3,282 Miles Away

It's twice the size of Texas. If you really want to get right down to it, it's bigger than even the entire 22 smallest states in the Union. There, you will find places where 24 is the collective hours of continuous dark. And light. Its land is pocked with volcanoes; it also boasts hold of half the nation's glaciers. It is inhabited. But one mustn't forget it is untamed.  

It is, as you see, a study of contradictions. Yet, its simplicity confounds. Baffles. Hypnotizes. 

It is called The Last Frontier.  
We once hailed it "Home"...3,282 miles away.

Not much bothers Alaska. It runs on its own time. In its own way. Like the most stubborn child, it cannot be hemmed by staunch structure, and pressing it only fences it further in. Life ticks along differently there, defined more in terms of light and dark, less in dusky shades of gray. It is, in fact, far less complex than typicals think.

Of one factor's impact, though, you may be certain: Mother Nature- aka Elohim (the Creator God) - moves and shifts and molds that land quite unlike any other. Glaciers snail forward, mere inches over weeks-come-years; the air snaps crisp before it ripples to supple summer. It is hard. It is gaping. It is steady. It is perfection.

And here's how I know.

 

My friend, Marita, posted these. Locals snapped them.

In case you didn't know, there's a solar storm happening. Which, here in Colorado, doesn't mean much. But in the land of the midnight sun, the sky is ablaze with the paints of God. 

Now, I love Colorado. I know He has us here. 

But, as they say, I left my heart in Alaska. 

And that is where it stays.

3,282 miles away.

Thanks...to You

Today has been a good day.
I needed a good day.

I'm talkin' a really, really, good day: the kind that promotes the blatant and unapologetic use of copious amounts of deadwood to accentuate how really good it actually was.

Of the many splendors of this day, I made not one. Not in any way, by any stretch of my hand, did I create the good. Which left me sopping up the gravy of a day I didn't imagine, certainly didn't create, and undoubtedly don't deserve.

It was a Pilates class, a dress exchange, and an appointment with a horse. It was escalators in a mall and a voice in the mail. It was a thank you note, a stranger, and seven of the most delightful digits on the number line. It was the voice at the end of 0936, moonlight in 9-8 time, and a reminder that it is You.

It is always You.

Today has been a good day.
I needed a good day.

So, thanks...
    to You.

But I Don't Think So

Family time a few nights ago included Horton Hears a Who - the movie, not the book - because the kiddos love it. Also because it was an I-Spied $4.95 quickie purchase at Target. Hey: expect more, pay less.

The first time we saw it, not long after its dvd release, I hit two peaks of giggles. The first was this scene. It's Grace's favorite. She erupts into full-fledged belly-laughs every time she sees it. I reckon it's the combination of ponies, rainbows, and pooping butterflies. I could be wrong. But I don't think so.

The second was this scene. From the second Horton sees the bridge, I get him. Nay, I become him. I can recall every step of how I've played this out. And I've learned a few things are true about me.

I've heard the "whoosh" of air as he grasps his - er, gaping - dilemma, and I've thought, "Oh, yes. I've seen this bridge before." I, too, have muttered, "This looks kind of...precarious" while tunneling mine eyes over an impossibly plummeting chasm. (Doubt)

I'm the thinker who has posited, "Of course I can do this. Obviously, others have done this...considered I'd be doing this, too...clearly, I can conquer this." (Hubris)

I have taken a first tentative step. Testing. Assessing. Measuring. Weighing. (Mistrust) When the ricketiest planks give way I, too, have quipped an "Eh! Looks like insert observation here." (Criticism) Rather than changing my method, though, I sensibly choose to get off the bridge altogether force my way ahead with a new, carefully pontificated plan of logical foolhardy attack. (Stubborn)

Because my learning curve is so shallow steep, I decide that I can still think my way out of my predicament. (Just plain dumb) I mean, after all, it's only a bridge! (Clueless) I deduce my best tactic is to simply push through, much  like the proverbial bull in a china shop, since if at first one doesn't succeed, one must (with great gusto, yes?) try, try again. (Myopic)

So, as my tipping toes leave a wake of devastation, I traipse cheerily along never lifting my eyes from the horizon of success. (Ridiculously obtuse).

And then - Hack my legs and call me stumpy! - I make it.
Only to fall.
Before I realize I haven't, in fact, fallen at all.
I've been saved.
By some unseen source?

I rather doubt it. No, I suspect that, regardless of my doubt, my hubris, my mistrust, and my criticism; in spite of being stubborn, cluless, myopic, ridiculously obtuse, and (let us not forget) just plain dumb...

   He saves me.
       Every time.
          Alllllll the time.

Which leaves me wiping my brow, acknowledging His grace, and admitting, "Phew! That could have been a disaster!"

Rather makes me feel like I'm living in a world where everyone's a pony, and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies.

I could be wrong.

But I don't think so.

New(s) To Me

It doesn't happen often. Big stretches sometimes between happenings, actually.

Then? Bang.

I'll encounter what's "new to me." You may already know. Course, if it's new to me and old to you, it means you didn't let me in on the fun...so poo on you.

Then again, if I assumed you knew and didn't dish, then it'd be poo on me. Big stamp of "No thanks" on that one. So, let me introduce Rosie Thomas. Or reintroduce you. Or give you an opportunity to quip, "Yeah. Remove the rock. You're missing out."

So, Google her. Bing it. Shout Yahoo! Boat along the Amazon. Just get her stuff. If you're all about the voice, hers is the stuff of soul meets lucence comin' round the musical bend.

I'm bettin' you'll find her all the more compelling when after you listen to her tunes, you discover she talks like this. 

Yeah, that was new(s) to me.
Uh, too.

On A Good Day

On a good day, love isn't an emotion. That's right. I said it. Because it isn't. Or at least, it's not solely one. On a good day, it's a choice. It's pushed, pulled, and pressed by emotion, sure. But the line between nonsense and commitment is never more clearly demarcated than in the trenches of choice.

Which explains why our culture is so bent on falling in love - which is, not surprisingly, fast followed by falling out of love. Perhaps it also explains why we're so captivated by marriages lasting less time than the sell by date on a box of crackers.

Then again, it might also explain our fascination of the relationships that beat the odds. The ones that defy the capricious waters of affection to find firm ground on choice. A stand. A bit of self-control and (shudder to consider) maybe even some self-sacrifice, too.

Yeah, those are the ones the hate-bookies loathe. They're complicated. They're depleting. And they don't want for grim. They're also commendable. Satisfying. Revitalizing. They are worth it.

Here's one of mine.

We started out great. Then we derailed. Now we're back on track. Because we choose to be. Laying aside emotions leaves a door open and, when His time is just right, you might find what you're looking for has come back through it again.

This is my brother, Tim. He turns 39 today. And I celebrate that. I want him to feel hope and renewal and love and all manners of joy. Funny how choice uncorks the bottle of emotions while the topsy-truvy of emotion so rarely leads to fixed decision.

Or maybe I'm too much of a thinker. Maybe the whole thing is c*^%. But there will always be relationships, bent or broken, that need a little re-considering: I know I have a few. And if the stick of the choosing keeps the door ajar - even if it's just a miniscule crack - well, that might be just enough to let His love pour through.

On a good day.

Not Uncommonly So

Superpowers astound me. Leave me wishing I had one. Which is to say, I dig them. They're like silent background music that rushes suddenly to the fore when the overriding dialogue hushes. Which is to say, you don't notice them until you're lookin' for 'em. I don't know why, or when, or even quite how...but, at some point, I started seeing superpowers.

Not the bit-by-a-lab-spider-and-now-have-suction-cups-for-fingers type, but the other kind. You know the ones. Like that peculiar mojo that some folk have to do what otherwise shouldn't make sense: those voices that sooth to the point of tingles or humors that tickle to the height of mania or insights that reveal to the just-right edge of light. They're the markers of the "he can fix anything" or the "she'll know just what to do". They're the ups of dark days and the downs of free falling, and they are uncommonly rare.

Or are they?

Because, if they are, they sure do turn up the strangest places.
   Why, on Christmas night, one reared up at my kitchen table!

It came in the form of my mother-in-law who is, arguably, a super-somethin' all in herself. Indeed, she boasts a few "supers" - one of which is the uncanny ability to go into a hobby shop and come out with the best game you've never heard of. Examples, you say? Well, there was this one.

 Not to be bested by the kids' favorite, of course.

Or her current find sittin' pretty in 1st place atop the pecking order.

Playing it produced these candids.

      

 

 (Yeah, that says what you think it says.)

Yes, Mom's superpower brought the game. But the evening had its own brand of peculiar mojo: one night, impossible to repeat ergo uncommon and (aha!) rare.

Except it wasn't.

Sure, the memories are one-in-a-brain's-billion, but the emotion wasn't. The sentiments weren't. The safety that fostered both certainly isn't.

Maybe family is its own kind of superpower; the "up" that coaxes the silly (crossed and boogers come to mind) from even the most serious. Or the "down" that cushions the ridiculous (um, there was that episode of required foot smelling) from ever feeling...well, ridiculous.

And, if that's truly the case, then we have all at least one power hailing from the super column - if not by kin then by kind. If not in family, then through friend.

Rare?
Maybe.
But I think perhaps not uncommonly so.

Gut Unclenched

The phrase "Happy New Year" can make my gut clench with a pang not grotesquely unlike when I'm hiking a high ravine...and the dropoff to certain death is just one pee-wrenching sneeze away. Not so my reaction to "Merry Christmas" or even to its somewhat-snobby counterpart, "Happy" Christmas, from across the pond. Somehow, those sentiments expressed outside the shopping mall, in line at the bank, or read dozens of time across Facebook dump me in a shade of bliss, prompt more of a "Yes! Yes, I think it shall be!" reaction, rendered (at least in my mind) with a crisp and pert British accent.

But that pesky "Happy New Year!" Yeeeee-ah, that one prompts some inner-hives. Again with the gut-clench thing. How come? 

Oh, I think it's because the new year is the opposite, really, of the one-day-express Christmas wish. One day I figure I can handle. Despite the horrendous one-days my life has spouted so far, I find myself convinced that such a day will be peaceful. Sentimental. Celebratory.

But a spread of 365? All together? Plated into segments of unpredictable 24 hour servings rarely, if ever published, on a menu with prices?! I mean, come on! At least let me know how much any given day is gonna' cost me! 

Course, that's not how it works. At all. But my clenching gut wishes it were. When I was 20 - meh, not so much. That whole invincibility factor extinguished all fear...and good sense, I might add. At 35, I know better because I've seen more. Lived more. Survived far, far more than even the worst I thought would've happened by 35. 

 Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed...
Mark 6:51

And then I remember: I haven't seen the worst possible. By any stretch. I learned that there are more than few folks out there who totally think I suck. And suck - being one of those key words I rarely use except for when I really, most exceptionally think they apply (like now) - aptly describes. I also realized that there are a few more who think I'm pretty okay...which I'll gladly grab and hang on my heart mantle any day. I discovered that I can be and am, in fact, fitter now than in my 20's - despite new melodies of grinds and pops in the knees and fingers. I accepted that it's okay to say, "Aw, *^&*$#% it!" when the situation fits and, by extension, no longer feel the need to hoard the burdens of others on shoulders never meant to carry them in the first place. 

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”"

Matthew 11:28-30 ESV

Oh, don't mistake my wax rhapsodic as a replacement for the gut clench: it's still there. I suspect it will always reside, the cotton-looped price tag dangling from my antique of experience - a costly and ever-present reminder in any currency I value. Yet, I don't fear the clench. I don't worry it. And, rather like the pain of labor (not coincidentally, I'd imagine), I do not fight against it. It simply washes over me, runs through me, cutting and jibing and taking what it must. 

Because then it will be over. 

The sun of January 1st will set afore the sun of January 2nd rises.

You see, January 2nd is his birthday.

And just about every ounce of hope and promise and glory and goodness mine eyes have seen have been whilst standing sqaurely to the left of this man. 

"And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house.
Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul."
1 Samuel 18:1-3 New King James Version

It is a reminder come a'shouting at a time my heart must hear. 

Suddenly, 365 plates of 24 hour days don't seem too shabby.  

Menu folded.

Prices optional.

Gut unclenched.