Into the Mystic
The birds are singing this morning with raucous enthusiasm. It has been warm the last few days with gusty winds that whip and moan around the house and burst inside with the breath of spring, stirring the curtains and my spirit. The wind is something I never understand - why it is so gentle one day, so violent the next and what makes it move the way that it does. I am sure with a bit of study I could understand it better, but honestly it is more interesting to marvel at the wonder of it. Besides my brain is already quite full of science these days.
Easter is this Sunday, a holiday that we don't really celebrate with any kind of particular enthusiasm, at least not compared to how Mom did it up for us when we were young. I guess my doubts run too deep, or maybe I am just lazy, though I don't really think so. I was telling a friend earlier this morning that some part of me longs to go to church on Sunday simply for the choral music, to hear the songs we chose and played at Joseph's funeral, all of which had a theme of resurrection. But the other part of me loathes the crowds. The fashionable showing off. The once-per-year churchgoers, who show up on Easter Sunday just in case Jesus was in fact real. I find more communion with spiritual things away from that kind of production. I wish I could have a recording of the choir and then just go on a long nature walk. The best of all worlds. The music I cherish. The simplicity of my walking clothes. Blessed solitude. The honesty of my thoughts in communion with this vast, spiritual mystery that I will never, ever understand or even wholly trust, but that still somehow makes me wistful. I want God to be real, but in the same breath, if He is, I am so confused by and still somewhat angry with Him. I can testify only that there is much I do not comprehend. I try to live my life according to those things that I feel are representative of the God I would want there to be. I guess the realism of it isn't the question as much as the embodiment of it is the answer.
Stewart, the boys and I are going to color eggs tomorrow. Nick is 15 now and Alex is 12, but when asked, they both still definitely want to do it. It makes me smile. I am wondering if I still need to hide them. Part of me feels a little silly doing that for such grown up boys, but part of me is very sad to think yet another piece of their childhood is on its way out the door. Joe's oldest son, Andrew, is coming home for Easter and dinner is planned at Mom's on Sunday afternoon. The weather is balmy and spring-like and daffodils are in bloom everywhere. Time seems to have sped up since the wedding in December, and the semester is almost over. We have plans to celebrate my survival of the first portion of nursing school with a nice dinner at Bob's Steak House in Plano - a bit of decadence for our accomplishment. I am looking forward to that.
Easter is this Sunday, a holiday that we don't really celebrate with any kind of particular enthusiasm, at least not compared to how Mom did it up for us when we were young. I guess my doubts run too deep, or maybe I am just lazy, though I don't really think so. I was telling a friend earlier this morning that some part of me longs to go to church on Sunday simply for the choral music, to hear the songs we chose and played at Joseph's funeral, all of which had a theme of resurrection. But the other part of me loathes the crowds. The fashionable showing off. The once-per-year churchgoers, who show up on Easter Sunday just in case Jesus was in fact real. I find more communion with spiritual things away from that kind of production. I wish I could have a recording of the choir and then just go on a long nature walk. The best of all worlds. The music I cherish. The simplicity of my walking clothes. Blessed solitude. The honesty of my thoughts in communion with this vast, spiritual mystery that I will never, ever understand or even wholly trust, but that still somehow makes me wistful. I want God to be real, but in the same breath, if He is, I am so confused by and still somewhat angry with Him. I can testify only that there is much I do not comprehend. I try to live my life according to those things that I feel are representative of the God I would want there to be. I guess the realism of it isn't the question as much as the embodiment of it is the answer.
Stewart, the boys and I are going to color eggs tomorrow. Nick is 15 now and Alex is 12, but when asked, they both still definitely want to do it. It makes me smile. I am wondering if I still need to hide them. Part of me feels a little silly doing that for such grown up boys, but part of me is very sad to think yet another piece of their childhood is on its way out the door. Joe's oldest son, Andrew, is coming home for Easter and dinner is planned at Mom's on Sunday afternoon. The weather is balmy and spring-like and daffodils are in bloom everywhere. Time seems to have sped up since the wedding in December, and the semester is almost over. We have plans to celebrate my survival of the first portion of nursing school with a nice dinner at Bob's Steak House in Plano - a bit of decadence for our accomplishment. I am looking forward to that.
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