March madness blizzards; basketball, white-outs, and a over a foot of snow.  Not quite the spring break I was expecting.  The sun is high and clear all day, but the wind is sharp and soft streaming snow is everywhere.  It's a peaceful day.  I let the cat in and let the cat out as he struggles to understand that nasty stuff on the deck.  He shakes his feet angrily and huddles shivering into a sliver of sunlight, but as soon as I call him back in, he's glaring his open sesame stare right back at the door again.  

After a day of playing with recipes and clearing piles of clutter, I'm relaxed but a little restless and ready to brave the cold for the chance to be out.  The park is quiet, but not quite deserted. A few brave runners, some college students taking fun costume photos, and ducks by the dozens gliding through the icy lake.  My feet are cold and my knees are damp.  I've tramped through soggy mud to reach the waterfall and knelt in the ice for the perfect picture of the setting sun glinting off snow covered trees.  It's a perfect joy of imperfection, of accepting and embracing a change of hopes gifting a beauty unknown.  

It's the first tease of spring; sunshine, warm breezes and seventy degrees. The trail is nearly deserted. Crackly brown leaf strewn and surrounded by skeleton trees, it's leaches winter stress into the wide slow-flowing river.  It's one day gift, a single day off, a single day's hint of warmth to come.  It'll be back to forties tomorrow, I'll be back to work on Monday.  But spring break's just one week away, a hint and a promise of spring itself not too far away.

The Butterfly House

It was 92 degrees in there.  

A sunny glowing mist bath, vibrant with floating, fluttering colors.  

Snow edged tight against the glassy walls, 

where geese perched on the ice covered pond, 

just beyond the touch of the warmth. 

Butterflies,

 endless,

 overwhelming,

 impossible to take in.

  Enchantment in flight, 

 winter doldrums released.

Let your eyes look forward;

fix your gaze straight ahead.

Carefully consider the path for your feet,

and all your ways will be established.

Proverbs 4: 25-26

Slippery steps on a treacherous hill, 

             stinging kisses of flurries squinting my eyes,

In the peaceful gift of the wintery night,

            considering the path is simple self preservation.

A gasping laugh and an unexpected slide, 

           a thrill of the brush of reality 

                            hovering in the depths 

                                    of the dark, abandoned trail.  

A joy in traveling the dusky night,

           following the steps of one who's gone before.

They're walking away from me.

         Happy,
              Strong,
                   and Confident.

Off on the lives they're meant to live.

            They touch homebase on the twilight days of Christmas break,
                                playful,
                                      excited,
                                            and slightly bored.

Enjoying the last pretense of childhood freedom
     while chafing to return to the responsibilities of the lives they've chosen.

I savor the brush of their laughter,
                           a quick evening hug,
                                      and semi-reluctant
                                                agreement to a tromp through the woods.

 Leaf crunchy trail
            reveling in their antics
                   I'm misty proud of all they've become,

And not quite sure if I'm touched or horrified
                                    when they stop to look back
                                                             and check on me.
                          .
           
   

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right path. 

Proverbs 3:5-6

There's a path back there, there really is.  It winds around the little peninsula and flows into quiet, tree-lined stream curling around the back of the lake.  It's almost impossible to see until your just on it.  At least three times I tried to find it, muttering to myself the patient instructions given again at the shore, and running aground yet again on the mudflats of one more wrong turn.  

At least a dozen times I've been through it now.  I still remember the shock of the first time I finally made the right series of turns and the trees suddenly opened up to reveal the wide slow stream.  Even now I still feel that tightening of apprehension as I paddle toward that wall of trees.  Did I take the wrong turn?  Am I really going to find it this time?  It just looks like its going to deadened up here.

Then suddenly there it is; peaceful and shady, another kayak or two, an occasional fisherman, the distant murmur walkers on the trail above.  The path is suddenly clear, the directions make sense.  How could it have ever been that hard?

There are so many walls in the trails of our lives, so many deceptive mudflats.  We stumble forward, rehearsing the directions, wondering how there could possibly be a path back there.  What joy in those moments, when at least for an instant, the tangled trail unwinds into a peaceful open stream.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

I've been trying to grow morning glories on my back porch trellis for three years.  Squirrels got them one year, to the delight of the falsely accused cat.  Another was just too late and too hot and they never went anywhere.  This year I was determined.  I started visiting nurseries on the first warm weekend in spring and was told to come back in May.  Two more visits and tantalizing rows of endless varieties of 

spring blooms at last netted me three sturdy plants I was assured would quickly consume my trellis.

I forgot to ask the definition of quickly.  

It was a rather discouraging prospect.  There were no blooms on these plants like the rows of offerings I had wandered blissfully through before finally asking for help.  They looked quite spindly next to the trellis when I planted them.  The previous year, when I had tried to start them from seeds, I had plant boxes stuffed with tender shoots.  Of course they had all died before reaching the bottom of the trellis, so it seemed best to follow directions anyway.

For weeks, there seemed to be little progress.  The three plants shot straight up.  I wound them diligently along the trellis as they grew.  Somedays, they even seemed to wind themselves.  

But they didn't branch out to cover the trellis, and they didn't show the least sign of blooming.  

A week and a half of summer travel, a week and a half of leaving them to the tender mercies of my twenty-six year old son, I returned to find they'd finally reached the top.  With no where else to go, they  started winding their way back down again, finally beginning to cover more area.  Even better, tiny buds were now visible, a promise of beautiful flowers to come.  

One perfect blossom appeared at the top of the trellis one morning, a joy through the day before it withered in the heat by late afternoon.  I eagerly watched the same spot for more, checking the blooms, fretting over watering, willing an explosion of color to form across within the leaves.  Nothing happened.  

I sat on my swing one morning, poking at the dirt and wondering if they needed more water or less, when I finally saw it.  Low on the vine, almost hidden by the leaves and the trellis, another beautiful nearly formed blossom.  I teased it gently out into the open and found more just behind it.  Tiny buds, hiding shyly, trailing up and across the vine, waiting their moment to burst into color.  

Blessing of God, growing just out of view, hidden until I take the time to look.