happy new year, friends and family...

i have a new blog that i'll be using for this coming year, with a different theme and a different "feel", i think.

please check in from time to time- i love you all!

http://sunshinenshadowz.blogspot.com/

two German schnauzers.

^)^

i'm sick.

coughing, sore throat, heavy chest, plugged-up nose, headachey...you know. the horrors of the common BAD cold.

however.

i continue on, making meals, tidying up clutter, entertaining little ones, and FUN FUN FUN-

learning all about our new puppy!

Bella.

Bella-Bella...such a musical name.

she's a living doll.

Emma's christmas present- every child should have a puppy for Christmas at least once in their life!





sneeze cough cough.

hope Bella doesn't catch this...

i vowed several times this week that i was done Christmas shopping.

and i went again, and again, and today- TWICE!

what is up with that.

i'll tell you.

it's about thinking of someone, and then someone else, and then remembering someone else, and thinking of what they would appreciate and how you can bless them...and so you brave the traffic and the crowds and the noise and the chaos to find that special something for that special someone.

it's about giving.

it's about budgeting...planning...saving...and then flexing so that there's enough budget to go around.

it's Christmas.

but as of today, with 36 hours to go, I AM OFFICIALLY DONE.

AS IN DONE.

anyone i've missed will have to wait till after Christmas Day.

now.

let's talk about baking.




sigh.

pondering today, my heart is, the Christmas story and what it means to me.

Happy Holidays?

Happy?

Merry Christmas?

Merry?

What was happy or merry about this burst of God-flesh being born in the filth of a barn, laid in straw, and rushed away to Egypt to save his life at just a few months old, while the mothers of Israel wept in anguish for their slaughtered babies?

what was happy or merry about the fact that there were no children within two years of his age in his town, because they had all been murdered in a desperate search for him?

this baby was born in the shadows.

lived his life in the shadow of a looming cross.

Those of us who thoughtfully follow him because we love him, ache for the years he must have spent even as a child- looking into the future to the horror that waited there for him.

a baby in the shadow of the cross.

a little boy knowing he was going to die.

a young man preparing himself to be a sacrificial lamb.

a messiah walking with measured tread the long slow road to calvary.

not happy, not merry.

ponder it, think about it, oh heart of mine.

and somehow find a way to celebrate a joyous season with deep reverence for the shadow of the cross.

we are camping.

we are in a temporary rental home while waiting for our real house to be finished.

this is my desk.
























don't judge me.

i have no explanation, other than that there is nowhere to put stuff.

perhaps next year i'll have a clean desk...

then again, perhaps not.

because last year, it looked like this.




















oh well.

they say a clean desk is a sign of an empty mind.

today they mowed the grass 

the roar of the terror 

filled the morning 

cutting 

hacking 

crashing

slicing 

the fields were in agony 

under noonday sun 

 the birds swept frantically to and fro 

mourning their lost nests 

searching for the little ones 

my ears ached with the screams 

of the living wounded things 

but after the anguish 

and the death 

and the weeping 

came a calm 

and then a fragrance 

rose from the stricken fields 

a sweet sigh of pure beautiful pain 

even though it was only meadow grass 

the sweetness was there 

and the merciful sky 

wept a soft rain 

onto the rows of fallen flowers 

and the fragrance swelled 

and hung 

in the gentle air 

and my heart wondered 

at the awful beauty of the mowing

they've left the grass uncut 

in the heat of the afternoon 

the fields give off the sweeter smell 

of flowers finished blooming 

and beginning to die 

rusty plants pour all their might 

into seeding for the future 

withering stems and roots 

hunched high in the cracked dry earth

using every means possible 

wind 

dogs running through the field 

our pantlegs 

to fling the seeds out into the air 

there to lie in the scorch of sun 

and the cool of night 

until the rains come again 

help me to remember 

when the withering comes 

that there will be a gust of wind 

or something 

that will carry the seed somewhere 

and that the rains will water it 

and it will grow 

they've left the grass uncut

a small nun in a simple white cotton robe changed the way the world thinks.

she didn't mean to.

she just lived out her consummate radical love of people , and God used her to shake the foundations of humanism.

she was in love with everyone.

death was her constant partner; life her constant passion.

she walked her own road; did things differently; sought no titles; bowed to no one except Jesus; lived her life for one sole purpose- to love.

for a woman who never married, never bore a child, she loved far more than most wives and mothers do. the world was her nursery, the church was her husband.

i wish i could have met her.

i believe some day i will.

and i will thank mother theresa for showing us a way- to lay aside all of self and simply love.

no two sunsets are the same.. i stand on my road, eyes to the west, letting the flames of the dying fireball wash over my face and shoulders like warm soothing fingers. sometimes there is a clear sky, and the light is too brilliant to gaze at. i have to look away from the unbearable brightness. more often, there are an infinite number of cloud designs, from shattery wisps to glowering thunderheads to palaces of foamy silver that catch the dipping dance of light and throw it wildly across the whole greying arch of the sky. 

the darkness creeps quickly from the east, jealous of the glory. The grass waits, the trees wait, the houses wait, for the enveloping shadows, staring sadly as the last final red glow kisses the horizon and pulls its mouth away like a lover's kiss. i wait too. i stand on the road and wait. the darkness comes up behind me and wraps me in his cool velvet jacket, nuzzling my neck with apologetic whispers while the stars twinkle their friendly eyes as if to say sorry. never the same. no two sunsets are the same. except that final moment of goneness.

funny, the things that make me cry. laughing really hard makes me cry. the wind in the grass at sunset makes me cry. watching my baby girl sleep makes me cry. and, this week, losing a precious pet is making me cry frequently. tigger died. suddenly. unexpectedly. in the blink of an eye, he was gone. kind of off in the morning, worse by afternoon, took him in and he was gone. 

he was a bouncy, happy dog. a cheerful, smiling dog. even with that beagle look of droopy face and sad eyes, he was full of life and mischief and spark. our little doggie. faithful, friendly, funny doggie. we laid him to rest in the gentle earth, and i'm going to plant a tree on his grave and get a little headstone that says: TIGGER a little dog with a big heart always loved, never forgotten. and...i'm crying again. don't even tell me dogs don't go to heaven. because i know they do.