A Change in Seasons

The leaves have mostly fallen, except a brave few.

The wind has developed a certain brazen chill.

The skies have traded a sweet Carolina blue for a dreary heather gray.

The night falls much sooner and quicker than it used to.

The squirrels have gotten more than a wee bit on the chubby side.

       (And, thanks to all that All Hallow's Eve candy, so have I...)

Signs of The End of Autumn and The Start of Winter are all around me.  And though I thrive in the quiet Autumn evenings that follow full and active Summer days, solemn as the crickets' song yet teeming with life, I'm almost ready to say that I'm almost ready for the long, dark season that waits just around the bend.  I bear no shame when I admit that I've already dusted off and listened to two Christmas albums.  And, honestly, the only reason I haven't felt utterly compelled to decorate my home with deep red hues and bright twinkle lights is because that happens to be the state of the place year-round.  I don't know if I've ever taken the time to be thankful for each of the Seasons at once.  But I'm trying to today.  Instead of complaining about the coming Five Months of Torture that make up a Chicago Winter, I want to remember the Charming Two Months of Spring, the Delicious Two Months of Summer, and the Bittersweet Three Months of Autumn.  And I want to look forward to the truth that even the coldest season ahead boasts tummies full of the warming goodness that is a homemade stew, bodies full of armor against the unmerciful but beautiful elements, and hearts full of the love and joy and generosity that springs from the remembrance that "unto us a Child is born."  

A season of my life is also starting to fade.  That post-graduate season in which rest from past toils and the saving of energy, time, money and dreams for future hoped-for pursuits has defined the past 18 months of my existence, but I'm beginning to wonder if "future hoped-for pursuits" are more present than I'd even realized.  I just turned 26... which means I'm now older than a quarter-century, and the age my mother was when she had her first wee bairn.  I always said I would start down the childbearing road before she did, but here I am: 26, childless, and happily so.  And while the professional and musical ambitions I've developed and fostered like an overly-zealous mother haven't dissipated in the least, I can't help but think that a change is yet around the bend, and I'm not sure if I like it or if I'm ready for it, but -- true as Old Man Winter himself -- it must come whether I want it or not.  And it has a purpose.  And it's purpose is good.  And it, too, might be brimming with full tummies and hearts.

And so, as the wind feverishly blows,

and the skies gloomily darken,

and the squirrels greedily hoard,

and the night swiftly falls like the leaves from the trees, 

even so, I shall be thankful for what goodness this Season also brings... like a tendency to settle down and cuddle up... and the peace that comes with the quiet... and the thankfulness that wells up and out when we reflect on a bountiful and exciting and full-of-love year.

May all the goodness of the Season ahead be with you -- whatever Season that may be!

A World of Mourners

"I'll always remember where I was when President Kennedy was assassinated."

As I grew up, there were just a handful of occasions that would bring these words to my mother's lips.  She was a small, quiet school girl, sitting attentively in class, when the news came and the press exploded with shocking film footage and unbelievable reports on the youngest president's death.  Although her words always gave me pause, I never expected to experience in my life a memory so vivid.  But, like her and -- I expect -- like you, I do.

Third seat from the left,

Second row,

Mr. Bunch's Earth Science class, 

Perquimans County High School,

Hertford, North Carolina

United States of America

You could send a time-traveling torpedo to my precise location, I remember it so exactly (which is an ironic illustration, now that I think about it...).

After we heard the announcement over the school-wide speakers, Mr. Bunch turned on the television and we sat in disbelief, motionless and silent, with eyes glued to the monitor -- showing the kind of rigorous attention that the science teacher had probably always desired but never quite achieved for himself.  And as we watched in amazement the burning of the north tower, hit just minutes earlier by the Boeing 767, our amazement was overpowered by astonishment as we watched, live, the second plane slice through the south tower.  Unbelievable.

"Where are you lost?" depicts the victims of the 9/11 attacks

A dedicated student, I'd read, reviewed and memorized facts about war in many history classes before, and as my father was an avid CNN follower at the time, I'd even seen it, in some sense.  Yet still, the reality and personal nature of war was absent from my 15-year experience of the world.  Watching it happen in real time on the soil of my own country, land of the free, for God's sake!, I was still too dumbfounded to even cry.

I don't remember much of the rest of the school day, except the one girl who weeped in the cafeteria because her father worked at the Pentagon, and she still hadn't heard a word from him.  But I do remember that evening, standing absently in our living room, staring blankly at our own television set, wondering if this was the end of the world... wondering if Armageddon was actually going to happen in my lifetime... in my childhood... before I got a chance to fall in love, to be married, to have children of my own... wondering if this was just the beginning of the end.  I remember questioning everything I'd worked for.  Nights of tireless study and days of diligent activity, all for naught.  This was it, and I had nothing truly meaningful to show for it.

9/11 Memorial photo by Denise Gould (DOD)

Ten years later, I still don't have much to show for my small existence, and my heart and mind are still full of questions about what happened that day.  But in the time that has passed, my questions have evolved a bit.  Now I ask questions like,
What is my role in the defeat of evil?  
Why did God ever allow it to enter this world?  
What must I feel towards those who take violent action in the name of their own god, Allah?  
Am I allowed to hate him, while still loving those who trust him?  
Can I mourn this loss and its effect on my nation, while not neglecting to appreciate, understand and grieve the tragic devastation that people around the world experience at the hands of such violence every day?

I, of course, have more questions than answers.  Yet, some things have become a bit clearer in the past few days as I've remembered 9/11 once more.  As much as I hated those possessed men on the day they mercilessly killed nearly three thousand people, I realize today that they, too, were victims of evil.  They believed the lies of the Enemy, and were as much in his grasp that day as any have ever been.

I was also reminded today how timely the Holy Spirit often uses His word.  Our church community has been studying the book of Ephesians for the entire summer and, whether coincidentally or providentially, we landed in chapter 6, verses 10-18 today.  Here's J.B. Phillips' translation of that passage:

In conclusion be strong—not in yourselves but in the Lord, in the power of his boundless resource. Put on God’s complete armour so that you can successfully resist all the devil’s methods of attack. For our fight is not against any physical enemy: it is against organisations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil. Therefore you must wear the whole armour of God that you may be able to resist evil in its day of power, and that even when you have fought to a standstill you may still stand your ground. Take your stand then with truth as your belt, righteousness your breastplate, the Gospel of peace firmly on your feet, salvation as your helmet and in your hand the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Above all be sure you take faith as your shield, for it can quench every burning missile the enemy hurls at you. Pray at all times with every kind of spiritual prayer, keeping alert and persistent as you pray for all Christ’s men and women.

I could easily -- and I imagine many probably do -- use this passage to target Al Qaeda as the headquarters of evil, and the men who sustain it, the enemy.  But as I've said before, no human being is my enemy, for that would mean that my battle is physical.  It is not.  And Christian Americans are certainly not its only victims.  Every person is a child of God and therefore a target of Satan's burning missiles.  Even those who use their own bodies as burning missiles.  Every person is in deep need of God's mercy, in desperation of God's peace.  Even those who withhold mercy from others and make peace seem unattainable.

"Dying, He destroyed our death..."
by Lawrence OP

I still have unanswered questions and deep sorrow over what happened as I sat wide-eyed in that silent classroom ten years ago.  The deaths of so many people must be remembered and mourned on days like this.  But even as we mourn, we must also bear in mind that the death of one Person was all that was necessary to defeat the powers of darkness, and to bring mercy and peace to a world of mourners...

Agnus Dei, qui tollis pecatta mundi,

Miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis pecatta mundi,

Dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, 

Have mercy on us. 

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, 

Grant us peace.

Summertime

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.

Oh, your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good lookin’

So hush, little baby, don’t you cry…

The dog days of Summer have come to the city of Chicago.  All it took was a few sequential days of 90’s for me to realize it.  As I pealed away the dead, limp buds of petunias and snap dragons, baked brown in the heat of July’s merciless sun, I heard it… The cicadas singing their deafening song, announcing the late arrival of a season that’s been around for a month but has hardly been noticed.  And I felt it… the hot breeze that just barely keeps the sweat off my brow and my thirsty lungs from suffocating.  And I knew it.

Summer in this city is just not Summer to me. 

Yes, I take part in the long, warm strolls down charming avenues with ice cream cones in hand.  

I make my way to the beach and play volleyball like Old Man Winter will never return. 

I even find myself in the dog park, catching lightning bugs in the darkening dusk. 

But Summer is lost.  I think I left it behind when I left Carolina…

The land of warm riverbed squishing between my toes. 

The land of weeping willows draped across dark but … shhh… secretly alive creeks.

The land of water moccasins that we don’t mind as long as there’s a shotgun or shovel handy. 

The land of swelteringly hot but gloriously peaceful sunsets carelessly painted across breath-taking skies.

I see Chicago’s charm and beauty in the Spring and Fall.  But this city seems to skip the romantically wild season that is Summer, a season not found in overpopulated beaches, overheated asphalt, or air-conditioned skyscrapers, but in wind-blown fields running green and white forever, in bare feet doing their best to keep up, in quiet evenings of star-gazing and moon-whispering, in gentle laps of water on the old, dirty bulkheads…

One of these mornins’, you’re gonna rise up singin.’

Then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky.

But till that mornin’, there ain’t nothin’ can harm you,

With daddy and mama standin’ by…

There’s something so old and sad in that song, some longing that I’m not quite sure I ever knew before.  

     But I think I know it now.

The Perquimans River, my home

N. Carolina's state flower, also part of my wedding bouquet: the Dogwood

Missing Mill Park - Hertford, NC

We used to stare into these trees for hours, looking for eagles' nests.

Perquimans River's famed Log Turtles

Another attraction of my homeland: Shelby Lynn Harrell

to die is gain?

last night i wept.  and wept.  and wept.  for how long, i don't know.  my husband's steady shoulder didn't keep the time as it soaked in the endless tears.  streaming, on and on, from the limitless source of who-knows-where.  and i didn't know why either.  such sadness as i've hardly known before shook my body and poured from my lips and eyes, and i couldn't explain one shake or one tear or one moan.  as i cried, part of my sadness flowed from the very thought that i shouldn't be so sad.  no reason.  yet, the weeping continued as i cried out, "Heaven would be so much better!"  oh, how i longed for Heaven last night.  how i longed to be there more than anywhere else in the world or out of it.  but i still didn't know why.  why was i so discontent with this world and my lot in it?

and then we heard the news.  the news that sent our nation into an uproar of jubilation.  and i couldn't believe my eyes, the same eyes that had just wept so bitterly.  they were seeing the words plastered on the screen, immovable: Osama bin Laden is dead.  shock ensued, but no joy.  i admit, i felt some relief of justice served, some pride in my nation's actions to serve it.  but deeper still in my heart, i felt the bitterness of death.  though i can't see this man's heart, his actions suggest his forever separation from life, from love, from his Creator and Father.  and people are happy about this, thinking his death might bring peace.  but i know it won't.  twenty-four hours later, it has only brought a morale boost tainted with the fear of retaliation.  

knowing this bit of news didn't alleviate any pain in my heart, didn't bring any peace to my soul.  my sigh still exhales, Heaven would be so much better.  so much better.  and then i finally realized why i wept: death.  death itself.  i long for Heaven because Heaven is life.  there, no tear falls and no voice weeps because there, death has no place.  and i realized Jesus wept about death too.  the corrupted earth we inhabit exudes death, and God Himself was no more comforted over that reality than i was last night.  peace seems so void, life so fleeting, hope so vain.

then, this evening, my eyes rested on new words.  words from someone else who longed for Heaven the way i did last night: to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  but if i am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and i do not know which to choose.  but i am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.  convinced of this, i know that i will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith... for to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

to die is gain... for me.  but to live is Christ.  Christ is life.  the death of those who do not yet know Him saddens me beyond expression, but that's why i'm still alive.  He has a purpose for this breath still in me: to encourage others to desire Him as i do.  for progress and joy in the faith, He has destined me (and every other believer) to live today and perhaps tomorrow.  this is suffering, this is why i wept last night: this conflict between desiring to be with Christ in Heaven and realizing my purpose on earth.  

i weep still.

From My Journal...

                                                                                                                                                May 19, 2005

I feel that my heart is beating so deeply that it would beat right out of my chest, could it, after the matter, keep beating, keep loving.  Dare I confess that I adore him, that I love him?  For once I cannot refrain from admitting so.

To walk through meadows adorned with white wildflowers with him, to ride the wings of the breeze, skimming across the salty waters of the sea.  To bathe in the moonlight with him, fairies kissing our fingers and toes, fireflies dancing as though they they, too, were in love as he and I are in love.

Dare I imagine such beauty in his company?

 

I'm so glad I dared.

My marriage is not a fairy tale, as my love-strung words may have anticipated.  It is far more beautiful than I could imagine then, than I can express even now.  I thank God for this man and all the magic and love he has filled my heart with for the past five years.  When I wrote those words, I knew him then only as I know some of you now.  

But God works in mysterious ways, so they say...

 Perfect photos taken by Casey Jo Jenkins of J9 Photography in Indiana.