April's Tender Spring

{Joining the online writers community at Chatting at the Sky in sharing the interesting, the joyful, the curious that flows through the course of daily life.}

April’s spring is a tender time of pale green feathering at the edges of every branch and spreading wide across warming lawns. Courageous color bursts from blooms of bulbs and tree limbs encouraging the winter weary hearts of we humans who long for the promise of more beauty to come. It's no surprise that April hosts Earth Day, or that it's the perfect season to celebrate Poetry Month. 

Do you marvel at the artistic displays seen at the Anthropologie stores? I do. Love them! Interestingly you can view a video of how one of the teams designed a display for April by visiting the Anthropologie blog post for their Earth Day window display. A creative tribute to the metamorphosis and migration of the Monarch Butterfly.Way fun for the artist in all of us!


Sabbath rest, so elusive, so essential. 
In my reading this month I learned that planning ahead to insure that the Sabbath day is a clean slate makes it more likely that it will be experienced  in ways that are restoring to you. I also learned to view the day as a celebration, as a day of activities that are out of the ordinary and therefore reviving and festive in nature. I was introduced to these key steps and others, for how to attain the restoring balm of a Sabbath retreat from writer Shelly Miller.

April is Poetry Month. 
Seth Haines writes poignantly about the power of poetry, about how it's unique elements speak to the soul of the human condition. And then there was this student's response to a writing test prompt. Clearly this young writer, a very reluctant poet, had poetry in his literate world, either through song, scripture, and oral story reading. He has internalized form, cadence, rhyme, and similes through the osmosis of being exposed to literature. Even if he hates it he has learned and retained its elements in long term memory. Which is the power of being read to and the expectation of well designed language arts education. He has no idea how his tastes may change in the decades ahead. Finally, among the favorite poems that I read this  month is the one below, written by Jane Kenyon:

Otherwise

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise. 

-By Jane Kenyon

During this season's Sabbath Sundays I'm tenderly mindful of April's celebrations of Easter blessings, Earth's spring splendor, and the beautiful words woven by the human hearts.

                           

        

Turn to the Light

In early spring

living things turn into the light.

Stems, branches, and vines 

reach for the sun’s rays.

Blooms and leaves too,

bend in that direction.

Felines search out sills 

most drenched with brilliance.

Turtles sun along the banks of brightly lit shores.

We humans 

lift our faces for that longed for warmth.

And the Christian heart...

turns toward the brilliance of the risen Lord on Easter Sunday.

Fervent for Holy hope.

Rejoicing in the eternal gift.

Abundance

“Blessing has in it the power to increase.” 

As my eyes decoded left to right, those words rose from the page to be heeded by the heart. The heart leaned in close, the meaning so decidedly true. 

Yes, certainly it is as the writer intended in reference to God’s word in the128th Psalm. 

But then carried further, applied expansively, 

God’s blessings in all forms propagate to bring forward additional abundance. 

A revelation that is known only as one’s faith life grows deep roots nurtured by prayer, study, and a persistent vigilance for divine purpose. 

Think of it more simply: 

study extends your knowledge. 

Knowledge expands your faith. 

Faith transforms your perception. 

Perception heeds divine presence and provision 

which further affirms and emboldens your faith. 

The more you are aware of God at work, 

the more you will see God’s work. 

“Blessing has in it the power to increase.”

                              ~

As is my pleasure each weekend,
 I'm linking with thoughtful folks over at 
Still Saturday, 
the Sunday community, 
and Weekend Brew. 
Click on their buttons below 
to enjoy more photography and a quiet word.

Sizing Up the Highlights

Sizing up the month's highlights once again. These bits of thought come to mind... 

1. We all relearned the two faces of March. 

I remain partial to the fragile blooming, bright, crisp air version. And have risked planting flowers in the front porch pots. During the final days of the month I'll learn if that was a smart move or not. Fingers crossed.


2. I was just sort of visually stunned to peruse the Google data center . Take a look at the artistic  innards of what is basically today's version of the blended, global library and post office.

3. I'm discovering HGTV. {Geez, you're thinking, where have you been?} Never the less,  House Hunters International is new to me. I so admire the various motivations that people have for moving beyond their native country. One woman was a food blogger moving to a small city in France to immerse herself in local cuisine to better inform her writing. A couple, after years of working in the hospitality industry, was looking for an island resort of their own, to live in and manage. Making dreams like these a reality takes courage and creativity. Not to mention the fascinating diversity of design and architecture of housing around the world.

4. I hit a jackpot of good reads this month and was introduced to two authors. One, Christian poet Jane Kenyon wrote a delightful collection of essays that were published in A Hundred White Daffodils {must love that title!}. See a post about her writing and excerpts from her poems over here. 

Next up, I courageously ventured through Mary Karr's memoir, LIT. I will admit to skimming the harsh early chapters. It takes a stout heart to read authentic struggles. BUT, the remaining story of hard sought scratching toward survival through faith and her eventual conversion to Christianity was stunning. Her writing is gifted while shirking no realities. In an interview about her work memoirist Mary Karr stated:

"That’s what’s so gorgeous about humanity. It doesn’t matter how bleak our daily lives are, we still fight for the light. I think that’s our divinity. We lean into love, even in the most hideous circumstances. We manage to hope." The Paris Review, 2009.

Swan Thieves was fiction to curl up and get lost in. It wrapped me in the painter's life and art history with a compelling psychological mystery woven through two parallel plots. To be savored.

5. Encountered several beautiful unknown words recently. I favored this one: numinous - spiritually elevated, mysterious.



6. Walking in early spring twilight is heavenly. 
Even as solar beams slip low on the horizon the senses remember heat and light.

                                            ~

Venture over to What We Learned to share the humorous and the quirky of fellow writers in Emily's community. You'll think, "Really? I did not know that!"

A Poet's Holy Muse

Spring alternately bristled and curtsied this week. 

Cutting, crisp winds with rain and intermittent low temps one moment, 

upstaged by bold rays of sun the next day, 

teasing our trees and budding bulbs to release their fragile blooms.

Amidst the indecisiveness of the outdoors I ventured into the library 

where fortune blessed me with an introduction to poet Jane Kenyon

by way of A Hundred White Daffodils, 

a collection of her essays, interviews, translations,  and poems.

Pleasantly, as rain flooded the back ponds, I discovered a new favored writer.

Jane Kenyon is a highly regarded contemporary poet whose work is greatly influenced by her Christian faith. 

She writes,

“It was my habit to speak to Him.

His goodness perfumed my life.

I loved the Lord,

he heard my cry,

and he loved me as His own.”

From “Woman, Why are You Weeping”, p.207

* * * 

And later in reading an interview with  Bill Moyers,

Jane claims: There are times when I feel I’m given poems.

Bill Moyers: How do we cultivate that in ourselves?

Jane Kenyon: We have to get quiet. We have to be still, and that’s harder and harder in this century.     ...

Moyers: How did you come to write “Let the Evening Come”? So many people say that is the favorite of your poems.

Kenyon: That poem was given to me.

Moyers: By?

Kenyon: The muse, the Holy Ghost... I felt I needed something redeeming. I went upstairs with the purpose of writing something redeeming...this just fell out.

* * * 

This happens, does it not? In just this way. 

In our creative experiences, as one writes, strums, or applies oils to canvas, sensing a hand in union with eye and the heart, 

the Creator present in our inner musing 

to guide our efforts to record His creation.

A Hundred White Daffodils illuminated these early brooding days of spring, 

these expectant and watchful days Lent.

“It’s not just more flowers I want, it’s more light,

more air for flowers, more sun for cheerfulness...

and a hundred white daffodils that grow after dusk 

against the unpainted boards  of an old barn.” 

From “The Phantom Pruner”, p.50

Tomorrow's Promise

I venture forth into my days 

carrying snippets of scriptural readings, conversations, 

teachings, and musings tucked under my heart. 

Internal thoughts pondered haphazardly as I move through my days 

pausing intermittently as some slight bit of my fluid surroundings catches...

snags on some point of those numerous musings.  

Here, as tuned lyrics overlay a phrase I read, 

or there 

as a face streams against my passing current portraying human expression of inspired scripture, 

or another 

from the natural world branching out to display a figurative expression of a sacred story. 

If last season’s life were our Biblical inheritance,

If the branch were His chosen people,

If the suspended vessels were His divine life,

If the dispersed seeds were His spirit,

If nature reflects His promise...

Illuminated understanding rises, 

not grandly, but deeply.

Satisfying as only increased clarity or 

compelling evidence 

can illuminate.

Unspoken whispers of prayer envisioned as being released outward. 

"Thank you O my father,

for giving us your Son,

And leaving your Spirit

till the work on earth is done."

“There Is a Redeemer” 

Joseph Adkison

Spacious Place

Once we have experienced the saving actions of our Lord,
once we have been rescued 
and brought out to a spacious place,
that sensation is expansive. 

Our sense of finally existing with ample security to allow 
our heart to grow again, to fill with the power of love again,
to embrace qualities of trust and assurance once again,
the breath we take in is deeper. 

The chest widens in hungry inhaling of freedom's air
and Christ's promises.

Our face exudes a light that is only derived from the saving love of God.

Eyes glisten with tears of gratitude and humility.
Lips, once captive to pain, tentatively lift at the corners 
releasing the joy of a smile and the long dormant laughter that ultimately escapes.

Praise and prayer slip forth in an unending stream
to honor the Lord God for his abundant mercies!

He rescues.
He restores.
He redeems.

Put your faith in the Lord.
For there is faithful love with the Lord,
and with Him
is redemption in abundance.
Psalm 130:7 HCSB

                                                                              ~


Linking with these communities of 
writer's and photographers over at:
Still Saturday, 
The Sunday Community,
and 
Weekend Brew. 
Click on their buttons (listed below) to join the celebration.