Yesterday the goldfinch were dreaming about summer, all in their golden finery.  Back and forth they flew to the feeders, singing from bare treetops that pulse with coming greenery.  I love spring, and all those earthy delights that rise up out of (seemingly) nothingness.  So much hope comes to us through nature.

Today, however, we all awoke to holy hushes as winter spiraled down from Heaven to redecorate.  From my bed, I could watch the dancing, the silent applauding of two seasons greeting each other.  It wasn't a tug of war, not at all.  It was delight, sheer delight of differing friends seeing the other's glory.

Though Chloe and I are both recovering from respiratory illnesses, what could we do but wrap up and go outside to fill our ailing lungs with clean, cold air.  Ears up, tail wagging my dear little friend was eager to take a morning romp, and I decided this was our Sabbath together, our time to love our lives and the One who blessed us with so much utter goodness.  Never question if God loves you.  First God made this earth, and then God said, "I want to share."  So here, here we are, made for love, out of love, to love.

Over and over again, I found reason to love.  The snow embraced the spring, and they melted together into a warmth known only to those willing to risk.  I want to be such a risk-taker.  I want to love with wild abandon and to trust, to trust in the most unnatural, forboding instances that something miraculous is rising up... is rising up in me.  Yes.  It is spring.  And yes.  The ground is covered in snow.  One beauty merging into another.

It is enough to be here.  It is enough to roam and wonder and thrill that there is always more to see than what my eyes can see or what my mind can comprehend.  It is enough, this love, this life.

I was going merrily along my way, teaching, creating, preaching, being with those I love in deep, meaningful ways and bam… I went and got pneumonia.  Do I slow down?  Barely.  It’s just feels like such a waste of time to hang out on the couch and count all the things I want to do and need to do.  Being sick is not in my nature!  I fight it, well, I guess like all of the other vulnerable place I stumble into.  It’s like I slam into a wall and rather than sit down and tend the wounds, I just try to keep moving the wall.  It’s amusing, isn’t it?  Yeah, I know.  I need to practice what I preach.

So, I rested as best I could for two days, but then I felt like I would scream and decided to go to work.  Hey.  We all get the quality of paybacks when you get behind in special education especially during IEP season.  My kindergartener made me laugh.  My preschooler was precocious and adorable all at once.  My middle school student reminded me again of his really good heart.  From school to school my body yelled, “Are you nuts?” But I did the day, and found the goodness in it.

Now, today, my little Chloe is ill.  She’s my dear dog, my best dog friend as I tell her.  She has had ugly run-ins with seizures over the years, but with good meds we’ve been able to manage them.  The new thing started at 4am when her breathing woke me up (from that deep sleep my body craved and earned by being housed in my keep-going mindset).  For every breath I took, she was taking three or four.  What is this?  Are you kidding me?  All I knew to do was take her out into the night air and tell her we’ll figure it out.  We sat in the cool of darkness listening to some bird crazier than me sing her heart out while the tree frogs simply hummed along.  We sat there in the stillness listening to each other breathe.  We sat there until the bed called us back.  And then we slept heart to heart like childhood sisters.

When Chloe refused her breakfast, I knew we were in trouble.  The vet checked her out, said that her left lung is compromised for some reason, took a blood sample to run some tests, and gave her some medicine that should help her breathe easier.  We agreed to give it 24 hours and see where Chloe is tomorrow.

Once home, life has been about my dear dog.  I’ve encouraged her to drink her water, and I drank mine, too.  I’ve said to her, “Let’s get cozy on the couch together.”  And we piled on the blankets and snuggled… her body to mine and mine to hers.  We ate lunch.  Soup for me and moist wet canned food for her (she liked it so much… yea!).  Then we went upstairs where I thought I’d tuck her in nice in our bed, and then I’d get back to business.  But business didn’t sit well with me as Chloe’s breathing was still so labored.  So I piled in with her and together we slept for two hours.  We slept to the CD BEYOND and I prayed, as I always have for this creature that I love so much.

Now we’ve had a little yogurt, a candle is lit, and this Lenten wall hanging I’m watching create itself is tending my spirit as I pin it together here on the bedroom floor while Chloe sleeps on her little bed beside me.

Chloe makes me go soft.  She brings to life the ease that rounds the harsh edges to blurry, beautiful tenderness... a tenderness that brings me back to what heals, what feeds, what matters.

I don’t know what’s going to unfold tomorrow, but I know in my heart that we’ll be better for today.  Thank you, Chloe.  May easy breathing and renewed energy be the blessings of this night.

Remember all the stories you've heard over the years of the wife getting upset with her husband because he hasn't taken the trash out?  Well, I'm on my own, and I don't have anyone to fuss at for not taking care of this chore... except for me.  And believe me... it is a chore I tend to put off.  I don't mind taking the trash from the kitchen to the bigger trash can out back.  What I do mind is having to haul all of my trash to the local dump.  It's called 'living in the country.'  I could pay to have someone do this for me, but why do that when I can (and have for 10 years) do it myself?  It's generally not pleasant... especially in warm weather and especially when I have put this off too long, and I can't quite fit it all in the trunk of my car. (Um, yep... inside the car with me it goes!)  Mmm.  Mmm.  It makes for quite a ride, let me tell you.

The interesting thing is I also take my camera.  Every time.  And once I've unloaded my stinky, stinky trash at the stinky, stinky dump, and I turn my car back towards home, I allow myself to hunt for the treasures I missed while breathing in the stinch of my junk.  Here's what I saw today:

There were green fields on this St. Patrick's Day, so green I needed to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't in the Emerald City itself.  That green filled me with renewed hope in life.

There were daffodils and brown fields of broom straw.

I caught sight of both male and female bluebirds... oh, they always take my breath away!  (Hannah has said for years that if I ever wreck my car it will be thanks to bluebird watching!!)

I passed over creeks going somewhere, and a hawk who was going nowhere.  He posed as I took his photograph and nodded when I told him good-bye.

There was the story yard.  I always make up a new story when I pass this intriguing home.  There's always some new color, some new decoration, some new something that catches my eye.  Today, someone had hung plastic red apples on the apple tree.  Don't you love it?  I could see some dear elder out there lovingly sweet talking her tree.  "Now honey, this is what apples look like.  I know you can do it!"

And I happily passed the field of evergreen trees not far from my cottage.  Years ago, Hannah and I came back from a trip to town and the field had been cut to the quick.  Someone needed money, and the trees were it.  Fortunately, they replanted, and today the pines were shouting a hallelujah!

And now I'm back home, happy and all freshened up.  I couldn't help but think about Japan as I went through this exercise today.  I complain about my bags of trash and the small task of taking them down a beautiful road to dispose of them.  How simple.  I am humbled by this little chore on this lovely day, and I pray once again for those in dire, emergency situations.  I know nothing of such devastation.

Today, I pray for you, Japan.  I pray you healing and hope.  I pray you greens and browns and yellows... refreshment, and new life rising up bright.
I pray you blues... happiness and hope.
I pray for where you have been, where you are, and for where you are going.
I pray you courage and strength... like that hawk.  Look at it all square in the eye and trust that you have it in you to find your way through.
I pray you eyes to see the small measures of beauty.  I pray you the gift of being the beauty.
You have been cut to the quick, but ahh, many are the hands tending your boughs with love,
many the knee placed to the ground planting you seedlings of possibilities.

May God grant each of us grace for the task before us
and hearts made ready for the blessings.

I can’t save you.  I can’t fix the rawness of pain and damage in Japan this morning, or the agony that penetrates the heart in the midst of disconnect in relationships.  I can’t wave a magic wand and fix the educational system or the health system.  I can’t stop her cancer.  I can’t heal his depression.  I can’t stop wars.  Goodness knows, I’m just trying to pay my bills and keep my own little boat afloat.  Some days that feels enough in and of itself.

And yet, it’s all connected, wouldn’t you say?  We’re all connected.  I am not separate from any hardship or joy for that matter.  I am not an island… and hey, even if I were, my sand will eventually become yours and your salt water is sure to baptize my shores.  My inhalation and exhalation upon my wooded land swirls through the evergreens, and they, in turn, offer their breath to the wider expanse.  The children huddled together in fear in Afghanistan also sit with me as I break bread at my candlelit table.  The teachers weary from so much daily outpouring walk with me in meditative spaces of refreshment.  The elders in retirement communities, who breathe stale air and sit in bland curtained rooms, paint with me in the brightest colors outside in the sunlight.  The hungry roam with me through overstocked grocery stores.  The sad snuggle up close under my umbrella.  And every life that dances with joy spins with me in delight when I laugh with my nieces.

We each get lost sometimes.  We each bump into heartbreaking times of isolation and desperation. We can forget the larger picture, the beautiful tapestry that we can really only see or embrace once we come out from underneath the workings.  But I hope, and I do pray, that as you each find your way, it helps to know I am beside you as stranger or as friend.  I believe in your divine goodness and in the gifts you so wondrously hold.  I believe, for you and for me, that even in our darkness, in our darkest moments, there are small embers burning everywhere… everywhere… that sustain us in ways we can only remotely grasp.

Yes.  Send the medicine.  Yes.  Rebuild the homes.  Feed the hungry.  Comfort the weak.  But when all else fails, when your own spiritual and worldly resources are limited and you have utterly no idea how to personally aid in the healing of this world, find your quiet place and invite the wounded to sit alongside of you. 

The winter goldfinches are tinged in yellow, and by our witness their brown turns to gold.