Gathering Gardens of Words in Autumn

The teenager appetite is quite impressive! Not only is our family consuming 120 eggs a week in this season of life, but baking has also ramped up this Fall. With prices at the grocery store also increasing, our food budget is quite tight, especially in that last week of the month when we are nearing the red line and have to get extra creative with what’s in the pantry. This is when our family opens the fridge door and stares a while as we contemplate whether or not to heat up the leftovers, concoct something out of the random remains of other meals or ponder what kind of soup we could make with perhaps a fresh loaf of artisan bread, because even a meager “end of the month” soup tastes like a feast with a fresh loaf of bread! Ah, it is Fall, my reading friends! The smells of fresh baked Autumn Apple Pie and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins fill our home and brings a smile of delight and sense of care after coming in from a long day of work and school.

Where we live, we have 300 days of sunshine and quite a dry climate, so we have been enjoying the beauties of the season all around us. The leaves that have shadowed protectively over us are turning all crimson and golden as they make their farewell tour. We thank them for their service to us and bless them as they make their way into the autumn decay where they will return to nourish the soil. Our sunflowers finally made their way into a blooming golden fiesta! Even my chickens have enjoyed a couple of sunflower stalks growing around their coop. The two newest chicks, Poppi and Daisy, are now big enough to join the rest of the flock and are doing just fine! I realized I needed to get them acclimated to the rest of the flock after seeing some frost on the ground in the early morning. So I took down the makeshift fence within the coop and now they are able to nestle together in the shared warmth of their body heat for the colder days of Fall.

Just like the western winds that blew down from the Cascades this past week ushering in evidence of seasonal changes, our September was a whirlwind of hoisting the sails of new schedules and routines for our family. With our eldest now driving, we are able to manage a fuller load of activities. Along with starting up the school year for our children at their little classical school, milestones are happening at our church with the launch of new ministries and discipleship opportunities. And in the midst of all the beginnings and activities, I had the joyful gift from Jesus to whisk my teenage daughter away on a mother-daughter trip. At one point on our getaway, as we were surrounded by women worshiping the Lord through song, I whispered in my heart to my Lord, “Thank you, Lord. This is perfect.” Gratitude to my Lord Jesus, Giver of good gifts.

I want to share a quote with you that is the theme of where I am at right now in this moment as I chair our church plant’s Women’s Ministry Team. Its from the booklet of the Made for More Conferences that have begun this Fall around the nation:

“If we keep talking and walking together, things are going to change! Not only will we be changed or transformed as we unpack the content of the gospel in the context of intergenerational community, but also, we believe, the intergenerational discipleship culture of our churches will change. We will begin building bridges and removing barriers across the generations. Women will begin to think biblically about all of life and live those truths out covenantally and relationally. And as we keep walking and talking together, we will become increasingly ready to share the gospel and our lives together! You, our friend, are made for more than this world can offer!” -Karen Hodge and Katie Flores, PCA CDM

This month, I am also participating in a book launch team for Sarah Clarkson’s newest offering, Reclaiming Quiet, Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention. As part of the launch team, I get to begin reading a digital version of it before it releases in November. In these beginning chapters, I am drawn into her story as she describes the events that led her into the realization of her need to desperately pursue a season of quiet. Again, like in her other writings, I can relate to so much of her experience. Reading her words is like sitting down with an old friend who understands so much of seasons I have also walked through, including the intentional battle to pursue and attend to quiet in a noisy and distracting modern world. She writes:

“Somewhere along the way, my mind became crowded with the images and thoughts of countless screens and headlines, my soul restless and on edge, and the way to quiet, even in solitude, was no longer plain to me. I watched myself become increasingly formed and driven by my inward distraction, my incapacity to be still, my unease with hush. I witnessed the holy quiet of those early years being swallowed by the buzz of a mind primed to turn to a screen for comfort, addicted to headlines. I felt chased by all I witnessed online and all I must accomplish, desperate both to keep up with and also attend to the myriad voices calling out in sorrow or anger or outrage in the words on my screen. I could no longer look away from them without a mighty inward wrestle, and even then, I was haunted by the echoes of their frenzy and fury… St Teresa discovered a palace within her soul. I found a kitchen table in mine…”

“I stepped back into a sense of God’s companionship.”

-Sarah Clarkson, Reclaiming Quiet

I look forward to this month of delving into her book, reflecting on seasons of quiet in my own life and how God has so dearly met me there in the past, and what He will teach me this month as I wrestle with how “quiet” looks for me in my season and stage of life. I hope you will pick up a copy of her book too! It might just be a discipleship message others need to wrestle with as well.

My little pumpkin, a late bloomer, but happy to be here and growing quietly, sheltered by a blue spruce in a part of our yard that doesn’t usually get water… well, some water found the seed one day, and in late August, the plant sprouted up and began to grow. Its been a welcome surprise of life adorning our chicken coop and making me chuckle every time I pass by it.

Into the Whimsical World of Anne

I am reading the book, Anne of Ingleside, for the first time. In the Anne of Green Gables series, it is the 6th book in the series and shares the escapades and mischievous shenanigans of Anne and Gilbert’s children. For some reason, I never got around to reading the entire 8 book series growing up. I just started and stopped with the first book. Actually, I’ll share the reason, and for me it is a story of kindness and rediscovery. As a young girl, I was gifted the first book in the wonderful world of the orphan, Anne Shirley. However, I was swimming delightedly in an ocean of music, and so my literary adventures would blossom later, even though I loved reading short and inspirational chapter books.

In our church, the young girls were paired with an older woman who would pray for the girl they were matched with, send a card on her birthday, and little encouragement notes every once in a while. A kind and generous woman (so very lovely and godly; I think of her with such gratitude) gave me a brand new copy of Anne of Green Gables. I didn’t know the story, except that it was about an orphan girl on PEI and that it was made into a movie featuring Megan Follows in the 1980’s, of which I watched at some point in my growing up years and really enjoyed it! Oh how I loved watching television shows of that time in history: Road to Avonlea, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, Pollyanna. These shows fascinated me, and I imagined what it would be like to live in Avonlea with pinafores and horse drawn carriages and oil lanterns. However, the book would have to wait.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had obsessive-compulsive disorder which hugely affected my reading capacity. I would read sentences and then ruminate over the words, getting stuck on words and staring at them as the minutes ticked by. Perhaps that is why I chose short books, ones that were about hope in God, overcoming trials, and horses, of course. Reading Anne was very difficult for me because the words she used were very long and sometimes foreign to my level of vocabulary. I stopped reading after trying very hard to tackle this large tome, and that’s okay. I wasn’t ready for it. At some point, eventually, I picked it up to finish it… another OCD reason because at that time, I felt that I had to finish books I started to feel a sense of completeness. It was a challenge the Lord ordained for me.

Many years later, when I finally met my beloved husband and we got married and started a family, my music world was diminishing for a season, and it was time for my literary world to awaken. What a wonderful Savior to bring about these seasons in his perfect timing. He knows oh so much more about ourselves than we could imagine. When my daughter was elementary age, we started a tradition of reading my beloved Mandie books to her. This was a precious time of the day. As she grew older, I decided it was time for the Anne books… for her AND for me! I found a beautiful set of the books with cover illustrations by the Canadian artist, Elly Mackay, published by Tundra Books. We began reading these books together, her and me, on our mommy dates, at times laughing out loud at the ridiculous adventures of Anne and her friends, and at other times, just delighting in the word craft of L.M. Montgomery. We loved the first 3 books, skipped Windy Poplars, and then I took up reading Anne’s House of Dreams and now Anne of Ingleside on my own. I think my daughter might rejoin me for the final installment in the series, Rilla of Ingleside!

And so I read and enter the worlds of beautiful descriptions of landscape and scenery, of seasons and sunsets all taking place on the magical Prince Edward Island in Canada. Sadly, the work of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne books was not noticed on the world stage during her lifetime, but in God’s timing, the stories she crafted with her impeccable imagination and grasp of the English language was a ministry of joy and virtue that still builds up young girls to this day. Reading together has created wonderful memories for me and my children, and the books and characters we’ve met through the years have taught us all meaningful lessons for life, virtue, and character. I pray my children will take these books with them into their marriages and families one day.

Its been as an adult that I’ve rediscovered Anne and the beauty of LM Montgomery’s words all these years later from the challenging reading days of my middle school years with undiagnosed OCD. But finding beauty is hard won in this broken world, and even LM Montgomery, the writer of some of the most beautiful verses in Canadian literature lived with incredible pain and suffering that her readers never knew as news articles have revealed in recent years.  I am convinced that joy and beauty are hard won, sought after through endurance and perseverance, and sometimes born out of severe circumstances, like the formation of the rarest and most precious gems. I leave you with a few quotes from this beloved author:

“In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of “faëry lands forlorn,” where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart’s Desire.”
”

— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

And this blessed quote that speaks so dearly to my season of life and motherhood right now! How precious are these years:

A family hike through sunflower fields

“They were all growing so fast. In just a few short years they would be all young men and women... youth tiptoe...expectant...a-star with its sweet wild dreams...little ships sailing out of safe harbor to unknown ports...
But they would be still hers for a few years yet... hers to love and guide... to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung...
The night was cool; soon the sharper, cooler nights of autumn would come; then the deep snow... There would be the magic of firelight in gracious rooms...hadn’t Gilbert spoken not long ago of apple logs he was getting to burn in the fireplace? They would glorify the grey days that were bound to come. What would matter drifted snow and biting wind when love burned clear and bright, with spring beyond? And all the little sweetnesses of life sprinkling the road...
”What a family!” Anne repeated exultantly.”

— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

My brave sunflower, shining with beauty and just loving the fact that she was created!

Gathering Gardens of Words in Summertime

Our family was gifted a trip to our beloved St Louis, MO this summer where we spent three years at seminary. The Missouri Botanical Gardens was one of my favorite places to visit and still is!

““I cannot think of a single thing in my life that doesn’t bear the touch of others. I’m guessing you can’t either. Of course we wish some of those chisel marks never happened—the ones that draw from us a plea for mercy, the ones that kindle a hunger for the renewal of all things. But other marks have been necessary to give us eyes to behold goodness, truth, and beauty we would not have known otherwise. Living with limits is one of the ways we enter into beauty we would not have otherwise seen, good work we would not have chosen, and relationships we would not have treasured. For the Christian, accepting our limits is one of the ways we are shaped to fit together as living stones into the body of Christ. As much as our strengths are a gift to the church, so are our limitations.” ”

— Russ Ramsey, Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith

Our summer has been full, and what I imagined would be a summer of leisurely writing and more focused work on the crafting of words has ended up being quite sparse… like my apple tree this year. Nestled within the foliage of my tree there are apples growing, but not nearly as many as last year. I draw a correlation to my writing in this season. I can’t get there right now. Even my desire to write has languished this summer. Ah, limits. That’s right, I’m human. Though I want to get from point A to point B instantaneously, my legs can only carry my embodied soul there one little size 8 foot step at a time. So I enter into “the beauty we would not have known otherwise,” had my every wish and dream and accomplishment come true this summer!

Though there’s been a stillness here in my writing, our summer has not been still! So I will share some life-giving moments that have adorned our very full summer, including quotes from great books I’ve been reading.

Planting, replanting, repotting, and propagating have been a dusty, dirty, sweaty summer project these past few months. Our living room faces east and receives the sunlight into its embrace through several enormous windows. This is our plant room. I was never a great plant mama until we moved to this house. Now we have an abundance of natural light. We have mini monstera vines, a large monstera, two fiddle-leaf plants, of which one is a successful result of a propagation experiment, aloe, philodendron, pothos, and others. I may try fern this Fall. I grew up in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia where ferns grow profusely. I have cherished childhood memories spent amidst ferns, sitting beside green shadowed creeks where filtered light allowed one to see to the pebbled streambed through frigid clear mountain water. I distinctly remember turning over fern blades beside my elementary school to look for the miniscule spores, hid mysteriously from sight. Every hiking path was bordered by these luxurious plants. Even our home featured a hanging fern in our family room. I loved “helping my mom” by tending the fern, removing the dead leaves, and taking a scissors to it when I felt like it needed a haircut. Looking back, I’m not sure I was really helping! I have not had good success with growing a fern at our home in the high desert dry climate due to the intense heat of summer and constant need for moisture and shade outdoors. But I am determined to try raising a fern indoors in the Fangorn Forest that is becoming our living room.

This fiddle-leaf is a successful propagation from our mother plant.

Limitations are found everywhere, whether in our schedules, our projects and plans, or our weather and climate. I think the above quote is profoundly refreshing if one reads it with contentment and a deeper gaze into its meaning. Our limitations are a gift God has given to us, and it orients us to our Creator on whom we daily depend. We can find much rest and purpose in accepting our limitations if we can see the loving intention of the One who created us to be who we are designed to be.

This is another successful propagation from a mini monstera vine. The mother vine got pruned this summer, but in its glory, she grew round and round a chalkboard sign I had in our dining room, and then around a painting I found at the thrift shop. It always reminds me of the fantastical novel by Christine Cohen, The Sinking City, where the magician’s house is filled with magical vines.

I’ll be 47 this year. It boggles my mind that I can be this old already, but the signs are all there: the silver linings are growing deeper into a full-headed “crown of glory” as Psalm 16 reminds me, and I’m choosing to keep those gray hairs. Others choose differently, but I want to experience the natural way. There is a joy in that for me. My 20/20 vision of which I have so long been blessed with has been noticeably changing, so I picked up a pair of reading glasses one day from the dollar store, and was amazed, simply amazed by how much better I could see! Clearly things are changing, and that’s okay. Contentment is a form of beauty and when we can be quietly content, there is a peacefulness that no spa experience can manufacture. There is a peace that comes from being content in God’s presence. That peace cannot be purchased, it can only be received, and it only comes from Jesus who offers it freely. In all the changes that come with getting older, I can rest in Christ and trust the process. I can depend on Him. I’m enjoying reading this book mentioned next by John Andrew Bryant. It speaks to those who suffer in ways that Christians have a hard time talking about. So I’m thankful for his voice into these hard things, and the hope it gives.

“There may come a day when we cannot be sane or capable, when we cannot be stable. But there will never come a day when we cannot be a Christian. Because a Christian is someone who depends on Christ, who can be quietly changed by depending on Him. We are assured that to depend on Christ is to be given Christ, utterly and completely. If we can depend on Christ with every horrible thing, then in the midst of every horrible thing Christ will give Himself to us, and by giving Himself to us, give us back to ourselves. In this way, even anguish and distress have been a transfiguration. In this way, every moment can be a transfiguration.””

— John Andrew Bryant, A Quiet Mind to Suffer With

Art by Lilias Trotter

As I’ve been reading throughout this summer a variety of books (Rembrandt is in the Wind to my tweens and teens, Phantastes by George MacDonald, The Way of the Sevenfold Secret by Lilias Trotter, Anne of Ingleside, Evidence Not Seen) I’ve also been mentoring some ladies through the book Life-Giving Leadership by Karen Hodge and Susan Hunt. This is the second time I’m reading through it, and goodness me, it is so marked up already, highlighted, underlined, notated, with coffee mug stains and creases, that I might as well just highlight the entire book. I’ve never read a leadership book so saturated with the good news of Christ’s work accomplished and how that affects our leading of others and our covenant community life with our local church body.

“So, with the prayers, guidance and help of that leadership team, we developed a biblical apologetic of womanhood and of woman’s place in the church with an emphasis on Titus 2 discipleship. This women’s ministry narrative flows out of the sound doctrine that God is our reference point, His Word is our authority, and His glory is our purpose.””

— Susan Hunt, Life-Giving Leadership

This book is a fountain of mentorship for those willing to learn and grow from its wisdom. I will just share one more quote here and maybe write more later. But for now…

“Life-giving leaders know they are nothing more than a tiny grain of wheat, called to a unique place of dirt where they are to die. We die to our fears. Perhaps it means dying to our reputation, or comfort or convenience. Maybe it’s dying to our plans, dreams, and agendas. Life-giving leadership is sacrificial. It’s costly and it’s daily. It’s glorious and it’s significant. It’s life-giving because it abides in Christ and bears gospel fruit.”

— Karen Hodge & Susan Hunt, Life-Giving Leadership

That is all I have time for today! Perhaps this Fall season, words will come more easily and I may be more present here. But alas, the bread must be baked, books must be read, and a dog must be walked! ;) Ah, but it is so good and life-giving to write a few thoughts down here too!

Blessings and may you walk with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit today!

My Night Sky Petunias! When you look at them, it’s like you’re looking into the night sky!

Gathering Gardens of Words in April & May

It is the first day of May, but let’s pretend its still April for a moment! I am just going to tuck this little garden of words into April’s archive before we get too far into May! It has been a wondrous month of welcoming four new babies into our little church family through baby showers, baptism, meal trains, and the anticipation of another sweet one next month. We are rejoicing that God is bringing so much life into our community. In the meantime, I have been finding pages to savor in a variety of books, and I would love to share some quotes here to cultivate thought and hope.

Photo from Unsplash

“One hears of the light chasing the darkness - but I never saw it done before. It was literally hunted and driven down due west in the sunrise into this great bay of sky between the Matterhorn and the Obere Gabelhorn. When I went to keep watch in the front of the house at quarter to five, the sky was still soft lavender blue. Then came from the zenith a flush of violet, sweeping the blue down to the snow of the skyline and that was chased down by mauve, and the mauve by dim rose colour, and the rose by apricot. Then the peak of the Matterhorn flamed up in brilliant rose and madder - and the day has come.” -Lilias Trotter, from the book A Blossom in the Desert: Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter, collected by Miriam Huffman Rockness

Art by I. Lilias Trotter

I greatly appreciate detailed descriptions of beauty in creation. I find that Lilias Trotter is among my most loved writers of descriptions of the natural world. Glory upon glory revealed through language in a way that we can vividly recreate in our imagination. It is like drinking endlessly from a mountain stream, and if you read these authors regularly, the well never seems to run dry. What a gift Lilias had to be able to communicate through language, the vision beholden in her eyes and translated through words into the mind of another. Her works of art, some just sketches, or incomplete paintings, give us a glimpse into her life and travels serving the Lord amidst a foreign culture. Unfinished art seems to me to be more realistic, giving us a vision of the artist’s life in process, perhaps being interrupted by a conversation, or lunch time, or changes in weather from where the art is being made. Perhaps the child she was painting came up to her and asked her to play a game with sticks and stones, and maybe she put her tools down to give attention to this little one… just a thought.

Woman Playing a Harp (Lavinia Banks?)
National Gallery of Art

“Oh! Is it not to the eternal praise of a covenant-keeping God that poor pilgrims - wandering through a wilderness and having to wage constant war with the world, the flesh, and the devil - should yet be enabled to sing gloriously as they put their enemies to flight and overcome by the blood of the Lamb? It is the overcoming ones who learn to praise. The fingers which can most adroitly use the sword are the most skillful in touching the harp. Each time God gives us the victory over sin, we learn a new song with which to laud and bless His holy name. Does it not make your heart leap to know that your Lord takes pleasure in your praise?” - Susannah Spurgeon, A Basket of Summer Fruit

and…

“How well the wee chicks know this! When the least thing alarms them, or the drops of rain come pattering down, then fly quickly to their mother’s wings for shelter and safety, and you can see nothing of them but a collection of legs, tiptoeing in their eagerness to press very close to the warm breast which covers them! …my faith nestled up, as it were, to the loving heart which brooded over me and found such a glow of everlasting love there that all outside ills and evils were as if they were not. …But if any timid, afflicted souls read these few lines, let me whisper to them to run at once to their God… The hen effectually conceals her brood from any passing enemy- but God is an impenetrable hiding-place for His people. Surely this is the meaning of the psalmist when he says, “I will trust in the covert of Your wings,” (Psalm 61:4). Is it not a sad wonder that, sometimes, we willfully stay out in the rain and the storm, facing unknown dangers-when all the while, so gracious a shelter is provided and accessible?”

-Susannah Spurgeon, A Basket of Summer Fruit

These two quotes have spoken such gratitude and remembrance to me. At a recent baby shower, I read these words of Susannah Spurgeon to speak of our gratitude to the Lord of the joyful gift of new life to this family, and also to remind us in the uncertainties and unknowns, to flee to our God who shelters us and our little ones and hides us under His wings of refuge in the beautiful and hard work of motherhood.

The End of Woman, by Dr Carrie Gress

The following collection of quotes is not quite a garden of botanical beauty, but more a collection of aloe vera pups, prickly, but meant to aid in the healing of the world…

“Feminism’s failure, at root, is its misdiagnosis of what ails women. Feminists have worked hard to mitigate women’s suffering, but by trying to eliminate our vulnerability, by making us cheap imitations of men, and by ignoring our womanhood. Setting off in the wrong direction, the prescribed fix can’t really fix anything. Instead, it has erased women one slow step at a time. As those slow steps get faster and faster, women find themselves at risk of being erased from the movement that once purported to liberate them, finding themselves undefined in an increasily progressive world.” -Dr Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us

This morning, I went to my mammogram appointment. When filling out the paperwork at the clinic, a question was posed as to what my sex designated at birth was and then I was asked a second question: which gender do I identify with? What happened to the simple question: which sex are you? Male or female? This book answers the question of what happened, and it goes far deeper into history than readers may be ready for. It is disturbing. There were times I almost had to close the book because of the evils described within. But truth is always brought into the light. I deeply respect the courage of Carrie Gress for this historical overview and her scholarly research on this topic.

“Feminism has been deeply influenced by the occult, going back to its earliest stages. The source, in part, is connect to Mary Wollstonecraft’s kin and legacy, particularly in the work of her daughter… Mary Godwin Shelley, author of Frankenstein… (Percy) Shelley viewed the diabolical passions as the opposite side of the typically masculine characteristics of order, reason, law, hierarchy, obedience, and authority. God, he believed, was the source of order and all that is male, while Satan, represented by the serpent, was the source of passion and creativity. Men and women, in his view, were not meant to be children of God, but rather opposing forces… He used the devil and myths to create new narratives in the minds of readers, taking the place of earlier religious ideas. The Romantics knew that, in order to reshape culture, one had to go back to the beginning of culture and rewrite it… With Cythna, Shelley created a new female archetype, the embodiment of the human creature that Mary Wollstonecraft idealized: the woman as an individual without any connection to motherhood, husbands, or children… Cythna became the ideal individual, not connected to any kind of family, the model of womanhood. Her only real personal connection was with Satan. Shelley presciently saw that sex differences, what he called “detestable distinctions,” would “surely be abolished in the future state of being.” -Dr. Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us

Though I disagree with Carrie Gress on many of her theological leanings described in other books (I am not Roman Catholic, I am a Christian in the Reformed tradition), I think this book is one of the most important historical overviews of the feminist movement of our time. It’s a beginning at least, to expose the deception that has cost the lives of so many, one million babies killed in the United States in 2020 alone. When society has been burned to the ground, which in this case, it has, we have the greatest opportunity in the world to rebuild with truth, beauty, and goodness with the resources of the One who is Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, Jesus, the Son of God.

Something to Watch… Eve in Exile… let’s build.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

-2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV

Spring Morning, Cloudy, Eragny, 1900, Camille Pissarro

You Are A Tree - Book Review

Years before I met my husband, I asked the Lord if He would bring me a man who loved Him with his whole heart, who wanted to serve Him in intentional gospel ministry and who was a tree planted by streams of living water. I chose Psalm 1 as the prayer I would pray for the man I wanted to marry one day. Jesus answered my prayer most blessedly. This passage of Holy Scripture is one of the many Scripture references alluded to in the book, You Are a Tree: and Other Metaphors to Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer, by Joy Clarkson.

Like so much of the Bible, God reveals who He is to us through the use of metaphor. Joy Clarkson takes this literary device and intelligently wields it to open the gates of metaphor to discuss how understanding the metaphors we use in our daily living can enrich our understanding of God and ourselves.

One of the purposes in this book is to introduce the reader to an idea. In this book, Joy is not trying to give a comprehensive treatise on all the ways we can use metaphor, or a concise tome of all the metaphors we use in the English speaking world. She is merely inviting us into a deeper understanding of the use of language and giving us an introduction into the vast study and awareness of how metaphor is used to narrate our ordinary daily lives, and how the words we use can shape and define us.

Another introduction that I greatly appreciate is how she uses her scholarly knowledge to benefit the reader by making the study of classical literature more accessible to several generations of non-classically trained humans. This is not an insult to those who were not classicaly trained or exposed to great works of literature, it is a reality that most education in the western hemisphere is not based on learning from ancient history with God at the center of all learning. As someone with a good education and a college degree, I still have so much to learn. Joy Clarkson references ancient books I have never heard of, vocabulary I didn’t know existed, and, with humility, takes the reader on a learning pathway that incorporates not only great works of literature but also incorporates references to other works of art, poetry, music and further reading. One caveat regarding these other references: be discerning as you engage with other works that are mentioned, always guarding your heart with wisdom and Scripture. The writer’s ability to engage with culture as a Christian is mature, wise and discerning, but not all readers will be able to engage with that level of discernment based on where they are at developmentally or in regards to maturity and wisdom. Not every reference is going to be beneficial for all. Engaging with pop or secular culture requires much wisdom and accountability, which I think she would clearly agree with.

The most important thing I would say about this book is that she faithfully proclaims her steadfast faith in Christ and her submission to the Word of God. This is perhaps the most beautiful thing I see in this book, that even in a world of academia, she unapologetically declares her faith in Christ and her dedication to the Word of God, thus pointing readers to the Way, Truth and Life, Jesus.

The Christian life itself is a metaphor, the carrying over of our true home to this world, where roots draw their nourishment from the springs of eternal life, unfolding in the light of True Wisdom, safe in the arms of the Most High, at home in love, changed from glory to glory, burdened only with the weight of love.

I would recommend this book to middle school and high school students, and those entering their college years, or anyone who is like me, a lifelong learner.

Gathering Gardens of Words ~ March

One of my blueberry bushes awakening to Spring.

The gate of Spring has lavishly swung open and welcomed us into its joyful cadence. I noticed the first clues last week on a walk as everywhere around me, burgeoning buds of green emerged from branches ever so cautiously. Cows arrived in fields, baby goats and sheep lay in pastures of sunshine, and birdsong was heard in bushes and trees as I meandered past. Of course, the familiar dog friends came running out to bark uproariously as we passed by quickly on the other side of the road. At home, I moved my outdoor plants back to their stations, hoping they survived the winter. Day by day, I gave a passing glance at the branches to see if anything was happening, and it was. Marvel reawakened in me as it does every Spring. You’d think after forty-six revolutions of the Earth around the sun, I would not be surprised anymore by the seasons changing, but each turning of the season brings a fresh delight to my soul. I hope that I will never lose that wonder, even when I am eighty years old.

We entered Holy Week at our church this past Sunday, led in worship by the younger members of our congregation, waving palm branches, the older kids guiding and carrying the younger ones during the first hymn. With pure joy, we were led into this most important of weeks in the Christian calendar, led by children and infants to worship the King. It was a fitting start to this week of joyful illuminating hope and celebration of the victory of our King over the sin and death of this dark world.

This month, I’ve gathered some words to share with you, some beautiful words that have watered my soul and nourished my thinking. I hope they bless anyone who is reading today, that these words point you to the Creator, the Savior, the Risen King, Jesus who sits this very day on His throne. May you know Him more deeply today than ever before.

Photo by Blake Verdoorn on Unsplash, Multnomah Falls, Oregon

“Joy being of God was a living thing, a fountain not a cistern, one of those divine things that are possessed only as they overflow and flow away, and not easily come by because it must break into human life through the hard crust of sin and contingency. Joy came now here, now there, was held and escaped.”

― Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch

The Good Shepherd, by I. Lilias Trotter

Beneath Thy Cross

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

-Christina Rossetti

Photo by Alexander Ramsey on Unsplash

“And Christ’s life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it. When there is no danger, when there is a dead calm, when everything is favorable to our Christianity, then it is all too easy to confuse an admirer with a follower. And this can happen very quietly. The admirer can be under the delusion that the position he takes is the true one, when all he is doing is playing it safe. Give heed, therefore, to the call of discipleship!” - Søren Kierkegaard, Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter

Blossom in the Desert, I. Lilias Trotter

“Oh, that we may learn to die to all that is of self with this royal joyfulness that swallows up death in victory in God’s world around! He can make every step of the path full of the triumph of gladness that glows in the golden leaves. Glory be to His Name!”

― I. Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross

Gathering Gardens of Words ~February

We visited some friends this week for dinner and I noticed they had one of those glass-framed moving sandscapes. I used to love those as a kid. I was waiting to pick it up and change the scenery and when I couldn’t wait any longer, I tipped it this way and that, watching the sand fall and move into a new scene. There is something calming about these blessed inventions. When we read good books, especially the slow reading of words on a paper page that we turn with our fingers, we give ourselves time for these words to settle into our minds and we give ourselves time to consider well-crafted words and phrases, like the sand that settles into new forms when tilted to and fro. We behold beauty in those words and scenes that are formed afresh in our imaginations.

This year, in my corner of the online writing world, I plan to share quotes from books I’ve been reading, fresh scenes wondrously crafted that they may be like a fresh wind from the west to clear away the debris of the mind and bring little visions of light. And perhaps, you may just find a new book that piques your interest. Perhaps the turning of pages will bring a stillness and slowing down amidst the rush and speed of our lives and circumstances. Here below are a few quotes I’m sharing in February.

In Winter, we love to visit the Bavarian town of Leavenworth, WA as a family. On one of our trips, we found this tiny library, a miniature model of a little bookstore. It was about 10 inches tall. I couldn’t help but take a picture to remember it.

Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. ”

― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Photo by Catherine Kay Greenup on Unsplash

“There is always a cost to wrongdoing and it must fall on someone. Either the wrongdoer bears it or someone else must. This is true even if the wrong is not something that can be measured financially. The cost may be in reputation or relationship or health or something else. To forgive is to deny oneself revenge (Romans 12:17–21), to absorb the cost, to not exact repayment by inflicting on them the things they did to you in order to “even the score.” Therefore forgiveness is always expensive to the forgiver, but the benefits—at the very least within your heart, and at best in the restoration of relationship and a witness to the power of the gospel—outweigh the cost.”

― Timothy J. Keller, Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?

“Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil.”

― Andrew Murray, Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness

Photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash

“The highest glory of the creature is in being only a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the glory of God. It can do this only as it is willing to be nothing in itself, that God may be all. Water always fills first the lowest places.”

― Andrew Murray, Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness

Now I know what we were trying to stand for, and what I believe we did stand for: the possibility that among the world's wars and sufferings two people could love each other for a long time, until death and beyond, and could make a place for each other that would be a part of their love, as their love for each other would be a way of loving their place. This love would be one of the acts of greater love that holds and cherishes all the world.

― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

It was the literacy that gave him his great joy at Dobson’s for in the schoolroom there was a shelf containing a few tattered books, given by some kindly citizen, and the boys were allowed to read them on Saturday nights. Few made use of the privilege, for they couldn’t read well enough, but Job read them all… All the books had pictures in them. The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the room to show them to him. As he read his dreams slowly changed…

― Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean’s Watch

Photo by McGill Library on Unsplash