50+ Musings

First time to don my recycled Goodwill parka on this chilly late October evening.
Watching the trees shed.
A blanket of leaves today, snow tomorrow?
Soon, shovels replace rakes.
Dark shadows descend before dinnertime.

Buckled in my back seat three lively, talkative friends do the math on birthdays for Leap year babies as we drive to swim class. We arrive at the local middle school where I’ve been a seat warmer in the bleachers for 20 annums watching my Aqua babes grow into level 5 graduates one year, one level at a time. Familiar spaces possess their own unique aroma fingerprints. I take my place in the stands and smell that I am home.

So we are on the cusp of fall turning winter here. Just one more gusty night will blow the last of the leaves, golden trimmed in red, off our maple out front.
Old man frost nips at our heels and the clock is about to steal another hour away from our Midwestern daylight.
Farmers plow feverishly, harvesting the last of their produce. The apple trees at Robinette’s are pretty near stripped.
Canada geese squawk overhead in migratory parade.
Corn stalks are shriveled and barren. Dying.
The wind whips up a gale on the great lake, waves crashing over the pier.

I feel like a patron at an art exhibit.   On display: The glory of God. It’s everywhere in the sights and sounds of autumn and after thirteen years away, the child in me has awakened and I am all awe and wonder at the fresh new mercies gift wrapped by my loving Father for each new October day.

The Teacher tells us in Ecclesiastes, “For everything there is a season.”
Something begins and then it ends.
And it’s not just nature that repeats the cycle.
All of life synchronizes around beginnings and endings.

A few weeks ago, Lily and I packed duffles, waved goodbye to the mitten and ventured down to Northern Indiana’s Amish country one Indian summer afternoon. Sharing the road with horses and buggies and the plain clothes people who ride in them, I glanced over at Lily in the passengers seat, ready to explore together a lifestyle mysterious to me, but she was sleeping , breathing deeply, methodically. That day, she was riding shotgun but sometimes she’s in the drivers seat. Wasn’t it yesterday I buckled her into her car seat after a knock down drag out struggle of the wills? Safety versus freedom. And in my world, safety always wins. Back then I could overpower her with size and strength. Not now. I glance at myself in the rear view mirror. There’s that silver crown again and it’s mine. So are the creases between my eyes and the flabby chin. But she’s beautiful, long and slender with a silky, golden braid and a chiseled chin. And she’s bright and talented and hard working. So much potential. A future and a hope.
She’ll graduate in May.
Another ending and then beginning.

So we’re on a mission, searching for a place to spend her next season.
Where she will fly to when she jumps out of our nest.
Where she discovers herself as a distinct individual.
Where she shares that person in community.
The next place where God will meld His fresh, new mercies for each day with her particular story.

So I drive
and remember
and project ahead counting how many nights I have left to walk into her room and kiss her sleeping cheek goodnight. In ten months, that Michigan bedroom she prayed for all those years will be empty and she’ll be gone.
And I remind myself to savor what I have while holding it loosely, because the winds change,
And I’ll have to let her go….

And I hear Nichole Nordeman singing:

Even when the trees have just surrendered to the harvest time,
Forfeiting their leaves in late September and sending us inside,
Still I notice You when change begins and I am braced for colder winds.
I will offer thanks for what has been and what’s to come
You are autumn.

And I breathe in, Beginnings and Endings….
And out, Endings and Beginnings….
And I recall the mercies, fresh and new for every morning.
Like the first snow of winter falling gently, settling into the deepest crevices of my spirit.
I know it’s true that
He makes everything beautiful in it’s time. Eccl. 3:11

Goodbye Dallas.
I won’t miss the traffic jams and the long commutes.
Or the endless miles of dilapidated wood privacy fences.
I won’t miss cracking foundations or attic storage.
I won’t miss all the streets that are a strange hodge podge of tire shops and used cars establishments advertising in Spanish.
I definitely won’t miss all the mega power lines.
Or the fire ants.
Or the oppressive heat for months on end.

But I will miss the sunshine lapping through my windows,
And the sunsets from the vantage point of my porch swing.
I’ll miss warm moonlit night swims at the community pool.
And the Arboretum , my own little slice of heaven in the urban sprawl.
I‘ll miss The Cheesecake Factory. Not that I go very often. But it’s just nice to know it’s here.
And I’ll miss the diversity—neighbors from every continent and color.
And the friends we’ve forged alliances with.
I’ll definitely miss our counselor, Bruce. Don’t know if our marriage would have survived without his patient guidance.

Most of all, I’ll miss the holy space where I’ve listened to my children sing God’s words countless times these past 13 years. Our most treasured family traditions have been crafted around the activities of the Children’s and Youth Choirs at Park Cities Presbyterian Church. I never tire of listening to the organ, or gazing at God’s story depicted in stained glass. In that place, together with other choir families, we’ve raised our children with the catechism of song under the capable shepherding of their choir director, Lynda Fray.

I sat in on every rehearsal that first year in Dallas. In the midst of my own personal chaos, those moments, I heard angelic little voices singing and tasted heaven.
That gentle woman in front, guiding them with skill and love, touched my mother’s heart deeply.
So the following summer, I sheepishly sent her a letter and asked her to be my mentor. To my delighted surprise, she agreed.
We started talking on the phone each week.
And we emailed.
We talked and prayed.
Then we started meeting after rehearsals.
Next came dinner together at La Madeleine where we’d close down the restaurant a few times a year.
And we talked and prayed.
And she was the first person to greet my new little princess, Starla, at the hospital.
And I hosted her first “Grandma’s Shower”.
And we lost parents together….
Faced down family tragedies…..
I raised a teenager with her as my sounding board.
And we talked and prayed some more.
And when she got really technologically savvy, we even texted.

Such has been the beautiful fluidity of our sweet friendship this baker’s dozen years that our stories have intersected.
I can’t even imagine who I would be, where I would be and what would have become of our children without her life melding with ours.
And so it is with the bitter-sweetest gratitude and sadness
I say,
Thank you, Lynda Fray, for being my Friend……

The last stitch now sewn on Lily’s crazy memory quilt, I paused to appreciate my labor of love. Initially observing the workmanship, my attention diverted to the individual pieces and the story they tell about my dear Lily.

This quilt is a gift—one of four that I’ve committed to make. It’s a part of each daughter’s rite of passage from girl to woman. I start when they begin high school. I unpack the trash bag full of by-gone favorites—dresses, skirts, event t-shirts and fabrics that depict what they have loved and start cutting, arranging, sewing, piecing and remembering—the turtle dress dad bought her at the zoo when she was 4, the Winnie the Pooh shirt that evoked tantrums when she had to take it off for laundry even after wearing it 5 days straight, the camouflage tee that became her Peter Pan costume, the plaid skirt where she made her acting debut as Susan in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. And then there’s the event t-shirts—soccer team, family reunion to Disney World, the annual screen printing wearable art project from Festival and Worship Arts Camp uniforms from 7 years in a row, and fabrics that depict her passion for animals—cats, dogs, horses.

One piece at a time, I connect the fabrics just like a puzzle—no two the same. Like growing up, each girl on her own unique journey. Gradually it takes form—the quilt and her life.

In the center, I strategically place a worn, well-loved remnant of a gold t-shirt with a large brown cross to remind Lily that the ultimate answer to this crazy life is found in that symbol and the love it represents.

I fold up the quilt top, prepare to hand it off to the professional quilter who will machine assemble the filling and backing then sandwich it all together with stitches that form repeating heart patterns all over the quilt. It will come back to me to bind and then it will go to Lily, first on her bed at home, then far, far away.

I pray it will remind her that she is one of a kind, a custom design, cherished.

And always covered in love…..

Like a tree maturing with age, new rings forming each year, its stump widening, becoming stronger and more substantial, so is the cyclical nature of life one year after another. Every concentric circle evidence that the tree did more than survive, it grew in the care of its faithful Creator who tends the plants he has made. And it is a miracle!

In the course of a single year, there were winter resting phases where quietness, wondering and waiting marked time. Ornamentation was absent and the true form of the tree fully exposed.

And there was spring. New growth appeared–tender, fresh green leaves, full of hope and promise but battered at times by harsh seasonal storms where the wind howled and blew. The rain and hail pelted against the virgin leaves and yet the tree did not snap. It leaned into the wind and let it pass according to its Creators design. Some foliage was lost, even a few small branches—a pruning of sorts, that removed the weak limbs, the vulnerable places and retained all that is needed, all that strengthens, all that is healthy. The gardener pruned intentionally too, trimming away the extraneous growth that distracts and chokes out nourishment from the most fruitful limbs of the tree.

Later in summer, even through a drought, the tree stood majestic, fully clothed, a shelter from the scorching heat of the sun to all who took refuge under its canopy. Underground, in the deep, dark places no one can see, its roots were constantly searching for nourishing water to sustain it. They grew toward the nutrients that preserve health. When they tapped into that underground spring, life giving liquid travelled uphill from the deepest root through the xylem to the tip-top branch fortifying the entire tree in the process.

And when the days grew shorter and wet, cold air covered the foliage like sparkling diamonds at the break of day, the tree celebrated wildly all that is and has been. Ablaze with color, custom mixed on the artist’s palette, each leaf shouted delightedly, “Glory to God”.

And then, with all its energy spent, its task complete, the leaves began to fall. They released gently, carried by the breeze to the places God set them to cover the ground, to enrich it as they decomposed transferring their nutrients to the soil below. A beautiful process signifying another annum finished, done, complete.

And I reflect on what God says about my life. How He compares me to a tree planted by streams of water, designed for his pleasure and glory to do what trees are designed for in my own little sphere of influence. And I see the parallels. There were times of rest, of wondering, of waiting and storms that threatened to snap me but rather pruned away what was weak and unhealthy. God came along and thinned out other places in my soul as well, skillfully, carefully shaping me according to his design. In the thirsty, parched times, he nourished me from his limitless resources of nutrients– His sprit, His people and His word. And there were those glorious moments that defy explanation and could not have been anticipated where I stood aglow, basking in the delight of his kindness toward me.

2014 is now accessible only through the rearview mirror of reflection and so I am quieted again, like the tree whose form is exposed, whose leaves have been released and are nourishing the ground.  And I find myself with two pervading musings:

First, that His mercies have been and will be fresh and new every morning, abundant for each day, evidence of His great faithfulness. As I open my hand to receive them with gratitude, I interrupt worry and anxiety about the future and I don’t dwell inordinately on the past with its mistakes and regrets. I am learning to live under the canopy of His peace that passes understanding.

And secondly, change is in the air. It always is for all of us because we can’t ever predict how God will write His story on our lives in the coming year—the sweet surprises he has in store and the dark, stormy nights that threaten to uproot us except that he stands in the gap as a buffer protecting us from total destruction. And so I wonder….

How will 2015 unfold?
How it will shape?
Strengthen?
Define?
Delight?

And I cannot predict, nor can I prescribe. Instead I will live it one day at a time, which in turn becomes another annum every 365 days. And like the tree, I will lean into God’s story being written on the essence of my form, growing strength and substance to my character, stability to my core and confidence that my identity is rooted in His loving kindness. And in that journey, repeated year after year, there is hope.