Snow ~ and STILLNESS.

 

 

 

 

 

I am patiently waiting for my littlest guy to fall peacefully asleep...

as the afternoon is calling, with all of its blessed demands.

I am taking the little weiner dog out to do bathroom duties,

my little circle dog,

opening the flimsy screen door to the glory of the backyard.

Painted in white, glorious washing.

And I am struck with the mundane beauty of the everyday.

 

There really is nothing left untouched, is there?

Untouched by majesty?

It's abounding everywhere.

 

And it's in the grasping of this,

that time can stand-right-still.

In learning to acknowledge and appreciate, to give thanks...

life somehow stills and slows.

 

There is something about fresh snowfall that stills me.

As if God is calling:  PEACE.

I stopped all day yesterday to embrace the moments

of these little people running at my feet.

Often, I rush.

I rush through school, rush to exercise, rush to make dinner.

Rush to bathe the babies.

Rush to do their laundry, get it folded...

my unfocused eyes looking forward and missing all-the-now.

The snow sings it loud:  there is no rush in nature.

There is order, and there are seasons.

But rushing is futile.

 

The snow calls:  STILLNESS.

Life frozen, and washed white.

 

I wrapped in the thought like a quilt.

Stillness.

 

"Be STILL and know that I am God."

 

In the rushing of life,

the-get-it-all-done,

it is hard to know that God is God.

It is maybe easier to fall into the trap that we are god?

That somehow by rushing fast and accomplishing much,

we foolishly think we have it all under control.

We take hold of something that really belonged to God all along.

The outcomes.

The everything.

All ~ God's.

And when we rush we merely are forgetting.

We are not changing anything.

We are merely forgetting,

forgetting that the minutes slip right between the fingers,

and that it is simply not worth the-plow-ahead.

It's not worth rushing.

Time is not traded in.

Time is lost.

 

Be STILL.

And time slows.

The soul wakes.

 

I watched the full cheeks of my one year old, rosy pink.

Those cheeks puffed out and eyes squinting saying, "ME!"

When I asked who-would-like-more-milk?

I scooped him up and tickled him silly, and just held the moments

like golden treasures that will one day be-no-more.

I rubbed the back of my 7 year old as he did his reading,

I listened intently to his entire narration of the cartoon that he watched:

a mystery of the stolen jewels...

Told scene by scene with passion spilling from sky-blue eyes.

I consciously listened to him instead of listening-while-doing.

To tell him:  I will always be here, to listen.

I am setting the stage for our future relationship.

I wrapped him in his robe after his shower,

realizing that very soon there will be a wall between us

as mother and son ~ the wall of a boy becoming a man.

When a mother no longer enters post-shower,

to wrap her baby in a bathrobe.

I tucked in a 4 year old who makes-my-soul-laugh-silly.

Looked at his smile and the way he jumps and kicks around this place...

donkey kicks, we call him.

I tucked in all-his-silly with a smile as he smiled back,

wrapped beneath Thomas the Train blankets and surrounded

by plush animals.

I marveled all day in the belly-rolls of laughter that erupt from him.

Praising God that these, these are my gifts.

 

 

I plunged hands deep into soapy water, to barely clean a house that

is full-up with living.

A house that is no longer possible to scour clean:

a little clean, and a little living comes...and does away with the clean.

I bounded down the steps to the deep lair,

where I rinse diapers.

And marveled at how many dirty ones can be made in a day by one child.

I stepped around toys forgotten.

Wondered how the kitchen counter attracts clutter like a magnet?

And counted it all: JOY.

 

Stillness does something to the nature of the soul.

A stilled soul beats in rhythm with

a marvelous God....