fourfeetsixinches

there is a section on county road b-20 that has been closed for months for construction. that detour has altered one of the routes i drive to and from work on many days. but it reopened this week. so at the risk of being late for work this morning, i drove to an old, familiar place that i’ve not been to for months. mallard marsh road. a quiet stop along the commute. a welcomed sidetrack. sometimes on the way to work with a cup of coffee. sometimes on the way home for a quiet stop between mental health work and whatever activity is going on in the evening.

there were some light rain showers this morning. and there was the fragrance of autumn dampness in the air. a morning where the rain brings something back alive in the browning leaves before they completely compost back into the earth. a kind of dying that offers something to the life of the next season.

anne lamott says that “to be great, art has to point somewhere.” i have yammered a bit about where the beauty of nature points me. about the metaphor that various photos stir in me. so, am inviting you to respond about what these photos stir in you [if anything]. where they point you, so to speak. anne also says that “we are wired as humans to be open to the world instead of enclosed in a fortified, defensive mentality.” i invite you to be open…

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i find myself being more quiet these days. not writing so much. not speaking all that much either. but i am moved by much that is going on around me. in spite of the lack of rain and dry conditions for the last months, there has been some incredible beauty around this year. and the Creation speaks to me in all kinds of ways. and it draws me back to the Creator himself….

so without a bunch of my words getting in the way, i just want to share a few of the photos i’ve snapped this season. some of the beauty that captures my attention…

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more than a couple of thousand years ago the writer of psalms said this: “Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.” i see such glory here…

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every day for most of the year, when my front tires kiss the curb at my parking space at work, i see these stems adorned with a sort of lace-like flower. it is called queen ann’s lace. a name of royalty i suppose. and they have a different look in different seasons. this is how they looked last evening as i was leaving the office. the brown and gray and earthy season for the queen’s lace. somehow i like this season of its development best when it comes to appearance. a few seeds hanging there amidst the cluster of stems.

this week i am reminded of a dear friend of mine. a dear friend of many. margaret scott pauley. this week marks twenty years since the day she crossed through the veil from this life to the eternal. and i still find myself grieving and celebrating her. both at once. she cannot be described in the context of this page. but i want to say something brief here about her. at the service that celebrated her life and grieved her death, there was a short verse that was spoken that continues to stand out to me. it is taken from john and is a quote of jesus of nazareth: “i tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. but if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

there is way too much to try to write about when it comes to this short sentence. and i do not pretend to be a theologian. matter of fact, i don’t even want to be one. but i understand the metaphor here in the way that margaret lived much of her life. in one aspect, her death has not stopped a certain kind of life from continuing, because her actions, while she was alive, are still producing fruit in my life. but the most significant part of that for me is not tied to her actual death in september of 1992. it is that she lived her life with a sort of dying to self. putting others first. loving so authentically and convincingly. pointing to her maker as the source of that kind of crazy love. and after her death…two decades after her death…that kind of mysterious living and dying lifestyle continues to inspire me. to challenge me. to draw me to the Giver of Life. and i am so grateful to him for her, and how her eternal self somehow is affecting this temporal life for me and for many.

for those of you who knew margaret…share a memory here if you choose. and, more importantly, live your life in a way that dies to you and brings life to others. a way that points others to the true Source of Life.

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a couple of weeks ago jon saw this painted turtle crawling around in the garden. am not sure what it was looking for so far away from any body of water. maybe the fact that i’ve been irrigating it in the midst of the drought here. i don’t know. but he brought it up near the house to get a closer look at it. and i wanted to get some pics of it. a series of pics where it was retreated safely into it’s shell, and then moving back out and crawling away. but as long as i waited, it would not venture out far at all. the counselor was looking for metaphor in one of the classic views of the “shell” of self-protection. and most of what i got was just that; self protection. this big guy [or little girl] wasn’t going to venture out as long as i was anywhere close.

lily, our curious cat, came close and tried to get it to come out and play. again, not much interest in venturing out. cautious. timid. scared. maybe all of those things… whatever it was, this turtle wasn’t going to risk sticking it’s neck out very far. and any sort of movement away wasn’t happening either, as it’s legs remained tucked almost completely inside it’s shell. [i realize that i am anthropomorphizing here…attributing human traits to non-human beings such as cats and turtles…]

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willard & locy, in their book veneer say, “once bitten by loss or betrayal or failure, we shy from engaging too deeply in relationships or new endeavors. each time life strikes us with a heavy blow, we back off a bit…” and i would say, that even if our loss or betrayal or failure does not feel all that dramatic, mere hints of it at times can cause us to back off a bit. to shy away from something. to disengage or not engage to a deep degree. anne lamott writes of “..keeping one’s heart open in the presence of suffering.”

suffering is a three-syllable word with so many things attached to it. some people act like they’re suffering all the time. others, scandanavians mostly, are always “fine” and seem to never suffer, even if they’re bleeding all over the place. fact is, we all suffer to some degree at some time or another. and one of the most natural responses is to close our hearts. to shut down. protect from further pain, whatever that pain is we’re feeling.

i’ve been in a shell for a time. and for whatever reason[s], i’ve just kept things to myself more than usual. lots on my mind. lots to do. and when that is going on, it feels like i don’t live very deeply. i skim the surface and jump from one thing to the next. whatever screams loudest for my attention. and life feels a little less than abundant in that way. i’ve been a turtle of sorts, and perhaps its time…

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north iowa has been dry for a long while. and while the farmers are dealing in much higher stakes than mine, my garden has been at risk. as such, i have been doing the shallow watering thing to get things growing and keep things alive… at least until some substantial rainfall comes our way. last night we got such a rain and it was very welcomed. two-and-a-tenth inches of soaking rain in my rain gauge this morning.

crazy thing is, that life has felt a lot like the weather and the garden situation for me lately. when it comes to my soul, my heart, things have felt dry. and i’ve tried to take care of that, but it has felt a lot like a shallow watering in the garden. just enough to get things started growing. just enough to sustain life. waiting for something more substantial to come along. a good soaking rain, so to speak. something that gets past the surface and down to the root of things. something that quenches a thirst and lasts for more than a day or two. there can be a lot of things in life that are  like the sun and wind. both are important things, sun and wind. but sometimes there is too much of it for too long, and it seems to burn the vitality right out of things. lush green becomes more of a grayish sage color. new growth, while there, is stunted and small.

i’ve been reading a book about prayer. and not just the kind of prayers written by someone else that you read. a book about praying differently. boldly and with purpose and passion. praying about your biggest dreams and greatest fears. and while it inspires me, it has also seemed to make me aware of how puny some of my prayers have been over the course of my life. like praying for rain. or praying for healing. or ________… an incredibly long list of possibilities here. and  while i don’t have a lot of answers personally about where this may take me, i am wrestling with the possibility of such a change in my stance in how i approach the God of the universe.

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there are so many facets of who you are… too many to list on a card, or a page. a sometimes delicate flower, as i say, and at other times, tough as nails. sometimes stoic, as a good norwegian girl should be, and sometimes open and tender, with a sort of fragile beauty. a fragile beauty that really goes beyond the tough parts of you. actually makes the tough parts of you even tougher. one of the many mysteries of you, mare.

the parts of you that love your Creator. those that love jonathan and maggie, with a sometimes fierce love, a sometimes playful love. the driven intensity that moves you through your days, and the quiet caring that softens the intensity to an endearing beauty.

i am so grateful for the many and different facets of your beauty. the simplicity and yet the mystery of all you are. thank you for being the mother of our children. happy mother’s day. i love you.

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just a few photos that i snapped on the way home from the office tonight. for some reason, such sun rays and storm clouds almost always get my attention. catch my eye. there is something hopeful in this visual for me. not sure why, but it is…

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confession: there are times for me. sometimes long seasons of time, when it feels like life just hasn’t given me as much room to live and move and breathe as i’d like. as much room to grow as i’d like. there are just too many limits. and my spirit longs for more freedom.  i know that sounds a little whiney. it actually feels whiney and embarrassing to type onto this page. but it is honest for me to say. sometimes i whine about my lot in life. even when i don’t speak it out loud or write it down somewhere for someone to read. there can be a discontent voice inside of me.

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last week offered me some great moments with my family of origin. dad, mom, marcy, nance, and edi. we spent several days together at mom and dad’s place in arizona. on friday we all hopped [well, i guess i didn’t hop…] on a pontoon and toured the shores of canyon lake. was a beautiful day! and as norman was at the wheel i snapped a few hundred pictures of most everything in sight. eagles, water foul, rock formations, family behaviors, plant life so different from iowa plant life. was a very enjoyable time.

and as i was looking through photos when i got back home, this theme emerged for me in the slide show above: these plants grow in such unlikely places. what kind of beauty grows out of a crack in a massive piece of rock? or hangs onto a vertical cliff and thrives there? but look at these humble examples of life. a seed finds a place to rest. or gets stuck in a crevice. and it does what comes naturally; it allows itself to open up and let life grow from within.  somehow the metaphor translates into humanity for me, and i am inspired. i am spurred on.

i’m preparing to share some of my thoughts about living well, living purposefully with a disability for a conference next month in lincoln, nebraska. but i think such thoughts are not necessarily limited to only those with some kind of disability. some kind of physical limitation. i think there are a lot of us who at one time or another look at our lives, our gifts, talents, skills [or lack of gifts, talents, skills] and whine about the tiny little crack that we’ve been given to put down our roots and grow. to do what’s in our power to make something of our lives. something that is purposeful. something of value to offer to the the human community around us.

the Creator speaks to me in his handiwork. in the beauty of creation and the mystery of life itself. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” [Romans 11].   whatever the seed of our gifts, talents, skills, hearts… and wherever it is that we’ve found places to put down roots and grow, let us trust in the depths of his wisdom and knowledge in doing what he has done.

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