Rockets, September, and How to Successfully Soar This Year

At first it just looked like an empty field.

Two dogs and a couple walked the corner of a barren soccer field. There were no rockets in sight. 

"Hmm, I thought it was here," I murmured to Daniel, checking my phone and the address again. "I'll call Mark to get Art's number." 

And then, just as the call was finishing, we saw them. Far in the distance to the right rippled a couple tent awnings, with some men and boys lined up. 

Daniel and I grabbed lawn chairs and water bottles and began the long hike. 

Grandpas, fathers, young men and boys crouched around tables, totes and truck beds. A towering spiny ridge of twelve metal spokes took center stage. Males lined up rockets in various sizes, colors, and shapes, sliding the rocket bodies down spindles, and attaching them to the electrical firing mechanisms.

Daniel joined them, walking up in pride and excitement, uncertain of how it all worked. New-acquaintance Mr. Neal graciously taught him how to thread the rocket down the take-off rod before attaching two metal clips to each fuse wire. 

That's where your power comes from, he taught us. The new rocket model motor, for all its fiery potential, was nothing without the spark. 

Daniel checked the connections and stepped back. 

"Range closed," the leader rang out, and the twelve or fifteen of us walked back behind the safety line. Mr. Neal moved behind the electrical control box, teaching Daniel how to arm and fire his rocket for when his turn came. 

One by one each rocket's name, creator and motor type was announced, before the launch sequence began. Five, four, three, two, one! 

Squealing whooshes and whizzes, rumbles and pops surprised us. We exclaimed and followed the flight paths of each rocket, losing them for a bit in the afternoon sunlight and blue sky. 

Achieving peak trajectory, they hung mid-air for a moment before hurtling towards earth. Free-falling rockets tumbled and dropped at fast rates as we watched and murmured, exclaiming or laughing at each one's story. Tiny parachutes burst out in oranges, yellows, pinks, or red, while other rockets tore in two and raced towards the ground, crashing hard. 

One by one down the line, rockets of all shapes and sizes had their turn. Most crackled and soared high, but several remained silent, motionless on the launch floor as the controller flicked their ignition buttons with no response.

Welp, connection error, the rocket controller concluded and moved on to other rockets. 

And I felt it, this truth from rocket falls and rocket launches. If I'm not connected to time in God's word, to the powerful life and joy and meaning that flows from him, then I'm just stuck silent on the launch pad. My only sizzle and life flows from the Creator of this rotating globe, and everything else is just a dressed-up rocket with no juice to go. 

And I've heard it, that Martin Luther used to say that he was too busy NOT to pray, indeed ordering his busiest days to schedule in extra time to pray. That has resonated strongly in me this week. Pouring coffee, grabbing journal, Bible and pen, I scratch To Do lists alongside writing out a Bible psalm each morning, and I feel it soak God's vitality and purpose deep in me. 

As September sidles up beside us, and the schedules shift, join me in this? Let's check to make sure our connections are clipped in. Are you linked to the Source? Getting juiced up? 

That's where our Power comes from, friend. 

May your times savoring God's presence bring you joy, life, and centered-focus in this busy season. May he be your soul's rest and renewal, your slowed-down moments, before you hurtle high. 

Smiling with you, cheering you on too, and praying for you, 

Jennifer 

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A Joy and Peace That Bubbles Up and Pours Over

In relaxing melody, water tumbles in endless waterfalls in the fountain below me. A green and orange recycling truck rumbles buhBUM buh,  buhBUM buh as it stops by our house. Glass knocks against glass. He drives a house or two away. BuhBUM buh, buhBUM buh and then silence with a hum as he exits our neighborhood.

My Bible pages flicker in a momentary breeze and a cardinal whirs Bree? Bree? chur-chur-chur. Bree? Bree? chur-chur-chur, ending with a trilled tl tl tl tl tl tl. Sunlight wavers torn paper bookmark across the Psalms and chapter sixty-six starts my day with wisdom from the ancients and the Creator of the world.

"Shout with joy to God, all the earth!
Sing the glory of his name; 
make known his praise glorious! 

Say to God, 'How awesome are your deeds. 
So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you.
All the earth bows down to you;
they sing praise to you, they sing praise to your name.'"

The cardinal sings non-stop in my neighbor's tree. Bree? Bree? Chur-chur-chur. Bree? Bree? Chur-chur-chur ... tchee-tchee-tchee-tchee.

Blue skies, lazy white clouds, my waterfall pouring incessant beauty, and two recycle trucks hum and rattle, beeping in distant rounds.

And I feel it from bare toes curled on weathered deck planks to my relaxed shoulders in the shade, how this pausing to see and say wholeheartedly, "God, you are good! I announce it, proclaim it, stop to truly see and say it: You are good. How awesome are your deeds." -- how it floods me in quiet peace, contentment, beauty, the joy soaking in. Breathing in deep and slow; my muscles are relaxed.

Life and light radiate, pulsing in green and yellow beauty. Water trickles, the cardinal says it again and again. Bree? Bree? chur-chur-chur, tl, tl, tl, tl, and I announce it in kind.

"Say to you, God, how awesome are your deeds! Sing with joy to you, God, all the earth. Sing the glory of his name."

How wise of our Creator to know that in this stopping of the frenetic pace of life to see him and his artistry, to savor it, receive it, bask in it, and then proclaim it in grateful thanks -- that this way of life leads to the greatest joys and a contented peace of mind.

Scientists agree, calling it a grateful way of life, citing it here and here, but our God initiated it simply: "Say to God, How awesome are your deeds. Shout with joy to God!"


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How Flashes Deep Within the Atom Reflect the Life We're Hungry For

I've been mulling it over -- this line I saw recently and can't remember where. 

Mulling it over while dragging sprinkler hoses across hot grass lawns, while driving kids to appointments and swim lessons, and every time I curl up beside family and friends while stretching summer long. Iced coffee cubes crash against condensed glass, dripping summer's heat across bare legs. 

"How we spend our days is how we spend our lives." 

And the audacity of it lingers in my brain this week. In moments and days that crash by, dripping lost to the ground, this claim that we can choose, can order, can decide to step fully into each moment and to control how we live our lives is brash, bold. 

Photo credit: Flickr user Robert Couse-Baker, Creative Commons cc license

I love it, and the science of atoms flashes to my mind. In a textbook years ago, I read about the wild, intricate behaviors of protons, neutrons, and electrons within an atom. 

Inside the nucleus is a flurry of activity where protons and neutrons exchange tiny particles called pions in a frenzy of energy. Electromagnetically, like charges repel each other. Protons, as positively-charged aspects of the atom, should repel each other, like same-sided magnets do. Yet, mysteriously, they don't. 

Bewildered scientists wondered for years why the protons' positive charges didn't repel each other and explode. They knew there must be a strong force holding everything together, but didn't know what. Experiments and observations hinted at the existence of this strong force, but not much was known until the 1930s and 40s, when scientists confirmed the existence and nature of this strong force, the strongest force in creation. 

Do you know what thrills me about this force? 

This strongest force in creation, this strong force that overrules normal magnetism and is stronger than gravity... this strong force in science reminds me of the Three-in-One God. Protons and neutrons are huddled so closely in the nucleus of the atom because they are giving of themselves. 

Taking part of themselves to manufacture pion particles, they give sacrificially to each other. Over and over they break off part of themselves and give to the other. In what reminds me of sacrificial love, there is a frenzy of breaking and making and giving and receiving, and breaking and making and receiving. Pions flash as gifts that last for a brief instant, then are gone. 

Giving of themselves to each other, they are wrapped intricately close. This -- the strongest force in the world-- is woven so tightly that all other natural laws of magnetism, poles, and gravity are broken, and in the center of the atom, unseen by the world, protons and neutrons give of themselves and hand off themselves as endlessly-given gifts to each other. And it's the strongest force in science. 

Want to live the life you're hungry for? This strong force, this endless breaking and making and giving... 

Who knew it was modeled in pions deep within atoms? 

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(Adapted from an archived post of mine.) 

What Cowlicks and Warriors Would Tell You about Living Well

The fir tree has a cowlick. Spouting out from conical symmetry is a two-foot-long branch, and I want to snip it each time I see it, but it's twenty feet up and in my neighbor's yard. The branch points north to my neighbor's front yard where at night Orion the Warrior is tangled in a tree.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Erica Franck, Creative Commons cc license

One month into my Dad's stage IV terminal cancer diagnosis, and I find myself scrolling websites, scrawling notes at doctors' appointments, and counting calendar months. Chest tight some mornings, I pull my Bible closer while Daniel sits beside me untangling addition problems, and I wonder about subtractions.

Yesterday we took a break from math and phonics to refill bird feeders. Charcoal-colored sunflower seeds spilled dusty from the bag, whooshing against my fingers on cold metal frame. I sliced old juicy oranges into halves for the orioles. Crushed citrus a fragrance on my skin. Daniel and I placed vivid orange slices between lines of drizzled seeds on the deck railing, then slipped back inside to watch the birds come. Black-capped chickadees soared tremulously close, skittish but hopeful.

And I remember it, recounting the ways that God has tenderly laid bread crumb trails of hope and wonder for me this spring, long before I even knew I would need them. I line them up in my mind, and shake my head in gentle wonder. He is so good. In January, I stepped out and chose my very first Word of the Year --Brave --thinking I meant it to be moving more boldly into my writing and speaking ministries. God knew of Dad's impending cancer, though, and kindly tucked the word inside me. Earlier, in November Mark and I co-taught a sermon at our church, stating that joyful thanks-giving is always possible, even in the darkest nights. We mentioned our daughter's young cancer scare when she was five years old, and other crises over the years. Meanwhile my Dad's cancer grew in silence. The breadcrumbs continue in my mind, and I see it clearly, God's loving trail for me.

Pulling my Bible nearer, I pause to answer Daniel's math question before sinking deeper into God's words. "I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand," his book tells me, and I lean into that.

"Mom, I listened to Grandpa's song a lot yesterday," my tall twenty-one year old said quietly to me. Jeremy Camp's song "Reckless" has become my dad's mantra these months. He air drums away to it, nodding his head.

"Can we play it again?" my Dad says softly. "I'm not afraid to die. I know where I'm going," he smiles. Jeremy Camp sings about wanting to love and live recklessly, boldly, because of Jesus's love for us.

"I want to die well," my Dad says, thinking of a Henri Nouwen quote. He and Mom have been sharing their stories of God's rescues and passionate love all the more boldly now to the people they meet.

Outside my window, I can see it, the fir tree with a cowlick. Beyond the Warrior Orion hangs the Big Dipper constellation.

"If you're ever lost and need to find north," my Dad had taught me, "follow the mouth of the Big Dipper. It will pour out into the North Star."

And now it changes how I see the cowlick. It's directing me to a poured out life that always points me home.

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What Marbles and Ice Slip Significant into our Lives Tonight

"Every year I take one out," he says.

He describes a glass jar of marbles that hulks on a corner of his desk. He is professional, efficient, an accomplished businessman, and his words have stuck in my brain ever since.

"I set up the jar, estimated how many years an average person lives, and now every January, I take one marble out."

Photo credit: Flickr user Sally, Creative Commons, cc license

Marbles catch the light and diminish slowly in the jar on his desk, and his meaning sinks in.

"I wanted to remember how fast life flies by and to make sure to live fully."

His exact words are fuzzy to me now, but the image still reverberates.

Weeks, months, years trickle through our fingers and leave only memories. Our children's heads race closer to our foreheads and then flash by. Ankles flash pink skin cold in winter growth spurts, and I peek into my garage for the purple plastic bin of Daniel's next size clothes. Morgan brings home a brand new college identity card, grinning cheeky at her row of color-coordinated gel pens and bulging pack of binders.

We carve calendar dates for two graduations this spring, and both John and Morgan step into their last semesters. They each organize their rooms and start packing. Morgan dreams of college dorm-room decor and spies out small sets of kitchenware. John boxes up childhood mementos, making room for another carton of wedding supplies, and brainstorms apartments for the summer.

And your children too, are stretching taller by the week, their shoes and jeans shrinking by the month, and how do you slow down time?

Our marbles diminish so subtly, so silently, that I look and am surprised to do the math and see where I am today. You too?

Our words matter. Our minutes are priceless. As cells stretch, divide, and stretch again, the loved ones in our life grow taller, older, and seasons flash by. 

Snow melts here in Minnesota today. Last week's arctic chill now slips grated snow through my black metal patio table, shredding ice into stalactites below.

I crunch out to my compost bin this afternoon before supper, scowling at the rabbit tracks, and trying to halt their entry into my yard. I'm comfortable without a winter jacket and the snow crunches and melts underfoot.

The cold had seemed so impenetrable and now snow shrinks by the hour. Tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be warm as well.

And the snow disappears from my deck.

"Mom, will you play a game with me?" Daniel asks, his tousled hair still standing up in the back despite each day's water.

"Sure, bud. Let's play."

Throughout the night, I sneak down to hug my two oldest kids who are cramming homework.

"I love you so much." The words fall naturally as I reach up to hug them, leaning my head against their chins.

Take a marble with me, my friends. The snow has melted even more since supper and I don't want to miss a moment.

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Of Parties, Time Capsules, and Choosing Your Trajectory

The party was tonight. It was the Dougan Leap Year Doughnut Party.

Peering into the doughnut case this afternoon, we nabbed two glazed ones, two white frosted sprinkled ones, and one filled with raspberry jelly. On the way home, Morgan and I laughed and talked, with me purposefully reigning in my own expectations.

Photo: Christine Rondeau, Creative Commons, cc license

Upstairs around the dining room table, the five of us clambered into chairs. Two plastic cases of strawberries and blueberries sprawled open invitingly, and the five doughnuts gleamed beneath a translucent panel in the cardboard box.

Cracking jokes and tossing berries into our mouths, we stopped to pray, and then we began. Two slim paper envelopes held our attention, and I slid my finger under the seals, drawing out multiple sheets of paper.

"Morgan, here's yours from 2008. John, yours."

"Look at how small our writing was then!"

"I only wrote three lines!" another exclaimed. "Here's a drawing I did," she pointed, laughing.

"Who wants to read theirs first?" I asked.

One by one, we took turns reading our handwriting from eight years ago. In childish print, we heard echos of their younger voices pour off the page.

"Here are your 2012 letters," I said, handing across folded handwritten sheets of paper. "For Morgan only" one of them read in green ink pen. They reached out eagerly, unfolding longer notes written from themselves just four years earlier, and silence dropped in the dining room. Daniel shuffled uneasily.

"Where's mine?" he asked.

"You were only three years old then, but here is a photo of you from then," I replied, unwrapping the accompanying photos, creased from four years in an envelope.

I confess I've been looking forward to this day for years and months! Unwrapping paper, we got to unwrap our lives from eight and four years ago. In time capsule format, we peeked back into who we were four years ago, seeing how we've changed and how we've stayed the same. 

Taking turns, my kids read their letters aloud, their younger selves asking their older selves questions about what life is like now, casting imaginative questions from the past. "Do you have your own car? Are you living in your own house?" a twelve year old John asked his twenty year old self, and we laughed at what a third year college student's life really looks like.

And then my favorite part began: a reflective silence fell as everybody grabbed pens and sheets of paper. Writing from 2016, they talked to their 2020 self, presenting life from this angle and wondering about life four years in the future.

Scribbling messy black words across blue lined paper, I wrote my own letter, summing up the last four years, and speculating about the next four. And it couldn't fail to hit me. My choices now affect who I am then, and my mood turned more introspective as I continued to write. 

Who are you now? Who do you want to be in 2020? And those answers start your trajectories... 


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What Blocks You from Living Full and Regret-Free

"Should we tell them what the meat is?" she asked me and I could hear the smile in her voice over the phone.

"No, let's wait until later in the meal," I decided. "They'll be more open to it."

The next day we scavenged chairs from all corners of my house and seated seven of us around the scratched cherry wood kitchen table. We prayed, then took turns scooping steaming rice onto our plates. Mom reached for our dishes and carefully ladled a savory meat sauce over the rice, pressing her spoon lower into the pot for more gravy. Garlic and herbs slow-cooked the meat into fall-off-the-bone tenderness, and we asked for seconds, extracting occasional tiny bones from our food.

"It's good!" my husband and kids agreed. "What is it?" Knowing my family, they were open to any news.

"Squirrel. Dad has five of them in the freezer," Mom said, and my family nodded their heads in little surprise.

"Those squirrels stole almost every apple off my tree," Dad said. "I'm down to just one apple left.  I've killed seven squirrels so far," he said, adjusting to a more comfortable position in the chair and smoothing out his napkin.

 I saw my parents again this weekend, my mom cutting my dad's hair. Him with a towel around his shoulders, silvery hair combed straight above his ears and my mom leaning in.

"Don't move," she warned, stretching the blades wide.

I leaned back against their cushioned kitchen chairs, watching them. Outside curved glass windows, my parents' backyard was a haven of landscaped flowers, ferns, and birds at the feeder. An occasional squirrel raced across the fence near the apple tree bobbing in the breeze, its lone apple bundled in a guarded plastic bag.

Finished with Dad's haircut, Mom wiped up slivers of glinting hair from the table and carefully folded the towel off Dad's shoulders, trapping loose hairs inside.

"Let's eat that apple now!" she decided suddenly. "Let's not wait until frost. Dad should eat his apple now..." she trailed off, and we finished the sentence in our minds.

I swallowed back misting tears and grabbed my video camera.

"...This is the first apple from our tree," my mom stated, giving the date and more information. My video-record light blinked red until she ended, and the wind blew sun-tossed leaves across the yard. Autumn's reds and yellows rained on us, then danced across the lawn. 

And I know you have this too... moments that need to be captured and savored, moments that need to be frozen in time. Because whether you have parents who are ill, kindergartners stepping freshly off the yellow bus each day, or taller loved ones walking into the front entryway each night with their briefcases, purses, or heavy backpacks, we all have moments that are slipping away. 

And our challenge? Our mission is to embrace them, to see them, and to fully step in. Step away from whatever you're working on and look deeply into the eyes of the ones you're with. See them, lean in to inhale their scent, and hug them tightly. Fully present in each moment, I want to look up from facebook, put aside my To Do list, and forget the busy. I want to savor and seize each moment.

Is there anyone you need to call? Any conversations you need to have? Someone you need to pause and truly see? Because the truth is, we all have the same moments, the same chances, the same twenty-four hours. And I don't want any regrets.

Say what needs to be said, my friends. Stop and savor life, and the ones around you. Live life fully, deeply, and in the splendored colors of fall. Don't wait.

Crimson and yellow climb up the trees around me, ricocheting off the blue sky. September's heat burns brilliantly, while autumn slips in quiet.

You, With Your Foot in Two Worlds

 "So are you ready to let me go yet?" he asks, grinning with a soft cheekiness as he sits on the cement steps of his home.

Photo: Justin Spencer, Creative Commons, cc license

"No! I'm proposing surgery and insurance, and things like that," I reply, throwing back a glance at him, and rounding to my side of the car. "I love you, Dad," I say, slipping a silver key into my golden Saturn. Looking back for one last wave, I freeze the image of him in my mind, and pull away from the curb, racing home to put my six year old to bed.

I drive numbly, mechanically, replaying the sentence in my mind and counting the days until his next appointment.

A giant chalk white moon stands sentinel over the twilight sky. Full, ample, perfectly round, it hangs heavy in a blue-grey city evening. Tall apartment highrises, depression-era flour mills, and green-shuttered glass factories crouch on a Minneapolis city skyline. Trees chase the moon and, behind me, explosions of violet and tangerine encompass the sinking sun. Fiery orange and reds glare against green highway signs, obliterating mile markers and exits on the highway.

My dad has just returned from helping his uncle out of the hospital and back into a memory care unit. He helped Uncle Al settle back into the room, slide out of the wheelchair, and eat sliced peaches and a pumpkin pie cobbler. Together they maneuvered the remote control buttons of Al's new reclining chair before my dad left for home. Half an hour later, my uncle calls my dad, having forgotten about the day.

"Can I come see you tonight?" I had asked my dad, three hours ago. He agreed, and I hurried to throw a supper together for my family before racing out the door.

"Kah, kah," I knock in African fashion at their house. At the door, I see my mom's sandals and smile. "It makes me miss her to see her shoes," I yell out to my dad. She's gone temporarily, and we miss her already.

I slide a plastic carton of cherry tomatoes across the kitchen table, and slice up a crimson purple plum for us to share. He's already laid two plates, and set out tea cups. We drink green tea with roasted brown rice, and catch up from the week. All too soon, the hour is past and I need to race home to put my son to bed.

He says it then, the sentence that has lodged in my throat, in my mind, since. The sentence I have already been whispering to myself and to my husband in the dark of night. "Am I ready to lose my dad already?" NO.

And I know that you face this situation too, many of you. With a foot in both worlds, you care for older relatives and younger ones. You care for ailing grandparents, or older parents, and children of all ages. I hear you talk of it over coffee, at conferences, online, or through prayer chain emails.

I have watched my parents stand with feet planted in two worlds too, helping older and younger relatives and friends around them. And tonight I feel my own feet sliding tentatively wider, tip-toeing uncertainly into that larger world, and words fall short.

I followed that moon on the drive home, that impossibly large milk-white moon. Clarity and closeness etched its surface in stark relief, with edges and craters, and dark holes falling into a moon dry sea. In front of me was the moon, my car trailing an evening highway, curving into quiet darkness. Behind me orange, crimson, violet, and gray exploded across the night sky, curling crispy cirrus clouds up.

One lone trail of black smoke carved a jet stream through gold light, tracing an airplane's flight straight down. An erratic route for an airplane, it seemed, and I swerved slightly in my lane, craning my head backwards, pondering its downward trajectory. A police car shot by, sirens blaring, and the car in front of me forced my eyes to the road before me.

The mysterious black plume of smoke flamed white and gold in the sunset, and my road curved away.

And It's In You Too...

Photo: Martin Beek, Creative Commons, cc license

Photo: Rodney Campbell, Creative Commons, cc license

Yellow, black, and white goldfinches flit and dart about the sunflowers. In the mad jungle of ragtag red, orange, and yellow sunflowers, a crowd of goldfinches has moved in. With circus precision, the finches hang upside down, bobbing on the gangly stalks, thrusting hungry beaks into the flower. Limbless, their beaks strip petals, tear away the center fluff, and burrow for each seed. In tireless one-by-one fashion they duck and pull, duck and pull. A tiger tangerine and black butterfly saunters past, catching my attention out the window, and the splashes of color and audacious life woo me.

In the last two weeks I am finding myself drawn into, walking alongside, and wrestling with several authors, as I read their books. In Micha Boyett's Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer, I imagined myself picking up a coffee mug and sidling into her San Francisco flat or standing with her on California playgrounds as she studied the essence of prayer and delved into Benedictine monk disciplines. Micha pondered intimacy with God, wondering how to best walk face-to-face with God through the laundry piles, dirty dishes, and toddler tantrums of a mother's life. She asks bare naked questions to the Creator about her worth and her desire to live a grand life for God, and what that ultimately looks like. Her discoveries ring with calm peace and freedom that move me into my next book.

Emily P. Freeman's book A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live is one I am only halfway through. She tiptoes into life's passions with gentle questions, finally stripping aside any excuses, apprehensions, or hesitations from the full life God wants us to live in him. This Artist God who created crackling fire and ice, who calls the stars out by name each night, and who spins galaxies in motion, holding all things together --This is the Artist God who designed us, who crafted and molded us in unique ways, and whose perfect plan is to see us experimenting with and using the skills and passions he placed in us for his glory. And the art that splashes out of us in a million little ways isn't really about us. It is his glory and beauty reflected, refracted, and ricocheting out of us, in a million darkness-shattering ways. Emily intrigues me, calling out gentle tears. She declares that art isn't only swirled paint on canvas, or words curling up a page -- although it can be-- art is whatever brings us most fully alive and what is screaming to come out of us, the image-bearers of the Artist God.

Emily whispers, "As a fellow image bearer, I want to whisper wake up words into your spirit, where your life is joined with God's. Wake up to the life of Christ within you and see how he wants to come out. Wake up to your unique calling and live out the truth of who Christ is and who you are in him. Uncover the art you were born to make. Release the art you were made to live" (Freeman, 36).

"...You were designed to reflect the glory of God" and you were "made in the image of God for a purpose" (Freeman, 36, 37).

Yellow and black goldfinches zip past my window, alighting on the caramel and crimson flowers. There are only two of them now, bold males in black capped heads who pause to see my movements in the glass above them. The flowers sway in silence for a moment. Their art drips from them, decadent colors on tiny plum-sized birds. God's extravagance seems almost wasteful, and yet it refreshes and inspires me. Our Cosmic Artist paints with limitless colors, creating in endless ways, urging us to follow suit.

When Spring and Life Falter

It's not that they lied.

It's just that we see the calendar's blatant announcement of spring and then step curiously outside to shiver in a chilly thirteen degrees. Snow flurries fly diagonally to the right, falling softly for hours. Crystal diadems stack an inch high. An hour later, the snow stops. Blue skies and sunshine light up melting snow. Crystalline diadems dissipate.

At the kitchen table, my daughter and I solve second degree algebra equations, and turn pages in her physical science textbook. My preschooler wriggles excitedly on his stool at the computer desk, watching his character scroll through a two-dimensional world. And his world looks flat from here, but he knows the whole game. Dodging dangers, jumping cliffs, and traipsing into caverns, he locates the treasures. And when dangers or troubles overtake him, he confidently starts again.

We saw him this afternoon, the chubby fleece rabbit, hiding under the tall firs. He'd been scarce all winter. A robin flitted onto a bone bare branch today too, forerunner of a silent spring.

And Midwestern Americans everywhere peer optimistically out windows and hover at open doorways, light jackets in hand, wondering. New life lingers, latent below the surface, and winter melts away.

And your words, they come to my mind... "Lord, where else would we go? You hold the words of life!" And the world teems with it.

Can't see the spring, the new life, in your world? Are you dodging dangers, jumping cliffs, and stumbling through dark caverns in a two-dimensional world? Our God knows this life game and confidently navigates it for us. "Lord, where else would we go? You hold the words of life."

Hi friend. What have you been reading, learning, or thinking about this week?

(Those in email --of which there are nearly 400 of you!-- can click here to join the conversation. Feel free to forward this.)

*Photo Credit: Evan Long, Creative Commons, cc license

Quick! Right Now Before the New Year...

This is it.

Turn on the Rocky theme song, pump up the hip-shaking Latin music, and crank it loud.

This is it.

Grab your coffee beans off the shelf, a filter, and grind up a strong pot. This is it, this is your day.

Who needs to wait until January 1st to start seizing each day fully? Each day is fresh, full, pregnant with potential, and this is it.

Twelve hours of daylight await you, and time is slipping away.

Take a quick shower, grab those jeans you love, and pour a smooth cup of hot coffee.

Forget about whatever failures you feel loom high from the year, the To-Do list with so many familiar items trailing along to each new page.

Today is fresh, new; the snow is untouched, and waiting for you. Grab today, pump the music high, and dig in.

What's one thing you want to tackle today while it is still 2013? What's one thing you want to jump full into today? 

This is it. Bring your coffee, turn the music loud, and dive in.

(I'd love to cheer you on, friend. What are you jumping in today with me? I have some writing and speaking projects I'm working on. Those in email can join the conversation here.)

Photo: Artist John Bramley, Rocky Balboa at The Washington Post.