89. Plain, Mundane, and Common

December 10, 2013September 1, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / Leave a comment

My inbox is filling up with Christmas ideas:

The emotions are mixed on this folks, because I’m just not there…

Perhaps I could put our three trees in this corner? corner of living room

And hang the gigantic glitter snowflakes right here in the middle of these new windows where all cars passing by can see them?

New insulation surround new living room windows

Maybe we could decorate the ladder with pretty white lights?

Alas, instead of putting up Christmas trees, we are putting up pink fluffy stuff in the walls; instead of squirting cans of snow on the tree, we are squirting cans of foam around cracks and holes; instead of plugging in gigantic glittery snowflakes we are adding electrical outlets to the walls — every six feet, of course, to meet code…

Our twenty foot living room wall has gone from shivering, bare studs

to a warm blanket of pink

to a coordinating crazy quilt coverlet of pink and green.

You’ll also notice two of the four new outlets — for future gigantic glittery snowflakes, no doubt. (Actually my taste runs more to stars than flakes, but that’s another post…)

No glitter this year — just the plain, the mundane, and the common stuff of ordinary life.

Like one simple candle in the window instead of strings of lights; like quiet time spent reading Isaiah instead of Pinterest; like consciously focusing thought on the Savior in the ordinary manger, not Christmas wrappings and trappings; like looking very hard to find the UNordinary in the mundane happenings of everyday.

Snow clouds and blue sky

The God who came as a poor common man instead of the expected king turned the world upside down in part because of his humble origins, in part because he turned the common into uncommon: Water into wine, sin into forgiveness, dark into light, the cross — a horrible symbol of death — into the ultimate symbol of life.

I’m memorizing Isaiah 53:1-7 for the Christmas worship at our church. Every day I say it a dozen times or more, so I can know it. Say it with no mistakes. And at least once a day it moves me to tears of gratitude and remorse for what one common uncommon man-God did for me. For you.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him; nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering… but he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all…

the people who walked in darkness... May ~~you~~ we take time for quiet reflection in the midst of this busy season. May ~~you~~ we find the blessings in that mundane uneventful day, and may ~~you~~ we find the uncommon light of the Savior in the dark of December.

85. Dithering

October 14, 2013October 20, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 15 Comments

We spend a lot of time dithering…

siding boards

Trying to figure out every angle before we start, so we won’t be surprised.

It never works, and we just end up with a work stoppage.

Yesterday, after a morning of spectacular dithering, I wondered to myself why we don’t discuss these problems on the way back and forth from house to house. We’ve got plenty of time; the drive is at least an hour, and that’s if all the cars and drivers are behaving. (And the cat; when the cat misbehaves we end up with a conversation stoppage…).

But then I realized that we don’t discuss these problems because they are Unforeseen. Unexpected. Unknowns.

While we were dithering
about the project
before we started,
we never thought THAT
would happen,
even though
we thought
that we had thought
of Everything
causes dithering again.

Painting of Apple Hill Cottage, ca.1973

When the cottage first became ours, it was rather like a new romance. Oh, we wandered around thinking of possibilities — how grand it would be if we could put in hardwood floors here; and maybe we could raise the roof there; and perhaps if we enclosed this part of the back porch it would make a lovely guest bedroom…
The basic plan was to bring the cottage back to the way it looked originally (as close as we could get it, at least…) That wasn’t dithering; it was dreaming, and wondering, and expanding possibilities.

But the honeymoon is over now because we have spent almost every spare moment working on this cottage. Nothing can surprise us now, and some of the charm has been lost in the reality of sweat, blood, finances, time, ~~arguments~~ discussions, and just plain exhaustion. It’s an old house; suddenly we have to move to plan B because the furnace blew up. Or suddenly we have to leave Plan A to fix the roof because it is leaking. Or suddenly we have to change Plan A because the new siding isn’t quite the same as the old siding… Can we just be done already and get on with life?

No? Then, let’s at least stop dithering and get on with the plan. (Uh, was that Plan A or Plan B?)

The troubles come when glitches occur in the actual plan. Sort of like life? Glitches abound. And are we going to dither; or are we ready to accept the problem, embrace the setback, and make the delay part of the plan?
peeling paint
And here is where Jesus can help. If we are trying to live life according to His plan, well then, it’s His plan — it’s not our plan. We just like to think it’s our plan and that we are in charge. And when we get too uppity about it, God will remind us. Most of the time He reminds us gently, and that’s when we are to say, “Oh, yes. God, it is yours, not mine. Forgive me for trying to take over.”

Lawn chairs in fall

Sometimes it’s a big thing; sometimes we just see through the glass darkly and we fight and kick and struggle for weeks, months, years… until the glass clears and we finally get it — the fight belongs to Him, not us. He made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. (Psalm 100:3)

We dither because we are sheep. I know, it’s not a pleasant comparison, but there it is. Picture sheep running around the gated pasture bleating in confusion. Going nowhere and running in those circles cause befuddlement, bewilderment, agitation, and demoralization. Don’t ask me how I know this… (Read Luke 15 to be reminded. I need to be reminded of this often…)

But we have a good shepherd to lead us — one who never gives up on us no matter how far we wander;

mist in the hills

one who loves each one of us not because we are good, bad, black, or white, but simply because we are his;

one who constantly cares for us if we would just allow it.
the heavens

Note to self: Dithering is believing that your own plans might be better than God’s amazing plans! Embrace the delays and know that you are being taught something important.

Note to God: “Yes, God, it is truly yours, not mine. Forgive me for trying to take over.”

Amen.

82. Plus ça change…the circle of life

September 22, 2013July 1, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 13 Comments

Life in August and September has been lively: anniversaries, birthdays, the start of school, funerals, a wedding, and two houses that compete for our attention.

The start of school means back to work — organizing books, planning lessons, and this year it meant re-organizing the main section of the library after a flood last year.

Our good neighbor died suddenly in early September, and my beloved aunt died a few days ago after a long, well-lived life. A sudden death forces us to think on priorities and the preciousness of life; the other brings unexpected memories and reminds us of the preciousness of life…

Bride and groom My son married his love on September 14th, which would have been my Dad’s 92nd birthday. He would have been delighted! My granddaughter Olivia turned 11 on September 18th, which was my Mom and Dad’s anniversary. August 18th is our own anniversary. Our August and September calendars are circled heavily with red-letter days, both present and past. Red-letter days remind us of the preciousness of life…

And those two houses? One soon to be for sale, one soon to be lived in full time… Oh my, they are such time-suckers. We went into this adventure with our eyes wide open. We knew it would be hard, time-consuming, and detail-oriented. But I’m not sure we knew just HOW MUCH time is consumed in the redo of a house. Now it is already started, we are in the middle, and I am reminded of the preciousness of life and how easily it can be wasted by the details and busy-ness of living…

*****

It’s been two weeks since I sat down to write a blog post. Life, and the busy-ness of living have gotten in the way; as posts have churned around in my mind, I realized, “Oh, I wrote about painting the house last fall” and “Oh, I took that exact same photograph of the sun rising behind the tree last fall” and “Oh, I wrote about harvesting walnuts last fall.”

Sun rising in Autumn of last year,

Sun rising in the mist, First day of fall, 2013

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

I took five years of French, yet my knowledge of the language is now limited to passable pronunciation. But this French idiom has always stayed with me. Literally it is translated, the more it changes, the more it is the same thing.

Some people put a depressing slant on this phrase, meaning that nothing changes, no matter how different outward appearances are. I’m told the French themselves use this phrase in a rather cynical fashion.

I suggest that this is a hopeful thought. That the circle of seasons, births, weddings, anniversaries, yes, and even death, are put in our lives by the Creator God to give us stability and to remind us of the preciousness of life — our own lives and the lives of those who surround us. These things that don’t change? We need to be grateful for the sameness. Grateful that the sky is always blue; grateful that the leaves always turn glorious colors in autumn; grateful that school always starts in the fall and there is important work to do.

Painting the cottage, one side last year,

Painting the cottage, one side this year,

one side last year…

Painting the house before winter sets in, gathering walnuts before the squirrels — these are all part of the pattern of life that God sets before us. The sun rising behind that same tree is part of the cycle of the sun and seasons that God gave us. Circles, cycles, predictability, patterns…those are what allow us to see also the unpredictable surprises of life and be blessed by them. No matter how much time goes by, we are all part of the amazing cycle of human life — from beginning to end, great-great grandfather to great-great grand-niece, Genesis to Revelation; no matter how the outward appearances change, the natural life that God created us for, stays the same.

The cycles and circles of life bring the stability that enable us to fully live in the present, to fully engage with the people who surround us, and to celebrate the spectacular — both the ordinary beauty and the extraordinary beauty of our lives.

hibiscus