Eyes Wide Open

As I’ve matured and been able to integrate prayer and worship into the everyday, rather than limit it only to specified times and places, I’m discovering more and more of God’s nature and creativity by observing this world, my surroundings and creation, with eyes wide open. I speak to God as I’d speak with a friend face to face, and I’m learning to listen (as is normal in a healthy dialogue between friends).

Engaging all the senses in worship, wonder, love and praise, I *touch* the garden and hug my husband; *hear* music, the birds sing or the wind blow; *smell* the aroma of fresh coffee, canola blooms, and the earth after rain; *taste* the bounty of harvest and the nuance or shock of exotic spices; *see* the storms rage, a newborn babe, the sunset over the mountains, or watch a tear trickle down... the list is Infinite.

When discussing this with a friend, she reminded me that the scriptures tell us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thes. 5:17). "The deeper our relationship with Christ becomes," she said, "the less prayer becomes an event and more a lifestyle."

I still close my eyes and bow my head at specific times, such as before meals when giving thanks, or simply to avoid distraction. I’m constantly blessed and strengthened by reading the scriptures and meditating on the truth of who God is, but I’m more often praying and praising when my eyes are open: reminding myself to look for where God speaks through creation, recreation, chores, or you.

What helps you sense God?

A Quiet Morning Memory

It’s a peaceful morning. The grown up girl snuggles down into the soft comfort of goose down and memory foam for a few more minutes. Rises to fly through the morning prep routine. It’s a crazy morning. Horns honking, tempers flare. The guy drives his mustang as if he’s in a rally race. On the urban freeway. In rush hour. The grown up girl smiles, remembers slower days.


Smudged pink shorts, pudgy fingers and freckled nose hunch down to turn the roly-poly into a ball with a touch. It rolls easily around her cupped hand until she gently lets it down into the gravel and waits to make sure it uncoils and crawls before she moves on.

She leans over the railing across the urban ravine. Latté waves dance and foam as the creek swirls its way westward. How does the water run down that way when the road beside it runs up? Why is there a forest where the creek bows to enter the shadows?

“Could I float on my wooden boat, let go the string from the road shore, hang onto the nail mast and float safely round the corner into that place where no houses are?”

She’s pulled by the faint buzz of the drifting yellow jacket. Follows it to the corner beside the wooded lot. Four trees stand guard, tall creaking shadows cover the unexposed. Overgrown remnants of an abandoned shack lay piled at the back like dirty clothes. A deer slow grazes the thick grass. Darts away as she steps into the dappled shadow. Nothing else moves but the breeze.

The school bell buzzes. She’s late again.

Forty-five years later, the grown up girl is on time to work. She didn’t eat breakfast but she did roll the dog over for a tummy rub, water her flowers and photograph the interplay of light between the granite and the heavens. It’s a peaceful morning.

Bears and Rockies and Lakes, Oh My!

285. I saw grizzly bears today. Mom (Bear 64) and three cubs. They were grazing the dandelion meadow beside Bow Valley Parkway (Hwy. 1A) between Johnston Canyon and Banff Town (on the way back from Lake Louise).

Every visit to the unparalleled Canadian Rockies and World Heritage Site, Banff National Park, I am healed. The muscle of the mountains, the changing moods of the covering cloud, the diamond jubilee dancing on pristine water, the wary and evasive wildlife... all of it a testament to beauty and a restoration of hope. There are many gifts to number.

The drive out was shrouded with cloud and pounding rain. 286. We camped with our little dog and small trailer at Tunnel Mountain but it rained most of the weekend. 287. We visited with good friends, Joyce and Sam Hewson, who tented at Two Jack Lakeside (is there a more breathtaking camping spot? I think not) and they built great fires despite the rain so all was well.

Yet after another long night of pounding rain keeping me from sleep, I suggested we drive to Lake Louise. The rain was steady but light and lifted just as we reached the lake. Always beautiful, but shrouded in cloud, we couldn't see the heights of the mountains. Yet 288. the lake always charms and 289. the cafe makes astonishingly great lattes.

It was the drive back from Lake Louise that charmed me most. Brent wanted to read the Sunday Sun so I drove, and 290. chose the path less traveled: the Bow Valley Parkway (Highway 1A). After stopping briefly to 291. photograph two bull elk, a passing pro photographer whispered, "There are some grizzly bears just down the road, they're a lot more interesting than this." And so they were.

Brent took the wheel after the bear encounter and we returned to our campsite to pack up and head home. 292. Cascade Mountain was still hiding its head under a cover of white fur, but the blue sky and persistent sun made it joyful.

As we headed home, 293. Brent looked at me. "I was getting really tired of the rain and so impatient. I would have rather just packed up and gone home, but when I see the joy you get from the mountains, I love that. It really feeds your soul." 294. I'm so grateful he noticed. And appreciates it.

Yes, Brent it feeds my soul. Yes, yes, it does.

Back-Ordered Gratitude

I return to the blog after a stressful week to name gifts, wondering, if I had kept naming them daily, if the stress might not have been so great. However, when the well is dry, to try to be grateful in the tsunami of stress seems as inappropriate as conjuring up water with a divining rod. Here are free and unencumbered gifts seen in the past couple of days:

279. A day trip to the mountains. Calm water. Mt. Rundle.

280. A brief view of wildlife, reminding me of the scripture song: "As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after (the Lord)... He alone can satisfy". And he alone restores my soul.

281. Just enough melt on Johnson Lake to get a reflecting photo, a quiet moment and a near-spill into the water when I slipped on the bank. Didn't get all wet, just a wee bit muddy.

Ann's list today: fragile things...

282. I give thanks for a fragile ego. God always tells me to bring it to him to fix and it's a little smaller each time he repairs it.

283. The tire stem leaking air, gratitude for the air pump nearby.

284. Democracy is fragile. A little fear mongering, a little intimidation, a little bullying, and all of a sudden this bold woman doesn't want to take a public stand. I'm grateful I still have the right to vote, in private, without fear - knowing it is the Lord who raises up one and takes down another.

Sunday Rising

Shadow and light play tag on crags and crevices. 
Stubborn spring snow clings to life in rising summer. 
Life wakes up slow in Sunday's embrace, 
turns to kiss the gentle morning.

Sunrise

Rocky Mountains kissed by morning sun

Light-sensing streetlamps have not yet dimmed as a pink glow rolls off rising Rockies. This brilliant spectacle framed by my family room window is worthy of any National Geographic video documentary. A Whiskeyjack has flitted his way to suburbia and found a perch on top of my spruce. Together, we pause to watch breathtaking beauty unfold.

Sunrise edges over the horizon, sends its rays west beyond the somber grey of city roofs and barren parkland to ignite liquid flames on white-capped spires and granite peaks. Mirrored light shimmers like molten glass from a firing kiln. But such colour, as if flamingos were dancing on snowy slopes.

A billowy shroud wraps around shoulders of rocky ranges and shares in the beneficence of warming rays. Winds aloft push back sky and smooth an arch, spread corner to corner like silken scarves.

It is a momentary glimpse into gracious eyes of a loving Designer delighting in his masterpiece. A fleeting foreshadowing of heaven, a veil parted so that eternity is awakened again in our aching heart and earth yearns for its redemption. His promise is strung on light, as true as any rainbow, “I am with you always.”

Extended Autumnmmmmmmmmm

Could there be a more perfect day? The temperature is unseasonably balmy (16 celsius, 60 fahrenheit). It is comfortable like chicken soup and fresh baked buns. 

Last evening, Halloween was uneventful except for my Ninjason and his Peter Pan partner scavenging bagloads of treats from their mega-trek through the entire neighborhood.  

This morning, we slept in. I made smoothies, bacon and eggs for breakfast. Outside our kitchen window, we truly have a birds eye view. This visitor serenaded us with his friends as we brunched. 

It was a productive day. B and I cleaned up the yard. Now A is at a birthday celebration, B is at the football game, I am home writing and nesting, watching the sun set behind the mountains, listening to Chris Botti on the Bose. As soon as I publish this I will be tackling my "book sorting" project (to donate to the church library's used book sale) as the first step in getting the storage room prepped for it's transformation to the "games room." Then the hockey game for evening TV entertainment. Woohoo.

The extended autumn we are enjoying is a welcome balm after a disappointing summer (rain, cool temps, busy schedules, stressful workloads). We have been given sweet gifts. I was able to capture this sunset last week: God's artistry in sunsets, sweet sky and sizzling colour.

Yes, this day is one long MMmmmmmm. One great Gratitude.

Snow on the Mountain

Ah, beauty

that grows while I sleep

Mirror God

that He may reflect 

from my eyes when I behold

you

Snow on the Canadian Rockies, July 11, 2008.

And this is how they looked on July 01, 2008: