Indian Summer

This past week I was visited by my first Indian Summer, which, thank you wikipedia, is “a meteorological phenomenon that occurs in autumn, in the Northern Hemisphere. It is characterized by a period of sunny, warm weather, after the leaves have turned following an onset of frost, but before the first snowfall.”

After weeks of chill, a few summer days came up to visit us, and we soaked up the sun in quiet happiness. I took my day off with a couple of friends and visited Rhode Island. I found the state enchanting, and bigger too, than the map says. Perhaps deeper and taller, but bigger all the same. On a trek through some Rhode Island woods I learned the names of trees. I hope I remember them- I only know five so far. One of my favorites was this beech tree, and she gave me the following gifts. Hers was the show. Mine were the camera and pen.




The Indian Summer is for me
Gleefully whispered the young beech tree.

The young tree bold, her leaves grown old,
But gaily swaying, red and gold.

Gently gliding on the winds,
They reach sunlight, beech lithely bends.

Cold the leaves had started dying
Sinking down, beech humbly sighing

Bowing to the season’s call.
She’d had her spring, and knew the Fall.

But Indian Summer came to glaze
A summer glow before winter’s haze.

And now the lady leaves can leave
In half a week when winter breathes

In peace, for she twice she’d seen the sun
In peace, for winter has to come.

On Mourning the Non-Existence of my Nursing Career and Riding Roller Coasters Like White People

This summer I met a lovely African-American woman in the home of a mutual friend. We shared a bit of our backgrounds. She made a fortune gambling. I made a B+ in Angelology (I am not kidding, I actually took that class). She grew up surrounded by gangs, I grew up surrounded by Starbucks. We both loved Jesus. We had a delightful conversation, alternating speaking and listening, having almost nothing but the biggest things in common. At one point, I started sharing my plans and ideas for my future. She must have noted me being on edge or something, because she held her hand up and gave me the following sermonette: (And any of my friends, please feel free to correct my Eubonics. I have done my best.) “Listen girl. You know Six Flags?” I nodded. “Well, I love Six Flags, but e’ry time I go, I notice sumpin. When black people ride the roller coasters, We be all coverin’ our heads, closin’ our eyes, scrunched up in the seat, holdin’ on to the roller coaster liken we’s about to fall out. But when dem white people ride roller coasters, dey be wavin’ their hands in the hair, liftin up outa dey seats, laughin’ and screamin’. You know girl, don’t try to figure it all out now. When you’re goin through life, don’t be like them black people on the roller coaster. Wave your hands up in the air, and have yo’self a good time.”

I laughed. I laughed hard, and have remembered this advice often when I get stuck or flustered or sure that I have cancer or am missing out on some central drumbeat that everyone else is hearing. Sometimes in this mode I think about how I should have been a nurse, or I should still try to be one. This is not a good idea. I do not like blood or needles, I hate science and I am not very detail oriented. Charts stress me out. But I did a project on Florence Nightingale when I was in elementary school, and my mom was a nurse, and nurses seem to always be contributing to society in a way that I can’t ever attain. I don’t want to actually do any of the work a nurse does. I just want the satisfaction of knowing that I am one. Does this make sense? Though I have long ago left behind the bad habit of following through on these whims with hours of googling nursing schools, I still sigh every once in awhile when my imagination takes me from whatever meaningless thing I am doing to a white hat with a red cross, nursing some soldiers back to health (note the Florence influence).

But I am learning that your twenties (or at least, mine) have and will continue to be a time of listening. Of trying things and seeing if they work, of learning discipline and theology and figuring out who I am, and who God is. And of making real, real decisions. The end goal is not to get to a career, though that might happen. The goal is to walk each day with Jesus. It is also to become more like Jesus, and understand more how I am built to worship Him. Well, this fall has been a beautiful one of gold leaves and pumpkins that actually fit the landscape (they grow on a farm about 100 meters away, and some in our garden), and of burning dinner and not burning some dinners and laughing at myself and crying. A lot. And I have also made some pretty big decisions. So here I go! I am daringly poking my head out from the roller coaster car, waving my hands in the air and whooping like the white girl I am. No nursing schools in the future, but lots and lots of trials and errors, I am sure.

Words

I need the world to stop, to pause so that my heart can catch up. I find myself today left in the dust. I am standing still and this heart warming, breath stealing world is swirling around me. All I can do is watch things pass in wonder, close my eyes when it is to much to take in, and laugh and cry in exuberance. Christ said, “Peace be with you,” and this helps.

Hanneke Cassel, a folk fiddle player came to L’Abri with her fiddle and her heavy metal guitar playing accompanist, and I sat three feet from them for over an hour as they played. From the first note she called from her fiddle, it seemed as though a ribbon flowed from the guitar and pierced me, sweeping me (a willing captive) into its power. If the fiddle wept, so did I, if it danced, I laughed, and when I closed my eyes, I flew through green misty Scottish moors, into my own lungs, and memories of times I have failed or won. I wished I could die right then. I thought, “We talk too much. This is beauty, and I talk too much.” Enclosed by music on all sides, losing myself in its call, I felt pulled back to earth by a tinge of jealousy, and I opened my tear filled eyes to look at Hanneke. She was commanding, or maybe serving, a language I could not use. I could receive it, be spoken to by it, but not speak through it. I am a writer, and am bound to and by words, but she said something deeper with her fiddle than I can say now.

Still, I want to play my part and add something beautiful to the world, even if just to the blog world. Yesterday I read Window Poems by Wendell Berry and he wrote about the winter. He said of the trees letting go of their leaves, “The country opens to the sky...” I have been dreading the bare limbs of the trees that have been so royally decked in fire and gold, but Mr. Berry gave me something to hope for- the sky. And as I walked yesterday and today by the reservoir, I have found it to be true. I can see birds nests, and I can see twenty feet into the woods where I could only see five before. How joyful to have something to look forward to, the beauty of the winter. I am not at home with my Big Texas Sky and this growing winter cover consoles me.

That is all of my part I can play now. Grace to you, and Peace.

On my Twenty Sixth Birthday

I drink my third cup of coffee, brought to me by Joe and Sue who love me, with the golden October sky lighting the trees and the grass in front of me, and streaming in through the window to dance a bit on the red tiled floor. A calm and cold morning, with granola for breakfast and books strewn about me like paper blankets. I think of how I grow older. How I march steadily toward death and decay, and I listen to traditional Celtic music and feel quite human, quite alive. I breathe in twenty-six for all I can, and dare it to wash over me with all of it’s disappointments and hopes. I stretch to feel myself growing confidence, growing sense of self, to acknowledge timid fear of growing old, the fringed ache of loneliness. I wonder if this will go away if I marry some day, but I think of how much worse to be lonely in a marriage, and I remember to wait until it is right. I stretch to feel it all because today, I am fully human.

The Bible’s view of man, of humanity gives such dignity to human beings, such depth- “Made in the image of God.” God, has “Crowned him with glory and honor, given him dominion over the work of your hands.” And we are “his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

So God gives me value, by creating me to bear His image. Oh, but I am not Him. I am human, and more, a fallen human, not in the garden with him like our parents. I am separated from him and from my fellow humans, wanting so much to understand and to be understood, to celebrate and to be celebrated, to love and to be loved. But my relationships are broken. I am separated too from myself, unable to live out my ideals perfectly, or even very well. This separation haunted me, long before I could put words to it. What I needed was to be put back together.

For this, I hope in Christ, for though his death and resurrection, “God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” The cross, and the death and resurrection of Christ is where the world finds it’s primary paradox. God becomes human. God dies, and then rises again to life in order to reconcile the world to himself. I hope in Christ. I know and believe Him, though I pray with C.S. Lewis that I would pray to Him “Not as I think You are, but for who You know Yourself to be.” I approach the throne with confidence, but confident in His grace and love, not confident in my understanding of Him.

This is how I feel fully human today. How wonderful to be human according to God, weak but with hope. And why shouldn’t I be lonely and afraid sometimes in this broken world, when even Christ wept. And why shouldn’t I learn to bake bread (which I am actually getting better at) and highland dance (which I am horrible at… I look like a grasshopper hyped up on caffeine) and watch baseball games and knit and talk to my sister and take care of people who are hurting, and try hard to understand them where they are. And apologize when I am wrong (which is much of the time), and try hard not to apologize when I believe I am right.

This is what I am thinking on my twenty sixth birthday. Wish me a deep birthday, a true blue one, and one where I can make other people feel special, and okay. This will be a happy birthday.

Frigid

I was planning on posting something thoughtful, but I just looked up from my computer to see Joe, one of the workers here at L’Abri, entering the room with his son. They stood there staring at me, and Nate said, “See Dad, I told you so. ”

I stared up at them from the corner of the couch where I had buried myself in two pairs of pants, wool socks, slippers, a sweater and a vest, a scarf and a hat, and a fleece blanket. I had to take my gloves off to type, but was holding a cup of scalding water. Joe rolled his eyes disapprovingly. “You’re over-dramatizing, ” he scolded, his voice dripping with patronizing annoyance. I promptly flew off the handle, reminding him that I had not ONCE asked anyone to turn on the heat, and hadn’t complained or whined, and while yes I may drink hot water all day and wear my hat inside at all times, and sure I’ve been found folding myself over the oven with the broiler on to thaw out, and yes I may have nearly caught my hair on fire leaning over candles at dinner, none of this was meant to be taken as passive aggression… this was me trying to bear it gracefully. So unless he has an electric blanket as a birthday present would he mind letting me WRITE. He said he was sorry he asked (I’m pretty sure he meant it), and turned and left.

I feel all dragony, but without the warming benefit of actually being able to breathe fire.

a post script note- please avoid all comments reminding me chidingly that it’s only October, and how am I going to survive the winter, and hadn’t I better buck up. I’ve been bucking up, and I have big plans to start again as soon as this post is posted.