​Here is one of my favorite paint brushes.  


Well, former favorite brushes, I should say.  


It’s actually been rather irritating lately.  But in the past years, we’ve been through a lot together.  Just about a year ago, in fact, this brush was doing amazing work on a rather large project.


I completely relied upon this brush, and it lived up to the task;  responsive, soft, flexible.  I could load on the thick oil paint, and this brush always smoothed things out just how I wanted it.


But not any more.  


Time has passed, and it’s grown crusty.


Stiff.  Uncompromising.  Unhelpful. 


This brush became so irksome that I wanted to cast it aside and forget about it.  Give up on it.


But the truth is, I still need it.  I love it.

So I decided to give it one last try.  After a quick soak in solvent, I turned on the warm water, and started in with the soap.  Just some hot water and a bar of regular soap.  


And an hour of my time.


Gently, patiently, I dabbed and pressed and painted on the bar of soap until the old crustiness began to melt right out of this beautiful brush.  I could not believe how much red oil paint was still stuck within the bristles!  No wonder it had been so ill-behaved!  Warm water, soap, dab, brush, rinse.  Warm water, soap, dab, brush, rinse.  Warm water, soap…


And persistent gentleness.


What if I treated other people with the same care and concern that I reserve for my paintbrushes?  What if every crusty, irritating person was gently soothed with warm water and soap?  What if I was willing to spend an hour with each grump, gently soothing away thier crustiness?  


What if?


You will be happy to know that my old brush is in perfect shape now.


No crustiness.  No stiffness, no wounds.  


It is pure and soft and gentle.  It's been restored.  

This is a burnt charcoal vine.


Just ashes.


Good for nothing, you might think.  It’s the end, it’s done for.


Wrong.


I need this.  I actually went to a store and paid for it.  This small burnt vine is just what I need to begin an oil painting.


I use it to cover a page of tissue paper with blackness.  It’s a mess.  There is charcoal and ash on both my hands, on my cheek where I scratched an itch, on the floor, and all over the tissue paper.  Artists have worked the same way since the cave paintings of Lascaux.  In a mess.


I shake away the extra dust and flip the charcoal covered sheet upside down onto my new canvas.  Just a moment before, the canvas had been pure, white and clean.  But I’m not worried about smudges.  I place a traced outline of my initial sketch onto the tissue paper, and retrace my idea over the layers of tissue, and onto the canvas.  Smudges are easily cleaned up.  


What is left is a perfectly prepared canvas, with the image intact.  Iconographers for centuries called this the “cartoon”.  A simple charcoal line drawing, the beginning of  greatness.  With this humble beginning, they could paint windows to Heaven.


Some days my life feels just like a mess of charcoal and ash.  But I’ll take that.   I will embrace the ashes, let them cover me.  I’ll hold on to the faith that God has a plan.  He is the Artist, after all.  He can take care of the smudges.  And he can make something beautiful from a beginning of ashes.

He did this for you!

Today I almost stepped in this puddle: 

 Just mud.  When I look down, that's what I see.  ​Always mud.  
​But then I stopped and got down on my knees, and really looked at the mud puddle....

And there was a little bit of Heaven, right in front of me.

Did you ever watch ice melt on a river?

​As it recedes, sometimes you can discover crystals that have been hidden, compressed deep within the ice.

I feel like our problems and suffering are the same as this ice;  they are just a heavy burden that we carry, they weigh us down and paralyze us for a time.  

But when Spring comes round again, as it always does, sometimes we catch a glimpse of the great value of our troubles.  Even the beauty of our burdens. 

After all, the ice feeds the river.  

​Ice is a source of its strength.

"With Mary for your guide, you will never go astray; while invoking her, you will never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you will not be deceived; while she holds your hand, you will not fall; under her protection, you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you will not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you will reach the goal."

- St. Bernard of Clairvaux_, Doctor of the Church, 1090-1153

“I” am the only difference between Running and Ruining my life.  


I can run it.


I can ruin it.


I.

Yesterday, during a very foggy walk, I noticed a weed.  I judged it to be nothing but a dried up old weed on the side of the road.  It was not beautiful, it was not unique, it was not wanted by anyone.  Just an old weed, that's all.  Not even worth noticing.

But last night, God, in his mercy, decided that old weed was worthy. So when the misty fog of heaven came down, the old and the dead became transformed.  

Beautiful.  

In fact, an entire field of weeds was transformed in the dark, crystallized in glorious perfection.  Together, the weeds reflected the pure light of the sun.  It was dazzling.

It doesn't matter what people might have said or thought or how they may have judged this weed yesterday.  Because today, God's mercy extends to the lowliest.

And mercy triumphs over judgement.

I almost missed it.




As I was driving this morning, the roads were iced over, so I drove more slowly than usual.  Because I was driving slower, I noticed a tree in the misty darkness on the side of the road.  The weather was snowy and foggy…but the tree was so radiant.   Amazing, really.  It was so special, it stood out from all the rest.


The tree was lit brilliantly for Christmas, still glowing in the foggy, January dawn.  Someone had made a great effort to really bestow that small tree with lights of all sizes and colors.   The colors radiated through the frigid darkness, reflected off the dazzling snow in a spectrum of beauty, shining like a beacon of hope and joy in the shadowy world.  


It glowed. 


I pulled my truck over to the side of the road, and rummaged about for my camera.  This was a glorious sight, and I wanted to share it.


But in the hustle and bustle of my busy morning, I had forgotten my camera at home.  I couldn’t capture the moment…  Without a photo, I knew I would probably just forget about the tree, like I forget about all the other little details in my busy life.


I missed it. 


I drove off and went on with my day and my work. But I continued to think about the small tree, laden with lights.  I couldn’t stop mulling it over, and how special and perfect it was.


Later, when I had a chance, I grabbed my camera and returned to the remarkable tree that had made such an impression on me.  I drove to the same spot, but couldn’t see it.


I parked, got out and tromped up and down the country road in my boots, scanning the scene for my special tree.  But all I saw were many trees, all heavily burdened with new snow, boughs dragging under the weight of it all.  Large trees, small trees, maple trees, birch trees, pine trees and spruce trees…  they all looked the same in the brightness of day.  Just a bunch of normal trees.  Nothing special.  When I did locate the “special” tree, it stood like all the others.  Just an offshoot of nature, carrying a lot of snow.   Burdened.


Then it clicked.  I began to understand why this tree was important, after all. 


We are just like the trees.  We stand around, minding our own business, carrying our burdens and problems like anyone else.  We are all the same.


When the troubles of night fall, and fog of worry rolls in, we are lost.  We are just a forest in the dark.  We don’t know where to turn or what is ahead.  We live in fear.  But sometimes,  a rare person comes into our lives of darkness, and dispels all the gloom.  A person of joy, a person of peace.  Someone special.  A person that somehow holds the light of Love within themselves, and lights our world with brilliance and hope.  




God is that light.   He shines within us who are ordinary.  He makes all things bright and holy, a living flame of Love in our souls.  We are the forest in darkness, and God is the Light.


I didn’t miss it, after all.




To the righteous a light is risen up in darkness:
He is merciful, and compassionate and just.


Psalm 112:4

Good Morning!  
It is my quest to share one moment of Love, Joy or Peace each day for 365 days...

So here it is, Folks:  One Moment in Day 9.

Yes, okay, it happened yesterday.  But some days, like yesterday, are so loaded with glorious moments that the joy overflows into many days.  I think that is the whole point of my 365 day challenge.  If we learn to find the joy, and hang on to it, the world will be a place of hope.   A place of peace.

I hope you find your moment today, too.

It's New Year's Day, the feast day of Mary, Mother of God!

She was an unmarried, a pregnant teenager... she gave birth in a stable...and soon found herself a homeless refugee, fleeing from persecution under cover of night.   

Yet the angel told her  "Be not afraid."  
And she believed.

She became the God-Bearer.  

Happy New Year!

Are there no flowers of joy in your life today?  
Do not despair.  
The seeds are all around you.  
They may be in the snow for the moment, but when the heat gets turned up, and the fertilizer gets dumped on,
A thousand more flowers will bloom.

Patience...

Are you ready for Christmas?  

There is so much to do!  Start checking off the long list:

Presents… ’Tis the season to bustle about, rushing to buy presents.  Make sure you don’t forget anyone!  Is this the right size?  Oh, forget it.  If a mom buys clothing for a teenager, it just ends up on the closet floor anyway.  This mom definitely doesn’t know what is cool.  Is cool even a word anymore?  I think they say “hot” now.  Personally, I would rather spontaneously combust than call my daughter’s clothing “hot”.  Good grief.  The thought of my little girls someday being hot is enough to engulf me in burning flames of panic.  That is hot.  Better stick to books.  Maybe if I buy them books, they’ll be more interested in the library.  Libraries are safe and quiet.  And socks.  Books and socks.  They’ll be so pleased with their Christmas presents…


Decorate…  Must I?  The house is so cluttered already, that I can’t bear to do it.  Can’t we just arrange your Playmobil characters on the mantel in a Christmas-y, manger scene and be happy?  You can add the giraffe and the orangutan, too, Dear.  I know they all want to see Baby Jesus.  I’ll even light some candles.  But that didn’t go so well this year.  The first night of advent, the lone candle flickered in the darkness, a glow of warmth like a halo while we sang Silent Night.  Then the flame scorched a hole in a lampshade.  I knew it was too cluttered in here!  I am done with candles. 


To the delight of the kids, we do now have a tree in the living room.  It’s not enough to have a huge family, a dog on the couch, and a rabbit dwelling in the living room.  We also have a Christmas tree.  It is completely covered with hundreds of sparkling things.  We had a lot of lights to string up.  This fake tree is supposed to automatically light up, but it is old and mostly doesn’t work.  After searching for stored strings of lights, finding the lights in the garage, untangling the lights, testing the lights,  dropping the lights, cleaning up the glass from the broken lights…I had enough of lights.  But one side of the tree was clearly still dark, and all we had left were nets of lights that are supposed to go outside on shrubs.  We have no shrubs.  Why do we own lights like this?  I figured no one will ever notice if we throw them on the Dark Side of the Tree.  The next day, my mom came over to visit, and see the tree.  She ooohed and aaahed and praised me completely for my newly-emerged home decorating skills.  Then she looked at me quizzically. “Why did you use shrub lights?”  Why, indeed.
Let this be a lesson to you.   
You can’t fool Mom. 


Bake… I did it.  I specially adapted my grandmother’s Christmas cookie recipe to be Gluten Free.   After years of trial and error, and more trial and error, they were finally perfect!  “These are great, Mom!”  “Can we frost them now?” “I get the green sprinkles!” The kitchen was filled with warmth and sugar and lovely memories of my grandma.  We can only do just one cookie sheet before bed, I warned.  Just one.  We are not eating all of these cookies before Christmas!  This is just a sample!  So we rolled and cut out and baked and finally, we all crowded around the table to frost and decorate the one pan of cookies.  As little hands grabbed for stars and trees and gingerbread shaped cookies, one little hand knocked over a rather large glass of water.  Yes.  Right onto the cookie sheet.  “Save the cookies!!!” the cry rang out.  Now, some cookies might be strong enough to be dunked in coffee, and enjoyed.  But not my gluten free genius cookies. They did not fare well with the mild drowning.  We decorated the few cookies that survived, trying not to stare at the mush in the pan.  At least we hadn’t baked them all.


Clean…  Clean?  I have nothing to say on this matter.  The more I clean, the more I realize that the walls need fresh paint.
You know, I can barely juggle my own regular stuff.  How can I add Christmas preparations as well?!   It is so frustrating!  It will never be clean, let alone perfect!  Our Christmas dinner will be loud and crowded, probably burnt, and someone will spill their drink, and the plates will have to be pushed aside and the tablecloth lifted and scrunched, and we will all laugh and be soggy and happy together anyway.  Reading books.  In our new socks.  


I guess that is our "perfect".


In all my preparation frustrations of last week, I grabbed my camera and went for a walk.  I needed some peace and quiet.  I needed an ‘all is calm, all is bright’ kind of moment.  A  new perspective.  In the frosty cold of the morning, with the sun just beginning to rise, here is what I found:

It's just an old barn.  That's all.  Run down, caving in.  Severely deficient, like my home decorating skills.   But some hard working people, a long time ago, picked rocks from their fields.  They gathered them together, and patiently stacked them.  One rock at a time, a bit of mortar here and there... added rough wood and nails.  It's not pretty.  It's not perfect.
But this barn is all that was needed.
It's all I need right now.  
I stood at the barn door, thinking about the holy night in Bethlehem long ago...
This is all I need to get ready for Christmas.  
I will muck out my own barn by going to confession, and saying I'm sorry to those I have hurt.  I will sweep away the stones of cynicism, and instead try to repair faith by putting the stones to more constructive use.
I will add some hay of gentleness.
That's it.  
And I will wait.

I'll be ready for Christmas, after all.

​Hope.  
​
That's all we need sometimes.

Around me, the plants are dry and dead, like paper in the wind.  The ice is moving in.  
It is so dark, so much of the time, and always growing darker.  
Winter is coming, and it will be brutally cold.   With it, truckloads of trouble will fall from the sky, and I will have to shovel it for months.  I know it.
The world can be a wretched, cold place.

But when the sun rose this morning,  everything changed.

Bright colors splashed on the lake, ricocheting off the ice crystals in a joyous explosion of light.  Geese floated, weightless, like angels, through the shimmering glass of water and ice.  The air was crisp and fresh.  

I stood silently on the shore...
Breathing in the joy and the peace  and the hope.
I thought of dancing, but I am a clumsy oaf, and the neighbors were nearby.  
Instead, I laughed.  Out loud.  The joy bubbled up like music and my heart danced inside.
Swan Lake in my head, I glided with the heavenly geese, through the rosy atmosphere.

The world is a glorious place!

The next time you feel the ache of the weight of the world, think of a middle aged fuddy-duddy standing on the shore at sunrise.  Laughing.

I hope you can hear the music, too.

​

Okay, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet...  But this just arrived in the mail, and I wanted to share it.  Guideposts has published their 2015 Edition of  "The Joys of Christmas", and inside is a story about Stella!  We're so excited!  This was the big Christmas photo shoot that I wrote about in June.  A great big thank you to my editor, Daniel Kessel, and to Guideposts editor-in-chief, Edward Grinnan, who writes about his brother, Bobby, in the notes from the editor.  Also many thanks to David Bowman Photography for patiently taking pictures.  
 Thank you all for sharing in the Joys of Christmas with us!

Today is a glorious brand new day, and anything can happen!  

If I mess up, I still might get another chance tomorrow to make things right. But I don't want to think about that...Because I always mess things up.   It is as inevitable as breathing.  
Presented with perfection, I spill the paint.  
Break the dishes.  
Step on toes.
And darn it, I have to say I'm sorry.  

Again.

It's a never ending cycle of failing and falling.  Life isn't perfect.  Maybe that's why I love mornings so much, because I in the morning, I still have a chance.  I'm hopeful.  I haven't messed up yet.

Really, how much can I wreck before the sunrise? 

Please don't answer that one.  

Just enjoy the sunrise with me, because this morning is a gift.

And it is perfect.

Autumn has arrived. 

The nights are cooling down, the trees growing more spectacular by the day.
Excitement is in the air.  It's in the song of the Canadian geese as they flock up, in the leaves as they dance to the ground.  Even the dewdrops of the morning glitter as jewels in the sunlight.   In a few months, my world will be frozen and dark.  

Encased in ice.  

Cold. 

Aaaagh!  
I know that it's coming.  
Like the squirrels, scurrying about, frantically stashing away acorns, I feel a bit desperate to take each and every moment of sunshine and joy and hide them away in my heart.  

​Keep them safe.
Treasure them.

The beautiful thing is that the moments that I choose to seek and remember are up to me.  I decide what goes in my treasure chest of memories.  
​I decide.
And I choose hope.

Here is a small thing that I found in my garden today.  

It doesn’t belong there.  It’s just a weed, winding its way into my garden from the ever-moving, encroaching woods.  There are a million of these things out there.  I rip them out without thinking of anything but the tomatoes I planted, that are ripening somewhere in the forest of weeds.   

“Stop!” one of my kids yelled in dismay.   He had come to keep me company.  “Don’t pull the Elephants!”

“What? What elephants?”  

“Mom! That thing in your hand!  You’re ripping out the beautiful Elephants!”

I stopped and took a closer look.  

“See Mom?  Two big ears, and a trunk?  These are baby elephants!  Don’t pull them out, they’re my favorite.” 

He ran off to play, and I was left, standing in the weeds, thinking. 

Admiring the elephants.

Why hadn’t I seen these before?  How could I miss these magnificent elephants, living right in my front garden?   

Each flower is only about a centimeter across.  They grow on thin vines, tangling all through my garden.  I just dismissed them as weeds, never taking time to look more closely.  But now, I was seeing things through my child’s eyes.  He sees the world differently, more clearly.  His sight is not clouded by experience and utilitarianism.  

He sees only wonder and magnificence.

It’s right here, all around us.  Wonder and Magnificence.  The God who created you and me is an artist who cares, right down to the intricate details.  This tiny, unnoticed elephant flower living in obscurity in my garden is living proof of the Creator’s love and care for us.   Wow.  Kids see things so clearly.  Life is so rich and beautiful when I have someone to help me see it.

I’m going to check for elephants in my living room now…

I found these Acorns lying on the ground today.  There were so many of them!  They had fallen from a great height, a Giantess of a tree, really.  The tree has some broken limbs from last night's storm, but she is stronger than she looks.  The cracks and broken parts will heal.  Trees have a way of doing that.  She will survive, probably another sixty years or more.  Even if she doesn't know it, she is stronger than this recent storm.  

But some of her acorns had fallen in the wind.  Some were cracked and broken, some were too small.  All they had needed was a little more time with their Mama Tree.  Just a few more weeks, really.  Just time, nothing more.

If they had been given a few more weeks, then Earth would do the rest.  

Like for this other Little Guy in my yard...  He was given enough time on the Tree.  He fell into my flower garden a few years ago, brown and plump, and Life Happened.  

He got dirty and muddy.  He got cracked and broken up.  It rained on him a lot.  Sheesh.  He had a rough time for a while, just like the rest of us.  But then, in all the pain and trouble, after he thought he was dead and buried, really done for, this began to happen:

And then, this.  This is his future!

Every rainstorm makes that Tree stronger.   Amazing, isn't it?  All that power, all that beauty, all that potential, hidden away inside a tiny little Acorn...

All they need is a few short months with a Mama Tree...

And God will do the rest.  Mightiness unleashed!

Sometimes when I look at my grown children, it’s as if a shooting star crosses the sky, and I catch a one-second glimpse of them when they were eight years old. Or three  or five years old…  

A flashback to childhood…

One burst of light, and then it’s gone.  

There are moments that I suck in my breath as my grown child is talking, telling me about work and college.  And suddenly, I see her as she was:  Freckles, missing and crooked teeth, three and a half feet tall, telling me about science and how she is going to be an archaeologist when she grows up.  Or in a shimmer, I see my little author child, pen in hand, holding up her latest story.  Her braids fly wildly askew under her straw hat, which she wears to help her get in character to write.  Her freckles are drawn on with brown crayola marker to look more like Tom Sawyer.  “It’s all about a girl who wants a dog, Mom.  And she finally gets one!  That’s the happy surprise ending, see my illustration?  She gets a dog!”  Or, as my now-teenager asks for the car keys, and reaches out her hand, I see the chubby little fingers of her at two years old, holding my hand just because I was the powerful one who kept away the monsters in the dark.  She’d grip my fingers in hers, and hold on tightly until she was sound asleep.  Ah, the days when I could fix everything that was important to them.  

Those days didn’t last.

And at these lucid moments, when I again see a mirage of my small children, my heart beats on my chest wall with a pang of longing, and tears spring to my eyes.   I smile and reach out, but they are transformed.  They are grown.  

It was just a shooting star.  A glimmer of what used to be.

Suddenly, I am old, and they are taller than I am.  “You okay, Mom?” they look at me quizzically.  “What are you smiling about?”  Snap.  They are adults, and they take the vision of my tiny child with them when they walk away, unknowing.  “Are you smiling and crying at the same time, Mom? Are you?”

Of course I am.  

This week, the Perseid Meteor Shower hit around here.  Carpe diem, I say.  This is one of those moments!   We all stayed up until it was extremely late, and extremely dark.  Then my youngest kids and I camped out, wrapped in quilts under the dark sky, and counted real-life shooting stars.  

“One!”  
“Oh Mom!  Did you see that?  I saw one! I saw one! I saw a shooting star!”
“Don’t kick me.”
“Watch out!  You’re crowding me!  I don’t want to fall off the roof of the truck.”
“Can I have some of your blanket, please?”

“Two!”

“I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!!!”
“I lost my shoes, Mom”
“Pass the binoculars.”
“Did you know that stars are made up of burning gas?”
“Mom, what’s a star made of?”
“Well, she’s right.  But quit worrying about burning gas!  You’re not a star.”
“Foot out of my hair, please.”

“Three!”  
“Wow!  That one was huge!”
Small One nestled in my elbow, on the hood of the truck.  She lisps through the new hole in her teeth, where a baby tooth fell out earlier.  “I’m tho glad you got me up the thee thith, Mom.  Thankth.”  

“Four.”
We whispered now, partly because some kids had fallen asleep.  And partly because we were deep in Awe.

“Five.”
We felt the dark silence of the universe surrounding us.  Alive, burning, sparkling.  

“Six.”
We were small. 

“Seven.”
Silence.

We stayed out there until the wee hours, counting shooting stars.  It was priceless.
This is one of those moments in life that will keep coming back to me.  

Watching the sudden, silent bursts of light in the darkness with my kids…finding the joy in the stillness of the night.

As I carried the small ones back inside to their beds, I promised myself that in the rush and bustle of life, I will never be too busy to hug someone under the stars.

Because shooting stars don’t last forever.

Carpe diem.

;

A semicolon is a small bit of punctuation that separates two related ideas.  

It’s a clause. 

A pause.  

A semicolon says,  “Wait!  This is not the end;  there is more to come.”

The news today tells us that some people are tattooing semicolons on their wrists to symbolize that there is more to their life story.  They are people who have fought with death or trauma or attempts at suicide, but they have won the battle.  Even though they walked through a very dark valley, and their world and situation seemed hopeless, they made it through.  People with semicolon tattoos are survivors with a backstory.

They paused. 

And they chose hope. 


So, I'd like to introduce my friend.   I like to call him Semicolon Cat.  He has a backstory.

Someone didn’t want him when he was a baby.  He was thrown away.  Abandoned in the darkness of a Minnesota winter.  He was unloved and left to die.

Semicolon Cat appeared on the edge of a woods where my friend lives.  He was tiny, hungry, and matted.  Just a kitten, he had battle scars from facing a mean world on his own.  One ear was wounded; probably frozen in the winter winds.  It bent over, cartilage broken, and just stayed that way, folded in half.  His tail was bent, too.  It dangled and dragged along as he walked, hanging by a thread.  His abdomen was caked in matted blood.

He stayed on the periphery of the woods, watching my friend’s cat daintily lap up her cream on the sunny porch in the mornings.  She slept in an igloo dog house with a heated floor pad, dining twice a day.  She was petted and fluffy and beloved.  He stayed on the edge of the yard, watching.  Suffering.  Afraid.  Wounded.

The family asked around, but no one admitted to losing a little ragged calico cat.  Not a cat whose half a tail just fell off.  The family put out a little extra cat food at night, and left a warm quilt out on the porch.  

The kitten stayed.

The female cat wouldn’t let him in her house.   “It’s too cold for him!” the children said.  “The little kitty needs a place to sleep!”  They left him treats, and my friends cut a hole in their garage door, just the size for a stray feral cat.  He curled up in the warm garage, and began to heal.  Days and weeks and months passed.  Spring came, and Semicolon Cat fattened up on the love of the children, on the pets and caresses and the joy of strings tied to sticks that he chased around the yard.    

He chose this family, and they all love him, just the way he is.  He came out of the woods and right into their hearts, to stay.  He likes to keep close by, following them around, purring and marking their legs with his scent of ownership.  He is a good hunter, and leaves his people special gifts of dead frogs and moles.  He lounges around, right at their front door, rolling over to expose his belly for pets, because he trusts them so implicitly.  He is the most affectionate and loving cat I have ever met.   He is beloved.

Someday if you find yourself in a dark place, feeling unloved and alone, please remember Semicolon Cat.   

Pause.  

Hope. 

Make it through for the Love and Joy that is waiting for you, on the other side of the woods.  

Because someday, today will only be your backstory…  and you can fill the rest of your story with love.

Merry Christmas!

Yes, there is a Christmas tree in my living room today.
Yes, I know it is June.  

Need an explanation?

We had a photo shoot at my house for a story that will be published around Christmastime.  Publishers work months ahead, in order to have the material ready by December.   So we set up Christmas a bit early, and took the pictures.  This is the first time that I have ever decorated for Christmas when it is NOT December.  And you know what?  It has been a fantastic experience!   

The kids are beside themselves with Joy.  Not kidding.  I never realized how magical this could be.   

I mean, it’s not like June is a dark and sad month or anything.  We don’t NEED Christmas tree lights in June like we need a sparkly tree up north in December.  By the third week of December, we Minnesotans are desperate for anything that twinkles like the sun.  The world is such a dark and cold place that even tiny Christmas lights and Advent candles make us happy.  Christmas gives us HOPE!  

But in June, we have sunshine and sparkling water and boats and loons crying.  And mosquitoes.  Those too.  And kids out of school, and broken arms, and trips to the orthodontist and dentist and doctor and gophers digging up the yard that I just mowed in 80% humidity with a herd of mosquitoes trailing me like flying piranhas through the woods…I don’t worry about wolves in the woods, because the mosquitoes leave so little flesh that no wolf would be interested.  Wolf spiders are more scary, anyway.  June in Minnesota is special that way.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that even though it is summer, and the kites are flying, the sparrows are hatching, and the roses are blooming, I still need Hope.  I still need a little help finding Love, Joy, and Peace.  And you know what?  It is really easy to find those things with a Christmas tree in the living room and a creche on the mantel.  

The kids’ excitement and anticipation of great Joy were contagious.  So I rummaged around the nooks and crannies of my house, and found many odds and ends for presents.  Mostly books.  And silly things like a Bonne Belle lipgloss giftpack (90% off in January!) and some Jolly Rancher shower gel.  How is that even a thing?  Who wants tasty shower gel?  These things are in my house because I can’t pass up a 90% off sale, no matter how ridiculous the items.  I also grabbed all of the individual-sized snacks out of the cupboards, like Cheetos and Sour Cream and Onion Chips.  I wrapped everything up in Christmas paper, and tucked it all under the sparkling tree.  

Then we invited friends over.   

I think they were surprised! 

And you know what?  We had a lovely, unexpected, and Joyous afternoon.   We ate popcorn, we talked, we laughed.  We played a White Elephant gift game with all the wrapped presents, and the mystery gift that everyone wanted the most turned out to be the Jolly Rancher Shower Gel.  Imagine that.  It was wrapped in the shiniest paper.  

If you are looking for Hope or Joy, I highly recommend celebrating Christmas in June!   The sparkly Christmas tree brought us excitement and Joy.  But there was more to it than that.  

Amid the decorations and presents and laughter, something else was there.  

The most amazing part of this week has been the quiet parade of plastic animals and shepherds, making their way across my mantel, looking for the small Christ Child in the manger.  Despite the rickety barn, despite the darkness of the night and the chaos in the world, the baby sleeps peacefully in the manger.  Silent night, holy night.  That is what gives us Hope.  That’s the source of our Joy.   And that is worth celebrating, any time of the year.  

Merry Christmas!

A while ago, I was driving down the highway in my truck.  One of my kids was home from college for the weekend.  She’s a compassionate one…  She doesn’t kill bugs, won’t attend zoos, can hardly bring herself to consume meat…She is a future Cat Lady of the world.  She is Altruistic with a capital A. 

So you know what happened?  

I was driving about 55, a semi truck was coming toward me from the other way.  Another car was right behind me.  That’s when it happened.  A small, grey cat darted out of the brush, and in front of my truck.  I had one second to choose.  One.  I could veer to the center, avoid the cat and hit a semi head on.  I could hit the brakes and get rear-ended by the car behind me, which would also possibly involve the semi.  

Or I could hit the cat.  

My one-second choice became no choice at all, because just at that instant, the poor cat changed direction and ran right towards me.  Right into me.

I calmly pulled my truck off the road and started to cry.  I had just killed someone’s beloved pet.  I didn’t want to be the one to break anyone’s heart.   With dread, I knocked on the nearest door, and asked the homeowner if he had a grey cat.  

He shook his head no, and walked with me back down to the road.  Just then the sheriff pulled up.  

“Another one, eh?” the sheriff asked the man, seeing my distress and the small kitty on the side of the road.  

“Seems to be,” the homeowner said.  “I know my neighbors and I know their pets.  This one here must be another one that got dumped.”

The sheriff and the man explained to me that this was a regular occurrence.  Pet owners who no longer wanted their pets frequently left their unfortunate animals on the property of country folks, thinking that the animal would be cared for out “on the farm”.   In reality, the abandoned animals are left with coyotes, foxes, hunger, highways, and big trucks.  Poor things.  

“They don’t have a chance,” the sheriff assured me. “No way to find out who they belong to, either.”

The rest of that day I was stressed out and on high alert.   I was sad for the cat, sad that I traumatized my cat-loving daughter.  I am a very conservative driver anyway, but that day I was over cautious, anticipating accidents at every corner.   By the time I finally got home for the night, I was frazzled and worn.  

My daughter greeted me at the door with a look of serious awe.  “Guess what happened to me today?” she said.  “After the cat accident this morning, I was so stressed out.  I drove more cautiously than normal, anticipating the worst all day.  And it happened.  Just as I drove around a blind corner with a lot of trees close to the road, there they were;  two kids weaving around on bikes, coming towards me on the wrong side of the road.   They weren’t paying attention and they didn’t see me until it was too late.  I slammed on my brakes, and one kid just glided past me, mouth open, with horror on his face.  He never even stopped.  If I hadn’t been so freaked out about that cat, expecting the worst, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to avoid hitting them.  Those two kids are alive because that poor stray cat dove in front of us today.”

Coincidence?  I don’t think so.  I think the small things in each day can sometimes be the most significant.  Small things change everything…like a little, grey, abandoned cat who made all the difference for a couple of kids.

Even if they never knew it.