In Another Bleak Midwinter

Is it truly mid-winter? I thought the 21st marked the beginning of winter, but it's lovely to think that we're almost halfway through the cold, dark tunnel. The holiday season is rarely one of natural joy for me, because the absence of warmth and sun usually bring fatigue and illness to our little family, and I struggle with the winter blues in real earnest. All the talk of hustle and bustle seem like a joke - I mean, we're just trying to stay alive here. I got my little coughing, fever patient to drink some water. I got the supper dishes washed, mostly, before crashing into bed and trying to nurse the baby to sleep. And somehow in the coming weeks we are supposed to visit all sorts of family with feasting and jollification.

I wonder if little Mary felt frustrated at the holiday travel required of her. I imagine her being a much more godly, submissive, patient person than I am, rather than putting up her feet and saying "Go to Bethlehem? On a donkey? Now? Um, no. I'm pregnant. I'm staying right here. Caesar is greedy and power hungry, but even he couldn't expect people like *me* to take part in the census." But she did the right thing and took her baby bump to the right place, and Jesus was born in the eternally destined location. God always knows what He's doing.

All this is just a bit of what I've been thinking about the things we don't like about Christmas being the things that are most nourishing to our faith and our vision of the Savior. I remember one Christmas season a couple years ago when I had the flu and was lying on the couch feeling crushed in pain and I looked over at the Nativity display we had set up, and whispered "Why, why did you come here? This miserable, broken place of pain. You didn't have to come. Oh, how you must love us." And another time as I looked at our Christmas gathering schedule that I was jotting into a notebook, and thought, "All this to do, to be with people, and I am too tired for any of it." That itself is a vivid picture of the first Christmas. Travel, people, bustle, exhaustion, and God getting his work done through ordinary people.

I saw this beautiful old quote from Ambleside Schools on Instagram that said it so well:

"The grass withers, the flower falls away, but the Word of our God endures for ever." As if Peter had said, 'All that has grown out of this root shall drop off in order that it may be seen how deeply the root itself is fixed in the soil.' We do not keep Christmas in the bright, sunny time of the year, but now in the heart of winter, when everything is bare and dry. And our Lord himself is said to be "a root out of a dry ground," from which all the blossoms of hope and joy are to come, but which must first be owned in its own nakedness before they shall appear. If then, men have begun to fancy that their gladness has another root than this, it is meet that for a time they should be left to try whether they can keep it alive by any efforts and skill of theirs. If Christmas joy has been separated from Christ, it is no wonder and no dishonor to Christ that it should grow feeble and hollow. But Christmas is not dead, because the mirth of those who have forgotten its meaning is dead. It is not dead for you, it is not dead for people who lie upon beds tormented with fevers, and dropsies, and cancers. It is not dead for the children in factories, and for the men who are working in mines, and for prisoners who never see the light of the sun. To all these the news, "The Word who was in the beginning with God and was God, in whom is life, and whose life is the light of men, by whom all things were made, and without whom was not anything made that was made, became flesh and dwelt among us, entered into our poverty, and suffering, and death," is just as mighty and cheering news now as it was when St. Peter first declared it to his countrymen at Pentecost. You want this truth, you cannot live or die without it. You have a right to it. By your baptism God hath given you a portion in him who was made flesh; by your suffering he is inviting you to claim that portion, to understand that it is indeed for you Christ lived and died."
from "Christmas Day" sermon, Frederick Maurice, M.A.

Let us embrace an ideal of the perfect Christmas as the one that makes us fall more in love with the incarnate Christ, whether it is in jollification or in quiet pain or grief. He has come for us. By faith He is ours to possess forever. Here is joy unceasing, consolation without end.

Carl Blechen - Landschaft im Winter bei Mondschein (1836)

The Mad Mother's Song

The children and I were recently introduced to The Mad Gardener's Song by Lewis Carroll via The Daily Poem. What a brilliant piece of nonsense! We all enjoyed it, especially me - so much so, that early this morning, I found myself composing my own version in the same form. The practice of composing one's own words in another's form is a way to learn different writing styles, and is a handy way for me to enjoy composition in this sometimes hectic season of life. My poem is  un-originally titled -

The Mad Mother's Song

She thought she saw a flock of sheep
That grazed upon a moor,
She looked again and saw
A soggy diaper on the floor.
"I should be grieved," she said
"If this remained forevermore."

She thought she saw a roll
Of toilet paper on the shelf.
She looked again and saw it was
An evil Christmas elf.
"Deception is the worst" she said
"When practised on one's self."

She thought she saw her husband
Coming home from work at noon.
She looked again and saw
It was the baby's dirty spoon.
"How rare," she sighed,
"To see our hopes be realized too soon."

She thought she saw a tank of goldfish
Waiting to be fed.
She looked and saw it was
A pile of laundry on the bed.
"Were those as dry as these," she said
"They would be rather dead."

She thought she saw a flock of geese
Migrating to the west.
She looked again and saw it was
Her daughter's winter vest.
"If one cannot migrate," she mused,
"It's best to be well dressed."

She thought she saw an ostrich
With her purse upon its back.
She looked again and saw it was
Her child's unfinished snack.
"If we waste food like this," she fumed,
"We'll end up in a shack."

She thought she saw her FitBit said
She'd walked a hundred miles
She looked and saw her husband
Had been standing there awhile
"How good," she cried, "To be alive
To greet him with a smile."

She thought she saw a choir of toddlers
Singing in her bed.
She looked again and saw
It was a doll without a head.
"How true," she thought, "that many trials
Are less than what we dread."

Note to the curious: I actually do not have a Christmas elf on the shelf or a FitBit, nor do I regularly encounter headless dolls. These simply came to mind as common items that fit my rhyme pattern!

Waiting Summer - A Poem

I've been determinedly reading through the Oxford Book of American Verse - a long project, and one I've questioned as the poets seem to become increasingly disillusioned and corrupt as one advances chronologically through the pages, but it also portrays a mental history of our nation that is enlightening. There are gems in those pages, and also glimpses of hell. When I finished the section of Hart Crane's poems (highly non-recommended) this morning, I felt inspired to write a fresh poem to lift my spirits and remind me that the world is beautiful and good under God. This one is about the hope that summer reflects to me.

Waiting Summer

Green this heavy
I only dreamed,

When east wind rattled the crying twigs

pleading the chill white sky -

How long?

'Til the red life blood of spring

Will make us live,
and robe us with a

weight of glory?

I scarcely dreamed

when the first gold shone

on the waking boughs.

That now was the

beginning of

It won’t be long.

The Family Road Trip

It started with my visionary husband's idea for a mercy ministry that integrated financial advice and the gospel in a biblical way. Over a year ago, he decided that he wanted to get the curriculum and training from the Chalmers Center to implement in our church and community, and none of my "Honey, let's just do the raising kids thing for now" would phase him. Last year he wanted to go, and I said, "Please wait for next year." This year, the training was at a church in Normal, IL. He would take vacation time to go. Maybe I would go with him. Maybe the kids would go with us too. But this would be the summer trip. I did not want this trip to happen, but sound doctrine being the wonderful thing that is, I realized that my job as a wife is to help my husband fulfill his mission in life and not the other  way around. Since he had decided to do this, I needed to encourage and support him as cheerfully as possible, and not kick and drag, because that doesn't glorify God and it ain't fun for nobody.

I looked up Normal, IL. It appeared to be about as uninspiring as its name suggests. Our only summer trip opportunity - no mountains, no beaches, and no historic sites, just a mildly depressing, flat, midwest town. Then it occurred to me to check how far Normal was from Caleb's mom's house - where we had never yet visited in our seven years of marriage, because we'd been having babies all that time, and the drive is eleven hours. Waukegan was three hours away from Normal - and that became our trip plan. Take two days to drive to Grandma's house in Waukegan, with enough days at her house for Caleb to be with us before and after the class, the children and I stay with her while he drove to Normal for two days training, and then came back for Sunday and her birthday which conveniently occurred on the Monday before we left for another two day trip back. It would be an adventure, and I knew it would be utterly exhausting. I'm already tired from doing the three kids thing at home. But that made me pray about it a lot, which was a good thing. And the closer we got, the more I was determined to go, because I didn't want to miss that time together, however grueling it was.

When we told Caleb's mom our trip plans, she said "We could go to the lake!" I knew that she lived somewhat near Lake Michigan, but I didn't realize it was only six minutes away from her house. As I thought about it, the whole trip began to take on a new color. I would be able to relive with my children childhood trips to Michigan to my grandparent's farm, which was also not too far from the lake (on the eastern shore). Every summer time, my heart feels a compass needle pointing north, tugging me with longings for the region of my birth and of my happiest memories. I would try to be content to tend the garden in our West Virginia country home, only dreaming of aspens, pines and clear, cold lakes twinkling in the light of long northern summer days. Because of the way our trip plans had formed, these feelings had not been part of it before. I knew we would have to drive through Chicago to get there, and I didn't realize that the beauty of the north country lay beyond it. But Waukegan was beyond what I had expected in similarity to Michigan, and during that week, the children and I went to the lake three times - once with Grandma and the baby, and twice just by ourselves - and every time there was such joy and beauty in it and a refreshment of spirit hard to describe.

Easter Colors

This poem was written out of some womanly musings over Easter dresses and celebrations, reflecting on how we may try to show in bright and fresh attire our joy in the new life of spring and in the resurrection.

Shall I wear red-

Brave color of blood and battle?
Red life was bled of love

and war for me,

Til victory waked the dawn.

Was that dawn red?

Or was it gold -

Bright yellow of bright joy

When sun streaked opening sight

Into the dark and gaping mouth

Of gutted death

And sang into the blue.

Shall I wear blue?
Of sapphire pavement where he sits

Enthroned, my Lord once dead for me,

More vibrant than the cloud-strewn sky

Through which he flew.

I might wear blue

For it is what I have

Enough to walk forth into day

And sing with loved ones

That our loved One lives,

For it is true.

No color shall suffice

To show my joy

That all my love is risen from the dead,

Until beyond rainbow and sunset,

Tree and flower,
In newer life than Spring,

I walk with Him in white.

The Power and the Glory

"Look! There's a little finger of cloud coming down! It's a tornado!!!!"
It is a calm, breezy day with wispy clouds in the sky, but my five-year-old son is unwilling to believe my assertion that he is mistaken.

"What if a star just came down and fell on the whole earth? What would happen?"

"Oh! Look at that gray billowing smoke in the sky. Over there! It must be a volcano erupting!"
I answer - "That's a puffy gray cloud. It might rain. But it's not a volcano."
I say it not because I'm a killjoy but because I believe truth is ultimately more satisfying than delusions. But this child will keep on looking for signs of wonderful disasters (not to mention appearances of supernatural beings and exotic animal species).

Lots of children are like this, especially young boys - I have early childhood memories of an older brother who made the same wishful assertions.  A real tornado or volcano in the dreamed-of proximity to our home could be the destruction of our whole way of life - and if there is anything little children don't want, it is the destruction of their way of life. But deep down they want to see something explode. People laugh about it, because for many the desire lasts long past childhood.  Evolutionary theory could perhaps contrive some explanation for the hunger for great scenes, but this hunger cannot jive with the idea that we exist merely to survive and perpetuate the species. We were created by God to behold the glory of God. Every little boy who wants to see something blow up spectacularly is expressing an undirected longing for his little heart's big Creator. That's just one of the reasons I think it is important to present the whole Bible to our children, and not just Bible character story books that tend to leave out the richly worded passages about God's character and actions.

I've been reading through the Bible to the children for the past year and this morning we read 2 Samuel 22. The volcano boy listened with riveted attention over his bowl of oatmeal as I read -

“In my distress I called upon the LORD;
to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry came to his ears.
“Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations of the heavens trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub and flew;
he was seen on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness around him his canopy,
thick clouds, a gathering of water.
Out of the brightness before him
coals of fire flamed forth.
The LORD thundered from heaven,
and the Most High uttered his voice....

- 2 Samuel 22:7-16

I thought "Yes!". This is strong meat for my boy. There is nothing better I could give him right now.

The full-orbed character of God is all that is required to satisfy every longing of the human heart. We can only see all of it by reading all of Scripture, and our children need it just as much, if not more than we do. It is a great mistake to think that children's longings are more easily satisfied. Adults are far more easily pleased. Some days we just want to see our God as provider and praise Him for the paycheck. But the little guys are primitive and they want to see glory, and their childlike faith is ready to believe that God has all of it, which is good, because He does.

Several weeks ago, on a fresh snowy day, I was outside with my son and he posed the best of his thousand questions for the day:
"How does the snow show God's glory? Because it's not powerful."
I paused a bit then said, "It gives us a picture of God's cleanness and purity, and how he can cover our sins and make them disappear. The Bible says, 'Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow' when God forgives them."
He just looked up into the sky and seemed to think, while I strolled off to fill the bird feeders. My heart was glad, because once again I was reminded that God is sufficient for every longing of the human heart.

Let's not let our children be satisfied with Superman scenes on a screen, when they have a God who puts all the super heroes to shame. He can defeat not only our external enemies but the very sin of our inmost hearts. "Worship Him all you gods" should be written above the movie screens, and if it is not, we can remind our children that before the majesty of the Lord of Glory, their favorite super hero has no option but to bow down.

The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice;

let the many coastlands be glad!

Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;

righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

Fire goes before him

and burns up his adversaries all around.

His lightnings light up the world;

the earth sees and trembles.

The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,

before the Lord of all the earth.

The heavens proclaim his righteousness,

and all the peoples see his glory.

All worshipers of images are put to shame,

who make their boast in worthless idols;

worship him, all you gods!

- Psalm 97

Cotopaxi by Frederic Edwin Church

Chesterton on Contentment

When I think of contentment, I think of the oft-quoted and at-one-time-stuck-on-my-mirror definition of contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs:

"Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” 

This is excellent. But the perspective of others can be helpful in rounding out what the experience of contentment looks like. Enter one of my favorite authors, G. K. Chesterton. 

I listened to Chesterton's Miscellany of Men essays during some waking night hours over the last few weeks, and dozed off through a number of them that were a bit less than captivating (granted, the slightly dull character of a work of literature is a merit in my selection for night time listening), but while listening to The Contented Man, my mind gave a little thrill of connection. I loved Chesterton's thoughts on this. Here's some of it:

 “Content” ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased; placidly, perhaps, but still positively pleased. Being contented with bread and cheese ought not to mean not caring what you eat. It ought to mean caring for bread and cheese; handling and enjoying the cubic content of the bread and cheese and adding it to your own. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it. It ought to mean appreciating what there is to appreciate in such a position; such as the quaint and elvish slope of the ceiling or the sublime aerial view of the opposite chimney-pots. And in this sense contentment is a real and even an active virtue; it is not only affirmative, but creative. The poet in the attic does not forget the attic in poetic musings; he remembers whatever the attic has of poetry; he realises how high, how starry, how cool, how unadorned and simple—in short, how Attic is the attic.
True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.