Butterfly

I saw it sitting as I rested by the water. We were at the fringe of a pond, bull rushes lining, fish lipping at the surface for unsuspecting hoverers.
A slight movement caught my attention and I realized it was a butterfly. Heat poured in from the still rising sun and there the monarch rested, by the water, on a stone;  black veined, orange gossamer, speckled white on the fluttering edges.
It moved in rhythm, wings open, wings close, turn a bit on the rock, wings open, wings close, turn again, wings open, wings close. Wings open, flat open, soak up the heat, absorb the energy, turn again so that every vein, every angle, every nuance of being was filled by the sun.
Only then can flight happen. And then only in short spurts as air currents cool her wings. Then she can find a flower, a rock and rest, absorb the heat and power up again.

She's really just a bug, but arrayed in her glorious garment she's a spectacle of glory, a breath of inspiration, a gentle whisper of hope on the breeze. She's a pretty worm to start with, all stripey yellow, black and white. Some, thoughtless, would still step on it and crunch the potential underfoot. Even in its metamorphosed state there are those so callous who would wound and dispatch the lovely away.

No one knows the artistry tucked away inside a worm, the potential in the unlovely. Yet for those who pause, and gaze, who wait willing for the unfolding there emerges exquisiteness unimagined. But the debasing journey of isolation in the chrysalis and liquification must occur before the imaginal discs can form the pupae into it's glorious new state. 

I look up the word "Chrysalis" and find it comes from the Greek meaning 'gold'.

Gold is the place of transformation and the outcome of the transformation. Comprehension! I think of the man who said "When He has tried me I shall come forth as pure gold." (Job 23:10-11). He went from glory, preferred status, to worm. And because of the dying, the golding process, the second glory was greater than before. But the undoing, the agony of loss and suffering was immeasurable, except in the hands of the One who measures no more and no less than what He knows will bring the pure gold.

The process of unbecoming brings forth pure gold, pure beauty. But the process is one of dying, an internal undoing of all we are, until all that's left are the elemental building blocks. Only then can the reconstruction begin, the recreating of the intended and the emerging of the true design of love. 

And the sheer, astonishing truth in it all is that unless the lovely, unfurled splendor finds its life in the sun, it will die. For without that radiant source of heat, those thinnest of wings cannot flutter, they cannot take the newly formed one to find food or shelter or new sources of heat when the cold sets in.

The sun is life to the butterfly.

"But they that wait upon the Lord (YHWH) shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

"Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God's Son does not have life."

 1 John 5:12

Good Friday

You are the bread broken for me.

The matzah bread broken, hidden and found again.

You are the Lamb of  God, slain for the sins of the world.

You were wounded for my transgression,

And bruised for my iniquities.

Your bore my sorrows on the cross.

The chastisement for my peace was upon You.

By Your wounds I am healed.

Gratitude!

That You wept in the garden.

Receiving the cup, though it meant

The Father would have to turn His Face

Away.

Holiness could not gaze upon the sin

You became.

You became sin for me.?!

All my iniquity, passed down through generations.

On your back.

My transgressions. My sorrow. My sickness.

Darkening the Holiness of You.

Until You were no longer visible.

You became sin.

But the grave. The black, prideful hole of defiance

Was swallowed up in

VICTORY!

Spring

Unbridled happiness
As I wiggle fingers down
Under your mantle and feel
Stiff shoots
Pull back and SEE
Still buried,
Safe under last year's dying.
Hosta!
Anticipating the unfurling
Of your glamourous garments.

Blood red cresting the soil
Poison with bitter stalk
Only gentled by a bowl of sweetness
When we cut you and still cringe at
you so tart, in the summer

I rest the soil and leaves
Back down
Press you covered
In case winter
Unleashes another fury.

So still you lie
Quiet waiting.
Life abounds
Despite the uncertainty
of Spring.

Mourning Love

Mourning doves softly crooning love

Cooing, fluffing

Feathered affection

Arching necks

Fluttering, mounting passion...

Consummate this dawning

Then subsiding

Perch beside each other

Up on the rails

This lovely, lusty morning.

Outside

Cold and deep, I shovel hard
And breathe.
Snowflakes, ice chips
Vapor in my mouth.

The chill is off and I'm
Outside.
A billion starflakes falling
On my tongue.

The boy chuckles deep
And dumps a shovel load
down my neck.
And glee! We chase and race around the car
And throw then dodge and
I'm outside!

Winter not wifi!
Snow not snoring!
And I'd rather pitch a tent in this white.
I LOVE THE FUN!

Inside is OUT!
The outside is alive and I feel free.
I'll stay - awhile and breathe contentment
Outside in.

Be Yourself

"Just be yourself."  How many times have we all heard these words and equally how many times have many of us thought something like "You might not like who that is..." or "I'm not even sure who I am."

I'm writing this blog post in response to a link from Faith Barrista.  See her tag down the right hand side.

I am a mix of two parents, with a heavy lean toward my Dad side.

I am administrative, organized, tend towards controlling and have given up being a perfectionist. I am artistic, sensitive, creative and overly emotional. I struggle with being on time, but hate being late. I love people, but don't always get along with them. I love words (passionately) but they have been the source of much of the pain in my life.

How do you be yourself when you've spent most of your life trying to BE someone else. When your sense of personhood has been wrapped up in pleasing others in order to be accepted.

I pondered all this as I did the dishes today. Thinking of how I (we) fake it and put our make up on our faces and our hearts and hide away who we truly are on the inside and the outside. I think it must make God very sad. After all He made us so why wouldn't we want to enjoy being "ME" and let Him enjoy us being who He made us to be.

I think a good trend is happening. As I read some of my favorite blogs, like this one, I hear women opening up the door on all that locked away stuff. They're sharing deep and it's stopping the lies. Truth always does this.

As truth comes out, it becomes safe to be me.

So here I am, just Ang, who can be kind of anxious at times, but is learning to trust God and let go of some of the past. I love to garden and read and write and be a wife and mother. I'm very insecure at times, but it's worst when I've taken my eyes of Jesus. He never goes away, but sometimes I step back.
I got exposed yesterday in a big error. (See last blog post).  Since then, I've been at peace. Sometimes we take ourselves way to seiously and we lose sight of Jesus. But then He brings it all full circle. After mulling all this I came to the conclusion that it's better to let your mistakes be known, to be honest and real with people. In doing so I am freed from fear and for the need to impress.  Today was another step towards freedom.

Not So Chance Encounters

A funny thing happened on the way home from school yesterday...

But let me just say, that at the start of it all I was looking so forward to the getting home part. The day was filled to overflowing with job training, grocery shopping, errand running and that was on the heels of getting three rounds of children off in the morning to their various destinations.
So I headed up to school to pick up my two and the two little boys I drive home each day (stressing that I had someone else's kids in the car with me). The journey home included dropping the older children off at a play practice. It dawned on me as I headed down the hill that I was going to have a complete hour to myself before my youngest came home and I had to pick up the other two from their practice. An hour! Time to catch my breath, have a tea and start the meal for our guests coming to dinner.  A sigh of relief escaped me. I felt my insides loosen and my breathing s l o w  d o w n.
I stopped at the traffic light and stalled my recently purchased standard car. "I can't believe I did that," I thought. Put in the clutch, into first gear and start the car...start the car...putter...putter...gazed disbelievingly at my gas gauge on empty...OH NO!

My insides clenched along with my teeth and mind and I thought and said "OH NO! Not now!!!"  Kids asked "What's going on?" and I had to confess that we'd run out of gas. Now. Here. On the way to drop children in my care at two locations. And everyone will know I messed up.

Isn't that it?  When it came down to it, my greatest concern was about what others would think.

I saw Susan coming up behind me and leapt out of my car, ran back to her van and as she rolled down her window I asked her to pull my hair out as it would save me the trouble. She agreed to (but didn't) and asked why. I explained. She said she would drop her van load off and come back. She did, picking up her teen daughter from high-school on the way. Then she loaded the two oldest and delivered them to the practice. I was now with the two boys who aren't mine and them wondering what was going to happen. We had already played a rousing game of I Spy. This now turned into sharing the gum in my purse with littlest boy who said he didn't like it minty but "it's good," he told me in his sweet, squeaky voice. The eldest had already chewed enough that day, he said. We played count the cars, find Susan's van ("I think that's her"..."No"..."Oh, there she is"...."No, again"..."Where is she?"... I started texting her after 20 minutes, not meaning to be pushy but "Are you coming soon? My youngest is going to be home in 15 minutes..."). We'd started a new game of who could count the most of their favorite color of car and she rolled up on the other side of us.

"You won't believe it" she said. She'd gone home to drop her daughters off and her oil light came on. Fearing a seized engine she'd taken the time to top it up. This was becoming a comedy of errors.

We climbed in and she drove the boys to their daycare, where their Mom was now waiting and dropped them off with tales of their adventure; then went to my house to pick up the gas can and my son who had just come off his bus.

To the gas station, back to the car and the incredible continued to unfold.

Susan parked on the side behind my car. I retrieved the gas can, went to fill my tank and open the door to dump my purse in the passenger side. Open the door...my key...not in my pocket....not in my purse....OH NO!!!!!!! I peer in the window and it's in the ignition and all my doors are locked. Of course! We were sitting there waiting, the kids and I. The radio was on sometimes and we were playing games and then Susan got there and we got out and I dutifully locked all the doors and this is BIZARRE!

By this time I was actually in tears, hanging in Susan's window feeling like a complete idiot and we were both shaking our heads and laughing at the incredible story unfolding. So we left the car - again. It was pushed off the road as far as we could get it, but it's front end still stuck out. What else could we do? By then it was time to pick up kids from practice so we just went and got them. AMAZING.

She dropped us off at home and said "If you need a ride back to the car when the tow truck comes, just call."  She'd cheerfully driven around on my behalf for an hour and a half without a complaint. That was grace.

So at home I threw the chicken in the oven for dinner, called Frank to pick me up so we could get the car and called CAA who said they'd be there within the half hour. I couldn't reach Frank, but left a message. And when it was time, I hadn't been able to reach anyone, so ate humble pie and called Susan. She was chipper and said she'd be right over. I started walking to meet her on the way. And even that was funny as I crossed the road so she'd see me and I could get in the passenger side. She drove right by as she was looking for me on the other side.

When we got there, the car was gone and there was no sign of the tow truck. But Frank's van was there. He'd been in time for CAA and pulled the car into the parking lot across the road.

We stood on the side and thanked Susan. Frank said "I think I'd better go straight to the gas station. I'm almost on empty!" We laughed in the gathering dusk and relief seeped over me. No tea, no sit down and visitors arriving now. I still had much food prep to do as the groceries had been in the trunk of the car. And I'm sure Susan had an evening of dinner prep and family needs ahead of her too.

But like our Pastor says "It may look like this is what's happening, but God has something else going on."

Within that two hour period, there were moments of grace and the sharing of hearts. There was conversation that wouldn't have happened had we not had this 'not so chance encounter'.