Writing for Lent

I haven't looked at my blog since 2009.  5 years!  That's a long time in the lives of friends and family. I changed jobs, had 2 more grandchildren added to our family; one of whom we almost lost to a heart defect.  We are so thankful for him and for the miracles of modern medicine. The other was a little girl so like her mother that it is uncanny.  We said good-bye to a dear friend and just recently Hank's mom. The grave is a bitter place.

In more mundane areas, we bought a new vehicle that pulls a small trailer and redid the kitchen.  These things were long time dreams that we said we wanted before we retire and suddenly that word, that concept is crossing our  minds and our lips.  When people ask us when we will retire and Hank and I both shrug.  Our occupations, our callings as teachers, as caregivers to other people's children have defined us for so long, its hard to think past the immediate needs to when we will gladly them over to someone else. That's the tricky part. Are we still needed or are we standing in the way of an opportunity for service for someone else? In our life together, we have always just done what we thought needed to be done and when the time for change came, it was pretty obvious it was time to do something like move to Winnipeg twenty five years ago or for me to change jobs just a few years back. So we are just going to keep working for the next few years and when it is time, I think we will know.(Or our kids will tell us!)

One of my longest held dreams has always been to have more time to write and share my thoughts with others. Sometimes the needs of the kids I work with get in the way but sometimes it is Facebook or Candy Crush or the New York Times Crossword book I always have around.  Or a call from my sister or hanging out with my grandkids. Today is a day like that.  A cup of coffee with Kayla and Willow this morning and then plans to make some bread but I am out of flour and that is one thing I will not walk to the store to get. So I am left with a quiet afternoon in this long and bitter winter.  Shrove Tuesday.  The day before Lent so what better time for a little introspection.  Do I give something up for Lent?  Why would I? Why wouldn't I? I went through the list but realized I don't need to stop anything, I need to get busy and start something!

So I am going to write something here every day of Lent.  I have no idea what.  It may be profound or funny or short.  But it I am ever going to really write, I have to write. So here we go!  I hope a few people will come along.

Picture

I have never loaded a picture to my blog. I am a digital immigrant and it just seemed like something I could live without knowing. So I decided to try today. It fits the title of this blog. But see the tree on the right right of the picture? I wrote a thing about it for our church paper last month. I'll just publish it here. You might like it.

Our neighborhood is known for its trees; tall arching boughs that create a green canopy over the streets in the summer and in winter the bare branches stand guard as you drive down the snowy path. In the fall, the kids pile the leaves over the entire width of the street and encourage oncoming cars to charge through, creating a whirlwind of yellows, red and browns. And in spring, you just want to stand and look up at the gentle green leaves once again filling out the bare limbs above. We love our trees.

Three of these trees have roots in the little plot of the area that is our yard. The back is really the regal abode of a giant American elm. It majestically towers above, shielding our house, the garage and even part of the lane from the sun. It takes three people, holding hands to encircle its trunk. This is a hard tree to love intimately. This is a tree you respect and hold in awe.

In front we have our second elm and this is the one most people fear. It was planted too close to the edge of the lawn and now turning into or backing out of our driveway requires caution. It guards the entrance to our place boldly and from the large scar that has developed on its side, it is a testament to how many side mirrors and even a few doors have lost their encounters with it.

The third tree is my favourite – a mountain ash. It isn’t as tall as our elms. It doesn’t offer as much shade but it seems to have a sense of humor. Its narrow leaves are arranged in palm like fans and shimmer in the breeze. In the early spring there are lovely white flowers that attract bees and later turn into berries that are the source of food for many migrating birds in the fall. Chickadees often come back in the winter to clean the last fruit from the tree and we have seen squirrels doing acrobatics to get last ones from the end of a very slander twig. Watching the urban wildlife in this tree is a National Geographic special on an intimate and personal level

But in the fall this mountain ash frustrates me. You can find the full foliage color range from green to yellow to orange to red to brown on the mountain ashes down the street. With the bright orange berries hiding among the leaves, they are some of the prettiest trees in the fall. But for some unknown reason our tree stays green for weeks after the other trees have changed color. When the others have finally dropped their leaves and they are safely bagged or composted, our tree will finally start to show some yellow in the upper branches. Then when the hard frost comes and often the first snow, all the leaves in this tree turn a single shade of brown and fall in patches on the white blanket of snow. Its messy and well, just untimely. I love my mountain ash for the whole year but it really frustrates me in the late fall. Why can’t it just do what all the other mountain ashes do?

Who knows? It might be because we are the lowest spot on the street and it might just get more moisture. Or its roots are growing into our sewer lines. Maybe our soil is missing some special mineral. It might just be a late color changer. Whatever. It is our mountain ash and we need to take it just as it is. So I will enjoy it all year and next October or November when it drops its brown leaves on top of the snow again, weeks later than its peers, I’ll just smile and think. “Yes, that’s our mountain ash. I’m sure glad its here.”

Weather

I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its a cold place in the winter - its in Canada! So why are all of us so surprised every year when it gets cold? Now, we just came through a particularly nasty cold spell that had weather people quoting windchills with some pretty terrible sounding numbers. School buses didn't run and many rural schools cancelled classes for safety reasons. And I have to admit that I was a little grouchy about this because my dear husband had the opportunity for some PD time in Arizona - the exact 4 days of the worst cold. But in reality, I live and work in very warm buildings with good furnaces. We have a dependable car that I drove into a garage at the end of the day and on those cold nights, I plugged it in so that it started right up in the morning. Really, the effect the cold had on my life was much more of an inconvenience than a hardship so why all the whining? I'm not going to do that next time its so so cold. From now on I am going to be thankful for the things that keep me and my loved ones warm and for the beautiful blue skies and snow covered trees that sparkle in the sun on those frosty days.

Good-bye 2008

Its the last day of 2008. It seems the time for deep thoughts. This has been a year for deep thoughts. Illness, recovery. Cancer, death. Shocking news and a painful walk with a friend. But there has been joy and laughter too. Hilarious adventures with a pram, a baby and IV carts. Gentle memories at a funeral. The joy of seeing a grandchild who lives far away three times in one year. And talking to him. To borrow a phrase from Disney, "The circle of life." Its goes on and on and what we need to do is to live each moment safe and secure knowing that our Lord guards and guides through the journey. Laughter or tears, we live.

Update

The concert went well last night. The kindergartners got up on stage but I put them on the wrong row so there had to be a bit of rearranging. Oops! Fortunately, the congregation still had a verse of "Hark, the Herald" left to go so we were covered. There were wiggling kids, a few tears, two kids threw up but made it to a bathroom which is wonderful, the shepherds almost forgot to come off stage for their part - all normal happenings at a school concert. Mary and Joseph survived each other and the angel actually spoke with angelic confidence! And for the most important part, the kids all sang beautifully and I think Christ was praised.

That's one more thing of our list. Now the kids here can just have fun at school while they check off the days on the calendar until Christmas Break. The teachers are doing that too.

Christmas Concert

For more years than I can remember I have been involved with the Christmas concert. My official title is the Stage Manager but in reality I help the classes get on and get off the stage. That is a lot harder to do than most people think, especially if your are herding 40+ sensory overloaded kindergartners to the front for their first school concert. We give our concert in a large downtown church so these children have never seen the building or the stage and once they get up there parents and Grandparents are waving and aiming video and digital cameras at them. But they usually perform beautifully and in reality, for the Ks, who really cares. The cuteness factors carries them far.

The other primary grades usually go with out a hitch and the main event of the evening is the program of acting and song given by the Grade 5/6 choir. This year there are narrators, shepherds, magi, an innkeeper, Mary and Joseph of course and many soloists and a stage full of Orff instruments. (Xylophone type things for those who don't know.) With little time to put all the parts together, its always a big scary when the classes go to the church for the dress rehearsal the morning before the concert. But today's run through went well. The church had remodeled and put a tree that COULD NOT be moved in the middle of the choir area. So a well thought out plan had to be quickly reworked. Elementary children always speak too quickly and never use mikes properly but I think that is one of the reasons we go through this exercise year after year. They get better. But our Mary and Joseph this year have a problem. They don't like each other and are not willing to take on their characters and get passed it. I finally threatened to put a tape X where their bums should be and where their feet should be so that they would at least turn towards each other at the creche but trying to get Joseph to put his hand on Mary's elbow to guide her away from the inn to the stable is beyond their repertoire. The choir's singing is beautiful - even the guys who are getting "cool" in Grade 6 participate. There is a boy with a solo in Stille Nacht that makes everyone stop, listen and often wipe away a tear. It will be a good concert.

I love going to concerts at this time of year from Messiah to Steve Bell to the Winnipeg Singers (Kayla sings with them) to the efforts of these children. Listening to the songs of Christmas, the same songs, year after year with such a variety of voices never gets old. Some old grumpy voice in the back of my head occasionally hisses, is this really the TRUE meaning of Christ's birth, shouldn't we be more God focused? But sometimes we think too much and just experience too little. Christ's birth is about light and life and love and I am going to go with it and hopefully experience that at all the concerts I attend this year.

Better

I started this several times and was interrupted. Its my day off and I'm glad I'm home to conquer this bug. I would have made it at school but am better off at home. Kayla also dropped off Elliott who is now napping. She went for a haircut and its taking longer than she anticipated, I think. Anyway, its lightly snowing, I brought the Christmas stuff up from the basement and have Fred Penner and the Snoopy Gang's Christmas in the CD player. I'm better today than yesterday and hope I am even feeling better tomorrow.