- A visit with a dear young mom and her adorable kids. Bonus: the kiddos' dad shows up and we get to say hi as well. Afterward, Asha and her daughter Alana come in for a sec. Kinsey comes down and the little girls say hi.
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| Alana, 5 and Kinsey, 4 |
- Early morning time with a friend who fills my soul. Thanks again, Kim. We meet at 6:30 at the Starbucks in the next town. Yup - totally worth getting up 3 hours earlier than usual. May I note that life as a grandmother is much easier on the schedule. (When I hear our kids getting ready for the day from 5:30 onward, I thank God that those years of babies and early mornings have come and gone. Oh yeah!)
- Our 22-year-long accountability group converges on Seattle at the same time, so we plan a WPPR 4-day retreat on Whidbey Island. Our days fly by and include meditation and devotions, where we share life and faith. WPPRS = Wilhelmina, Phyllis, Patti, and Rosemarie
We go antiquing, visit a sweet sister at teatime (sis of one of the WPPRs), walk the beach, and cook.
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| Tea at Hanneke's = luxury and beauty. |
The views are spectacular. The windy weather, with occasional rain and bursts of sunshine, suits us just fine.
In one shop - full of creative clothing and accessories - Wilhelmina surprises me with an early birthday gift, earrings and a necklace. I am ransacking the store, trying to find another after it disappeared from the display.
The shop owner lies about selling it to a neighbor (then to her son's neighbor, bit confusing but I sigh over it being gone) and then she tells W I'm about to buy a similar one so W might want to confess. haha LOVE IT. (Today, I wore it already.)Monday
I have to catch up on my Lenten blog - painting the prayers ... 4 days worth today. First, it's meal prep and delivery for a sick friend. So many have offered to take care of her - that's what a community is about.
And hurrah hurrah hurrah! My "free" piano arrives
- via delivery guys. Their friend works at the Jewish School who gave it to me. Connections matter here as well as in Indonesia: the piano mover chops $125 off his fee because "my friend called me. Oh, and because you have a nice manner on the phone." Thank you! I appreciate it, all 500 lbs of it.
I'm thrilled to plink around a book of Baroque compositions. My soul unwinds in another place as I zoom in on the page of black marks that represent music. AAAh. I shut the door to my office so I don't wake the napping kiddos upstairs. ("A tight fit, lady," notes the mover. Nope. Perfect. Intimate. Private.) Time to explore.
PIANO LESSONS
How I have missed this
solitary pursuit
of fingers on keys and
sound flying
up to the ceiling
and down
and swirling around the room
dancing off the walls
landing in my ears
turn the page again and again
and let the music out
of the wooden box
As I play, the tulips and roses unfold in the vase by the kitchen door.
*I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying, for he speaks peace to his faithful people. But let them not return to their foolish ways. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, so our land will be filled with his glory. Psalm 85:8-9 NLT
*I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Do not fear, I will help you.” Isaiah 41:13 ESV
*Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Isaiah 55:6 ESV
*Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her. Mark 1:30-31 ESV
*Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18 ESV
Moravian Prayer: Benevolent Healer, you know the illnesses within your children. Take our hands, make us whole, help us face our fears. Heal us so that we may live the lives that you set forth for us with happiness and health. Amen.
More to think about from a letter of C. S. Lewis to Mary Neylan: On troughs; on believing as an intellectual assent and as a psychological state; the despair of overcoming chronic temptations; and on how God likes to be asked.
20 January 1942
Sorry you’re in a trough. I’m just emerging (at least I hope I am) from a long one myself. As for the difficulty of believing it is a trough, one wants to be careful about the word ‘believing’. We too often mean by it ‘having confidence or assurance as a psychological state’—as we have about the existence of furniture. But that comes and goes and by no means always accompanies intellectual assent, e.g. in learning to swim you believe, and even know intellintellectually that water will support you long before you feel any real confidence in the fact. I suppose the perfection of faith would make this confidence invariably proportionate to the assent.
In the meantime, as one has learnt to swim only by acting on the assent in the teeth of all instinctive conviction, so we shall proceed to faith only by acting as if we had it. Adapting a passage in the Imitation one can say ‘What would I do now if I had a full assurance that there was only a temporary trough’, and having got the answer, go and do it. I a man, therefore lazy: you a woman, therefore probably a fidget. So it may be good advice to you (though it would be bad to me) not even to try to do in the trough all you can do on the peak.
... I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience et cetera doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.
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