Glimpses of Summer

Here is a photo dump of some of our sunny moments. This summer is amazing, and sometimes scorching. I am not posting any pictures of my children arguing or crying or being ANNOYING, because pictures like that might lower your opinion of me. These pictures are hand-picked. ;-)

 Mt. Rainier

 My girl

 He looks just like his dad when he is mischievous.

 This boy melts me

 The roll above the elbow is my favourite

 

He is just fun

Transfirguation (post script)

In the Transfiguration the disciples were seeing the glory which was Christ's from all eternity but had, up to that point, been veiled from their eyes. Today I realized that I was experiencing an actual veil-lifting.

Seattle is surrounded by mountains and the most breathtaking of them all is Mt. Rainier. It stands alone: a snow-topped volcano southeast of Seattle, 14,411 ft in elevation, dangerous and dazzling.

Because Seattle is rainy and cloudy much of the year (stop feigning surprise), I sometimes forget about Mt. Rainier. I don't see it, so I forget that it's there. But then on a day like today, clear, brilliant and summer-splendid, I see Mt. Rainier and am stirred with awe. The veil of clouds lifts, and my eyes see what has been there all along.

Transfiguration

Last November, around the time of the anniversary of Dad's death, the story of the Transfiguration of Christ was brought to my soul three times in two days. I was paying attention. I was surprise-struck, tinglingly aware that I was standing in a thin place. There have been times in my life that are punch-in-the-gut strong while being sweeter than the sweetest melody (times I have not conjured from my own wishful thinking) when the veil is thin, almost translucent for a moment, between this life and the life to come. It was so at Dad's deathbed, and has been so a few times since.

Today is Dad's birthday; he would have turned 63 years old. There were apple fritters on the breakfast table. Yesterday the text of the Transfiguration, from Matthew's account, was the basis of our sermon. I am paying attention. I don't claim to have any original, profound thoughts on the topic, but I find myself under the umbrella of this greater story and want to have open eyes.

I do not think that the disciples were expecting to see Jesus in his glory when they went up the mountain to pray with him that day. Surely, praying with their master was a regular rhythm of their lives, a spiritual discipline and habit. Never before (that I know of) did Jesus' face shine like the sun, and his clothes become white as light. Never before did Moses and Elijah appear. As my friend Kimberlee Conway Ireton writes, "Only when they fully awaken do they come face to face with mystery: they see Jesus in his glory, a glory that is his from before time, but which has been veiled from their sight until this moment when they finally see him as he truly is."

I don't blame the disciples for wanting to make tents on that mountain. I would want to bottle up that glory, to savour and make my home in it. It was good, but it was not time. My finite mind and sinful heart can not bear the majesty and strength of God. It was not time for the disciples to set up tents, and I can't claim that I am ready, either.

The partings of the veil are a gift, and I want to make space today to recall that I have known thin places in my journey. Just because I can't see something doesn't mean that it's not there.

The parting of the veil fills me with awe and delights my soul, but it also opens in me a yearning, a deep and almost painful desire. For in glimpsing this fleeting beauty, I become aware of a mystery - that there is more to life than usually meets the eye - and I yearn to enter more deeply into that mystery and to lie in those moments that shimmer with a radiance that is beyond what we usually see or know. 

- Kimberlee Conway Ireton

But in the search, in the lost wandering, heaven slips in and out with just enough grace to lift the head, to squint the eyes, to call us to look and see. Mystery penetrates the mundane and holiness tames the longing. Though aching with loss, while sorrow tears through fragility, He shows us heaven. With a whisper and a nudge, He pulls back the roof and the walls tumble down. He cracks open the door and lures us to come and stand in the light of our Home.

Oh, I know that no eye has seen and no ear has heard what He has prepared for those who love Him. But let us with eyes and us with ears, us with homesick hearts and wandering spirits, continue to find the thin place, the light of a cracked door. Where we know that though we are planted on earth, we are rooted in heaven, and all headed Home.

- Settle Monroe

Awakening, unpacked (a little)

"What are the next steps we should be taking for your musical life here in Seattle?" he asked. We were in the kitchen; I was cutting his hair, some regular Lenten evening in February.

Silence. An unexpected quaking began in my bones.

"Do you have any ideas for what would be feasible right now?" Gentle, harmless probing. The uninvited quaking began to rumble. I blinked hard.

"Do you want to start to inquire at the Faculty of Mus..."

"WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW?"

Orion blinked back at me.

"I. KILLED. MUSIC. TO. MOVE. TO. SEATTLE."

I wept (more than I am used to) for a day and a half.

I was torn open, wide open, and my wound was gushing. I didn't expect it. I did not conjure up the drama. It was very real, and sickening. I was blown over by the storm.

I guess that months, turned into years, of stuffing (parts of) your heart and passion can do that. Turns out I didn't make them go away at all; the stuffing did not erase them. The act of stuffing the dreams did not snuff them. I ignored them for a long time because it was all just too hard. I love my babies and we're renovating a house and I'm still figuring out this new city and I just tried to play Strauss but got interrupted and it's just too hard.

We've had conversations like this before, Orion and I, and have made half-hearted, lip-service attempts towards musical resurrection. They were fruitless conversations.

So I wept and thought. I don't know if I prayed or not; I don't know if I consciously prayed much, anyway. I *did* start talking, talking to people who loved me, to people whom I thought might understand. Usually it was just a snippet at a time, never a complete conversation, but subtly, powerfully, the tide began to change.

Encouragement can look like a lot of things. Sometimes it looks like your mom reminding you that she loves you. Sometimes it looks like a new friend sitting on your couch and listening to your crisis with tender eyes. "The Chinese character for crisis actually combines two characters: danger and opportunity," she says. And sometimes, encouragement looks like the sudden appearance of an old friend, a Jamaican-born, Toronto-based, prophetic tenor kind of friend (you don't have one of those?) who has been wowing the masses at Carnegie Hall and speaks Truth over you like a hurricane.

I've spent a lot of time fearing that I'll never again make music at the level at which I am capable. I've spent a lot of time being invisible to that world, not climbing ladders. I've spent a lot of time fearing that I won't be seen as good enough for anything more than playing a monthly offertory, or the odd wedding, or teaching someone's three-year-old daughter. And the truth is that I would rather not make music at all than be reduced, exclusively, to that.

But the storm came, and it broke down that walls I've been building around my heart. I am daring to hope, and daring to believe that something (bigger than me) is on the move. My gift had to fall to the ground and die, and die it did. And yet, I am now done with all my it's too hard and no one cares. I am taking steps to walk in my gifting, more fully as the person I was made to be. I don't have any fruit to show yet, but I have hope and I'm not letting it go this time.

For a season, it was too hard. I had to sacrifice something I loved for others whom I love. I did not make a wrong choice, but I am re-thinking my identity and calling out subtle lies that have wound their way into my image. I will not flog myself for the season I have been in, for these years of invisibility. I will be kind to myself, and I will walk in hope towards what lies ahead.

Lent

Sometimes, the tune of Lent is grey and minor. This year, Lent is singing a strong anthem of awakening.

I have hope, and it's solid.

Maybe it's my distance from post-partum haze. My thoughts are clearer, my emotions more articulate.

Maybe it's the increase of sunlight, a life-giving sunlight that warms down to the bones.

Maybe it's grace, all grace.

In the bleak midwinter 

Christina Rosetti 

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,

Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,

The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Dad

Twelve years.

Sometimes, remembering looks like celebrating.

Today, it looked like sharing apple fritters with my children. I hope they always associate apple fritters with their Grandpa Alvin.