Peripheral Ponderings

Many years ago, crewel embroidery became a bit of a hobby fad among the young women of my set.  At the time, there would be an hour or two to stitch after my toddlers were in bed.  Needlework kept my hands busy while I watched television.  It took patience and perseverance, but over time chain and satin stiches, seed stitches, lazy daisies and French knots filled in the picture with colourful wool.  I wanted to take pride in my work, and so the stitches on the back were as neatly finished off as those in the front.  Which was important, because eventually I became a sales rep for Creative Circle, a company that encouraged buyers to host their own parties.  Samples would be brought and passed along, attendees would be taught basic embroidery stitches, and (hopefully) would buy a kit.

Over time, I accumulated a number of canvases, stitched some for others, kept some.  A number of finished works were taken from their frame and stored away.  Once in retirement, I determined to use my newfound leisure to finish up abandoned sewing/knitting/crocheting/stitchery projects.  Others were donated to the local thrift store.

I couldn’t part with the Woodland Creatures project because the playful scene evoked a more innocent time of babyhood and early childhood.  It had required investment of time and some complicated stitch patterns.  It met the Marie Kondo requirement for decluttering – to keep only the things that sparked joy.

Last weekend, I came out to our patio, only to startle a little bunny intent on exploring our flower garden.  He was too young to realize that he should hop away from danger, and I was able to snap a quick photo. 

Pondering this,  I realized that every creature represented on my stitchery currently lives on our woodland property.   They seem to be fairly happy about the freedom they enjoy here.  As with everything, there is a downside: the bunnies nibble at garden produce, the deer eat the tulips, the raccoon used the deck for its toilet until we gated it, the squirrels make valiant efforts to climb the birdfeeder pole to get at birdseed.

Life can be messier than art, but has its own enchanting rewards.  This is our sanctuary, and kindness would dictate that safe haven also be extended to our resident furry and feathered friends, the real woodland creatures around us.

 

 

We have come through the Good Friday of grief at the cross, but today still live in darkness, awaiting the joy of Easter morning.  This lull causes us to pause, invites us to ponder on the meaning and significance of the crucifixion, the willingness of Christ to go the way in suffering, so that he can open up a way for new life.

The mystery of it all is intriguing.  So often Christian thought limits the outcome of Christ’s suffering to redemption of our sins.  While that is true, I also wonder if there’s so much more.  Is it possible the creation would not even exist if it wasn’t for Jesus’ death on the cross, his releasing of his Spirit to his Father to create a whole new universe?  Jesus was never limited to our time zones, or our calendars.

Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.  Jesus himself told the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I am.”  The gospel of John begins with the poignantly beautiful creation story, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.”

The apostle Paul, in addressing the Athenians,  stated, “ For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

At some level, humans have intuited that life is only possible through a sacrificial cost of blood. Myths abound, some of the stories so similar to the Christian gospel.  The story of Odin, hung on the world tree, his side pierced.    The story of the creation of Eve, taken from the side of Adam.   Christ pierced by spear of the Roman centurion as his body hung from the cross, blood and water running to the ground.  Was it for the creation of his bride, the church?

Like Mary, I ponder all these things in my heart, marveling at the scale and scope of the presence of Jesus, what it all meant for our world.   But there is also a deep comfort in knowing that I belong, body and soul, to my faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ.  There is no height or depth, or any force in all creation that can separate me from this reality, and so here I find eternal love, eternal belonging, eternal peace.

Easter Story

From the beginning, it was God’s plan
Through His Son, to create on earth a place
The Garden of Eden, beautiful and grand,
His very good gift to the human race.

Though they rebelled and fell into sin,
God’s promise long ago was given to Eve.
Her seed would triumph, and He would win.
He carries our suffering, our pain to relieve.

On the cross, our beloved Saviour hung,
Betrayed and beaten, then nailed to the tree.
Paid for the sins of those he lived among,
Paid the full price so we are set free.

Fulfilling ancient prophecy, He died
And so healed the wounds of all our sin
For the joy beyond the cross, our tears to dry
To open the gate so abundant life could begin.

And on the third day, at rise of sun
At the tomb, the earth is shaken.
Come join his disciples as they run,
The tomb is empty! He has risen!

                                                                                              – Trudy Prins

Christ’s redeeming work is done, alleluia!
(From the hymn, Christ the Lord is Risen Today)

In the middle of February, craving a little colour in our cooped-up winter, we took a day to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens exhibit in Burlington, Ontario.  It was the homebody’s version of a tropical vacation, and vibrantly joyful. Beautiful orchids basked in bright sunlight in the greenhouses.   Grown people walked around with smiles on their faces, sharing comments, taking photos.  Magically, we were all transformed into children, caught up in the whimsy of Lewis Carroll’s tale.

Lewis Carroll’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and he taught mathematics at Oxford.  He was also an excellent photographer.  To real life Alice Liddell and her sisters, he told his Alice in Wonderland stories, imaginatively playing around with reflections, logic, and time.

His characters and their views were wonderfully nonsensical.  Who can forget the imperious Queen of Hearts insisting that, at Alice’s age, sometimes she’d believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!   Or the Cheshire cat, only his smile remaining as the rest of him disappeared “you may have noticed that I’m not all there myself!”  The Mad Hatter is sentenced to be trapped in tea time, and the exhibit featured a laden tea table and clocks everywhere.

A big take away of our visit to Alice in Bloomland was knowing I could scroll back through the snapshots of the day whenever I want. I could fall, Alice-like, into a rabbit hole at any moment in an ordinary day.   And it is the intriguing conundrums that Alice fell into, the shifting of perspectives, mirroring, the questioning of limitations and conventional ways of thinking that permit us to playfully imagine and incarnate our own Wonderlands.

In the old days of Brownie cameras, we had to wait patiently for our Kodak films to be developed, and had to be mindful of the expense.  When the palisades on the black and white photos I’d snapped on a class trip to Sainte-Marie among the Hurons looked like just a pile of sticks, it was a  great disappointment.

Today, with my cell phone camera, it’s cheap and easy to grab a great shot of the light reflecting in the hall, the snow-covered deck, a handful of beaded pins, anything that captures my fancy.  Odd how a picture sometimes reveals dimensions otherwise overlooked, light and shadow, glimpses into the ravine beyond the evergreen trees outside my east window, or the glittering of an icicle overhang.  When we step out of our mad haste to be somewhere else, we can stop and linger in new dimensions and the beauty everywhere.

 

 

It’s the last day of the year, and we are recuperating from a bout of COVID.   I am very grateful that we were able to see all family and attend Christmas Eve services before being taken down.  A quiet evening to usher in 2025 is just fine, and a great opportunity to reflect on the miraculous in our lives.

We do not have cable TV.  An evening’s online entertainment can be described as either intentional or random in the eclectic mix that results from following rabbit holes.

Last night’s selection included videos on how cinnamon is made, various literary design patterns and settings in Biblical Narrative from the Bible Project, a PBS Be Smart segment on Why Useless Knowledge Can Be Useful, and finally settling on streaming the 1961 movie Pocketful of Miracles.

Miracles of technology bring the world to our living room:  screensaver photos of remote and hauntingly beautiful places in nature.  And more wonders: video calling that makes it possible to see our loved ones’ faces, and the ability to keep in touch by e-mail or text.  We are gifted with treasures of ancient archives online.  On video libraries,  I can watch old movies and get a sense of the embedded values and stereotypes of their times.

I recognize that curiosity, like the passion of pure science, goes where it wants.  It may not seem immediately useful, can’t prove to be of monetary value in the short term, or maybe never.  It may lie there like kindling awaiting a spark to light a fire or catalyzing agent that will transform two substances or thoughts into something new.

When ancient peoples told stories, they were treasures to the generations that followed, though their worlds would have been unrecognizable to each other.  Cross-genre and cross-disciplines bring out something new over time.  It makes me wonder if there is something like the periodic table for ideas, the elements of our imagination that only come to light in the miracles of alchemy.

And AI is a bold new frontier, not without its dangers.    I can’t warm to the monotone, emotionless computer voices.  Experimenting with the technology results in text that no longer sounds like me. My writing isn’t perfect but it does reflect and reveal my unique identity

It’s as if humanity is randomly being compressed into one massive human. In that hodge-podge, we can’t tell where one individual ends and another begins.  The impact of this is still not clear.

But, in a few hours, we begin a new year with unforeseen joys and sorrows, perils and pleasure, growth and connection.  We have the opportunity to venture out, and to preserve discoveries for future generations.  It can mean being pushed to the limit of our courage and energy,  to trust the God who finds joy in our co-creating with the building blocks in his vast and awesome creation.

Wishing a very happy 2025 to everyone!

PS – Thank you to the friend who sent this song my way!

 

 

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king.

J.R.R. Tolkien

It’s almost the shortest day of the year.  The trees in the ravine beside us have dropped their leafy clothing to stand starkly bare.  They reach up, silhouetted against the multi-coloured sunset in a strange kind of beauty, stretching out limbs to be caressed by blankets of  snow.  Even in this most southernmost part of Canada, we don’t expect new growth on the trees until well into May.

While winter can be limiting, I’ve always loved the coziness of the hearth at this time, the turning inward, the time to knit a row in an afghan, pick up a book, take a long winter afternoon’s nap.  As the year comes to an end, it’s time to take stock, to empty filing cabinets, organize cupboards, to cook up a hearty soup or stew.  We are cheered by the expectation of Christmas, and the memories of childhood wishes, the magic of Christmas lights.

Against the bleakness of this winter landscape we wait for the turn, the coming back of the sun, the hope of rebirth, though all life appears to be in slumber.  The apostle Paul talks about how though outwardly we appear to be wasting away, day by day we are inwardly being renewed.

There is a part of us that does not die, the Notre Dame that arises from the ashes like the phoenix, that knits together the dry bones into life, that remembers Eden and awaits the call to rise again.