Re-Entry

The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard, dies young.
-Anne Sexton, The Awful Rowing Toward God

The ebb and flow of life.
Expansion and contraction.
Opening up and closing in.
Warming of heart and chilling of soul.
Hanging on and letting go.
Sunshine and snow.
Laughter and tears.
Contradiction and clarity.
Finding so much joy that it cannot be expressed.
Bursting with life and burying treasures.

Re-entry is a hard thing. To go from sunshine and blue seas to grayness and snow in only a matter of hours is a hard transition. In the past few days I have found myself ebbing and flowing as I re-enter my Seattle life. One moment I swell with joy and gratitude over the life giving time away, and the next, I am filled with sadness because I am stuck in traffic on a rain soaked highway.

How shall I incorporate my new fullness into today’s life? I am reminded of the tiny hermit crab I watched on the rocky beach at Isla Isabella. She painstakingly worked to carry her new found home from one place to the next. It was hard going, but she labored well. It seems to me that this will be my task, too—to take the joy (the home) so easily found in paradise and pull it across a sometimes rocky (or snowy) path so that heaven resides wherever I am.

I will start with the small, like the tiny crab, and see what blossoms in the days to come.

Still

Oh winter, you are here, but my heart still plays in the sun.
His rays have kissed me deeply & now warm my soul as the frost nips at my nose.

Coming Home

Georgia J--my home away from home

I am home. I am humbled and in awe for words cannot describe the past two weeks spent with God, with friends, with the holiness of laughter and the splendor of nature. The time was simple and magnificent--the air, the sea, the sky. Birds, whales, crabs and dolphins--from the immense to the miniscule--the beautiful and the awful. God's magnificent pallet. I chose to breathe it in and soak it up. My heart flushed with desire and amazement. The sun kissing my body and leaving me to feel like a wonderful, endearing child. Whispers of love from the world surrounding me. Moonlight on a dark ocean. Sun bursting forth in new day. Songs and dancing. Hard work and moonlit showers. Kisses of summer warmth and blossoms of spring in the midst of winter. It is a gift for which I am eternally grateful. A life of simplicity. T-shirts and shorts. Clean scrubbed face protected with sunscreen. Simple food tasting like an elaborate banquet. Conversations and laughter. Dancing and dreaming. God feeling near. Each day a prayer answered.

dancing blue crab
blue-beaked, red-footed friend

Gone Sailing

The Drop and the Sea

I went looking for Him
And lost myself;
The drop merged with the Sea --
Who can find it now?

Looking and looking for Him
I lost myself;
The Sea merged with the drop --
Who can find it now?

by Kabir

I am off to explore the Sea and the drop while I join dear friends for a sailing excursion from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta. I will be back with new photos, ponderings and possibilities around mid-January. Happy New Year!

photo by bill hughlett

Scorched Earth

“And the Lord will continually guide you. And satisfy your desire in a scorched place. And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters don’t fail.” Isaiah 58:11

Today I am saying good-bye to 2006—a year that has been difficult, painful and scorched. It has also been a year where the Lord has provided daily strength to my very frame and watered the depths of my soul.

Tomorrow, I fly to Mexico—a land of scorched earth. I covet rest and restoration as I travel from land into the immensity of the sea via sailboat—there to be watered like a garden and have my depleted springs filled. Nature calls to me. God beckons me to meet him in a new place filled with dust of the earth and water of the soul.

"coming back" photo by bill hughlett