sometimes he sat in my lap. I had a satchel filled with books and several notepads. I read the story books and wrote in the tablet. Sometimes two neighborhood siblings would join me. My mother was in the house and regualrly checked on me. But primarily, I enjoyed my own company, my unhurried pace. At peace with simple pleasures. I often thought of God in my safe place, sensed in my childlike mind that He was good--as if he was passing by and smiling that the person he'd created was happy, the blueprint for adulthood already in motion.
I wrote in my journal, "The child often knows what's best for the adult." I realize that my "playground" as an adult, is the page. Writing is the location I find I'm most myself--the beauty of words on the screen, the sound of my fingers flying over the keyboard. The glowing candle. Music. The joy of creating. The unhurried pace. Perhaps God still passes by my study and receives pleasure from my pleasure--as any good father would.
Where would your child take you? Go there.
Space and light and order--those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.~Le Corbusier
It can be merciful to have the right tool at just the right moment. I have a miniature hammer. At the bottom of the handle, I can turn a knob and three sizes of Phillips-Head screw drivers fit inside one another. I have used the hammer for decades and it has proven reliable on numerous occasions. Like the hammer, a few life practices act as tools to encourage light and space and order for living. As I look back over 2022, here are a few tools I've found useful. As always, take what you want from these posts and leave the rest.
Movement: How many times do we hear that exercise is needful for health, especially brain health? Sometimes the plethora of messages induce feelings of guilt, because we aren't moving as much as we could. And there are so many options for exercise to choose from. What works for a friend, may not work for you. Perhaps it could be helpful to think about merely decreasing sedentary habits and increasing movement. I found on YouTube a type of movement that is a good tool to help me stay consistent with exercise. I like the Australian instructors. I like their accents and that they have low, medium and high levels for the workouts. They use real people in their videos that are not picture perfect, like me. Enclosed is a link to Team Body Project, and representative of their many workout sessions. Participating with them most days, helps bring order to my life, and clears my mind, helps keep me energized. Team Body Project
Music: Thankfully, there are as many music genres as there are people. I love to listen to music while writing. I find music to be one of the most helpful tools for bringing light and hope to my creative process. The music of Yiruma has been my soundtrack for years, providing joy and comfort. My brain is able to relax when I listen to him. Along with a scented candle and a cup of tea, Yiruma's melodies feel as needful for writing as does my miniature hammer with its trifecta of screwdrivers for home projects. Here is a taste for you to try: Yiruma
Reading: I love to read. I inhale books. They seem as necessary to me as breathing. Reading helps me to create space, light and order in my life. And again, I'm grateful for so many genres. One book I go back to over and over again to help me practice creative tools is Julia Cameron's, The Artist's Way. I completed my fifth turn on the artist's pathway in 2022. Ms. Cameron has a way of meeting me with just the right balance of nurture and limits. She teaches a set of creative tools that validate and simultaneously encourage taking appropriate creative risks. The Artist's Way
Reading The Passion Translation of the Bible continues to be a light-filled location for me, the tool in my hand that acts as a sword for cutting through chaos and darkness, as well as a place to connect with the Prince of Peace. If I had only one tool I could keep, the Bible would be my hammer, embedded with that trio of Phillips-Head screwdrivers. Psalm 23, The Passion Translation
Here's to all the tools in the tool kit. And here's to each other as we practice using our individual tools. But mostly, here's to Christ who is faithful to help us discover His perfect tools for creating space, light and order.
It is something--it can be everything--to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below; a fellow bird whom you look after and find bugs and seeds for, one who will patch your bruises and straighten your ruffled feathers and mourn over your hurts when you accidentally fly into something you can't handle.~Wallace Stegner (From The Spectator Bird)
She hadn't planned on the conversation. My sister told me she went out to walk her dog. Right before she was about to go inside, her neighbor pulled up beside her and rolled down her window. "There I stood in the middle of the cul-de-sac, but it was early in the morning so there was no one else around, no cars that we were holding up." My sister said that she had had little contact with the neighbor. They'd been friendly, talking about their plants and the weather, but nothing deep. However, the neighbor began to pour out something intimate, something intense. The neighbor said right there on the street with the window rolled down, "I don't know how my husband could do this to me. Am I just to forget about seventeen years of marriage? And now he's remarried and I don't have much money. I'm supposed to be retired and now I've had to find a job. I can't forget about him."
My sister said her dog laid down in the street, sensing not to pull on the lead to get into the house for his kibble.
"How did you respond?" I asked.
"Funniest thing, I didn't panic or feel anxious about the encounter. Didn't feel as if I needed to have any kind of answer. I listened mostly, thinking that people are really hurt. And they live nextdoor. Then I finally said, "Wow, that must be really difficult. And surely you don't have to forget about seventeen years of marriage. That's a long time. And if you want to, just come over soon for a cup of coffee and we can chat." My sister said the woman nodded, smiled, rolled up the window and drove away.
I said, "I think your neighbor felt you were safe, even when you'd only talked about your yard and the weather. She felt God's love. That's why she stopped."
My sister is the kind of person who will straighten your ruffled feathers and mourn over your hurts when you accidentally fly into something you can't handle. That can be everything.