already (adverb) - before this time, before that time, before now.

It’s barely November, and I’ve been listening to Christmas music for the past week.

I know that for a lot of people, Christmas music before Thanksgiving is a terrible crime, and even those who don’t mind a little “Jingle Bells” before the turkey comes out of the oven are opposed to it before Halloween has even come.

I know it, because that’s usually me.

When it comes to the seasons, I don’t have a favorite: I just love the way summer cools into the mellow chill of autumn, and the way fall bursts out, then fades into the softened, grey-brown peace before the snow comes. I like the holidays that go with the seasons, each bringing its own mood, its own colors and sounds and smells and traditions. And I revel in each single, tiny moment.

So why is it that this year, I’m already thrilling to the words of Christmas carols? And I’m not even putting up a fight?

I think it’s because of what all the songs say. Secular or sacred, Christmas songs tell stories of expectation, of hopes fulfilled, and of the celebration that follows of those moments of realization.

My heart has been singing Christmas carols because I’m reveling in this gift of easy joy. There are some seasons when laughter comes easily, when your eyes crinkle of their own accord, and when the world speaks to you in gifts and graces. But there are also seasons when the clear-cut road turns to dragging mud beneath you, and your feet are so heavy that the moments of dancing come few and far between.

I am celebrating because I know that there’s mud ahead of me, but also grace, and right now is a moment of grace. Right now I am celebrating the way I want to spin on the wind like the last of the autumn leaves, sing like the unmatchable, silver laugh of jingle bells, and run across lawns buried in crystal feathers of snow.

I’ve come through a season of mud, and yet, from this end, when I look back on that season, all I see is the beauty of our Father’s faithfulness. And that beauty is the beauty that makes me, once again, fall in love with the world.

May grace that is bright, like the red and green of a gaily decorated tree, fill your heart. And may peace that is blue and silver like the holiest of nights fill you during this season of thankfulness, and the coming season of hope and fulfillment.

fall (verb) - to move downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, as in, leaves falling from trees, laughter falling from lips, a mountain bike speeding down a trail

I fall in love on a regular basis. 

Now let me explain that. I’m not talking about romantic love here (although Eric is constantly doing things to make me trip head over heels for him). What I mean is that my heart seems to be perpetually open to the world around me, and it’s always getting caught on different places or experiences or people. Take last weekend, for example, when Eric and I ran away to Vermont together. We camped at the base of Burke Mountian and spent the days biking across green fields and through orange hills, along silver-brown creeks, and under an autumnal rainbow of red and gold and orange leaves.

I fell in love with this place. The Kingdom, they call it.

looking out from "heaven's bench".

It’s not as if I’ve never lived through a beautiful autumn before (I think I've even posted about it once already.) But spring doesn’t lose any of its allure because of the many poems that have been written about it, so I guess the same goes for me writing a second post about fall. Besides: fall in the mountains of the northeast is not something I’ve never truly done before. Yes, I was here last year, and even took some trips into Vermont. But my heart didn’t catch then, because I didn’t get the chance to get to know it. I wasn’t winding through it along the elbows and knees of these slouched, dreaming mountains.

 There’s something about watching a molten sunset through the bones of baring tree branches. Leaves turn sharp and black, sketched in a sharp contrast to the sky that glows even after the sun has fallen behind the mountains. The purple of evening settles over the woods like a fog, and when you scoot closer to your campfire, it’s because you can see your breath in front of you, and your skin prickles with cold. Sleeping is hard, bundled in a little tent under a heavy mound of blankets, but the pale yellow morning makes up for it: that lovely, fallish smell alone is enough to make your heart beat hard and send your mind into full, reeling awareness. Hot cocoa with breakfast may seem silly in the real world, but here, nestled in the crook of the mountains, it’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted. And that’s just evening and morning.

The town of Burke is small, but I think it must double in size on weekends from spring to fall. When we drove down from our campsite in the morning, it was already crawling with bikers in baggies and jerseys. A helmet and a Camelback are natural accessories, and you get used to the sight of mountain bikes with forks that cost as much as your entire bike. It’s less crowded on the trails, but at some of the more popular sections, you can hear the whoops of people ahead of you as they fly around banked turns and over jumps.

I’ve wished I had a GoPro several times, but never felt like I was quite enough of a badass to warrant spending money on one. I would have loved to have one for these trails, though, and not just to record me riding a double black diamond trail without falling off my bike (yes, I TOTALLY did that!). But no: I would have loved one to capture the gorgeousness of the ride.

When we rode through the trees, it was a close-up picture of a fall anywhere, and my soul thrilled to it: the brilliant colors, the crackling smells, the blur of tiny sounds. But it was when we zoomed out, and the trails took us along the shoulders of the mountains, that a strand of my heart slipped out and caught.

The mountains of the east are gentle. Their peaks don’t pierce the clouds, driving snow out of the sky like the western mountains do. They don’t force awe out of your lungs with a sharp gasp, and they don’t make a bold, rocky slash across an entire continent.

Instead, they ripple out softly, bluer and more indistinct the closer they get to the horizon. They draw your breath out gently, curving your lips into an awed smile. The trees that grow on their rounded peaks and sides turn them bronze in the waning season, and the clouds that float unhindered above them cast darker shadows into their folds and creases.

If you could see this and smell this and hear this and feel this, your soul would breathe out a wordless prayer like mine did. Your heart would plant itself in the curving soil of this place like mine did. You would laugh too, like I did, because there is no other way to make yourself a part of these mountains, this season, than with your own expression of joyous giving.

Lazarus (proper noun) - A brother of Martha and Mary whom Jesus raised from the dead; A black-eyed susan, living in a pot on a deck in upstate New York

My first real foray into the world of gardening took place this summer in the form of several orange pots on my little deck. Arguably, this is not really gardening: I didn’t have to pull a single weed all summer, and none of my plants have had enough blooms at any given time for me to justify cutting some for a kitchen table vase. But my hands were gloriously dirty after potting those plants, and we ate many meals seasoned with herbs we picked from the pots on the deck. Also, none of my plants died before their time, and I was even able to get them to re-bloom throughout the summer. So I count it as gardening, and I count it as success.

But for a while, it didn’t seem like it would be. So let me tell you the story of Lazarus.

Laz is a black-eyed susan. I found him sitting drooped next to the building where I work, his roots bundled into a plastic grocery bag, spilling dirt that was more woodchips than soil. He was with some other plants, but since it was late May, none of them were blooming, and he was the only one I recognized by foliage alone. Above him, taped to the side of the building, was a cardboard sign with the word “FREE” scrawled on it with a dried-out Sharpie.

Depressing, right?

So I hefted him up and dumped him as gently as I could into the trunk of my car, trying to ignore the weak flutter of the drying leaves on the other abandoned plants. After I got him home, I went to Lowe’s to get soil, fertilizer, pots, and a few other plants. After all, one lonely little black-eyed susan wasn’t going to count as gardening.

Laz (who wasn’t Laz yet, just “the black eyed susan”) was doing all right in his plastic bag. He wasn’t exactly lively, and he had a few brown stems among his wilted leaves, but he was hanging in there. When I got back I went out and sat cross legged on the deck, with my garden-to-be stacked around me. I dragged the plastic bag off him and loosened up his roots (though they were already pretty limp) and tucked him into the pot, filling dirt in all around so he’d have a cozy home. After a little fertilizer and water, I was done, and I moved on to my other plants. Soon I had a row of pots, big and little, lined up along the bottom of the railing, waving their leaves (and flowers, on the ones I’d bought at Lowe’s) at me. Even Lazarus was perked up for the first time since I rescued him from compost.

That was in the afternoon. The sky was pink and purple- a shy, springtime sunset- when I checked my garden again. The plants were doing fine… except for Lazarus! His leaves- what had happened to them? They weren’t just wilted, they were crumpled! The little dish under his pot had water in it, but he wasn’t soaking any of it up! I slid it out from under him and poured the water over his dry dirt again, and soon he was looking a little better. Relieved, I went back inside to eat dinner with Eric, but I kept an eye on my black-eyed susan all evening. He was still okay when I went to bed, and after I watered my plants again in the morning, he was looking downright healthy. Heart light, I left the house.

When I returned, the sun was high and hot, and Lazarus was dead.

I fingered the dry, wrinkled leaves and browning stems sadly. There was no doubt in my mind that yes, my black-eyed garden rescue project had passed along into flower heaven (he was definitely not headed to flower hell, since I’m pretty sure he could have checked “yes” for each of the Beatitudes). But, because I’m an eternal optimist at heart, I watered his dry soil again. And what do you know? The dead came back to life! Green crept in and chased away the brown from his foliage, and tired stems straightened up.

This was when I decided to call him Lazarus. I was so excited about this verdure resurrection that I told Eric about it the minute he walked through the door. He’s a dear, and made no comment on the craziness of naming a plant (he even laughed over the pun of the name).  And so the newly-christened Lazarus lived, and I was happy.

Until the next day, when he died again. And then I watered him and he came back to life for a bit before the inevitable fourth, and fifth, and sixth (etc., etc.) demise.

I grew resigned to this. After consulting both mom and the internet, the only diagnosis I had was transplant shock, and I concluded that Lazarus was too far gone. I’d tried watering him again and again, but his roots had been dry too long to remember how to soak up any life-giving water… and the hot, early summer days were just too warm.

I banished the useless watering can. Poor, poor Laz.

Later that day, though, something happened. Not to Lazarus, but to the sky. Fat, grey clouds unrolled lazily from where they’d been resting on the horizon and spread themselves out overhead. The air cooled as a whisper of wind nudged the new leaves on the trees. Then, as I watched, it began to rain.

The drops that fell were tiny and soft, hardly more than a drizzle. For almost a week, the lightness of the water kept the grey roads stained brown. It kept the air fresh, making you feel as if you were breathing in Eden every time your lungs expanded. It kept my dreams sweet, infused with the chuckle of rain on the roof.

And it kept the soil in my pots damp.

In general, if it rains for more than two days in a row, I start to get itchy. But this rain was revitalizing, and when those lazy clouds finally decided to roll themselves off and away, Lazarus was alive. Really, truly alive. He didn’t crumple away from the bright new sun anymore, but spread his leaves boldly, greedily using all the light he could suck up. New, baby leaves sprouted, and by mid-July, he was showing off more buds than I thought possible for my scrawny black-eyed susan.

And every single one of those buds opened in the August heat, tiny little suns waving back at the world.

I’m going to try to winter Lazarus, so he can come back again next year… and the year after that… and the year after that (although I’ll need to consult mom and Google again for how to do that). And someday, when I have a garden that’s more than just a few orange pots on a little deck, there’ll be giant clusters of those tiny suns all around the yard in late summer, and vases full of them throughout the house. And if you come visit me then, I’ll give you some to take home for your own kitchen table. Or, if you want, I can dig some up for you to plant yourself. Only, don’t give up if your black-eyed susan pulls a stunt like Lazarus did. Just water him and remember that it probably runs in the family.

He’s just waiting, listening for the insistent, irresistible call to life.

crazy (adjective) - possessed by enthusiasm or excitement

There’s this great song that’s been playing on the radio lately, and every time it comes on I crank up the dial and belt it out, no matter who else is in the car with me. It’s catchy, country-sweet, and makes me think of the boy I love. ^_^  If you haven’t heard it yet, take a listen.

Who doesn’t want a love like that? A love that defies the boring old norm and gives the lovers something larger-than-life? I can’t believe that anybody wants to “settle” when it comes to their love and their life. But for all its talk of passion, it strikes me that our culture does standardize love. The norm for modern relationships takes away all the crazy-all the mystery and fire- and turns love into a practical equation for personal pleasure.

When I listen to the words in this song, I’m hearing an impassioned cry against this standardized equation for relationships. I’m hearing words that are getting at something deeper, a truth about love that is too often overlooked. Take a look at some of the lyrics for a minute:

“The world makes all kinds of rules for love
I say you gotta let it do what it does
I don’t want just another hug and a kiss goodnight
Catchin’ up calls and a date sometimes”

The culture we live in does make a lot of rules for love that aren’t consistent with God’s incredible design.

The world’s rules say that love is cheap. They say we can give love and receive love for basically free, at no cost to us or to anyone else, for fun.
The rules say love is short-lived. They say that love will run out… and that’s okay, because there are lots of other people to choose from when that happens.
They say love is flexible. They say we can adapt it to fit whatever mold we want it to, and whatever it looks like in the end, it’s still the same love.
They say love is calm. They play it safe, and say that it is not an explosive, life-changing, reordering of two individual’s separate realities into one.

But oh, real love breaks these rules! It cracks them, because real love is the most costly investment we can make. It crushes them, because real love is forever, and it doesn’t just reach into the future of forever: it seeps into the past, too. It shatters them, because real love is not equal to liking or desire or attraction or anything else: it’s so much more. And it blows the broken rules “far and wide” because real love is a wild thing: a fierce, beautiful wonder you can’t really wrap your mind around. Not ever, I don’t think.

And there’s more, too. These may be the most insightful lyrics of all, despite their shallow shell.

“I don’t want good and I don’t want good enough…
I don’t want easy, I want crazy”

The rules would say that love is easy.

It isn’t. Not at all. Real love is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It is also the most worthwhile, but because it’s so hard, the rules dictated by the “norm” say we should skip the struggle and just take the “good enough” love. We should settle for cheap, easy love that comes and goes and never even brushes your heart, let alone possesses it.

It’s likely that I am reading a lot more into this song than the artist intended. But I’ve heard it said that words are shaped into songs and stories and poems in order to hold the things people read into them: they’re not meant to be shallow. And for me, this song holds encouragement, because it reminds me that the world’s “rules” for love are wrong. We were created for wild, crazy, wonderful love.

“Tonight, the midnight rules are breaking.

There’s no such thing as wild enough

And maybe we just think too much

Who needs to play it safe in love?

Let’s be crazy”

again (adverb) - another time; once more

Anniversaries are funny things. To the people they belong to, they are chock-full of feeling, memories, and emotions, so much so that they have to keep a tight hold on them and use little words and shallow clichés to talk about them. The people who observed the original day with its owners may notice it’s coming again with a smile, a card, or some kind words: actions that are sweet, heartfelt, and most definitely appreciated. And to other people, the day is nothing but a date on this year’s calendar. They go about their routine- or maybe break from it- with no extraordinary wonders bursting out of the day. Nothing about it reminds them of an earth-shattering, mind-blowing, life-changing event.

But oh, how incredibly, incredibly sweet the 2^nd of June was this year! The love I thought was so beautiful when I answered “yes” to a nervous question on a starry, snowy March night grew and grew through a year of impatient waiting and hoping and dreaming, and then it was realized in a promise on this same day- a day of joy and laughter and the happiest of tears- just one year ago. And I thought that was its brightest moment. I couldn’t imagine a love that was fuller than that.

But now, another long year has gone by- this one of impatient questioning and rejoicing and learning- and I am amazed at how that love has bloomed. I laugh when I think that I said “yes” to the anxious question on that March night two years ago, without the awareness of this blessing. I shake my head when I think that I said, “I will” on that happiest day one year ago, not knowing how much better it could and would become. And when I think about this dear day next year, and the years and years after that, my eyes fill with tears. Tears of an emotion I can’t name, because I’m imagining something I don’t know yet: the beauty that this love will have become then.

phantasm (noun) - a shadow of reality

"The certainty that everything has already been written annuls us, or renders us phantasmal."
~Jorge Luis Borges

Why does an author write a story? That's an interesting question... and a pretty deep one. You might say that authors write because they can't help it. That for writers, there is no high quite like the rush that comes with words flowing from the heart, through the mind, and out the fingers. That for them, there is no way to resist the compelling struggle of finding just the right word, or the triumph that comes when a sentence is finally thrown down on the paper or screen before them, each word sought after, fought for, and hard won. And while that's definitely part of it, it's not everything. Not nearly everything.

Here's what I think. I think an author is a special kind of person. Not any more special than an engineer or a doctor or a businessman, only different. Engineers look at life and see a factory or a machine; doctors see a body; businessmen see life in terms of projects and deals.  In the same way, authors have a unique lens through which they view the world, and when they look around they see stories.

Engineers do work to make the machine of life perform better; doctors do work to make the body of life healthier; and businessmen do work to make the office of life run more smoothly. They use the pieces of the world that they see to make things better for everyone else.

Authors are the same. They see things in the people and places and things of life that need to be noticed: our well-being depends on it as much as on medicine and machines. We need our hearts and our spirits to be cared for as much as our bodies… and authors do that. They have the tools to put those elusive pieces of Truth into words that can be read and consumed by the other people, the doctors and engineers and businessmen.

And I think the reason that people are compelled to use their tools is because they were made by the hand of (and in the image of) a creative (and creating) God. God is an author: he spoke words and created the story of the world. So when authors get an urge to write, it’s because they see bits and pieces of God’s Truth in the world around them. They have that creative spark inside them too, and they want to use it to create stories that show these glimpses.

That’s not to say that every book and poem written actually does this. Secular authors don’t acknowledge this, of course (though sometimes they stumble on a beautiful little piece of Truth without  intending to). They create for the sake of “art” itself: and art for art’s sake too often twists truths instead of reflecting them. Also, because sin taints every aspect of the world, some written words are false, and turn beautiful things into warped, ugly versions of themselves. But that isn’t what writing is intended to be. Writing is meant to be the pieces of Truth authors share because they were given the ability to see them, the way other people are drawn to use their own gifts.

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has the answer, it sings because it has a song.”
 ~Maya Angelou

for (preopsition) - in support of or in favor of

“The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to His word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.” -Dietrich Bonheoffer

I’ve been given a fair share of negative-sounding labels: anti-gay, close-minded, etc. It makes me seem like a really angry and tight and impassionate person, because I’m “against” so many things. But ask anyone who really knows me, and I think you’ll find that’s not the case. And really, the labeling thing goes both ways. To be FOR something means you have to be against something, so if you’re pro-gay marriage, you’re ANTI-traditional marriage. If you’re PRO-choice, you’re ANTI-life.  

It’s funny, but you hardly ever hear the term “anti” being applied to the more liberal-minded people… and I think that is part of the reason conservative beliefs are so often viewed as restricting. Like I said, it goes both ways.  And when you understand this, you can start to realize something else, something that is often overlooked.

We’re getting hurt, too. The Christians.

See, when we turn the tables, we realize that the “anti-Christians” are belittling the very things that we Christians build our lives around. The beliefs they toss around as “jokes” are actually very precious to us. But for some reason I just can’t figure out… that’s okay. Christian beliefs and values can be thrown aside and trampled on. The things we hold dear and sacred and breathlessly beautiful can be mocked, hated, scorned. And then we are told that WE’RE the offensive and insensitive and close-minded ones.

I wasn’t “offended” when I saw someone post an anti-traditional marriage (excuse me, pro-gay marriage) status on Facebook. I don’t see eye-to-eye with that viewpoint (and that’s another discussion), but I love the person who posted it very much, and I recognize that she is entitled to her own opinions. No big deal. But it was what came after that, in the comments—the slurs, the crude language and jokes—that cut to the very quick of my soul.

And that’s okay?

No. It’s not. It’s as wrong as anti-gay slurs and crude jokes.

I don’t care what you believe about homosexuality, or feminism, or abortion, or healthcare, or whatever hot-button-issues I’m missing. I don’t care if you’re atheist or Buddhist or Christian or Jewish or you believe in aliens. We’re never going to agree on everything. Which is fine, because having different opinions doesn’t mean we don’t respect each other.  

I’m just trying to love you like my God does.

But please, don’t put me in a stereotype. I’m a Christian, yes, but come and ask me about what that means. Ask me why I find certain things so offensive and so heartbreaking, when they’re just funny to you.  Ask me why I’m for the opposites of the things that you’re for.

I bet we’ll both learn something.

afterimage (noun) - an impression of a vivid sensation retained after the stimulus has ceased

I’m sitting, suddenly, after an ungainly, sliding scramble. The chair rocks, just a little bit, as the gap between my weighted-down feet and the ground stretches wider and wider. As someone who is constantly battling a fear of heights, I should be nervous, but I’m not. Not really. 

In front of me, the sky glows behind the mountain, and I’m gliding up and up and up, right toward it. It occurs to me that this might be what it’s like to go up to heaven. Then there’s a burst of light and I have to close my eyes, because I’ve come far enough along the lift that the mountain isn’t blocking the sunset anymore, and the insides of my eyelids dance with spots of color. When I open them again, the chair is floating past the signs that warn riders that the end of the lift is coming, so I push up the bar and scoot forward on the seat. Then I’m sliding again, like I was at the bottom of the slope, only gracefully this time, going down and around the hump where the ski lift ends. 

The snow grates under my skis, icy now that the sun is going down, and I snowplow to a stop, taking a breath before the race downhill. When the air is about to be rushed from my mouth, dragged by the chilled wind before I even blow it out, I take a few seconds of calm while I can. Then it’s all a speeding thrill of trying to steer and trying to look like I know what I’m doing and most of all trying not to fall, and it’s only when I reach the bottom that I notice my cheeks are aching with cold.

A few runs later, the sky behind the mountain has wrapped its warmer hues in a blue so dark it’s almost black, but under the gathering clouds, the blue blackness is thick, not sharp. Once again, my body smacks the seat; the chair rocks; the ground falls away. This time, as I glide up, there is no sun bursting over the peak onto my face, spotting my vision orange and pink. This time, I start to think the words one more run.

And this time, when I swing around to face the slope, I stop so abruptly I almost fall over. Way, way down below me, past the lodge and the parking lot, the road vanishes into the dips and swells of twilit mountains. And beyond that is a city I thought I hated.

From here, it’s nothing more than a dimple in the purple hills, invisible except for the glitter of yellow lights, looking like so many fireflies. There is a warm haze around it where the lights met the darkness, and for a moment I doubt that this treasure of a sight really is the city I think it is. The blue-black dark presses closer around me, and for a minute, I am stirred by a sense of longing, like a faded Eden wish-

and then it is gone. And I shiver, and the city is itself again, and I push off down the slope toward it. But later, as I drive home that night, I see a glimmer of the jewel-city from the mountain among the sullen and the dingy and the ordinary, like a ghostly afterimage on my heart.