Always, Always

A foretaste of winter blew through Atchison county last week...a whirling dervish of leaves and stalks, weakened tree limbs and trash cans reminding us that winter is waiting in the wings.  November has been ever so patient with us; the fields and roads have been dry as we glean the late grain from the bottom ground.  Rain is in the forecast for much of this week; the anhydrous wagons are rolling up route O like schooners on the Oregon trail as fall field work commences.  We hope for good weather to hang on so we get a head start on next spring, but the bottom line is this:  the combines are washed, the crops are hauled or in the bin, harvest 2015 is finished...there is always, always, something to be thankful for.

A trip to central Missouri yielded a double play of  pleasure: a windy afternoon at Redbarn catching up on family news, drinking tea and eating cookies, and bringing home another brown bag of Golden Russet apples, then the evening arrival of Kenzie and Levi to catch up on the wonders of the FB house and the toys there that wait patiently for his occasional visits.  His mother let him run off his six hours of carseat energy before bedtime, but promised a day of play on the morrow.  Sure enough, there was a knock, knock on our door at 6:30 Thursday a.m. and a little boy ready to hit the ground running....there is always, always, something to be thankful for.

Sunday was Josh's number five birthday....and Charlie's five plus seventy five plus birthday.  Some years we stop to sing and eat, then go back to finish harvest.  Sometimes we have a giant party...like last year...with balloons and friends and remembrances.  But we always celebrate these two special people and the happy years of our family they enclose like parantheses.  Needless to say...a party is something to be thankful for.

I am enjoying the evenings spent working with beautiful glass at the Tarkio Glass Company.  It is never too late in life to try something new and always good to concentrate one's mind on the work of one's hands .  A new medium with new tools and new techniques waits just down the street!  A simple pleasure from a gift warmly received....

Sunday evenings mean it's time for praise and pancakes at church, time for kids to practice the songs for their Christmas program, time to enjoy the fellowship of GAs and RAs.  The fellowship hall echoes with chatter; the air is fragrant with frying sausage ; the tables are sticky with syrup and peanut butter. I take the trash out to the dumpster in the sudden silence and say a thankful prayer for the big-hearted men and women giving of their time to these little ones,  feeding Jesus' lambs and loving their neighbors.

So much thanksgiving before Thanksgiving!  Including the third grade program at school (I can attest that three of the third graders do have their parts memorized!) and an invitation to eat Thanksgiving luncheons on two different school days!  I fondly remember eating lunch at Westboro school the week before Thanksgiving; such a generous platter the Pilgrims could hardly have imagined. It is appropriate to celebrate gratitude in our schools; in a way, I am surprised that we are still able to acknowledge this not-really-secular commemoration.  Enjoy it while we can...

Finally....
....I found a mouse on my kitchen floor while I was mopping up toaster crumbs.  Yes, I let out a small shriek.  But there IS always something to be thankful for...

It was dead....

Give thanks!

Restore and Renew...

"Every work of art starts out on the progressive path to destruction from the moment it is created. The artist can only hope to delay this time for as long as possible by the judicious choice of materials and their application with a sound technique. When the object passes from the artist's hands he can but pray it will be well looked after." Francis Kelly – 20th century restorer.

a restorer, courtesy Wall Street Journal

 It's that time of year again...time to celebrate ...but time to reflect.  Inexorable time leads me to another birthday and the inclination to hang blessings and losses in the galleries of memory...and the disinclination to do the math. 

 Inexorable: relentless, unstoppable, unavoidable, inescapable.

Young Woman in Blue Reading a Letter by Johannes Vermeer

I always visit the National Gallery of Art while in Washington, DC.  Strolling through the galleries is one way to restore balance, perspective.  Man has been creating art...objects of beauty, reverence, imagination...before time was measured.  And why?  What impulse informs the need to create beauty in whatever medium...glass or marble, paint, wood, ink, or flowers?  I'm no evolutionary biologist, so my answer is simple and worshipful:  our Creator put beauty in man's makeup because He wanted to us to notice this completely-non-bread-and-butter, non-essential-to-survival trait  and recognize it as a clue to His continuing presence and loving-kindness.

Niagra Falls by Frederic Church

In our fallen world, even perfect beauty decays. Our energy and the spark of creative fire can dim from birthday to birthday.  Walking back in time through the galleries from 20th century realists to pre-Renaissance and ancient art is an exercise not just in finding common humanity between centuries, continents, and cultures, but a reminder of how very fragile the thread is that maintains these ancient communications.

St. Paul by Rembrandt

I'm not as old as anything in the West Gallery (modern art is in the East Wing), but having another birthday is a good reason for restoration.  The first quote is as true of the human condition as of artworks: as perfect as we may have appeared to our excited parents, we were on the downhill course when we drew our first breath.  We can eat well, work hard, be loved and be happy, but even these "sound techniques"will but delay and never defeat the decay of time, hurt, and all the other burdens of our fallen lives.

Restored...

But the Psalmist offers another take on restoration and renewal.  And a birthday is the perfect time to sing that song to myself.  I don't expect to be better than new...I don't hope for a fountain of youth. Cleaning a painting makes it brighter, more vivid, and reveals hidden details invisible behind aged grime or botched rehabs.  Restoring an antique makes it whole again...but not new.  We won't regain our original shine...but an inward renewal is rewarded with a right spirit  and an increased appreciation for our day to day walk in our day by day world.