Metamorphosis

This week, although it is only Wednesday, has been a very sad week…

Receiving troubling news from friends and family is difficult to manage in and of itself, but emotions seem to escalate all the more if word comes when you are already grieving…
Without meaning to and even before becoming self aware, the joyful spirit has changed and a dark, brooding spirit has replaced it. Lightening fast the metamorphosis is complete… yet a minute ago I was Snow White singing… whistling… enjoying the labor of the day and now… I am the Evil Queen, enlarged, overbearing, not on task fulfilling the mission or able to change her gaze from the mirror’s face…
“Oh wreteched man am I, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:24-25)”. I am powerless but Christ is not. He will cleanse and renew a right spirit within me (Psalms 51:10) so that I can see life as it truly is focused with the lens of God.

Yesterday was the first day of spring was a glorious day… brilliant sunshine kissing the sunny cheeks of daffodils, standing tall and strong in the garden… purple and pink pansies, petals dancing and swaying in the warm breeze… pop, pop, poppity, poppity, pop, pop, pop,
tiny pink and white cherry blossom buds popping open… like kernels of corn jumping up and down in a hot skillet and… the beautiful azure sky with fluffy, whte clouds like mounds of warm meringue sitting atop a freshly baked pudding pie … such a happy reunion. Hello Spring. I have missed you and I am so glad you have come! Yes, it was truly glorious… it was everything you would want and imagine spring to be.

Today, March 21st is the day after the first day of Spring and it promises to bring more of the same. I always remember this day because it was my mother’s birthday. She was very much like the day after the first day of spring. She reminded everyone of all the wonderful, sweet sensations of spring’s first kiss. Too, she was a happy worker. She loved to work and she could work so very hard at it. I have often wondered how she accomplished so much in her short life. She was most happy while working and sipping steaming, sugary coffee as she flit from room to room, sneaking long breaths on all five cigarettes burning in each ashtray… amazingly keeping them all lit with a lively red glow. She reminds me very much of the Happy Working Song in the movie Enchanted. (See also, “The Magic Kingdom”)

As we go about our work-a-day world today… let’s give a little hum as we labor… say a prayer of thankfulness for Gods’ blessings… for spring, of the bountiful goodness of His presence… He is good. Our God is such a lovely, tender God!

“My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah, Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion” (Psalm 84: 2-7)
PS: Happy Mother’s Day to all Middle Eastern Mothers!