Cold "Snaps:" Wordless Wednesday

We've been having a cold snap for weeks, so on this Wordless Wednesday, I thought I'd share my own cold "snaps" - aka cold snapshots.

Today, flurries are on the meteorologist's weather map, but, later this week, we may have temperatures in the 50s. It will seem like a heat wave.

The ice on Peace Creek will be only a memory after the warm up. We'd better enjoy it while it lasts. I'm guessing this is only a brief reprieve from Old Man Winter.

Wordless Wednesday on Thursday

I'm a day late for Wordless Wednesday in the blog world. (I'm behind: What can I say?)

With my to-do list today, I need a wordless Thursday - or as wordless as I ever get. Well, perhaps I should clarify: I need a fairly wordless blog. I need a multitude of words for writing three feature stories for a freelance job.

Every happening, great and small,

 is a parable whereby God speaks to us, 

and the art of life

is to get the message. 

–Malcolm Muggeridge, journalist

Clearing the Fog

The fog was like a wet blanket as I walked down my country road one day last week. If I'm honest, it matched my mood. My feelings were hurt, and my spirit felt the heaviness of the morning.

I really didn't want to walk. It's like that sometimes, when your feet feel as heavy as your heart. But I did it anyway.

As I was walking, the sun started to filter through the clouds and cast golden light on the horizon. Slowly, but surely, the light penetrated the fog. The Light was doing the same for me.

Instead of focusing on the darkness, I began looking with eyes wide open to the beauty. The miniscule dew drops looked like diamonds as they clung tenaciously to the wheat heads.

Moisture gave a luster and freshness to the flowering shrub in my backyard.

Soft sunlight illuminated the pasture fence that seemed to stretch forever as it disappeared into the morning fog.

 And wouldn't you know it? An email devotional showed up at about the same time:

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you're going to live your life. Approach the day with a joyful attitude. A positive attitude is one of the greatest spiritual gifts. Help us remember to praise!

From a Guideposts email devotional

 

This week, as I watched coverage from the devastation that tornadoes brought to our neighbors to the south in Shawnee and Moore, Okla., it's easy to feel that "fog" pull me down again. But there is so much light - if I look hard enough. I could see it in the tired eyes of the emergency workers. I saw it as teachers hugged the students they had protected with their own bodies as the storm roared overhead. I could hear it in the brave words of people who have lost everything but the clothes on their back, but who were just thankful to be alive and who vowed to rebuild.

I see Light as delegates to the Kansas West Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church gather in Hutchinson. Today, there's a special offering being taken for UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief), and every penny goes to victims. If you'd like to donate $10 immediately, text RESPONSE to 80888. Or to give online,  click on the following link:
https://secure3.convio.net/gbgm/site/SPageNavigator/umcor_donate.html?type=1002&project=901670

We are not alone. This is happening all over the U.S. as people's hearts, hands and resources reach out to those in need.

And, on this Memorial Day weekend as we remember those who sacrificed for our country and those family members who were so important to our heritage, we can find light, too. Have a safe and blessed weekend, everyone!

Calm: A Photo Challenge

February 15, 2012

I can get distracted by looking too far ahead. I have this deadline or that. I have this obligation, and oh yes, don't forget the one two weeks from now. I need to write that note. I must send that card. If only I could get just "one more thing" done before I leave for school to accompany choir.

I need to cook this. Clean that closet. (OK, I don't listen to the cleaning the closet "voice" too often.) But you get the idea. I can look so far down the road that I get overwhelmed with the enormity of it all.

It doesn't sound too calming, does it? And calm is what the Poetic Beauty of Winter Photo Challenge is this week.

But a foggy morning last week served as a reminder. It was a day that seemed more like spring than winter until I stepped outside. The temperature was warm enough to keep the fog from freezing, but it wasn't the sauna-like fog of a late spring day.

I had to drive to Great Bend that morning for a doctor's appointment. The fog was dense enough that I wasn't comfortable passing anyone. I was forced to look only at the area right in front of me.

And maybe there's a lesson there. Being in the moment and being fully present in the moment would certainly calm my sometimes anxious heart. Multi-tasking can be a valuable thing, but sometimes it's just too overwhelming.

I'll never throw out my to-do list entirely. But, like a foggy winter morning in Kansas, I need to focus on the important things right in front of me. I need to make time for the people in my life. I need to notice the beauty all around me.

Now that would be calming.

A foggy day, March 27, 2011, Coronado Heights

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.

You can only see as far as your headlights,
but you can make the whole trip that way.

--E.L. Doctorow

***

Today I'm linked to Poetic Winter Photography challenge at Project Alicia, Live and Love Outloud, Bumbles and Light and Sweet Violet. It's been such fun to link to this challenge, and I thank them for sponsoring it!

Dew Tell!

“Every dew drop and raindrop had a whole heaven within it.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was one of those mornings when I really shouldn't have taken the time. But I couldn't resist.

Thankfully, my freelance writing assignment in Hutchinson on Friday wasn't until later in the morning. So before, during and after my 4-mile trek, I took photos.

It was a foggy morning and the dew was heavy on the budding trees and branches.

Socrates had it right: "Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf."

There was no waiting until I got home from Hutchinson to capture the ethereal loveliness of a dew-filled spring morning. The sun would have chased away the suspended droplets and the glistening moment would be gone.

"Morning is the best of all times in the garden. The sun is not yet hot. Sweet vapors rise from the earth. Night dew clings to the soil and makes plants glisten. Birds call to one another."

William Longgood

It was just another reminder of the many blessings I have. If I hurry through the simple moments, I may not see them.

Was it worth every extra moment on a busy morning? Yes indeed.

Jack Frost

Wheat crop on November 18, 2010, after a heavy frost


The leaves fall

The wind blows
And farm country slowly changes
From summer cottons
Into its winter wools

Henry Beston, Northern Farm

There was no frost on the pumpkin, a condition some poet once eloquently wrote about. (I did look at the pumpkin I had near the front steps, but truly - and surprisingly - there was no frost.)

However, last Thursday, there was frost on plenty of other things here on the County Line. I did need my "winter wools" - or at least a heavy sweatshirt - when I went on my walk.

But the nippy air was worth it for the beauty of the heavy frost. Like icing on a birthday cake, the frost decorated weeds and gave them a festive gleam.

It transformed them from boring brown to crystals glimmering in the faded light of the sun, which was shy to arise on the crisp November morning.

Summer or fall ... fog or frost ... There's beauty to be found among the weeds.

I think there's a lesson there.

August 18, 2010

Through the Fog

The fog comes on little cat feet

It sits looking over harbor and city
On silent haunches and then moves on.

-- Carl Sandburg

Last week, the fog came not only to harbor and city but to the County Line. I love the Carl Sandburg quote. When I grow up, I want to write poetry like that.

So why does it "speak" to me? I suppose it could be because we have a yard full of kittens of all shapes, sizes and colors. Randy has managed to tame some of them, but others scurry off when they hear the latch on the back door. They dash under bushes. They wiggle through the fence. They run for cover in an old stone fire pit.

Last week, the fog came to the County Line for a few hours. For me, the scenery from the foggy morning was a poem in itself.

The air was pregnant with moisture. But despite the heaviness of the dew and droplets clinging to every surface, the air was cool.

It was a prelude to fall, a welcome break from the 100-degree heat that saps every molecule of moisture and energy from the body.

It lent a different atmosphere to my walk along the County Line.

When it is foggy out, the view is somewhat obstructed. But as I approached landmarks, the small details somehow became more visible than they are in the bright sunlight.


It revealed treasures I would never have seen without the drops of moisture clinging to every surface.

The flash of color in the bushes brought me closer to the ditch to explore. The spider web was hidden among the American plum bushes. Its intricate pattern was revealed by the dewdrops. How can this fragile web support this added weight?

The drops of moisture added dimension to a weed I passed by just the day before when the sun was shining. I saw the beauty through the fog, rather than in the bright light of day.

Is that the way life sometimes is? Do we sometimes need those foggy, stormy times of life to truly see beauty in the sunshine?

Through the mist and fog, sometimes there is clarity ... if we just look hard enough.