These I have loved

I can taste the wildflower honey in my tea.
The sun shining through my window-glass is almost too bright and too warm.
The blue-green colors of my room soothe me.
My teapot is shaped like a turtle.
Mama sent me sunshine-yellow tea-lights and tea-bags.

Sometimes a litany of gratitude is our lifeline.

In darkness. dread. doubt. These I have loved.

Sleeping in on a Sunday morning
Holding a brand-new baby in my arms
Catching someone's smile across the room

When you search anxiously for an expiration-date on this ache of loneliness that's taken up residence in your chest:

That perfect cup of tea
When a hug lifts you off your feet
A brand new journal and smooth pen
Toast, still hot, with butter dripping through the holes

As the restrictions tighten, so does my throat; and the knot at the pit of my stomach:

Faramir and Ithilien
Continuous waves crashing on a shoreline
Singing harmony with Will and Ben
Laughing till I cry, with coworkers

This week I listened to the Kingdom of the Blind, by Louise Penny. Her characters have long had a hold on my heart, and their struggles and heartbreaks are gut-wrenching to me. The development in these books is off-the-charts. I love these books, and need this kind of writing, but this week it was almost too much for me. Too close. Like the best kind of friends who get in your personal space and heart and never quite stop stirring it with a ten-foot-pole. I needed laughter after finishing that book, and I found it.

But in Kingdom of the Blind, I saw practiced, this way of greeting darkness with beauty, and hopelessness with love, that I learned in my own home. Not only do we bring the calm, and look for the carers, and press for the truth: but we carry our own weariness on the strength of These I have loved. We battle with beauty itself, as Sarah says so well. She's been blessing us daily with poetry, psalms, and her words, over on her Instagram.

I grew up this way. My home knew how to face the world like this: with song, poetry, connection; with work and laughter. Imperfectly yes, stumbling perhaps, but we knew: see God in the beauty, in the small things, and it becomes your shield. It plants hope, revives the heart, fights the Enemy.
Chopping onions and kneading bread.
Reading Milne, Shakespeare, and Longfellow.
Watching the sky, and planting seeds, and quoting Wodehouse endlessly.
Sunsets
Woodshavings
New bread
The glory of God and apple-y dapple-y oatmeal

In Penny's book, there's also this image of our lives being a longhouse. In our own minds there's not so much locked doors and private closets, as one long, low room. The idea that you have to live with your past, make peace with it. Maybe you can forget it, maybe not; you can certainly grow and become new, and not hold it as weight: but you can't just will this stuff away. It's this image of handing around a peace-pipe with your past: all you've done and all that's happened to you, all you've seen. And it doesn't have to be distant past: it could be this morning.
It takes Grace and hope, acceptance, courage.
It takes growing in understanding. Sitting with the discomfort.
And it takes a Battle of Beauty, because you have to see the glories that also reside in your longhouse.
All you have known and loved.
All that has carried you, taken your breath away, gladdened your heart, lightened your soul.
These are always with you as well.
So when your mind, heart, and days seem crowded with shadows, we remember: there is also a crowd of light. There is also a surrounding of beauty.

Sitting high in a cottonwood tree
A robin's clear, calling, tune
Playing fishbowl with loved ones till your heart is racing and you're laughing too loud
I will never leave you, never forsake you

"I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the doors, I will come in to him, and eat with him, and he with me."

Dancing
Holding hands for prayer before Easter dinner
When you make a new friend, even for a moment

Why does it hurt so much? Why can't I forget? Why can't I remember?

The spicy scent of geraniums
The earthy depth of good coffee
Watermelon-colored poppies
Well-curled hair

"And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desires in scorched places
and make your bones strong
and you shall be like a watered garden
like a spring of water
whose waters do not fail"

Hawks crying and eagles in flight
Owls
Waffles and hash browns and bacon
The sound and smell of rain

I sew masks to wear at work, and find substitutes for sick workers. I pray for sick family, and cook for the people in my house. I FaceTime with siblings in quarantine and try to support missions serving those cut-off, hungry, and alone.

The scent of honeysuckle in sunshine
And lilacs wet with dew
Nieces and nephews that come and crawl into your lap
People who open their arms when they see you
Reading aloud
Expressive eyebrows
Yellow rickrack
Bees 
Psmith

"And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep..."

John Mayer's voice

Aslan

When the Spirit speaks

Eye contact

Spring