Nature

When the Desert Loves

As a pilot calls on winds and a storm-tossed mariner looks
homeward, so the times call on you to win your way to God. As
God’s athlete, be sober; the stake is immortality and eternal
life. St. Ignatius the God-bearer
I have never read much of the desert fathers (and mothers) but I understand the appeal the desert held for them. The desert has a way of calling to you after awhile. I never would have believed this, having been raised with weekends on the Pacific coast and the majestic Sierra Nevada mountain range. These call too, very loudly……..it is easy to see God there because the grandeur of that beauty speaks with a megaphone.
The desert is big sky………and filled with remote and lonely places that only the cry of the coyotes fill.
And the desert is fierce and moody and relentless. At once brutal, so hot you can feel it in your eyeballs, and powerful and violent as the thunder rolls, the lightening flashes against the backdrop of eerie sky sending both human and animal alike running for cover as the hardened ground fails to contain the water that pours out of the sky in sheets. The wind blows and the dust swallows everything in its path. I challenge anyone to doubt God in a desert thunderstorm.
You feel the fierceness of the relentless heat like the Old Testament’s descriptions of God’s wrath in the summer time. You think you will never get through its oppressive agony. It is merciless, the way it beats down on you, month after month.Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God……. Then just when you think you can’t stand one more minute…….that He may exalt you at the proper time…..1 Peter 5:6
And then…….miraculously.
It cools. You feel the release of its grip like the whisper of God’s mercy. You walk outside and you realize something monumental has happened, something wondrous. It is the desert waking up…..The hope of that awakening is something a non-desert dweller could never understand.
We rejoice because we have made it through to the other side. It’s a bit like rebirth……Doors and windows are once again thrown open, and new life begins once more.
Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:12 
I open the screen door for the first time today….Hallelujah!

Soul Rest

Somewhere there is a quiet place to dream
To be still, and let the world drop away
You know that place
You could paint it on a canvas
it’s different for everybody, this place.
It’s like a familiar friend and you
always know it when you’ve found it.
It is the moment your soul has found rest,
safely landed….
when all the conditions are right and
you feel like everything in
the universe is working with you 
right then.
Every now and again it happens
in this life, and when it does
it is something like
a little miracle.
It’s not so much a structure
or building…..
You could find it on a street corner
far from home….
It’s that place you discover when you are
all by yourself
maybe rounding a hill
or walking through a clearing
or seeing a light shining through
a little alley way
No matter where it is,
you turn as if to say…..look! 
You want to share it
with someone close.
And then again you almost don’t. 

You want it

to be just yours……
and God’s.
I think this place is something we all
have in common, for is there anyone who
does not dream of such a place?
When you see it, something
in you wants to claim
it as your own
It feels like home
You breathe a little prayer of thanks,
because you just know that God
has dropped it out of the sky
just for you!
I found this little building behind the cabin next door that we rented earlier this month. I immediately claimed it as my own and dubbed it My Writer’s Shack. It intrigued me, stuck back there in the woods. One night I actually thought I saw a light on in the little window, but maybe I just wanted to. I had fun painting a little scene for myself there. I saw myself sitting behind that window, kerosene lamp lit in a comfy chair watching big flakes of snow coming down…books and journal at hand. I have no idea if that cabin was a rental or not. It could be that they used the little building as storage, but I had fun imagining what it could be.  
Be at rest sometime this weekend, and be blessed!

The Human Condition

I was swept along by a terrible dust storm last night after fighting through my 12 hour shift with a head cold. I was literally running down the hall trying to make it to the bathroom to the kleenex box by days end. Then, I had to go back in after I got all the way out to my car because I forgot something in the fridge at work. Part of dinner, actually. The picture above is one that was posted all across the country after our “big” storm on July 5th. I found it on a Google search, and it turns out this one came from “The Ecuador Times,” of all places!

Last nights storm wasn’t nearly as bad since I did have visibility on the freeway, but you have to be aware of debris hitting you. Birds were trying to fly and being carried off course….and when I was almost home I noticed a dust cloud, we call them “dirt devils” touching down on the freeway, right in my path. I watched the other cars (Yes, I realize this is faulty logic) as they cautiously drove through, and so I figured it was safe enough for my little bug, which holds the road like a tank. I gripped the wheel, all the while visualising my bug and me being sucked up into the vortex like Dorothy.

Once on the other side of that, the rain started along with the wind……along with a healthy amount of lightning striking all around. Meanwhile, I had used the last of my Kleenex and was resorting to my sleeve to catch drips….Ughhhh!

I looked to my left off the freeway and noticed smoke. I followed it down to ground level and it led to flames which were shooting through the roof of a house! I could see them even from the freeway. I assume it was started by the lightning. I could see the lights of Emergency vehicles already on the scene. I said a silent prayer, hoping that all had gotten out safely.



I was starting to feel like I was driving home in the middle of a disaster movie!

I thought of it all, the little and big things we go through in a day and how much of it would really matter if someone told me I was terminally ill. I also thought that I would probably treat the people in my life better if I were terminal. See things a bit differently.

So many times I feel like a kid trying to work up tears when I commune with God and tell Him I’m sorry for mistreating one of His people. I want to be so sorry that it motivates me to change…..Sackcloth and ashes kind of sorry. The kind that leads to repentance and doesn’t ring hollow.
This is the human condition. The thing we all have in common. And the things that we have in common, also have the power to bring us closer together.
Help me Lord, to treat my friends, my family, myself better. To treat my friends like treasure instead of trash, knowing that each one you brought into my life, you brought there for a reason. Help me to love more. Turn my heart of stone into one of flesh. Help me to treat others as better than myself and to not be afraid to be honest. To myself, and others and You. And help me to remember that we are all weathering storms of some kind, help me to be sensitive to that and keep my heart ready to listen. Amen

A Few Highlights…..

I headed to the attic alcove and hung my hat……..
My very own lookout….in the morning I opened the windows and woke up with the Stellar’s Jays racket high up in the trees…..heavenly.
This wonderful cabin had windows that opened in…..I was like a little kid when I saw them!
Our home for two wonderful days…….
Lunch at one of my favorite places with three of my favorite people Diane and Elaine……(My Mom not pictured)
 Meeting the new family member, Abby
I got to spend some quality “Aunty” time with our girl, Lauryn
Lauryn and my brother, Ron who bought us this wonderful cabin for the weekend!
Yes, it is…….
Now we are home, bringing back summer colds but thankfully, great memories to go along with them! These memories we made are such gifts from God and I am truly thankful for every moment……

A Wonderful Birthday Week

If the sight of the blue sky fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. Eleonora Duse

I am heading back to the desert filled with sweet memories for my soul’s bouquet.

It is fragrant and alive, and still fresh in my mind.

I carry their voices away with me along with the times we shared, held close to my heart.

So grateful am I for this time. To refresh, renew.

Unwind.

We will be further down the road tomorrow and heading back home.

How curious and bittersweet to go from home to home once again.

This is the afterglow of vacation.

I am still in it.

The cabin we rented actually had these stars all ready for us!

Hide and Seek

“God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden… The best gift of the desert is God’s presence… The protective love of the Shepherd gives me courage to face the interior journey.” — Paul E. Miller (A Praying Life)

I almost missed these little guys as I walked by…….Sometimes it is hard to find the beauty in a day, sometimes there is turbulence in the soul that distracts us from it. But it is there all the time.
 
This morning the sunrise made the clouds blush a wonderful pink…….God was telling me, look what I did for you! At every turn, He does something stunning in nature and it never stops. An ever changing piece of His artwork.
 
Life and noise try to compete for it, but we must not let it get the best of us.
 
That’s all I got today. Getting ready for another trip to California to visit the family.
 
Camera ready!
 
Peace and Blessings for a wonderful weekend opening your eyes to what God shows you……
 

pics taken with iphone on a walk in the desert this spring

The Beauty all around us

He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 1 Thessalonians 5:10

Imagine, that we can know the originator of all beauty, truth and everything good. Imagine standing in His eternal presence. Imagine the best of everything we have experienced in this life…….. magnified way beyond anything we can dream. Sometimes it is enough to burn a hole clear through my brain, if I think of it too much!

I think of everything I have seen, what a gift memory is, a reliving of every most beautiful moment in my life. To think that of all these things I look back on, there is so much more to come.

Things like the hushed, hallowed quiet of standing in a snowfall, how it’s almost Holy.

Those times when you feel like all is right with the world for a brief moment…..when you have felt so happy you want to break into song, and you do.

All this beauty, and we have only experienced a very small fraction of it…….of what’s to come.

Every sigh of the wind through the trees….woven together as a chorus of praise to Him.

Look around next time you are surrounded by loved ones, and everyone is laughing. Who but God could invent something like laughter?

I remember a Christmas service that was just the right amount of joy and holy.

The world is magic, and if you don’t think it is, you haven’t opened your eyes yet. Just think of the way a small child’s eyes light up when they see bubbles. In their eyes you can see the light of Heaven if you look.

There is a spark there that the world has not yet put out.

So many moments of such grand and wondrous beauty, I think in those best of times….what else can possibly be better than this. And yet God says…..

Just wait…..

picture credit: public domain pictures, Anna Cervova

Morning Journal

When morning gilds the skies my heart awaking cries:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer, to Jesus I repair:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When you begin the day, O never fail to say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
And at your work rejoice, to sing with heart and voice,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
German hymn, author unknown
The birds were busy this morning,  as they crisscrossed staccato clouds. Roused from their nightime secrets places of slumber, they now have places to go, things to do.
Bunny is busy too, zig-zagging further down the street. It was a gilded sunrise, everything washed in peach……I had a great night’s sleep and I feel rested, first time in four days.
The moon still hangs lazily above the cloud bank to my right. I guess she is not ready to wake up on the other side of the world just yet.
What a luxury it is to sit here and watch the world wake up.
In my memory, I see myself, my Dad, a group of us standing in a circle holding hands on a green lawn, still damp with dew. We are singing the song, “Morning Has Broken.” Celebration in the air……
It is Easter sunrise.
Today I had another.
 

Just today…..

“In the days before his death,his Aunt Louisa asked him if he had made his peace with God.
His answer was “I did not know we had ever quarrelled, Aunt.” Attributed to Henry David Thoreau
The LORD your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Thank you God for placing me here in this world you have created. I could have been born anywhere or not at all, and I thank you that I was. Each day holds a glimpse of Your Heaven. Help me not fail to notice the small moments of wonder happening all around me. Too many days have passed when I haven’t.
Consider just one bird….the cactus wren, so busy, so industrious is this couple that they build not one nest, but two….one as a backup, or maybe a decoy to fool predators?
And when I consider the full moon hanging there just so, its own presence daring us not to believe. I wonder how anyone can deny that kind of majesty and say that it was not created…..
that….. it….. just….. happened
We are all born with a spark of Grace…..made for eternity.
No matter how bad I think things are, there is always so much to thank you for. Sometimes it helps to do just that.
So today, I pause.

Buggy thoughts……

I saw it as I wiped the cleaning rag over my bathroom counter. It was so small I almost thought it was a microscopic particle of dirt or something else, until it moved. Something made me look closer. It was so very, very small. How very large my counter top must look, as big as a whole world! I wondered how it even knew where it was going, for it certainly seemed to have a destination. There was something about the way it was just there. Any other day I may have just scrunched it up in a towel, because, after all…..it was so very small.

It moved me, watching that little bug. I could have smashed it without a second thought….sent it to a watery grave, and yet it didn’t know that. That’s what got to me, I guess. How many people are walking around just like that little bug, clueless that the God who created them has the power to stop their breath in an instant. And His great mercy keeps them going, because He loves them so much.

Loves all of us so much.

It humbled me, thinking of that little bug. So unaware of my bigness and its smallness….So unaware of what I could do. What I might have done another day. I think it was that thought alone that made me take it outside to a safe place. It was just too small to survive indoors. This morning, something in me needed to save it. At first it balked at my efforts to help it, it didn’t know what I wanted to do. I coaxed it onto a tissue and carried it outside and set it tenderly at the base of a shady plant.

Safe for one more day.