Haikus

 

 My Backyard

Flitting yellow finch

Weaving round our Russian sage,

Bowing softly purple.

Lakeside

Octopus swimsuit.

Bare feet paddle shifting sand,

Plastic pail and spade.

Brown hair whips her face--

Rushing waves beneath gray sky,

Sand sticks to her legs.

Green monster seaweed

Clinging, grasping small ankles,

Chases her ashore.

The Gardener

Long straight skinny legs

Slowly widely stride across

The yard in three steps.

Tan straw wide-brim hat,

Brown hands crumbling clumping dirt

Squinting at the sky.

Cows approach, wide-eyed

Looking for a gift of kale

They receive from him.

Arrr

 In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean there is a scene where the Pirate Captain Barbossa hosts his captive, Elizabeth, for dinner. A sumptuous feast is set before her and he encourages her to eat. 

Ravenous, she stuffs food in her mouth hungrily until she notices he is not eating. She then assumes the food is poisoned, but it is not. Barbossa watches her eating, perhaps hoping for some vicarious satisfaction. But for Barbossa and the other cursed pirates, there is no satisfaction, because they are undead.

When moonlight reveals the pirates' true condition as animate rotting corpses, Barbossa laments, "For too long I've been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I've been starving to death and haven't died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea..." Hearing his anguish, you actually feel pity for this horrible man. But lately, I've realized that I actually know exactly what he's talking about. 

In Ecclesiastes 1:8, Solomon, not a pirate--rather one of the richest, most powerful, most honored men in the world at the time proclaims: 

All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. (ESV)

When I have a delicious bowl of ice cream I really enjoy it, until it's gone. Then I just want another one. The same is true when I finish a great movie or book, get a back rub, hear a favorite song, etc. 

I enjoy working. When the work is done, I can stand back and enjoy the accomplishment. I might even get a compliment. But in the end it doesn't really mean anything in itself, unless it involves helping someone.

Relationships are the only thing that matter. Jesus told us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It seems so simple, so obvious. But, like Barbossa, I've had to try it my way until I really learned it.

And I never could have learned it without Jesus, because he turned my heart of stone into a heart of flesh, so that I am even capable of love at all. 

Primary Colors

Primary Colors

 

I see a flash of red through the trees,

And squint, hoping it's a male cardinal.

No, it's a far away barn.

I wanted it to be a cardinal because

I imagine that's a message from You that

My dad really is in Heaven.

Yellow daffodils were his favorite.

I hate to see them.

He just missed them those last days of his life,

The days he settled on I don't know what,

Jesus or not.

I hate not knowing.

I own the loveliest handmade ceramic mug.

Blues and browns dripping in perfect beauty,

A true artwork worthy of highest display,

A treasured possession I love to look at

And to touch. However, I cannot

Drink from it, because it scratches my lips.

Minimalism

 I get bored and lazy sometimes and watch you tubes on TV. A while ago I got hooked on minimalist videos. You might think I've come into this trend late, but actually I have been getting rid of things for years. It is so satisfying to get rid of extra stuff laying around that it is pretty addictive. 

When we were young we moved several times, and wherever we went was small. Hence, I learned a long time ago about downsizing. Some people make decent money selling off their extra belongings, but not me. I am way too impatient to sit around waiting for someone willing to take this junk off my hands. 

I love giving things away. If I can find anyone I know to "bless" with my offscourings, so much the better. Most moms are involved in hand-me-down activities, especially homeschool moms, although many homeschoolers try and sell their leftovers at curriculum sales each spring. I tried this once, and it was a big bummer. 

People kept asking me about stuff I had never used, which was a bit disconcerting. Also, one lady was begging me to take a check. No way--even though she was my biggest customer. She was buying a trendy (and expensive) Spanish program that we had abandoned...She ended up paying me with fistfuls of quarters and dollar bills. Too bad she didn't wait me out. I ended up marking down everything to "FREE." I just wanted to get out of there. 

The one time in my life I had a garage sale was about the same. Nowadays I save time and just give away or donate everything. It is delightful. Sometimes I miss the things I got rid of. I have made mistakes. But the funny thing is that in the long run I don't need them. 

My parents had a whole lot of stuff when they passed away. Well, they had lived in that house almost 50 years. That definitely didn't help. The odd thing was, they didn't really care about material possessions. They cared about working. They loved to work, and they loved the people they worked with. 

I think probably they were too busy living their lives to minimalize their stuff. So I did it for them, after they were gone. It was hard, but I'm good at it. I miss them so much.

Faith That Moves Pianos

 In my previous post, I explained how it came to be that we had two pianos in our little bungalow many years ago. In thinking it over later, I realized that some of the details were incorrect. However, it doesn't really change the story so I'll let it be.

Our house had two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen, dining room, and living room. All the rooms were small and square. There would have been no room for even one piano, except that a previous owner had enclosed the front porch. This made the originally square living room into in "L" shape. The two pianos occupied the long part of the "L."

It was kind of fun having two pianos, although they were just a teensy bit out of tune with each other. My son and I would play things like "The Merry Farmer" together on both pianos. It was a good time. I don't remember exactly why I decided to get rid of one of the pianos. I think it was because we wanted to turn part of the enclosed porch into a tiny extra room.

One day shortly after I had decided this, my husband, Ron, was on the phone with his friend, Marty. Marty could hear me playing piano in the background and mentioned that his wife, Julie, wanted to get a piano. Ron told Marty that we wanted to sell one of our pianos. Apparently, Marty told his wife this. She then told him, immediately, that she wanted to buy our piano.

I was a bit surprised about this and told Ron to ask if they wanted to come see the piano first. They did not. Julie said that she had prayed about wanting to get a piano, and when ours came up soon after, she considered it her answer. This was her piano. No questions asked.

That was nearly 30 years ago. I still think of Julie and her faith--trusting that our piano was an answer to her simple prayer. I would love one day to be like that, and to graciously, thankfully, without questioning and hand-wringing, receive the many gifts that are placed right in front of me all the time. 

A Tale of Two Pianos

 One thing I love to have in my home is a piano. Not a keyboard. I'm not great at piano, but I love to have one around. I love to play classical piano--not well-but still I love to do it. I'm not being modest either.

My dad played piano very well. I loved to hear him. He picked interesting things to play, my favorite being Scarlatti. I play Scarlatti almost exclusively, now that I realize my days on this earth are numbered and there's no use wasting time playing stuff I don't like.

My Uncle Chris played the piano so beautifully it made my cousin and me cry, even when we were skulky teenagers. He played romantic pieces by composers like Brahms and Ravel. Sometimes I play that kind of stuff. My Uncle Chris was an amazing musician. He had an old spinet piano, not a great instrument, but pretty. It was maple and had a nice leafy design carved into the music stand. I always secretly wanted it. 

As a young adult I lived in apartments, often on the third floor. Back then we didn't have a piano, obviously. However, when we finally settled down in a little bungalow where we knew we would stay, I started looking. There had once been a piano factory near where we lived. It was long gone and they had actually turned it into a mall. However, some of those pianos were still kicking around.

In fact, a venerable octogenarian living only a couple blocks from us was advertising her piano for sale in the local paper. I rushed over to check it out. The woman's name was Mabel. She lived with her sister and brother-in-law. She had never married. In her younger years she had worked at a watch factory, and once upon a time, she had bought herself a piano from that local piano factory.

The piano was nice, a dark cherry wood upright, in perfect condition. It was actually not as good of an instrument as my Uncle Chris's piano, but he had not offered me his yet. You see, he had multiple sclerosis, and was unable to play the piano anymore. Still, he was not ready to give it away, which I understood. I asked Mabel how much she wanted for the piano. She looked at me cutely and said, "Fifty dollars?"

We were pretty broke in those days, and I'm not gonna lie, I knew I should offer her more, but I didn't.  So, I got my piano. Next time I saw my Uncle Chris I told him about it, of course. I think it kind of made him jealous that I had got myself another piano, not his. So then he decided that I should have his piano. I said something about what would I do with the one I just bought then, and he told me I could throw it in the garbage. I hope you are laughing now. I know I am.

So, for a while, maybe a couple of years, we had two pianos in our little bungalow. I never did get to my point in this story though, so stay tuned...

Hard to Swallow

I was speaking to a friend the other day on the phone. She lives far from here, in another state. However, it is as though we are knit together and no distance apart whatsoever. We have known each other since we were tiny kids. Our relationship has been on-again-off-again for various reasons, yet we are always close at heart. And now we are sisters in Christ, bringing us even closer.

She was telling me about her daughter, who a while back, to my friend's horror, got a motorcycle. Gasp. Recently, her daughter got into a wreck. Thankfully, she was not seriously injured. However, it was apparently terribly painful. So I would have thought, like my friend might have thought, that it would be the end of motorcycles for this young woman. 

Nope. She went and bought another, bigger motorcycle. And from what I understand, it is not even that she loves motorcycles. She might possibly have given up riding motorcycles. But there was another issue altogether affecting her decision.

My friend told me that the motorcycle community there is a very tight group. They are strongly supportive of one another, evidenced by a group of bikers who hung around the parking lot of the hospital all night while her daughter was there. They were not allowed in to see her, but stayed outside just so she would know they were there. They helped her other times too, like coming to the rescue when she had a flat tire. It sounds like they would be there for each other 24/7, no matter what. 

So this young woman would forego other options, even risk her safety, rather than lose that fellowship. I get that. I know what it is to long intensely for that level of community. I'm not saying that I'm desperately alone. I do have close friends and family. But if this group can rally so passionately around the commonality of motorcycles, it is very convicting to me as a member of the church of Jesus Christ.