Next to marrying Matthew, the thing I was most excited about for my wedding was getting together with these girls:
Balie, Karen, Jenny, & Sharon
Though great distances separated all of us then, even greater distances separate us now – BUT – for a couple of days back in July 2008, I was together with my favorite friends and I’m still grateful for that time I had to share with Balie (my best iFriend), Karen (the first kindred spirit I ever had), Jenny (my college suitemate), and Sharon (my college room mate). Today as I’m an ocean away and can’t even rely on text messages to keep us close, I am thankful for the friendships I have with these women. I haven’t seen any of them since July 19, 2008, but I still feel so close to them. Letters and emails serve to bridge the distance just a bit and thinking back on the precious time I had with them in the days leading up to my wedding bridge the distance even more. I don’t have many friends and I’m terrible about keeping in touch over the phone, but I have Balie, Karen, Jenny, and Sharon. They have been faithful friends and I still feel so blessed to have been able to have four friends who I love so much stand with me as my bridesmaids. I am thankful for their prayers and the good times we’ve shared and their thoughtfulness and all the laughs we’ve shared and their support and encouragement and how they were nearly just as excited as I was when I married Matthew.
This morning was a sad one for my sweet, sweet Matthew: it was time to take Lucky to the vet for the last time. She’d been Matt’s dog for just about half his life since he chose her as a Christmas present for his family in 1995. But, it was time and today I’m thankful that Matt got to be there to spend the last moments together.
Matt's birthday celebration in June 2007
I didn’t always like Lucky; I’m not a fan of most dogs and she used to bark at me. One day, I guess she got used to me and stopped barking and that’s when I started liking her. I never minded her hot breath on my lap as she’d tried to crowd her way underneath the table and beg for food during dinner. I always shared a bit of my food with her and I think Matt’s father wouldn’t have liked it very much if he knew I fed her some of my meat from time to time. But then again, even though he yelled at Lucky, I saw plenty of times when he fed her table scraps, too.
I never had a dog, and I never really wanted one except to take on walks. Matt let me pick out Lucky’s collar and leash when it came time to buy her new ones. I even got to hold the leash on a few walks around the block. For a while, we thought we were going to be able to take Lucky with us where ever we moved after we were married. Matt’s apartment in Gainesville was not pet friendly and so she lived with his parents. I was actually a bit excited at the prospect of having Lucky and my sweet girls (Chloe and Saffie) together – almost like a blended family. But then when we found out we were moving across the Atlantic, it became clear that Lucky would stay put.
She loved Matt and would follow him from room to room when he came home for a visit and I just know that she was happy that he was able to come home for Thanksgiving. Lucky was like Argos, hanging on until she could hear her loving master’s voice one more time (as Argos died once he heard Odysseus’s voice once more).
Today, I’m thankful for pets – the immense joy they bring into our lives and the huge void they leave when they have to go. I’m also thankful that Matthew was able to be with Lucky and that she was his dog for a lot of good years.
I went to bed at 1 am last night so I was pretty surprised that I was awake and out of bed at 7:30 this morning. There were things I had to get done, so getting an early start was actually kind of nice. I’m forever trying to get the laundry done, which gets progressively harder to do as the sun stays hidden more and more these days. With no dryer and no clothes line, we have to rely on drying racks to air dry our clothes – and, well, it just takes forever. The drying racks never seem to get put away as it’s a never ending cycle. We’re always tripping over them and had we a near by laundromat, I would probably load every thing up in suitcases and go! I also needed to clean up yesterday’s mess in the kitchen. I didn’t have time to clean up the kitchen before I went to work yesterday and as soon as I came home, I was picked up to go off to the fake Thanksgiving (not returning until 10:30 pm!). So, I woke up to a messy kitchen of lunch dishes and pumpkin pie dishes and sweet potato casserole dishes and egg shells still in the sink. All this mess concentrated on a foot of counter space (I kid you not).
Even with these less than ideal circumstances for laundry, baking/cooking/cleaning in the kitchen, and just general house keeping concerns, I am still thankful today for our home. It’s not much, but yesterday when Mal asked me how we were “getting on” in our “new” flat (though we’ve lived here for 5 months now), I only had good things to say and I was just reminded how it all came about.
Flat K was the last flat we looked at in our frantic search for a new place to live (which all happened over the course of a few days). We had just come from viewing a dump of a flat (which we had high hopes for), it was raining, and we were more than a half an hour early to view Flat K. We were discouraged and wanted to go home. We just knew it was going to be a waste of our time, just like all the other flats were … but we waited. In the rain.
We liked the flat and its furnishings very much. It was way smaller than we had anticipated and way smaller than any space we’d ever imagined ourselves in, but almost instantly we kind of decided that we liked it and could see ourselves here. After we viewed the flat the estate agent offered us a ride. He was nice, really nice, and about 5 minutes into the car ride we started talking about the churches we both attend. He was a Christian (which kind of explained how nice he was!) and it just really seemed, in that moment, that God had orchestrated this flat just for us.
There have been moments of frustration since we’ve moved in, but the joy and relief we’ve both felt since moving here far outweighs the frustration. Things are far from perfect, but we have a comfy couch and a hot, working shower; I’m thankful for that. There are still many, many times when I ache for our things that live in a (very expensive) storage unit back home. There are still many, many times when I ache for a place of our own where I can paint the kitchen yellow and our bathroom blue. There are still many, many times when I try to picture the future and wonder when will we have a place of our own; will we get there by 40?
But, even in those times, I’m still grateful for Flat K and for Matthew’s persistence in finding us a decent place to live and share our lives together. It’s small and we can’t claim ownership, but it’s our home. Besides, you’re supposed to live in a really small apartment the first few years of marriage, right?!
I am thankful for my home, even though the counter space is *this* small.
Growing up, we had to go around the table and say something we were thankful for before we could dig in to the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes (Thanksgiving has always been more about the side dishes than the bird for me). That’s probably a universal Thanksgiving tradition, right? Tonight is the fake Thanksgiving a couple from church are hosting and I told them about this tradition – being the only real tradition I thought we could duplicate here. I mean, there is the Macy’s parade, the football games, the Christmas decorating and music – but the going around the table giving thanks part is easiest and more important.
Today I am thankful for my mom.
Christmas in Paris 2005
Linda is the one who taught me how to be a fan. She is the one who taught me my trademark enthusiasm (I’m not sure if my enthusiasm really is a trademark of mine any more, but it used to be). When she likes something she likes it big! Flamingoes, wooden churches, Bob Dylan, Christmas decorations, The Wind in the Willows, Jane Austen, Beatrix Potter, Paris. Growing up there were Bob Dylan birthday celebrations, Beatrix Potter tea parties, and our house was transformed into the Christmas Cottage each holiday season. She taught me to love something – and to love it well. She encouraged my love for things, too: cats, camels, tea cups, Amy Grant, Alias, Felicity, Jane Austen, and music. For that, I am thankful.
Linda also taught me music. She never played an instrument herself, but she made sure I had a piano and stayed in orchestra and played my guitar. She gave me my first real tape player (aside from my sweet, brown Fisher Price one), a pink Casio, when I turned 8. She introduced me to Amy Grant. She took me to the mall to spend my hard scraped-together cash on Whitney Houston’s tape. She took me to my first concert (Amy Grant’s Lead Me On tour) and to countless concerts after. She gave me a Christmas tape/cd every Thanksgiving. There was always music. She taught me to love it at an early age and some of the greatest memories I have are from our concert going adventures: lots of Amy Grant, lots of Bob Dylan, lots of Caedmon’s Call, lots of Bebo Norman, lots of Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken, lots of Andrew Peterson, a couple of Nichole Nordeman. For that, I am thankful.
A few other things that I’m really thankful for:
she trained up her children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6)
she makes me laugh, like really laugh and not just giggle
she taught me to celebrate the small just as great as the big
she taught me the importance of paying attention to the small details
I’m sad we won’t be sitting around the same table tomorrow sharing things that we’re thankful for, but I’m thankful that in less than a month’s time, we’ll be spending Christmas and New Year’s together.
I broke my blog roll yesterday when I didn’t post. I meant to, but the time just slipped away between phone calls with Matthew and episodes of Glee BUT I had planned to write the first post in a series for Thanksgiving week about being thankful. Oh, well…
It’s hard not to be cliche and immediately rattle off my husbandwhen I count my blessings or think of things that overflow my heart with gratitude. Walking home from work yesterday, I tried to think of something really specific that I’m thankful for about Matthew. There are so many, many things that I love and admire and am grateful for in my husband, but selfishly, I’m forever grateful that he’s made me feel comfortable in my own skin (that’s a cliche, too, and I hate to use it but it really fits here). This summer I listened to a recording of a chapel service that Charlie Peacock was speaking at where he was addressing the very issue of feeling comfortable in one’s own skin: how it’s necessary in order to really follow Jesus and to see yourself as the person God created. He said, “Being comfortable in your own skin means, ‘I don’t have to add something to myself to be all right,’” and instantly that resonated with me. I had been married for just one year when I heard that and I really understood what Charlie was trying to communicate because I was actually, for the first time in my life, feeling comfortable in my own skin because of Matthew. Charlie went on to say, “Marriage does this better than anything.” AMEN! I turned 30 this summer and for the first time in my life I was feeling that I didn’t have to add anything to myself to be all right. I didn’t have to fit into a certain size, I didn’t have to worry about covering blemishes, I didn’t have to hide my messes, my education didn’t matter, my successes and failures didn’t matter. Matthew loves me so completely and perfectly that I feel (and know) that I don’t have to add (or lose) anything to myself to make me all right, to make me more valuable. And while I know this, I also know it’s not permission to stay trapped in my own weaknesses. Moreover, Matthew’s love and our marriage have been catalysts to make me want to work on my weaknesses. I am grateful for a husband who makes me feel so wholly loved and treasured that I feel comfortable in my own skin.
I didn’t want to go to church this morning. I didn’t want to walk the 25 minutes to get there and I didn’t want to be there alone as Matthew is away. But, I made myself go: I put on my favorite hot pink shirt and my heart necklace and I even wore earrings. And, I am glad I went. I don’t know why I am surprised, but God continues to amaze me. It seems that when I least want to go to church or to a Bible study or read something in a devotional/Bible, it is then that the message has been tailored to me and today was no exception.
We sang one of my favorite worship songs this morning and these words from the song really resonated with me today:
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
(from Brooke Fraser’s “Hosanna”)
You see, for almost three years, my heart has been breaking for Africa – the abject poverty, the genocide, the displaced, the famine, the starvation, the preventable disease, the devastating HIV/AIDS, the corrupt leaders and governments, the women, and the children. This morning the preacher mentioned, in passing, James 1:27 (which I have come to know by heart as it pops up on several blogs and even etsy shops I frequent):
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
I know God’s heart is broken for Africa – for the poverty and disease and corruption that is so prevalent – for the children and women, orphans and widows. I know it’s not a coincidence that my heart keeps getting stirred to do something about it; it’s merely an answer to my call when I sing the words of that song, “Break my heart for what breaks Yours.” Matt and I miss an awful lot about home and the US, but one thing we both love about our life here in the UK, and specifically at our church, is the exposure to Africa. We are always meeting people from Africa or those who have lived in Africa or who are going to Africa and our church works closely with a hospital and child sponsorship program for orphans in Kisiizi, Uganda. I know that it was no coincidence that Stanley and his wife (who work with HOPE ministries at Kisiizi Hospital) were visiting from Uganda today and that I sat behind them. And that I found out the person who heads up the Sponsor an Orphan program is kind of a colleague of Matt’s.
The song we sang also states:
I see a generation rising up to that their place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith
I see a near revival stirring as we pray and seek
We’re on our knees, we’re on our knees.
And maybe I am a part of the generation who is going to rise up and take our place: to care for the orphans and widows. Maybe we’re on the brink of a revival that’s stirring… but the catch is, we have to pray and seek, we have to be on our knees. We have to do something.
Today was a bit of an answer to prayer. We’ve sponsored Eunice, an almost 11-year-old from Uganda, through Compassion International and we’ve loaned some money through Kiva so a woman entrepreneur could grow her rice business (also in Uganda) and it’s so exciting to see her pay the loan back as it trickles into our account in 63-cent-increments. There is so much to be done and sometimes I feel like we can’t even make the smallest of dents and it’s overwhelming and the problem is too big. We both have felt like we were being called to do something more, but what? God doesn’t speak to me in clear words that break through the clouds but he does communicate through a favorite worship song or a memorized Scripture verse and a series of “coincidences.” I’ll take what I can get!
This blog post got me thinking today and wondering how I define myself. One of the first two assignments I ever gave my high school students was to carefully select five nouns and ten adjectives that define and describe them. The other assignment was to write the story of how they were named. Both of these assignments always helped me learn the names of my 150 students, and it helped me get to know them a bit better (while trying to assess if everyone had a firm grasp on elementary parts of speech). I always encouraged them to think beyond the usual: 1. student, 2. son/daughter, 3. brother/sister, 4. friend, and 5. freshman/sophomore. And, most of them did. It seemed that most of them jumped at the opportunity to describe themselves as something other than the obvious.
So, how come I struggle with the same task? In trying to pick five nouns that define me, I come up short. I can’t use my profession to define me any more; I don’t even feel like a teacher any more. I can’t use musician any more because my guitar sits in storage and the piano was sold to make room for cats. I don’t even feel like I can legitimately use the stand-by relationships of sister and aunt to define me. The truth is, most days I don’t feel like a sister and the only time I ever felt like an aunt is when my nephew lived with Linda. So, where does that leave me?
Wife – the single most important noun I have ever known. This time last year, having just three months of marriage behind me, I wrote on my blog, “Three months in and it’s still funny to hear Clark Kent refer to me as his wife.” But now, it seems the most natural thing in the world. I say husband in conversation with confidence and it no longer feels foreign. I don’t know when the shift happened, but even though I’ve only been his wife for fifteen months, it feels as if it could be fifteen years.
Daughter – I will always be my mother’s daughter – both literally and figuratively. Figuratively in the sense that people who know us both can say, “Oh, boy, you’re your mother’s daughter.” As I’ve moved more into adulthood (Hello, I’m thirty! And, married!), I’ve become more and more my own. I can point to ways that Linda and I differ as clear as night and day. But there are other ways in which we’re similar. Being Linda’s daughter has shaped me in many significant ways.
And here’s where I get stumped. If I were completing my own assignment, I would fail! Isn’t there anything else? I guess this is where I get stumped because to call myself anything other than wife and daughter is subjective. I get self conscious and think, “I can’t call myself a photographer! I don’t even have a real camera! I can’t call myself a crafter! I don’t even have a sewing machine! Blogger? Ha! Reader? Hardly!” But, maybe I’m being a bit hard on myself. So, I’m allowing myself the following descriptions.
Baker – What little girl who had an Easy Bake Oven didn’t love it? I sure did. That picture is childhood to me. That brown mixing bowl? I can’t even tell you how many things were whisked up in that mixing bowl and whenever I thought about what being a grown-up looked like I thought of a wife and mother in the kitchen baking something for her husband to take to work and for her kids to take to school. Even in the months leading up to my wedding, I had that picture in my mind – so much so that I requested my shower to be baking themed. I’m not a great baker; my finished product seldom looks like the photos in the cookbooks or on the blogs, but I try and my sweet husband oooohhhs and aaaahhhhs over everything I try as if Martha Stewart baked it. That’s good enough for me. Though I’ll never achieve baking fame or come up with an original amazing recipe, I am still going to call myself a baker.
Chronicler – both in picture and word format. I won’t go so far as to define myself as a photographer or a blogger, but not because I don’t own a real camera or receive so many hits on my site a day. I don’t want to define myself as those things because I think chronicler is a better fit. I photograph homemade pancakes on a Saturday morning and write about a weekend picnic because I want to remember it. I want to remember it all. And that’s why I have kept a pen and paper journal, and started an online blog, and take pictures of my meals in restaurants. Remembering is so important to me.
So, I’m a wife, a daughter, a baker, and a chronicler. That’s 4/5, an 80%. I guess I don’t have it all figured out just yet. After all, I’m only 30. There’s time to define myself as something else, something more.
Our second full day in France began with a morning to mid-afternoon excursion to the town and palace of Versailles. In our hour walk around the town before claiming our tickets to enter the palace and its grounds, we stumbled upon the greatest farmers market we have ever seen! If only every town had a regular farmers market like this one, it would make eating like Michael Pollan suggests in In Defense of Food not only easy, but super enjoyable! The video doesn’t do the market justice, but you might get an idea of the scope of the thing. My favorite parts? The whole pigs and giant sunflowers for sale.
Versailles was huge and too much and while worth the trip, I wouldn’t go back (unless it was for the farmers market). Our lunch was great. The palace grounds have several take away food shops and a few restaurants. It was a bit of a gamble deciding on one, but we finally settled on a little cafe-restaurant with a lovely view of a pond and we weren’t disappointed. The swarm of wasps that seemed to like the outdoor seating area was a little disconcerting, but the service was friendly and good. The food was good, too!
Here are we enjoying each other's company waiting for our French fries.
So, what did we order at this sweet little Versailles cafe? I couldn’t resist the FOUR CHEESE pizza! I am a sucker for cheese and I was not disappointed with this pizza: goats’ cheese, mozarella, parmesan, and gorgonzola.
Matt ordered a very French lunch, a Croque Madame with French fries. I had never heard of a Croque Madame. I have had my share of Croque Monsieurs on my previous trips to Paris as they’re generally a pretty cheap cafe meal (basically a hot ham and cheese sandwich) and so I advised Matt to give the Croque Madame a whirl. The Croque Madame is a Croque Monsieur topped with a fried egg! What could be better? Especially when you throw in some French fries!
So, we enjoyed our cafe lunch and we shared each other’s picks. The weather was lovely – a bit overcast and a wonderful reprieve from the previous day’s scorching hot (very Florida like) weather. Oh, and the wasps! There really were lots of them. A waiter would occasionally pass by a table and drop off a fly swatter to help fend off the wasps. An over enthusiastic patron at a table nearby, swung at a wasp, missed, and broke their table’s carafe of water instead! It was funny! All in all, it was a great lunch, great food, great weather, and it felt great to sit down and rest our feet!
But the eating didn’t end in Versailles for all day on Friday we had dinner to look forward to with Kate and Jon! I was very excited to see Kate and Jon again (as it had been five whole years), I was very excited for Matt to meet Kate (you see, I have so few friends that when I finally get to introduce one to my husband, it’s pretty special), and I was very excited to eat dinner (as I trusted completely in Kate’s judgment to find us a great French bistro).
Kate (who recapped our dinner here and who I wrote this post about years ago) and I were reunited at the Eiffel Tower (which is so incredibly fitting since the first day we met was spent getting to know one another by reminiscing over our respective trips to Paris). I had told her that Matt really wanted to eat dinner somewhere really French-y – the bistro setting, the red wine, etc. Kate was up to the task of finding a suitable place and ended up leading us to a great place just five minutes from the Eiffel Tower.
Cafe Constant was a typical French bistro that didn’t take reservations. It was fortunate we were in the neighborhood right in time for its 7 pm opening. Though we found not being able to speak French never really hindered us (I guess I’ve just always been lucky and have never encountered the stereotypical rudeness associated with the French), it was great having someone among us who was fluent in French (that would be Kate). She navigated the menu for us, chose the table’s wine, and insisted that we try an appetizer of foie gras with toast (that would be duck liver!). As I don’t really drink, Matt doesn’t really indulge in wine all too often but one of his desires for our Paris trip was to have a really good glass of wine. I was so happy that Kate could steer him in the direction of a good wine – he loved the dinner wine!
Kate and I both ordered the chicken. I forget what it’s called, but Jon (who is in Paris for culinary school and is currently working an internship at the Ritz) certainly sold me on it with his description. Apparently these kinds of chickens have better lives than some humans (his words). The pasta with basil sounded appetizing, too. And besides, it’s not every day I get to have dinner with a culinary master who’s interning at the Ritz, so I took his recommendation seriously. Matt, a lover of a good steak, jumped at the opportunity to order the beef dinner. Not only was his beef delicious, he raved about the mashed potatoes. I sampled both; they were both truly delicious.
There wasn’t time for dessert and sadly there wasn’t time for sufficient catching up. Since Kate is a hop, skip, and jump from the UK, perhaps another visit is in our future! And so, our second full day in Paris/France ended at a quaint bistro over a glass of French wine and with good company. What could be a more perfect ending to a most perfect day?
The last week has been very busy. It’s been filled with flat viewings, lots of waiting, lots of spreadsheets with various budgets and pros and cons, lots of emails and phone calls. All in all, I’m pretty thankful. I’m thankful that Clark Kent has taken care of everything – the searching for flats, the emails and phone calls to property managers and landlords. I’ve just handled the spreadsheets, the easy (and fun) part of it all. I’m also thankful that this process has only taken a week.
Last night, we got the call from Frank, the agent for our favorite flat. The landlord accepted our offer and as long as we get all the paperwork and deposit to him, Flat K will be ours in a month’s time. Clark Kent is drafting up our “See you, Bridges Hall” notice today and the packing up can begin.
I’m slowly getting excited about the move. I’m not there yet, but I’m beginning to process it all. This has been the longest transition period ever as it’s been nearly ten months since we’ve been married and it’ll be nearly eleven months before we finally get a place of our own when we move next month. From the beginning of our marriage, we haven’t been able to choose where to live. Our circumstances and finances have essentially dictated where we’ve lived, both in Florida and in England. For the first two and a half months, as we waited for paperwork to get finalized with visas and work permits, neither of us working but merely waiting, we lived with Linda. I look back on that time with nostalgia – there were moments of fun and happiness: the cats were around, the three of us would have tea and watch Crosswords together, lots of bowls of Reese’s Puffs were enjoyed, time wasted watching ER and King of Queens reruns. But, we didn’t have our own place. We were in limbo, not knowing when we were going, where we would live, what things would be like. It was hard. It was also hard to live out of suitcases and to have a storage unit so close by with all of our stuff: his stuff, my stuff, and newly acquired our stuff.
Then came England. The easiest (and most affordable at the time) choice for us was to live on campus. In fact, it wasn’t even a choice. It was the only place we could manage. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so difficult to love this place, to make it our home: we didn’t choose it. We simply had to make do. We had to make do with what we could fit in our 6 (not all very large) suitcases we moved with. It became even harder to be so far away from a storage unit with all of our stuff. For months we’ve stared at our blank walls imagining how better things would be with Clark Kent’s Washington Monument painting or my Black Apple print. We had to make do until we finally got paid at the end of November. Slowly this place became livable. Christmas helped with a decorated tree and stockings and garlands and Linda’s visit. New bedding and lamps and a few picture frames and candles and a few linen gifts from Linda have all done their part in adding more home to this space. There have been great moments of happiness and gratitude in and for this flat. But, the fact remains that we never really chose to live here. Each time the pipes knock in the morning, each Wednesday when the fire alarm is tested over and over again, each week when the landscaping crew seemingly gathers outside all our windows with their leaf blowers on for hours, each time annoying students gather at the bike rack outside our living room, each time we step out onto our front step and see discarded trash, each time we hear feet trampling up and down the stairs, each time we hear the people above us talking so loudly in the middle of the night, each time we can’t get mail because the office is closed, each time the crummy old wallpaper comes off underneath our fingernails if we happen to touch the wall, each time we are reminded that we didn’t choose this place.
It hasn’t been all bad. We will miss some things about this flat: its unbelievable size, having a guest room for Linda, our little office which is definitely a dumping ground, our big bed, the chirping birds, the ten minute commute, our backyard lake. But, the feeling that will, no doubt, come with living somewhere chosen will make up for all the things we’re leaving behind here. Yes, the commute from our new place will be much longer, there is nowhere to eat our meals except on the couch (yet), the kitchen is smaller, we won’t have a dryer – but are choosing to live in Flat K – and that choice, I hope, will be enough to cover a multitude of inconveniences.
Choice is important. Also important is feeling like we have home that is set apart from our work rather than being situated on campus. A home that will enable us to feel real and settled in this foreign land.
Earth’s crammed with heaven, / And every common bush [or flower or tree or bird or baby duck] is afire with God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
It’s taken six long months, but I’m beginning to love it here. I don’t love it every day, but I love it on enough days. Maybe it’s a combination of having spent 9 days with my mom, the evening walks Clark Kent and I have started taking, and the weather warming up just enough that a sweater isn’t absolutely necessary – but, things are definitely up.
It feels like this change has happened overnight. One day there weren’t baby water fowl swimming about next to their mamas and the next day there were. One day the trees were still stuck in winter without any green leaves and the next day the leaves were there. One day the grass was still green and the next day there were bluebells and buttercups. Walking around campus, our backyard, I get so many glimpses of God – in the baby duckling safely resting next to its mama, in that dark pink bud Clark Kent found on the bank of the lake, or in the perfectly still bird on a branch just waiting for me to take notice before he flies off. The earth is crammed with heaven.
God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on the trees and flowers and clouds and stars.
Martin Luther
I’m trying to notice, to delight in the dandelions both in their yellow brightness and airy lightness, to look for the baby birds, to enjoy the sun. I’m trying not to think ahead to the dark fall and winter days and I’m just trying to soak in the spring and anticipate the summer. Maybe it’s easier to pay attention to nature when it’s all you have – when you’re not hopping in a car to drive a mile or two to the store, when you’re not watching your favorite television program. Maybe it’s easier to pay attention to nature when you live in the midst of four pronounced seasons rather than the eternal green of central Florida. All I know is that one definite good thing that has grown out of our time here so far has been my realization that the earth is crammed with heaven.
Now I will leave you with a short snippet of baby ducks. (You can hear Clark Kent thanking a passer-by for a piece of bread.)
Kate (who recapped our dinner 
Earth’s crammed with heaven, / And every common bush [or flower or tree or bird or baby duck] is afire with God.
