Tag Archives: spring

To every decoration, there is a season

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I knew I should have been taking more vitamins. Practicing those limber-up moves and establishing regular sleep habits. Repeating positive thoughts at regular intervals to myself.
Because the Big Day is tomorrow. March 1. The day that will require every bit of energy and organization and perseverance.
It is the day the winter decorations come down.

People, I have a lot of winter decorations. These are not to be confused with the Christmas decorations that come down January 2. After ditching everything attendant on that season, I perform a hasty cleanse and pull out the Winter Box.
Down with the Christmas tree, up with the Winter trees. Away with reds and greens and golds, in with silvers and whites. Angels are replaced with snowmen. So. Many. Snowmen. Poinsettias make way for greens and frosty pinecones.

 

For almost two months I enjoy the cozy season and my cozy decorations. Then, the last week of February, a strange restlessness sets in. The snow might still be up to our windowsills, the temps might still hover around freeze-your-nose-off, but I’m beginning to cast glances of disfavor at the snow globes, the ice fishing moose, the ice skating American Girl outfits.
That’s when I know. It’s time to strip my shelves and walls and tables of all things winter. The St. Patrick’s Day decorations, though paltry in number, will come out. The green reminds me that spring will come. In spite of the aforementioned sill-high snow.

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But before the greens and the shamrocks can claim their rightful places, hundreds of winter things must come down. Did I mention that a family of four could easily live in the Winter Box?
Tomorrow, March 1, you’ll find me chugging the coffee and repeating positive phrases and stopping for deep, cleansing breaths. At the end of the day nary a snowflake will be seen. Everything winter will be packed away, waiting, (Lord willing) to be greeted with shouts of approbation and great affection on January 2, 2020.

Version 2

Already. Not Yet.

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My pastor is fond of the phrase ‘already, not yet.’
We’re new creations in Christ already, but bits of the old man’s skin  cling to us. Sometimes entire swatches haven’t yet shed. Oh wretched people we are. Just when we think we have this Christian life figured out we get slapped upside the head with God’s requirements and see how short we fall. Not perfect yet.

Christ already came, bringing His Kingdom. But not every citizen of the Kingdom has been gathered in. Not yet.

Heaven is already ours. But we’re not there yet. We’re still in the messy, contentious, polluted, violent world that, unlike the one to come, is filled with war and death and tears. Lots and lots of tears.

Speaking of not yet: ever notice how warty the body of Christ is? Sure, the church is already the bride, already hands and feet etc. But does it look lovely and pure and fully functional?
Not yet.

Since the ‘already’ doesn’t look nearly as good as the ‘not yet,’ hope can by mighty hard to come by.
Another day hearing about hatred and its Pandora’s Box of evil deeds, another season seeing the earth we’re supposed to steward laid waste,
another Sunday wondering why we didn’t get to choose who would be our siblings in Christ because this bunch ain’t cutting it.
Another nightfall of self-examination and muttering over the ugliness in our hearts that refuses to heed the eviction notice.

Seems like hope for the ‘not yet’ is too much to hope for.

I live in the land of four seasons. Six months of winter coming, staying, and leaving, almost-three months of mosquito-spawning humidity, and the four remaining months divided haphazardly between autumn and spring.

March is an odd month in Four Seasons Land. Technically spring begins toward its end. March displays flashes of fine-weather promise interspersed with dour skies and spiteful snowfalls. After beguiling us with a glimpse of bare earth and its awakening aroma, songs of birds returned to the hearty climate, the feel of balm on one’s skin instead of ice, March retreats to do what it does best. It disappoints.

We get discouraged. We think we cannot hang on one. More. Day. Spring has to come or we will go absolutely, spectacularly mad. Underneath the gnawing need for spring to appear right this minute though, is the realization that it is closer than it was last month, last December, yesterday.

With no definitive glimpse into the mind of God, I still speculate if March is one way He chooses to help us comprehend the not-yet-edness of our existence. The landfill a few miles from my house grows by the day. Birds still see fit to nest along the top. My siblings in the body of Christ squabble one minute, rally round each other in deeds and prayer the next. We are family you know. Against all earthly odds Christ has sustained and nourished this body for two thousand years.

I went to bed last night more aware than ever of the hopelessness of my sin nature.
I woke up this morning more aware of, more humbled by, and more exhilarated because of grace. The Kingdom is nearer at hand now than it was yesterday.

It may not be spring yet, but the robins are already singing outside my window.

Big sisters are always right

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When my older sister (or my much older sister, as I like to call her when I think she needs to be taken down a peg or two) was born, she got every single ‘ability to organize’ gene from our mother. By the time my younger (not all that much younger) sister came along, some of those depleted  genes might have built back up and passed to her.
Sadly, instead of the gene that helps me sort and collate and coordinate and prioritize, I got an extra several thousand molecules of ‘just read a book and drink coffee.’

So when Older Sister pointed out that my blog is called ‘The Tuesday Prude’ but my sporadic posts are often on any day but Tuesday, I put down my book, took a fortifying swig of coffee, and explained:
“‘Tuesday Prude’ was chosen because I like the way it sounds.”
Such a delightful internal assonance. And I had great intentions of posting every Tuesday. Just like this morning I had great intentions of beginning a paleo lifestyle. Once the loaf of bread is gone.
For some inexplicable reason, Tuesdays are SO HARD for me.

But, because Older Sister is usually right, and because I’m taking cues from the open and transparent and forthright political climate,
I’m turning over a new leaf, and posting on a Tuesday.
(Remember though, in this political climate, new leaves only last a week.)

Here is an old poem from an old book of my dad’s, that my youngest son had newly bound for my Christmas present. I like this poem. Poets always talk of geese leaving in the fall. But here in my neighborhood they are back, and clamoring in excitement over the marsh’s receding ice-line.
I’m squawking and flapping right along with them.

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Wild Goose in Spring

Wild Geese
Robert P. Tristram Coffin

Beauty is coming north again
Slanting eager as the rain;
With necks like arrows on a bow
Across the sky the wild geese go.

Beauty is coming moulded by
High winds of the upper sky
Into shapes that burn to be
In a patterned symmetry.

Loveliness comes like a host
Of lean ships headed for a coast,
Every sail and every keel
Pointed at a common weal.

Comeliness in company,
Every wing where it should be,
Their feathers are communal things,
They help each other with their wings.