The Old is Gone....or at least going....

     It is the last day of the year and I am sitting here realizing what a year filled with firsts it was. I am grateful to be sitting and not flat on my back coughing, sneezing, and worse...

     It was a nasty bug that attacked me for 5 days, but I have awoken today feeling almost normal! This is wonderful since my son Matthias and his wife Karissa, who makes the very air smile, will be here for the weekend. I am not filled with energy yet so the plans are simple and the meals will be made on the grill, which means not my domain, but the hubby's. My sisters pulled a fast one on me, though. They scheduled a visit to see my folks when I was sick so I was unable to go. And I would so want to see all of them. The world is never perfect.

    But it is the last day of 2011 and we seem to have survived. There was great upheaval in our home and as I mentioned, many firsts-  first year homeschooling high school with Asherel, first child getting married, first time ever learning Kreb's cycle so I understood it (sort of), first time ever Arvo was laid off from a job and a few painful months in a horrid economy without work, first book I have ever published, first time our little rescue dog ever double "Q'ed" at an agility trial, first time I made homemade cream of mushroom soup, and first time I followed a recipe from start to finish (except for one minor substitution not even worth mentioning, unless if by some quirky rule of cooking, you are not supposed to substitute sweet potatoes for onions....).

     There are others. For example, I joined my first "writer's club" only to find out it was developed for Indian writers. I am sure my strongly Christian book is being well received....The moderater kindly told me it was fine for me to join, nonetheless, and I have come to have a strong affinity to India so have enjoyed reading the group posts.

     The old is crawling out and the  new tumbling in. I won't be making any resolutions. I never do. I started recognizing many years ago that any change that comes over me permanently is not from me. It is the transformative wonder of God in me, the miraculous stripping away of what I have been to what I can be, and one day, will be.

     Happy New Year!

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

The Secret to Long Life

The old man sat quietly and happily in the corner near the window where the sun streamed across the bench. He looked straight ahead, through the bustle of women coming and going to the various stylists.

While my hairdresser was finishing the client before me, I sat on the bench opposite him. A happy and sleek haired little girl emerged from one of the stylist's booths nodding when her mother asked her how she liked her new cut.
"Doesn't it feel nice and bouncy right after a haircut?" I asked her. She shook her glistening hair and smiled.
I turned to the lady sitting next to me, "There's nothing like a great haircut," I sighed.
She agreed. It is such an indulgence to have someone else wash my hair, massage my scalp, care about how my hair properly frames my face possibly even more than I do. I love going to the hairdresser.

Two new ladies settled across from me and smiled, then began chatting about the various hair straightener products they used. The old man still sat like a statue in the sun, looking straight ahead with somewhat watery blue eyes. The three women were called off to their stylist one by one and silence descended as just the old man and I were left. I smiled again at him.

"The heat is good for you," he said suddenly, jolting me out of my peaceful reverie.
"Is that why you are here?" I asked, "To sit in the sun?"
I had wondered what he was doing there. He didn't have enough hair to trim and it didn't seem the type of place a man would come.
"My wife's getting her hair done," he explained.
I nodded, and then he squared his shoulders and again looked like a sun soaked statue.
Suddenly he expostulated, "I'm 95 years old. Will be 96 next week."
"OH my!" I said, "You look great!"
"My sister is 101," he continued, "Still lives in her own home with her son."
"Wow! That must be some kind of record!"
He went on as though he didn't hear me, which he apparently didn't very well. I upped the volume in my queries.
"What is the secret to your long life, do you think?" I asked.
"I told you," he quipped, "The heat."
We chatted til my hairdresser appeared, and I learned he was an avid singer. He had sung in a Barbershop quartet and was widely acclaimed.
"Do you still sing?" I asked.
"Well yes, but not to perform anymore. I've been married 70 years," he added.
"So the heat is all I need to know ?" I asked. He didn't hear me, and then my stylist came to get me. It was time for me to go.
"I really enjoyed chatting with you," I said, "Happy birthday!"

I love these little chance encounters with people and the little nuggets of wisdom and joy that sometimes trickle out like maple sap from gnarled old trunks. Often I don't take the time or energy to cross the barrier of strangers, but it almost always leads to something sweet, or hopeful. The image of the old man sitting in the sun like a cat in a window, so grateful for its warmth was a pleasant way to enter the new year. I love how he answered my question. No complex impossible conditions to live long and still be smiling. Just look for a warm corner in the sun.

I thought of the Bible verse about how we struggle and struggle, but it is really not as hard as we make it. The simple truths about God and righteousness are easy to understand..... we complicate it by rationalizing and contorting Truth to fit what we want to justify. We make the simple hard.

"How do you want your hair done?" asked my stylist.
"Doesn't matter," I told her, "Just be sure the heat setting on the blowdryer is set on high."

Psalm 19:6-8

⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens
   and makes its circuit to the other;
   nothing is deprived of its warmth.
 ⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect,
   refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
   making wise the simple.
⁸ The precepts of the LORD are right,
   giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
   giving light to the eyes.

Hebrews 5: 11-12
¹¹ We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. ¹² In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

A Polka Dot Rainbow

I missed midnight last night. I tried, but the lingering nausea of my flu did me in, and I had to crawl to bed long before the Waterford Crystal ball was doing its dance in Times Square. But in the morning, while the rest of the sleep deprived world snored, I crept out and peeked in my daughter's room. She sleeps in a bunkbed, which impedes the ease of my seeing her cherubic face. However, I wanted one of the first beautiful things I gazed upon on this morning of a new year to be her. As I peered in her quiet room at the peaceful tangle of sheets, I saw her giant multicolored polka dotted bean bag chair on the bed, obscuring her face from my vision.

It occured to me, as I sat down to my Bible study and coffee that that was a little strange. Why had she lugged her giant bean bag chair up onto her bunk bed? She only had about 6 inches clearance to the ceiling so it was certainly not there to sit on. I was sure that when midnight struck, Arvo would have sent her right to bed. We were not even sure that in her sickness she should be staying up til midnight, but she was so anxious to do so that we acquiesced. So why, at midnight, had she dragged that polka dotted monstrosity up to sleep with her?

Seeking God is like a treasure hunt. Each day, He puts clues before me, and my goal is to find the most sacred message I can from the most mundane symbol. I saw in the polka dotted bean bag chair, hoisted to its perch, the perfect opportunity to wring a drop of holiness from a dry and weary rag.

Oftentimes, the Bible itself will grant me elucidation. However, that simple path was denied. "Polka dot" is not in the Bible. Neither is bean bag chair, though of course, beans are mentioned. None of the references to beans seemed to have the right joyful connotation to ring in a New Year, however. While searching for the Hebrew or Greek root of polka-dot, a song kept going through my head. I had awoken with that song in my head, and it had sprung out of nowhere. It is an old song, written the year after I was born, and I remember singing it growing up, always sobbing as I reached the last few selfless lines.
"I wish you bluebirds in the spring, to give your heart, a song to sing.....and then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love.......
My aching heart and I agree, that you and I could never be, so with my best, my very best, I set you free.
I wish you shelter from the storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm, but most of all when snowflakes fall,
I wish you love."

Why God are you sending me a vision of a polka dot chair in the sky, and a song about setting someone free in love? I knew there was a connection...connecting the dots.... connecting the polka dots.........
When I had awoken that morning, the line about setting free played over and over in my head. I had thought it was that I was to stop worrying about my adult children, that I was to set them free to a life that would entail suffering, that I could not keep trying to protect them. But the beauty of the polka dot bean bag chair kept bumping up against that message. It was a rainbow of color in the sky.....and my child nestled by it, peacefully sleeping. And then I knew what God was telling me. I was set free. We are all set free.
"Whenever the rainbow appears in the sky, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures...." Genesis 9:16
"For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance- now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. " Hebrews 9:15
There it was! The link! New Year's Day, the leap from the old to the new. The old Covenant, symbolized by a rainbow of color( a polka dot bean bag chair in the sky), the system of obedience and sacrifice which we could never do perfectly yet with a promise that we would not be destroyed, to the New Covenant sealed with the final sacrifice of Jesus, which was perfect and set us free forever from the penalty of sin. The old Covenant was the promise, and the New Covenant was the fulfillment.

I am not certain Asherel was thinking about all of that as she hoisted the polka dot bean bag chair up into her bed. I am sure she will tell us some logical reason for doing so when she awakes, but I am going to keep picturing a polka dot rainbow in the sky and being set free by the love of a God with a wonderful sense of humor.