I hear spring

The snow in our backyard hides the truth: Spring is almost here! I feel like Edmund in the Lion,the witch and the wardrobe when he suddenly notices spring:

"The sky became bluer and bluer, and now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time. In th wide glades there were primroses. A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool delicious scents against the faces of the travelers. The trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered with green, the laburnums with gold. Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate transparent leaves. “This is no thaw”…” This is spring! What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan’s doing."

It's true here, too! I notice it all around me despite the huge piles of snow! Water running everywhere, kids out riding bikes without their coats on, Walkers are everywhere. The car wash has a long line. The cardinal is singing to beat the band in the tops of the trees. I need to see a robin yet, but it doesn't matter if he's here or not. This feels like the real deal! Ron spent the better part of the afternoon sitting on our back deck in a spot that isn't dripping. Buster lay in the sun in the front room. We washed the truck and Amy's car, and scraped the last of the ice off our stoop. Tonight we'll fire up the grill!

Worrywart

I am a natural born worrier. I win the title of WORRY WART in my family! It only got worse after my kids were born. Eeoyre has nothing on me. i have planned so many funerals, expected all the worst disasters, cried bitter tears of worried angst. Shel Silverstein's little poem has "Sue" written all over it: Last night while I lay thinking here
some whatifs crawled inside my ear
and danced and partied all night long
and sang their same old whatif song: Whatif....

Then begins the list of 'whatifs'. Over the years this has created some uncomfortable times for the family. There was the time our oldest son was coming home from overseas and he didn't call when I expected him to; the time our youngest son took the family car and also didn't phone in created somewhat of an unneccesary panic; Any of the family flying in planes, driving cars, off on trips or some other method of being out of sight could cause enormous panic in me. Laying in the dark sometimes made things even worse. I couldn't sleep well. I was irritable. I have never had a wonderful deliverance from this terrible habit. It's really unbelief in its ugliest form. Of that fact, God has made perfectly clear to me. I don't trust Him enough to take care of, or to believe that he has my best interests in His heart. Slowly, slowly, over the years I have learned that worry will be an ever present temptation. When I lie in bed in the dark and the worry threatens to overwhelm me I have learned to conciously give it back to God. To choose not to worry. To choose trust over doubt. My kids still laugh at me and ask me "if I was worried." They try very hard to help me minimize the worry by phoning, by telling and describing. But even more importantly I have slowly learned that I really can trust the God who holds the past and the future in eternity. I don't doubt that bad things could happen, but I know who I can trust. "Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper..."

Living in the Past

Sometimes the family history comes as a big surprise. It's not something I can be "proud" of or even ashamed of. It just is. It does help explain who I am, but that doesn't excuse any behavior I might attribute to my family. (other than what father Adam passed on) I found out within the last few weeks, quite by accident, that my uncle had won the bronze star during the second World War. He never talked about his military service. We only knew that he had been in the Phillipines. He died several years ago without ever telling anyone, even his wife, about what he'd seen or done in the military. She ran across the medal and the paperwork about it as well while cleaning. It seems he was on Guadalcanal in 1942 and at Luzon later on in the war. Both big battles. I have always wished I had been nosier with my grandparents, and now nosier with other relatives. Why didn't I ask more pressing questions? Why didn't I ever think beyond my own immediate life? I have dozens of unanswerable questions now. I squint down the years of the past guessing and surmising. And things probably won't change much for the future generations. i.e. those kids and grandkids of mine. I've written it all down. It's all in neat little rows or folded up carefully in the pages of books. Everything is there -they just have to open the books up and they'll see who they are. The question is...will they?

Genealogy

I have worked on my family "tree" for more than 25 years now. It's an 'off again/on again' puzzle that I love to tinker around with. All of a sudden some question about my family will strike me and I'll rush off to see if I can find the answer. Questions like--Did my grandfather see military action during WWI? Where is my mother's baby sister buried? What stories can a cousin or an uncle tell about another relative? Then I will have periods when all the work and the puzzle of it lies untouched in what Ron likes to call my "bones box". When I first started working on family history I filled in pedigree charts. (really, that's what they were called) Basically, you could list your ancestor's name, date and place of birth. Date and place of marriage. Date and place of death. There were lines for children born, or for more than one wife. But it usually looked something like this: Louis S. Bauer 1894-1975

b. 24 Sept. 1894

m. 8 Sept. 1920

d. 27 May 1975

And I filled up pages and pages of these charts of 11 generations of my family. 2205 individuals. With every one I have always been intensely struck by the shortness of the dash. I have always felt the intense sadness of an entire lifetime summed up in a - . There is absolutely no way to escape the psalmists words: "as for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more." I want so much for my life to be meaningful. To have impact beyond my lifespan. I'm sure my ancestors wanted the same thing. I am reminded of the bible study that I'm in right now studying 'Holy Habits'. In it I find that it's in God alone that I live and move and have my being. He is ever present...before I was born. In all my trials. Beyond my death. God alone holds the past and the future in eternity. That - is this time here, but it's not all.

Overheard:

(At the library) My sperm count is low, but that isn't so bad. It's the sperm motility that's the problem. They're going to work on that. (I'm not kidding. I really did overhear this conversation of a young man on his cell phone)

(At a restaurant) Waitress to fellow employee in bathroom: "Hey, you have to wash your hands before you go back to work!" Other waitress: "I'm not going back to work. I'm going to eat lunch."

(At the library): How many games do you guys get to play on your computer? Could I work at the library? I'd like my own computer.'

My favorite research question during last weekend's blizzard: "Are you open?"

And on another Library related note:

Acceptable reasons for having an overdue book at the library:
blizzard conditions the day before
You lost the book on the way home from the library
You actually brought the book back; it's on the shelf, but someone ... hmmmm.. ??
didn't get it checked in!

Spring will be here soon!!

The traffic going by must have wondered at this woman and her dog staring with open mouthed wonder at the tree. Surely all the passers-by saw this flock of birds swarming and filling the tree and scarfing down the cherry like crab apples left from last fall! If you only caught a glimpse of them you might suspect they were hungry sparrows. Lots of people think any small brownish bird is a sparrow. "Cedar Wax Wings!" I told Buster. "Interesting" he told me. "Let's go." and he tugged at the leash. After all, he couldn't catch them, smell them, or, I suspect, even see them. And he was standing in a puddle. I wished for my camera and calculated how long it would take me to get home, and get back with the amount of sun that was left. I could hurry. So I agreed with Buster and left the wax wings temporarily. I have seen them regularly here-usually in the fall out at the hedge on the golf course where there are also bright red berries! Then, as now, they are on their way through. That's a great sign!! Almost as good a sign as seeing the first robin. So I was really excited when the dog and I got back from our walk. I grabbed my camera. Put on a long lense and headed BACK to the tree. The wonderful digital camera means I can snap away until I get a shot that I know I like. Be excited. Spring is close.