A Song Of Hope

 

Whenever sadness settles in,

nettles in,

meddles in,

The song that I am coaxing

From the recess of my heart,

I give my smile a hefty spin,

A swing, a lift, and then, a grin

Breaks out and like a little bird

Soars into the sunlight, to where its song will start;

 

It tells me there is light out there,

Joy out there,   

Hope out there,

Out past the melancholy -

The lazy spirit's haunt,

I'll free my feet and drop those shoes,

The past is past, the future new,

I still have things to say and do;

Life is so much more;

 

Every moment's promise is

A chance for us,

To build and thus,

To add to God's creation,

The gifts we have to share;

Let our words express our very best,

Thoughtful works of art;

An instrument as yet unstrung,

A song of hope as yet unsung,

Waits to add its colour

To the canvass of the heart.

The Presence Of Love

From "The Shack" - 'He is especially fond of you'.

We don't choose the gifts that we have been given,

Any more than we want those we love to choose the gifts we give them,  We hope that we know that person well enough to choose something that they will appreciate.

It is up to us to choose to say thank you for those gifts,

And we do that as we hope our loved ones will do:

by welcoming them with joy, opening them up excitedly, and finding out how to use them; Then, with a huge smile,  in  sharing them with others.

And that's what our Father rejoices in;  Don't rain on God's parade!

When life presses down hard,

When your spirit's been scarred,

And you're left feeling scared and alone ,

Just leave it all there,

Leave that weight to His care,

For He's only one teardrop away;

There's a hand on your shoulder,

A kiss on your forehead;

You are held in the grip of His love;

He raises you up,

And enfolds you so dearly,

Touches your heart,

And lets you know clearly

That you are totally precious today.

There's a tiny child in each of us,

Feeling lost and incomplete,

Though our original hearts  are still intact,

Irreplaceable pulses  in God's heartbeat,

We still keep trying way too hard

To be all that we can be,

Not realizing that we already are;

And that God is especially fond of us!

A Coat Of Many Colours  

               

The world's population is growing by immense proportions, and it is easy to fall into a negative frame of mind as we wonder how we can ever handle the  stewardship of this home of ours, called Earth.  We can either look at this growth  with fear, focusing on man's negative effect on the planet,  or we can look at it in hope as we recognize the unique beauty and potential in each life. 

The homeless person on the street may not live up to our perceived notion of what a contributing member of society should be; his language and appearance may offend, but as we all know, appearances can be deceiving;  We may never be able to see the many beautiful coloured threads that have come unravelled in that person's life, but the gift of a smile and a kind word may provide the first stitch that will start his or her coat to mending;

Though God's creation is vast, each of us is a priceless thread in His great tapestry, and though blue is my favourite colour, if God used only blue threads, what a boring canvass that would be.

 If we let fear of losing what we perceive to be ours by divine or earned  right take precedence, and try to block all others from our door, it is like trying to keep the sky from changing colour;  we would be the losers in the end;

Past The Blue

It's my blue sky,

So pure and blue,

There's nothing else

That shines so true,

I hope it lasts forever!

A bit of red

Is creeping in,

Changing blue

To violet  hue;

But never mind,

I like it fine,

It really looks quite clever;

Some yellow hues

Have joined the red,

And turned to

Brilliant gold instead;

I didn't think I'd like it but

It really is outstanding!

And when it touches

My blue sky,

A green so bright

Lights up the sky

And makes a scene enchanting;

That sky that I

Perceived as blue,

Was so much more

Than my small view,

Its beauty has a depth so vast,

A sea forever changing;

Every life contributes

A thread of priceless hue,

Unraveled lives we chance may meet,

Without them we are not complete;

Each time we add them to our blue,

God says, "Yes, that's brilliant!"

The Calm Before The Storm

'The calm before the storm' is a well-known idiom that carries some pretty depressing baggage with it.  It tends to serve up foreboding and a sense of doom.   It has many cousins that carry similar gloomy messages:  'Just wait, this beautiful weather can't last.',  'We're going to pay for all of this good weather.' 'Don't get used to it, it's only March.'   etc. etc.

Why can't we just embrace outpourings of happiness, love, good weather, whatever positives that  happen to come our way, and not feel guilty,  or be apprehensive that bad things will surely follow - and while we're at it, why not be the authors of some happiness?

A Calm In The Storm

There is a calm before each storm,

Or so we've come to think,

And isn't it an awful shame

We let our spirits sink;

Before our souls have time to rest,

To  bask awhile in gentleness,

Thoughts break in of what might come,

When soft turns harsh, when calm is done;

Why waste the balm of healing scents

And healing sounds, when worries stop;

Why let unquiet walk with us,

And wait for some great shoe to drop;

Let's wrap our arms around it tight,

Embrace the calm - soak in its light,

Bid our hearts to see the good,

And shout our thanks, for well we should;

Enjoy this day - this gift we've got,

For night may come, or it may not;

Let calm surround us every day,

And when despair gets in our way,

Then tiny acts of love perform,

And be the calm that quells the storm.

The Dream Train

'I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.'   - Steven Wright

A recent issue of 'Discovery' magazine had an interesting article in it about the overlooked importance of daydreaming - who knew?  Apparently, it is when our minds are given the freedom to explore and  travel to wherever the moment takes it, that revelations occur; when a completely unrelated dream can lead us to look at a problem in a whole new way.  For all of you fellow daydream travellers out there - all aboard!

            The Dream Train

There's a train that comes by often,

A muse who calls to me,

"Come hop aboard, forget your work,

Let's see what we can see!"

"No ticket will be needed,

No carry-on", says she;

”Only thoughts will be collected,

And dreams can travel free."

It picks  me up at random,

While my mind is caught off guard,

Floating on a piece of  music,

Or wandering  through the yard.

It leaves at no particular time

And often takes detours,

There's food for thought in the dining car,

Where imagination stirs;

Travelling in my private car,

Alone, I ride along,

Oblivious to the outside world,

Lost in my own song,

         

So quiet is the engine,

You can miss time passing through,

Till you wake -  the ride is over,

And a dream steps off with you!

Life's Relay Race

I have attended two funerals this week, each for a beautiful lady who I'm sure wondered to the end if she had run her race well; whether the love pressed into the  baton that she carried would find the hands of her loved ones, and be passed on to the next runner, and the next.  As I stared into the candle that I held at this morning's service, my thoughts were suddenly hijacked by my sixteen year old self:

As a grade eleven student, very small in stature, and clutching a miniscule piece of self-confidence, I somehow found myself in the school's track and field relay race. As I stood there, waiting for the baton to be slipped into my hand, my mind suddenly went completely blank; all of my focus was in the present - preparing to run with all that was in me.  As I tore down the track, I looked up to see my mother's face watching from the sidelines, pride and worry battling for first place in her emotions.  I don't remember finishing the race, or anything of the outcome - I just remember someone saying, "Did you see what you did?"  To this day, I don't know whether I did well, or if I totally blew it, and rather than destroying the fragile hope that I held onto,  I have avoided finding out.

We all have traumatic events in our past that have had dramatic ripple effects on our lives and our accomplishments; We too are left questioning how we have lived our lives, where we could have done better.  Rather than running our race reliving or regretting the past, let's seize the present moment, grab that baton of hope, and give life's relay race all we've got.  I know that's the advice that these two ladies would want to pass on.

The Chain

The Chain

I believe that we are being born anew every day - given another chance.

Who we are,  our essence or spirit, is in the process of becoming with each breath that we take;

our spirit does not require a diet of huge achievements - it is constantly feeding off of our attitude,  It grows more beautiful with every positive thought and accomplishment, every smiling link that we add to the whole.   With each act of kindness, we are strengthening our link in the chain of life, and feeding it the energy that it needs, to be strong for all of the other links - our parents, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, friends - all those that we hold in our hearts and who count on us.

 When the seas get rough, we can secure our vessels with that wonderful supporting chain:

Hold onto the chain,

In the midst of your pain,

Trust in the strength of each link;

Though doubts may obscure it,

Have faith and be sure, it's

Stronger by far than you think.

With great love they speak,

Each voice so unique,

Timeless, they're born yet again,

These links built of love,

Drawing strength from above,

Hand in hand forming the chain.

The Chocolate Chips of Life

The Chocolate Chips of Life!

I'm sweeping up after everyone has gone home -  and thanking God for every crumb - crumbs of every size and flavour - they remind me that life and love has happened here.  I reflected with love on the tiny hands that had dropped those crumbs,  on the amazing gift of those lives big and small - all dropping wonderful crumbs from God's big cookie!   

 The sous chef that filled the order for those cookies did a pretty good job, I must say, paying special attention to the instruction at  the bottom of the page - to sample just a few of them to make sure they were made properly and had the correct amount of chocolate chips!  And what of the chocolate chips?  Everyone needs vitamins and nutrients in their cookies - if possible - but a treat is a treat is a treat, and is created to give us a break and a much needed happy lift.

As we sanitize and clean up our homes, our world, let us stop for a 'think moment' and acknowledge every crumb, every grain of sand or dried leaf that travelled through our door as a result of our going out and contributing to life, to every spider trying to do his or her job (and asking for no finder's fee as it collects pesky flies) - remember Charlotte's web!

What crumbs am I dropping?  Well, my recycle box is currently filled with bits of paper containing small gems of ideas that I wrote and then discarded .  As I pulled this particular crumb back out of the box, I realized that it just needed a little more mixing, and that hopefully it would fall into the hands of others who might 'need' it a bit more.   So, let's not be too hasty in throwing away our idea crumbs - you never know which one might contain the chocolate chip!

Love That Bluegrass!

Love That Bluegrass!

Springtime is seriously knocking on the door, even if today’s cool grey sky is trying to ignore it.  It won’t be much longer, and that got me thinking garden thoughts:  I look back with fondness on many of the planting and weeding days, back on old Padgeberry Farm – not with enough fondness that I would attempt growing the huge quantities of produce and flowers that we tended then. Still, there were some nice bright spots there!  One of them came in the form of tiny sparks of royal blue flowers – Blue eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium (what a long name, for such a short plant!). They held up their hopeful faces, one by one – I liked to think they were smiling at me.  While the weeds in the garden threatened to overwhelm us, my two lovely niece helpers laughed, as I took great delight in talking to, and ‘weeding-in’ the blue grass plants that I discovered there - carefully moving them over, just a tad, out of the way of what I was actually attempting to grow.  Eventually, I had to give up on this well-intentioned exercise, as the sea of blue stretched a little further than manageable – Yes! That worked for me!!   My husband would roll his eyes (once more!) and give up trying to convince me that I should stop wasting my time; that they were just another weed.  I’d say, “Not so – they are just flowers growing in the wrong place(s).  Hats off to those particular weeds!”  The memory still brings a smile to my face; and so do those actual flowers whenever I find them anywhere.   Like the flowers in Dolly Parton’s, “Wildflowers Don’t Care Where They Grow”, a bluegrass gem of a different sort, they certainly don’t ask for much - they just offer their beauty wherever their seeds land.  A lesson to myself:  Whenever I am feeling overcome with the troubling weeds in life that threaten to overwhelm me, I will lift up my face, move those troubles off to the side, just a tad, and transplant smiles all around.  Think bluegrass!