Segue...

I did not take this picture...I am assuming you would have known that but I like taking pictures just don't happen to be an astronaut.

Segue...I have posted many heavy subjects of late and as pertinent and present as they may be I know that heavy, serious and intense is hard to read, hear and see day after day. Today is a segue to things that are lighter, until I talk myself out of being only intense, serious and heavy. This is my bent but sheesh...lighten up a bit.

I have this lovely 100% robin's egg blue wool sweater. Kind of the same color as this space phenomena. It was expensive but I bought it at a store I worked at so...it was discounted. I have kept this sweater in pristine condition for many years now simply because I did not wear it much at all. I wore it to a Christmas party but left it there when I came home and in the transition from that place back to my house it got really dirty. I threw it in the washing machine...thinking...I will wash it and then let it hang dry. I thought that...it was in the drying that wool shrunk. It is in the washing. As I looked at this condensed version of my beautiful sweater ... well, I was angry at myself for not knowing better. I began in earnest to stretch and pull to try and get this sweater back into shape. It has sat in my dining room ever since...an intense version of what is should be.

Mocha in her spastic nature knocked some soup off the counter onto this same sweater so back in the wash it went... but this time I had a plan.

As soon it was finished ..I took it out and put it on. I was going to wear this sweater dry...first over a shirt, then over my jacket and finally over Scott's down jacket...Stretching it out as it dried. I had to go to school before it was completely dried but when I came home..Scott was wearing my sweater over his jacket. Pause.. and put that image in your mind, it was funny. My sweater is more wearable but it will never be back to its original version... but maybe I will wear it more now that it is lived in...literally.

I think...that's what age does and is doing to me. I am becoming more wearable, more comfortable with good enough. I won't ever become what I hoped to become...I am becoming who I am. Hopefully...easier to be around and more comfortable to wear.

Sorrow

A friend of mine was driving to school yesterday to drop off her kids like she did every day. It has snowed but oh so lightly and on the bridge over the Nooksack river, her car slipped on some ice and veered into traffic. Her 7 year old daughter, Rachel, was killed in that accident. Just like that, nothing will ever be the same and she will carry this grief for the rest of her life. I was told yesterday, that when you loose your parents ,you loose your past, when you loose your spouse you loose your present and when you loose your child, you loose your future. I have lost my mother and my first husband, but I can not imagine the grief of loosing my child.
I am numbed by her pain, remembering.
For me, grief was jumping into a vat of bleach. Coming out I was stripped of color; life, joy, perspective,context, details, outlines. Time and love began to color me in..but not in the same way nor in the same colors. Grief changes everything...I remember with her the bleakness of the day after, the moments of shard like pain...the glimpses of relief. Please pray with me for her, her husband, her other daughter, her parents, the Aunts and Uncles. Pray that they can sleep, that they feel God presence through the hands of His people. Pray that in their anger, they will not be lured by bitterness. Pray that their marriage will survive and endure. Pray that guilt will never find a resting place. Pray that in the bleached reality of sorrow, God will begin to color them in. Tim and Nancy Vekved are their names.

Iconic image of PNW

When you think of living here an image that should pop in your mind would be mountains and ferry's...not so much snow but that can be included. It has been spectacular here the last week or so with its crisp air, snow capped mountains and sun, lots of sun. In the staff lounge the other day we were telling a person who lived in MI why so many people love living here. The mountains, the islands, the cities, the beauty, the weather...and so much more. It is lovely living here.

There is a restlessness in my person as I absorb the beauty around me. It seems my moorings have been jostled in this past year. I don't seem to have my bearings anymore. Being here was good enough...it had enough in the scenery alone to keep me grounded.

The books I am reading, the news I am hearing, the world I am understanding and even the music that pops up on my ipod keep pointing away from being in this place of beauty and comfort to places of significance and difficulty. HIS is going on OE in a few days. If there was an iconic image for that journey, I think it would be a tarp wrapped hole in the ground bathroom on a rainy hill. Trust me when I say I don't really want to be there again, BUT I do want to be necessary. With what can happen and what will happen this year...maybe I'll find it. That 'it' may be here, in this beautiful spot of the world but then maybe not. Like Mijo I just want to know...

Just a drop in the bucket...

2 books that I have read this past week have changed the way I hear and listen. One was on the AIDS orphans in Ethiopia and the other was about disposable people, slavery today. I can paste numbers and statistics all over this page but numbers don't change us ... but nothing seems to change us anymore. I knew in a vague way about these issues but when I read these books I began to wonder in specifics. If God does not intervene on behalf of his children when they cry to Him for basic food, medicine and safety... Who am I in my comfort and prosperity able to pray for safety and direction and expect an answer?
I wish I knew how to answer...or even how I am to pray at all. Anything I do though seems like a drop in the bucket. I can't give enough, pray enough and hurt enough to make anything right anywhere. What we often do is say...well, it makes me grateful for what I have. For me...it doesn't seem enough ... it is like I am saying, I sorry that you are starving, in slavery and are dying of AIDS...at least I'm not and this I am grateful for.
I don't know...as I sit in my bathrobe, drinking my coffee in my warm house, with two healthy children and a husband who loves me...I am so very very grateful.

My beautifull only at Christmas time tree

We have this tree in our front lawn that gives my husband sorrow because it is sooooo ugly. It has been dying for several years now and every spring one less branch blooms. I have held on to this tree because at Christmas time...it shines. I mean literally, shines. It is the best looking tree in the neighborhood but only at night. This was also the last year that this tree is going to be beautiful because my husband will put it to rest and finalize the long process of dying. I am a little sad about the whole thing ,though, because this tree also holds all my bird feeders and wind chimes. Scott promises me another tree an even better one ...but for me this tree is so much more then the dying branches. Christmas time won't be the same if this shining beauty does not grace my front lawn.
But its times has come , it isn't healthy anymore and now whenever we have a wind storm dead branches are flying off.

An ode to my beautiful only at Christmas time tree.

You shine so bright but only at night
your beauty for all to see
But Scott in his wisdom and strange delight
will chop you down
so very merrily

Something just isn't right!

During Christmas break it was cold here in Lynden. One day, Nick put on anything he could find to keep warm what was getting cold. It is as if, as he walked around the house he put whatever he found , to cover what was getting cold. The ensemble was interesting! From his Marine cap to my garden shoes...it worked. I don't think he would have ventured to class in this attire, one it is Junior High...enough said. The safest place to be in this get-up...our living room. And now...for all you to see. I am sure he would not be that pleased except for the fact that I am sure none of his peers read my blog.
To be honest, don't we all feel a bit like this all the time whenever we go out? I walk out the door, check myself in the mirror but still feel like I am wearing snowboarding socks with my running shorts. If not externally, always internally. Does it ever end this uncertainty, this sense of insecurity?
What helps me always is that I know I am not the only one who feels this...we are all walking around with something that just isn't right. I am sure that is why we are scrupulous in our attire so that internal insecurity will be overshadowed with our external ensemble. We are all a bit miss-matched internally, we all walk around and grab what works to keep warm what keeps getting cold. I can hardly listen to the news anymore without the cold blade of fear touching my warm security. I find myself looking around to see what helps...any hope lying around that I can wear so that I won't be afraid.
Do not be afraid He says over and over again..Do not be anxious for anything He says over and over again. Be still...stay warm...I'm Good. I'm God.

What is on our minds...rootedness.

One of the issues this MK deals with is the inability to be feel rooted to anyplace. I know I am not an unusual MK but I can only speak for myself in this situation. Going back to Papua I thought I would get in touch with my roots, only to find that they weren't there either. Having lived in this house on 315 10th street for longer then any other place in my 45 years, I should have some roots here. With the possibility of leaving this house for an indefinite period of time, I realize that I do. When I say possibility, trust me...it is a looooooooooooooooooong shot but Scott and I are still thinking that we would like to go back to Papua and work long-term with Netaiken. Everything, though , does not work in our favor to do so and the least of the reasons is my rootedness to this place. There are issues such as our age, kids age and education, family health, house, retirement, comfort, finances and the little roots that have finally grown into this soil.

Our Pastor talked about what it means to have faith this last Sunday, faith that doesn't trust in what appears but trusts in God. Like Moses it would be great to have an audible voice, burning bush, I don't know...a certainty of any kind. We have nothing but desire and for me...some fear. What would it feel like to tear up those roots of what is familiar, comfortable, predictable, safe and live where there is none.

This is what is on our minds these days.

Green with envy...

Nestled in the leaves of this beautiful tree is a serpent...you can just see his head. I wonder why green and envy go together and maybe some of you know the origin of this idiom, but for me, this picture makes sense. Envy exacts a devilish price.
I have problems with envy is like saying, I have problems with cancer. Envy isn't a problem, like cancer, it destroys completely and radically. It makes you dis-content and restless. It changes your perspective even on the good that happens to other people. It not only makes you want what the other has but if you can't have it, makes you want them to not have it as well. If you can't have no one should have. How evil is that?
I may not like it that I envy...that does not change the fact that I do. Why tell you...because like AA, I have to have a platform to express before I can change. Hello, my name is Heidi and I envy. I am assuming that you like me wrestle with all sorts of things, not that we have to tell each other...well, as a matter of fact we do have to tell each other. This is the only way we can bear each others burdens and if you bear with me, pray with me and I with you...we can change.
It is a new year...I want to change.