Done with this

Still snowing off and on. Yesterday afternoon I stepped off the back steps, headed to the hospital to visit a friend and saw the snow had collected on the pansies, covering them with what looked like sugared icing. Tempting. It took some of the bitter edge off the fact that it is late April and still winter. Someone remarked that the photo of the flowers were  “amazingly beautiful …. like life in a nutshell.” Yes, I think so. God knows I hate being trite and yet how I fluctuate from slobbering sentimentalist to mean cynic. But who can help exclaiming when our best efforts are capped with icy beauty beyond what we could imagine.

Then I rescued a couple and fed them to Honeysuckle. She’s another beauty and a sucker for anything that makes photosynthesis.

Ash Wednesday

…"Creation testifies to God's beauty but in its own distinctive ways and God testifies to His own beauty through creation’s own beauty." [Jeremy Begbie] Two certainties flow from this: that we can enjoy the beauty of created things, like flowers because He values this physical world and is committed to renewing it. He showed us this when he first renewed Jesus' body at the resurrection. Jesus' resurrection is the promise of the physical renewal of the whole creation. It will go on into eternity and be more glorious than it is now, beyond our imagining.

From a lecture by Jane Winter:  “Truth, Beauty and Flowers”  (reproduced by The Washington Institute).

Today another snowstorm is moving through our area. The prospect of spring or anything remotely connected to Resurrection looks bleak. But as many in Western Christendom enter Lent, traditionally a time of fasting, praying, and repenting, we count the days to the celebration of Easter morning, of Christ’s return from hell. There are signs of it coming. This morning as I read through the book of Habakkuk, and the prophet attests to God’s inexorable movement through and into this world. He promises:  “…though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” (2:3)

Not only Scripture assures the miracle of resurrection, just stepping out my door to take a closer look contains it’s own miracle. That the collection of snow falling on a metal fence should be so beautiful? That a home on frozen ground surrounded by ice displays a kind of beauty? I want to be more aware, more hopeful, more thankful. So I’ll begin Lent here, confessing I’m not.

More on Parking in the City

I just paid a parking ticket. It made me quite unhappy to send the City of Rochester $32.00 for parking in our neighborhood. Shifting the blame, however: it was not I who left the car parked on the street overnight in a zone that says “No Parking M-F 6am-9am and 3pm-6pm. Except Sat. & Sun.” But I did purposely leave the ticket buried on my desk illogically hoping it might be forgotten by the authorities. (The idea of not being able to park on the street outside our home anytime we want annoys me to say the least.) That was May 10^th. Silence until yesterday when a letter arrived from the City Clerk advising Denis the penalty has gone up twice and not only will more penalties be assessed, they will issue a warrant for his arrest and they might impound his car, too. For a Parking Ticket? I fantasized pleading “Not Guilty,” but what argument can you make against a permanent street sign? (unlike the SINGLE, temporary, pound-in-the-ground one I own)  English is not my first language? I take this very personally.

Perspective. I need it much. Something or someone to soothe my hostility. My nastiness is easily exposed by lots of things, but indifferent anonymous authority? Arghhh. However I cut this, there’s tons worse things. Especially remembering times when others were far more justified crying “Facist!” Like when I was staying with my youngest daughter and son-in-law. It was winter. They were waiting for twins to be born any minute. There’d been a big snowstorm the day before. The Emergency Snow Parking laws in St. Paul had kicked in and were forgotten until we looked out the window and saw a wrecker hooking onto their old pickup. Shaun ran out coatless in stocking feet yelling, begging them not to take it. But they paid him no mind and simply pulled away with him standing wet-footed in the middle of the street. They couldn’t begin to afford to pay towing fees and impounded-car penalties. Nor could I. That’s a case way more justifiable as Not Guilty, Your Honor. Way more worthy of hostility.

I give a big sigh. There is suffering so terrible it almost can’t be comprehended. Almost? More accurate: can’t.  From children conscripted into war to the death of the Gulf of Mexico. If we had not the hope of Restoration of all things, well, I hate to think. So I should probably let that ticket and my sign go. As one commenter said on my last posting: And what did we learn from this, young lady?

Receiving the Offer

Snow is steadily sifting down, inches piling and piling on every branch, auto, and ledge. Now the wind is picking up and the temperature will drop to minus fifteen tonight. Two of our neighbors are already trying to shovel and snow-blow. Yesterday there was a break in storms, a window of cold sunshine allowed roads to be cleared from here to Waterloo, Iowa where the prairie winds drifted snow two feet deep. That window allowed our son and his family to leave around noon as they headed south to Micah’s family in Herman, MO. Having them arrive at 2:30 A.M. and to awaken the next morning to the creak of footsteps sneaking up the stairs, and to make buckwheat pancakes, to have Anson and Paige (no time wasted sleeping) rolling up the rugs, dragging boxes of toys, and redesigning the first floor was chaos and celebration. They left by noon. Later in the day my brother-in-law and youngest sister hurried through Rochester from Cedar Rapids back home to Biwabik, MN in a race to beat the next storm. We gulped a cup of coffee and snarfed a cookie together, talking as fast as we could eating time. The window for travel has now closed again for another day or so.

And now Denis is out snow-blowing, trying to beat the pile-up and the dropping temps.

Today, first thing, I was off to the post office to mail the eBay Bible to girlonajourney who “won.” Getting out before the roads close. This is good. My guilt is half assuaged to think someone will be making good use of this journal Bible. The reading schedule in my old raggedy copy, which I’m now fine with, has taken me to Isaiah where the prophet records the words of “the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel” saying: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength..” Trying to think what that means and get it into every day real nights and days, and trying to take myself (get back, Satan) far away from the final phrase of that verse: “but you would have none of it.” I’d like to accept this offer for what most of us need most of the time. Or is it just me?