Dark Days

December 15, 2024December 15, 2024 / Apple Hill Cottage / 4 Comments

It is the third Sunday in Advent: the Sunday of Joy.

I write this with only a little touch of irony, because in this season of dark, on a gloomy December day, one of the longest nights of the year, I’m struggling with finding joy.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Just today in church, two friends shared their own distinct struggles with the elusive words of the Advent season: hope, love, joy, peace…And then this afternoon another friend’s battle with anxieties became a prayer. And when I pray, I always remember my friends in Haiti, and that results in more distress. My prayers don’t bring me peace. It’s an anxious time–from the personal, to the political, to worries for the world.

So I’m sitting here wrapped in a blanket, staring at my beautiful light-filled mantle, praying for myself and my friends and the country and the world. Meditating on joy–how we miss it, how we long for it, how we try to make up for its lack on our own terms, in our own ways.

In the sermon today, I heard that Joy is a gift from God, but it is also a decision we make. Choose joy. It’s a familiar phrase, a book title, a piece of music, and the source of many quotes, both familiar and not, But often such quotes simply seem like platitudes when we are going through dark times. When there is nothing to look forward to? Perhaps a good thing to do is look back. Look back and see how God has blessed you through your life. Look back with gratitude at the good things that have happened. Acknowledge your grief of today, and remember things past that made you smile. That make you smile still. Yes, it’s a way of choosing joy.

Remember a few years ago when gratitude was a thing? There were books, there were gratitude journals, there were blogs on writing down your blessings. Isn’t it silly, Isn’t it human, that something like gratitude can be a fad? Gratitude and Joy are related–if we decide to be thankful, if we decide to live life gratefully, then joy will simply be a byproduct of those attitudes. Except, there is nothing simple about joy.

Especially if you are, if one is, if I am, a glass-half empty type of person.

I have a book on my bookshelves called Living Life as a Thank You. The subtitle is The Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude. I don’t know how I came by it; I’ve never read it. Looking at it now for the first time (the cover creaked and groaned when I opened it) the authors are Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons and the copyright is 2009. And there is a chapter on Staying Thankful in Difficult Times. And the next chapter is The Power of Gratitude to Make a Difference in the World. Perhaps I need to read this book.

I think most of us who are struggling to find joy right now are really asking the question, How long? How long, Lord, will you allow this injustice to continue? Injustice can be the shape of the world and what the evil powers are doing to it. But injustice can also be the personal–illnesses that can’t be cured, problems that have no solution, anxiety that won’t be calmed, poverty that can’t be escaped, sorrow that can’t be assuaged…And the feeling that you’re tired, exhausted, actually, and nothing that you can do will relieve the endless suffering.

The other book I’m reading right now is Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and The Praying Imagination by Eugene Peterson. I’m spending much time with it and taking many notes because what Peterson says to us right now in this time and what he is saying to me right now in my brokenness is just invaluable. Listen to what he says here:

“The persistence of the prayer ‘How long?’ issues, apparently, from a deep, unshakable conviction that God will bring an end to injustice even though he shows no signs of calling the court room to order…So what accounts for the incredible persistence of the cry? In the general abandonment of prayer, in which great crowds of people give up on God and plunge into the streets to get what they can with their fists, what accounts for the remarkable minority who do not, but who stay, and cry, and wait? We are accustomed by now to St. John’s answer: Worship…St. John’s recurrent representations of worship are not pious, escapist fictions, but theological convictions. The conviction is that God’s action, not the world’s action, is what we want to be involved in. The world is not the context for dealing with God; God is the context for dealing with God (and the world)….Worship is the act of giving committed attention to the being and action of God.”

It is God’s actions, and not the world’s actions that we want to be involved in.

But there’s also one more important thing to remember, or we could easily just try to withdraw from this world’s ugliness. Everything we do is of eternal importance. (I’m summarizing Peterson, here) : Everything we do is political and we can choose the way of God or the way of the world. Every one of our “…encounters is a significant detail in the life of faith. But we are not aware of it. Most of the time we are not living in a crisis in which we are conscious of our need of God, yet everything we do is critical to our faith, and God is critically involved in it. All day long we are doing eternally important things without knowing it…”

At the grocery store, talking with a friend, taking someone a meal, choosing silence over argument …it all counts.

If you are still reading after all of this meandering, thank you. I’ve no answers on finding joy except two: Focus on gratitude and Focus on God while we are waiting (and working) for the injustices of this world to end.

He promises that we will know someday.

And it will be joyous.

And there will be no more sorrow, no more injustice, no more grieving.

And in the meantime, turn off the news and focus on the good; focus on the small things of everyday life that make up those “eternally important things”. I think I will try a Choose Joy project of my own: each day I will take a photo of something that gives me joy or makes me thankful. I’ll report back in a couple of months….And here’s my first photo:

The Christmas tree is outside this year, and it snowed just enough to make it pretty.

In the midst of noise, trouble, and hard work

July 7, 2017July 6, 2017 / Apple Hill Cottage / 6 Comments

There’s a ladder living in our bathroom.

A small seven-word sentence. It doesn’t even have an exclamation point at the end. Although it should!

In 2011, when we became official owners of this little cottage, the bathroom was the first room we intended to refinish. It’s small, we thought; yes, start small. But then we ran into a few problems, so Mr. H.C. decided it would be better to redo the kitchen first. Now, six years later we are finally starting on the bathroom. The photos below show you what we’ve lived with for lo, these many years…

Yes, it would definitely win the Ugly Bathroom Contest. And just so you won’t think us total Appalachian hillbillies, I will show you the finished door that goes in to this contest-winning bathroom…

Through these years, we have collected most everything we need. Remember it was the first room we were going to tackle? Practically the first thing we bought for the house was the bathroom vanity and mirror. They’ve been against the wall in the garage bedroom covered in plastic all this time. The truth is often Not Pretty; but there is a glass-half-full outlook — We already have:

the sink,
the sink faucet,
the shower head and handles
the vanity,
the mirror,
the lights,
the toilet,
a lovely cabinet with glass doors that was left over from the kitchen project,
the tile for the shower floor,
the tile for the vanity top, and, drum roll please….
the pull-down attic ladder that will go in the ceiling — which was the initial problem that stopped this bathroom project all those many years ago.

That long list above, makes the list of still-to-purchase items rather short: subway tile for the shower walls, a shower pan, some incidental plumbing materials, and ceiling boards. Oh, and paint. And maybe a glass-block window. We haven’t really decided about the window yet. That’s the least of our worries; we haven’t gotten to that wall yet…

But can I just be honest and say, this prolonged bathroom project has made for a lot of anxiety and needless tension? The last unnecessary comment I made was earlier this year: Mr. H.C. thought maybe we could invite some folks over for dinner.
We have a lovely kitchen.
We have a lovely dining room.
We have a lovely porch.
We have a lovely living room.
Did I focus on any of those? No.
I said, “No one is getting invited here for dinner until the bathroom is finished.”
I mean, let’s face it: you can’t invite people for dinner and then shove them out the door right after dessert because you don’t want them to use your bathroom….

Bathroom wall — looks like old Italian plaster, eh?

Yes, there it is again: the ugly truth. It’s right up there with those ugly bathroom walls.

And no, I never have had peace about living in the midst of a really ugly bathroom. Oh, every morning when I take a shower, I’m grateful for the hot running water. I lived without running water for several years, so I know about praise for hot showers…

It’s just that I really appreciate beauty, and there’s been no beauty in this bathroom for a long time…except in my mind’s eye. And I can’t show you any pretty photographs yet, because we are still in the midst of noise, trouble, and hard work. In fact, it’s only just now begun… But I can say that it is certainly easier to have peace knowing that the noise, trouble, and hard work will soon morph into that finished bathroom that has lived in my head for so long,

The longer the wait, the more we appreciate.

The absolute, very last ever post on the mudroom…maybe

March 13, 2017March 17, 2017 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

Why?

Because it is finally finished. And I have to say this final bit was all Mr. H.C. The only share I had in this last wall was painting one coat of paint on the door.

There won’t be too many words about this, because words cannot describe how completely and utterly finished it looks.

Unfortunately photos can’t do it justice either. Because it is all painted in Sherwin Williams’ lovely creamy white color — Steamed Milk. The same color as the kitchen walls. The same color as the dining room walls. The same color as the living room walls. The same color as the ceiling in all those rooms as well. Yes, we like creamy white walls. And ceilings.

In my humble non-decorator-just-average-person opinion, creamy white walls make a humble cottage look bigger, lighter and brighter, and just all-around more cheerful. And anyone who saw the cottage before, with its orange walls and wallpaper and 70s dark paneling would agree.

So without further ado, here are some befores, durings, and afters of our finally-finished-after-five-years mudroom entry to Apple Hill Cottage. (Trumpet sounds here…)

One can see that it is so new, there isn’t even any art on the walls.

This gallery below shows the progression of the outside wall of the mudroom — from the initial window, cedar shake walls, and plastic ceiling — to what it looks like now:

Cedar shakes and old window

New door and window

trimmed door and window

The next gallery of photos shows the progression of the second wall:

Cedar shakes used to cover the walls

Cedar is gone, the walls are insulated and drywall over the insulation

…the desktop reimagined as a coat rack and painted green (Blooming Grove by Benjamin Moore)

The floor has been done for a couple of years, but it still merits a before and after photo shoot:

Not only does the floor have a level problem, there are also some serious cracks.

It was the coldest week of the winter, 2015 when we laid the tile in the mudroom.

The finishing of this room took so long because an exterior roof was necessary before the interior ceiling could be installed. Since the roof was finished this past summer, this winter we were able to proceed with the ceiling:

The cedar is gone and so is the plastic ceiling

Here you can also see the wire problem…

the ceiling now matches throughout the cottage…

The last wall to be finished (February/March, 2017) was the wall with the most issues. There is an electric panel two feet from the wood stove; there were wires traveling the whole length of the wall that hooked into the electric panel; and this wall was also the orginal entry into the kitchen before the mudroom was enclosed and was just a porch. When we took off the cedar shakes, the wall was down to its original siding and it wasn’t pretty:

There’s a lot to look at here — but you can see the shadow of the old entry door. You can also see the wires going across the wall above the doorway.

Here you can see the lovely fixed siding

…and here is the doorway, framed in.

These photos below show the electric panel side of the doorway:

The ugly electric panel

the pocket door built to cover the ugly electric panel

And the pocket door painted and closed. Here at the top, you can see the secret hinged cover that opens to allow access to the wires.

The sliding door that covers the electric panel is made from concrete board and trimmed with wood grain concrete board so it mimics the other interior doors in the cottage, but it is safe for being next to the wood stove. It hangs from the ceiling with pocket door hardware.

Tackling the Mudroom

The pocket door next to the wood stove

tile installed and window trimmed

One of the best things about having the mudroom finished is that now the doorway into the kitchen is finished as well. In the last post on the mudroom, I showed you the photo on the left. Now the far right is the finished picture.