Hardwired for Peace

I’ve discovered I’m hardwired for quiet stillness, calm, and order.  I long for my world to be that way and when I get pockets of it I am delighted.  Usually it’s in the morning at prayer time when my soul is resting easy and my mind has not yet filled with the day’s obligations.  The quiet winter sky or a beautiful spring morning with birds singing and just enough breeze that you can hear the leaves barely sway – that’s the time for me.

But I’m also wired for relationship and community, and that desire to connect with others hangs in constant tension with my desire for order and calm and peace.  Connecting with other humans doesn’t usually bring those things – it brings laughter or love or birthday hats or shower gifts or memorial services or picnics or worship or breakfast or working together on a mission project or sitting on the porch with a sister.   All important things, just not quiet and orderly.

The trick for me is to find the balance.  I can only experience those other things fully if first the craving of my soul to “be still” is satisfied.  Only the Designer of that soul can do that.  Faithfully He is there each morning, ready to get my spiritual house in order and paving the way for the messy, wonderful connections of my life.

Recovery Moms

Recovery moms is a term I use to describe mothers whose children are in some stage of recovery from drug or alcohol addiction.  The kids range from pre-teen to teenager to young adult, but drug use at any age presents a special set of heartaches for the mother.

Recovery moms automatically exchange knowing looks when one says their child relapsed back into drug use and they are “going down that road again.”  The one whose child is currently clean and sober, or mostly so, is quietly hopeful but never far from the memory of “that road”.  It is so scary.  But one of the wisest Recovery Moms I know, my dear friend Barb, recently gave me a new way to see that experience.  She says that we are on that same road but the scenery changes.  She’s exactly right.  We are farther down the road – more able to handle it, and our kids have more recovery in them to call on when they find sobriety again.  I believe the way that road ends depends on our individual relationships to God, our Creator and Author of the very universe.  He can Reframe the pain, transform it into healing as “that road” intersects with healthy others, those He has placed in our path at that time for that very purpose.  All we have to do is keep the eyes of our soul open and be willing to let Him do it.

I didn’t set out to be a Recovery Mom – no one does – but I am grateful for the life lessons I’ve learned and the precious friendships that have shaped my life for the better.

Growing things

My neighbors have turned their entire back yard into an experimental garden.  They are hoping to grow all kinds of vegetables, herbs, trees and some flowers.  I so admire their commitment and ability to grow things.

I used to have a brown thumb, but I’ve gotten better at keeping things alive longer.  The iris bulbs I planted years ago, given to me by a dear friend, bloom every year.  They don’t always last long, and sometimes there are only a few, but the lovely purple flowers remind me that I can plant and grow things.  Of course it’s really God’s design that causes the growth, but I get to be a facilitator and have the joy of seeing the blooms.

This year I’m adding a few pots in amongst the iris to try my hand at container gardening.  We don’t have much sun so it’s hard to grow blooming things, but in this one little strip I think it might work.   I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon messing with potting soil, fertilizer, flower seeds and a watering can – we shall see.

There is also my annual fern.  I say annual because usually there is one freeze yearly my fern can’t survive, and this year the 5 nights of temperatures in the teens did her in.  Each year I drive up to Breeds, my favorite local hardware store, and select the “fern of the year”.  I like the bushy, deep green Boston ferns, but this year they had a slightly different type.  More .. stately somehow, the leaves stand taller and are variegated - Kimberly Queen, a type that originates from Australia.   I picked out the one that called to me – it seems there is always one that wants to go home with me – and placed it gently in the trunk.   I repotted it for the hanging basket, watered and fertilized.  Now to begin enjoying the beauty of a graceful green plant growing over the porch railing.

The Fern of the Year doubles as a home for Carolina Wrens who nest each year in the same spot and hatch their babies.   Just days after I hung the new plant it was visited by this year’s new family.  They love that spot.  I think each year’s family are the babies from the previous year, but who knows.  I only know I love hosting their extended stay – it’s my own private heralding of spring.

I love spring – growing plants, growing baby birds, growing in gratitude for the simple things.

Playing in the Puddles

I got caught in a rain shower Saturday morning during my neighborhood walk.  It was a tad too cold for that to be pleasant, but I had just visited with my neighbors and didn’t mind. 

As I walked in the rain, my mind wandered back 20 years ago to when my children were little, both under age 6.  We loved taking walks in the neighborhood after a spring shower.  We would take off our shoes and splash in the puddles on the sidewalk.  If it had been a downpour, we delighted in walking in the street right next to the curb where the rain rushed like a mini-river, swirling around and between our toes and running under our feet.   I can still feel that water – soft and pleasant and clean, freely making its way through our foot-barriers and dancing on to its gathering place.  

A simple pleasure, but a very fond memory for me.  I wonder if my son or daughter remember how much fun we had - how we laughed at the silliness of walking in rain rivers, or how sometimes we got to see a beautiful rainbow.  I hope so.