Learning from the Wrens

I haven't posted much over there lately, but if you're interested in a recent ramble on our homeschooling and a few other thoughts, click on over...

And by the way, the wrens and sparrows are nesting in their usual places this spring. I watched Mama Sparrow perching on the clothesline outside the porch as I sat on the porch swing this afternoon. She had a morsel in her beak and is quite busy feeding her little ones. I spend a lot of time doing that, too, but I'm awfully glad I don't have to carry worms in my mouth!

Chard, anyone!

That armful of Swiss chard cooked up into a lovely addition to our dinner of black beans and rice last night. Despite his skeptical look, Matthew enjoyed them and Coty couldn't stop saying, "Mmmmm...these greens are good!"

I sauteed an onion and some minced garlic, tossed in the chopped greens and a little water and cooked til they were just soft. A dash of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt and they were just right. I also tried a recipe using the chard stems. I didn't use as much butter as the recipe calls for and used half and half instead of cream. And we were eating rice, not pasta. But the stems were good...and pretty. Not as pretty as when they're fresh, but still a lovely addition to the plate.

I do get great pleasure out of picking the greens right out of the garden shortly before dinner and cooking them in simple ways. They are so good and so good for us. Makes me happy to serve my family something this easy and healthy. My current motto for gardening is plant more greens!

Off the needles

At last, my linen shawl is off the needles and over my shoulders! I was so eager to finish this and wear it and it seemed to be taking forever. I guess that's because I was impatient! But really, I suppose it didn't take too long when I recall that since I started it we had Christmas and boys home, two different college spring breaks and boys home, and Easter and everybody home. Of course, during those times, I did more cooking and less knitting!

I must say, I love, love, love this shawl! It's the perfect weight and drapes beautifully. The linen yarn lost some of its stiffness in the handling and knitting, and with subsequent washings and frequent wear it will get softer and softer.

Funny little story. I wore the shawl last Friday to the Bible study that I lead for international women. They ooohed and ahhhed and shared my delight in this finished project. Then on to our discussion. While considering the impact of the excellent wife on her husband in Proverbs 31, one of our Taiwanese women, reading ahead, blurted out, "Oh, she wears linen and purple! Your shawl!" I had to admit that I hadn't made any bed coverings lately (Proverbs 31:22) and that I fall far, far short of that excellent woman. But now, thanks to Yi-chen, I think I will call my new wrap "The Proverbs 31 Shawl"...in hopes of becoming such a woman!

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote...

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

This morning I praise Him for the gift of color, solid and pied, vibrant and soft. I find in my garden and give thanks for...

73. Painted pinks whose sun warmed fragrance perfumes the air

74. Delicate, butter yellow Lady Banks rose blooming on vigorous, verdant, spreading branches.

75. Deep fuschia verbena, contrasted with the rough gray of the stones.

76. Chard stems, eye-popping red holding spring-green leaves, ready to eat.

Take a look around you. It's the season of color. Give thanks.

The poem above, "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Tournament weekend

It was a pretty good soccer weekend for Joel with two wins and one loss in the First Strike tournament. Rain threatened, but all the games were played. He continues to wow us with his headers. As you can see, his longish hair makes for interesting pictures!

Soccer pictures as a rule are pretty funny for the variety of strange body positions and facial expressions. Enjoy a few of Joel and his teammates from recent games. You can supply your own captions:

And my personal favorite, the ooga-booga soccer dance....

And another good-bye

When you are cooking for someone very special and you know it will probably be a long time til you cook for them again, you want it to be a meal to remember. Not because it was the absolute best food they ever ate, but because in every bite there was love.

I hope that my dear, dear friend Amanda tasted the love in every bite of rotisserie chicken, rosemary potatoes, field peas, roasted broccoli, romaine salad with strawberries, and homemade rolls. I hope the peach cobbler and sweet tea will remain a little delicious memory of her southern sojourn - a sojourn which touched and changed forever the lives of so many. Oh, Amanda, you have blessed us immeasurably. A meal is a very small but very heartfelt thank you.

I realized yesterday how very much I wanted to be able to cook one more meal for Amanda and I'm so glad she and Sue were able to come over and eat tonight, even though there was still packing and cleaning to do before their heads could touch their pillows tonight. I'm so glad the day transpired so that we could sit around the table and eat and talk and laugh and hug at the end and say one more time on a Saturday night, "See you in the morning!"

We will miss Amanda so much. But I know, Lord willing, that our lives will continue to be woven together. So, for tonight, I give thanks for my dear friend and look forward to more sweet times around the table...here and in Minneapolis!

Surprises

Two big surprises this week.

On Wednesday night, Thomas called. (no, that's not the surprise). We all talked with him, passing the phone from one to another for close to an hour. Gary, who was over after Bible study, was the last person to talk with him and while they were talking the back door opened and in walked......Thomas!!!!!

"What are you doing here?!" was the surprised chorus.

He has a training session at Camp Caraway this weekend and had to take off his Friday classes. Since he doesn't have any Thursday classes, he was able to borrow a car from a friend and leave on Wednesday evening, arriving here around 11 that night. We had fun surprising Coty the next morning when he returned from his trip to Portland. Dressed in Matthew's red-striped hoodie, Thomas put his head down on the table and pretended to be Matthew. When Coty arrived he walked over and patted who he thought was Matthew on the back. What a shock he got when Thomas lifted his head and said hi! If you're thinking Coty looks a little bleary eyed in the picture, it's because he came home on the red-eye from Portland and got very little sleep!


Thomas will be at camp from Friday afternoon til Saturday evening. Back home for Sunday and then back to Covenant for a couple more weeks to finish up his freshman year. It seems like a very short time ago that I wrote about taking him to school. Just one more day of classes and a few exams and he's done with his first year. Wow, it flew by!

Friday night we received another surprise when we got home from Global Cafe. Coty and I turned onto our street and saw a car parked in front of our house. "That looks like Rob's car!"

Sure enough it was. We walked in a found Rob hanging out with the boys. What a treat to have him for a short visit. He's headed back up to NY early Saturday with a car packed full of stuff to move into his 200 square foot Manhattan apartment. Ooooooh, we're gonna miss that boy!

If you're thinking he and I look bleary-eyed, it's because Coty, Rob, and I stayed up late Friday night talking. Rob stayed at our house overnight and then this picture was taken Saturday morning when we all got up early - Pinckneys to head to a soccer tournament and Rob to New Jersey.

I would like to stop the clock just for a bit and keep my house full of sons and honorary sons! I'm not liking all this leaving. But I know that's the way it is going to be for the next few years. Young men growing up and heading out into the world, new schools, new jobs, new homes. And really, I am glad for them. It's just that they take a bit of my heart wherever they go and I miss 'em like crazy!

One way to eat a loaf of bread...

as demonstrated by Noelle, who came over on Thursday. She and Cameryn helped me bake and and she enjoyed the result of her labor...as soon as it was cool enough to handle!

Fragrance

Yesterday morning, after my morning walk, I smelled a lilac. Ah, sweet fragrance. Takes me back to spring in New England. Spring - or mud season as it is usually called - was late and short, but how we welcomed it. When the tall lilac in our front yard bloomed, delicate lavender flowers fed color-starved eyes and the whiff of that sweet fragrance meant that warmth and life and growth were on the way.

Makes me think of the words of a song we sang last Sunday:

Anything I thought gain,
Let me count it as loss.
May the fragrance I leave
Be of Christ and the cross.

The thing that's hard about this is that the fragrance of Christ and the cross is not pleasant to many.

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

2 Corinthians 2:15, 16

The smell of the lilac is a smell of life to anyone who breathes it in. No one gets a whiff of its sweetness and thinks of death. But the fragrance of the cross, while sweet to those who, by faith, believe and receive the gift of salvation offered through Christ's atoning death, is the smell of death to unbelievers. The cross and those who wear its perfume have an unwelcome odor.

The problem I have is that I don't like to smell bad to people. I want everyone to think well of me and to think that I am, like the lilac, all sweetness and beauty. But it doesn't work that way. If indeed I count all gain as loss for the sake of knowing Christ and making him known, then the Jesus fragrance from my life will be an offensive smell to some.

The heartbreaking reality is that it is often not the deathly fragrance of Christ that offends, but the stench of my own sin - my weakness, my selfishness, my failure to love and care. It is the smell of me that is bad. The apostle Paul asks, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Clearly, not me.

More words from Sunday's song, however, remind me:

If You should mark my sin, Lord,
How could I stand?
You reach down from the cross, Lord,
And take my hand...

My dirty, stinking, sin-stained hand. Jesus takes it and holds it in his. Instead of accusing and condemning, he reaches out and raises me up and makes me stand. The chorus of the song says:

I'll stand on your promises;
I'll stand in the grace you give;
I'll stand when the darkness falls;
Upheld by your right hand,
I'll stand.

I add to my list:

70. thanks that a spring lilac led to thoughts of Christ and the cross.

71. thanks for a song that picked up where the lilac led and took me on to scripture.

72. thanks, most of all, for the sure promises of a gracious God who enables me to stand, even when darkness falls.

Thankful for...

...words, spoken these last few days that have made my heart sing. On my way to 1000, these comments remind me of some of God's good gifts given in and through my church family.

67. In our international women's Bible study on Friday night one of the women spoke of the contrast of her life in her home country which was full of rushing about, noise, and busy-ness. As she spoke about changes in herself during the time she has been here in the states, she said, "I can hear my voice in my heart." Thank you, Father, that this dear one is listening. And thank you that such a Bible study is possible because of faithful people who serve selflessly week in and week out to make Global Cafe happen.

68. At our church business meeting on Sunday night our treasurer said, "When I look at my computer and see the numbers I feel like crying. You people are giving like crazy people." Thank you, Father, for cheerful, generous, crazy givers and for a treasurer (and his wife) who sacrificially serve.

69. Also at our business meeting, the chairman of our missions team said, "What a privilege to support our missionaries!" Thank you, Father, for a church where "missions" is central, for people who labor to keep it central, for people who ask how soon they can start giving for the special missions offering, and for amazing and abundant opportunities to go and to serve as senders.

My heart is pretty full tonight of thankfulness for our church and for the way God is working through weak, flawed, sinful people simply seeking to be faithful to the calling of God in their lives. I am also very thankful for people who take very seriously our church covenant which binds us together in this local body. You DGCC readers, I hope you know how very thankful I am for each one of you.

Using his head

As some of you know, Joel has begun playing club soccer this spring. I believe I blogged about it a couple of weeks ago...oh yes, here. Anyway, thought you'd enjoy this picture of my son who is getting a reputation as a young man who really knows how to use his head.

looking for it, getting ready to jump,
and then...

The header!

I am happy to report that he is using his head in other pursuits. In case you're wondering, just ask him about the capital of Mongolia, the anatomy of the skin, or the Treaty of Versailles!

After the rain

I love to walk in gardens after rain. Every flower and bush is vibrant, refreshed by a good drink. The air is sweet, washed clean and perfumed, and the birds are busy searching the ground for earthworms that have come up for air from rain-flooded burrows.

So, this morning after last night's storm,
Memorial Garden was particularly beautiful.

The tulips were decked out in raindrop jewels...

and the fountains were full and singing. I have never particularly
noticed the music of the large fountain in the center of the
formal tulip display, but today the water
spilled and splashed down in a melodic
pling,
pling,
pling.

And oh my, the tulips. Yep, they're bloomin', all right! If you plan to see
them this year, you'd better go soon.

There are other fountains in the garden. This is my favorite. I love the way the water flows down over the stoneware sphere into the deep bowl of the fountain and I love its placement between two massive rosemary bushes.

And this lion head fountain, that greets you as you enter
the iron gate. Notice the colors of the stones...
I never had before this year. I think the
cloudy day made the colors of the wet
stone appear deeper and richer.

It is a garden of contrasts that work.

The Lenten roses, serene amidst a...

riot of color!

New neon growth on English boxwoods...

near gnarly, twisted sturdy Confederate jasmine vines.



Snowy bank of azaleas...



overlooking pastel masses of tulips.

Please, if you live here, do take some time and go visit this garden...this week!
And if you don't live close enough to visit Memorial Garden,
then find a garden near you and experience spring.

Morning Thanks

For the beauty of the earth,

61. A lone towhee starts the morning chorus of birdsong as I step onto the front porch in the darkness

62. Cherry blossoms, tulips, candytuft, phlox and vibrant azaleas seem to glow in the very early morning light.

For the beauty of the skies,

63. The air is fresh and sweet smelling.

64. A sliver of a moon hangs in the sky as light begins to tint the sky.

For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,

65. My friend comes out the door to resume our morning walks, after a hiatus for a baby's birth.

66. Shared interests, shared loves, shared lives.

Lord of all to thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise.

Beech Creek Naturals

I am the proud owner of a couple of beautiful walnut crochet hooks made by my friend Amber's husband, David. One of these days very soon, I'm going to put down my knitting needles and re-learn how to crochet just for the joy of using such a beautiful, well-made hook.

He also has nostepinnes in various woods. Don't know what a nostepinne is? It is a small tool used to wind a center pull yarn ball.

If you love to crochet, love the look and feel of wooden hooks, or you want to be able to easily wind your yarn skeins into nice balls that you can pull from the center...and you appreciate fine craftsmanship, check out David's new Etsy shop, Beech Creek Naturals, by clicking on the banner above. And tell him I sent you!