september stillness

i pause

from all the racing, running

wildness of my world

and catch a glimpse

of more 

than shimmering leaves

that flutter and wave

to catch a fragment

of my 

always divided

attention

it's like they know

i'd be sad to miss the show

and that would be easy 

on these days when it 

seems 

i 

miss 

more 

than 
i 

  notice

so i stop and sit and stare

    (can eyes drink in a view?) 

and since a poem 

might distract

like

words

sometimes 

do

i open the page

to sketch

what i'm aching

to really see

that my life is vast

and deep and flowing 

with countless

moments

of 

grace

that have 

my attention.

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2014

listen to your life

......a quote written in my journal.  love it. 

...storms?

...pain?

...sunshine & gentle breezes???

wherever you are today

and whatever you face

may courage abound 

 as you make your way to 

"the holy and hidden heart of it."

(Buechner in Now and Then)

Photos © copyright Melody Armstrong 2013

arrested by beauty

 "I was in no hurry.  I prayed.  I sang.  I listened. I watched.  IN all that time, I never earned a cent.  I didn't write a word.  I didn't build a thing.  The world is no richer for my passing through it.  But I'm far richer for not missing it."  (Mark Buchanan in The Rest of God)

I had half an hour and my plan was to sit on a bench in the sun beside a man-made pond and read while my son was in a guitar lesson.  But I only made it to the edge of the parking lot where the lilacs gathered in their royal finery.  There I stopped, mesmerized by shades of purple I've never dreamed of (and yes - right there beside the concrete -beauty that almost made my heart stop momentarily). I gazed at the shapes and shades of petals that formed each luscious cluster and whispered my "wow"s to the Creator who spills out beauty so lavishly.  I buried my nose into the soft blanket of color and breathed in as much fragrance as my lungs could hold.    

I could hardly keep silent.  Where were the crowds?  Where were all the hungry, hurried souls who crave this kind of beauty in their lives?  Why weren't there others crowding in for the show with cameras and paints and silly, bedazzled smiles like mine?

Have you ever experienced something so beautiful that you would call a complete stranger over, risk looking like a crazy fool,  just in case they might actually see it too? 

I feel this way all the time, wishing I could share the beauty with every passerby - not only the breathtaking beauty of creation but the immeasurably more potent beauty of the Creator who breathed love and spoke these wonders into being.  

Sometimes I just want to shout it out.  What does it matter to be the fool?

words and images © copyright melody armstrong 2013 (unless otherwise cited)

an amazing father....

What a great day together yesterday - celebrating YOU!!  Your kids (all kids, actually) and I adore you.  

Yesterday, you took the boys and their buddy out driving.  Of course they loved that!  It's just like you - having fun yourself by making things fun for others.  You are such an incredible person.

Thank you for loving deeply, for being committed and caring, for putting the Lord first and us next (the best order!), and for always living by example.  If our kids follow in your footsteps - I know they will be wonderful human beings. 

You're an AMAZING FATHER!!  XOXOXOXO from us all.

...you even manage to get our girlie-girl in on the car scene!!

and you make a mean pizza!!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

the weeds in me....

My sister is a wonderful gardener, a real gardener, not just a wanna-be like me.  Last spring she gave me a truck load of transplants to kick start my new flower beds and I couldn't wait to put them in. 

But before the planting....before a flower bed can start to take shape, I know I've got my work cut out for me.  The ground is hard and full of weeds.  The soil isn't ready.  

For the record, weeding is hard.  It's tedious and pain-staking.  It's also critical to a beautiful garden.  So....I dig.  I bend and pull.  I turn soil and follow the roots right to their beginning.  I don't let one little weed go, because if I do, I know it will reproduce faster than anything good in that ground.  

That's the way it is with weeds.  If we don't deal with them, they take right over and choke out the beauty. 

Before long, my back aches and everything inside of me screams that there must be an easier way.  But no!!  There is never an easy way to true beauty.  So I keep on going, adding to the weedy pile of ugly but tenacious roots till the soil has all been turned and the weeds are gone.

Then comes the HOPE -- I can finally plant those seedlings of hope that become the BEAUTY I dream of all winter. 

Tender shoots finally have a place to be planted, nurtured and grow.  

But the hard stuff comes first.  That's spring for me -- that season of dealing with the hard stuff, even while glimpsing the gifts of new beginnings around me.  

So...I hope you will permit me a bit of a rant, just in case I'm not the only one who struggles in spring.....

Many people count spring as one of their favourite seasons.  Not me.  I don't mean to be a spring scrooge.  I am grateful for all the precious gifts that come with spring like longer daylight hours, kids playing later in the neighbourhood when I should be sending them to bed,  birdsong through newly opened doors, buds forming on every branch and crocuses scattered along the walking path.  I'll be the first to admit that something magical happens in me when those first shades of green begin spreading like blankets everywhere, and there's no question that the gentle fragrances of rain and apple tree blossoms and lilacs are some of life's most sensual gifts.  But for me, spring can still be hard.

Where I live, a good part of spring is brown and cold.  And, it's the season when all my running and rushing and commitments catch up with me and I feel dog tired.  Instead of spring cleaning and diving eagerly into new projects, I'm often scraping bottom -- dragging to complete what I've already started.

It's the season where all the weeds I've left unattended in my life, begin sprouting up everywhere and I'm forced to take a closer look at those things that need to be pulled up.  I know that I'm going to have to dig deep and feel the pain.

I don't want the beautiful things God is doing in my life to be choked out by deep-rooted weeds of sin.

So, I call out to the Master Creator, the Designer of my life, the Maker of my dreams, the One who calls me His own.  I know it's only His loving hands that can truly tend the garden of my soul.   

I come to the end of myself, to that place where I just can't do any more, that place where I'll just never be able to measure up and fix all the wrongs, that place where no matter how much I try, it's just not enough to pull out of the hole I've dug myself into -- and there I find Jesus.  There I find the One who saves!  

I grew up hearing the phrase "Jesus Saves."  And now I get it -- after all these years.  Yes,  there is One who saves, who rescues, who delights in making right from all the wrong....who heals my brokenness and turns my mourning into dancing, who lovingly breaks up the hard ground and digs deep enough to get the weedy roots while tenderly protecting the beauty He sees (even the stuff that's still to surface.)

When friends used to tell me that my christian faith was just a crutch, I used to disagree.  Not any more.  I've lived enough years now to realize that it doesn't take long to reach the end of myself, the end of my independence, the end of my own strength, the end of my own strivings.  Yes, do I ever need a Savior to lean on!  I really don't want to live any other way.

And so......please try to be patient with me, even as I try to be patient with myself.  No doubt, the weeding process can be a little ugly.  But join me in keeping a look-out for the flowers He's planted-- they'll be in full bloom before you know it.

With love,

Melody

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2014

memorize....

of all the intricacies

i want etched in my mind

i tell myself

i won't need to memorize your hands

the shapes, the bends, the ridges

where your lines and wrinkles end

and mine begin

as counted days of holding on

still sweetly grow

and two hands blend into one

till yours lets go

and i'll look closer than ever

and hope to find

my hands as old as yours

with lines of tenderness

still reaching, serving, sharing

with wrinkles from pressing and smoothing

and faithful, humble folding

with secret giving

and i'll tell myself

maybe i should have memorized

and i'll wonder

will my hands ever

look like yours?

words and images © melody armstrong 2014

winter in spring

this spring

the winter cold

still goes deep

with every shiver

i go deeper too 

into the warmth and softness 

of God's love

wishing to hibernate 

but choosing to keep awake

to settle into the silence

the gentle comfort

of dark quiet hours

milder somehow

on weary eyes 

willing even through tears

 to gaze steady

into all that is pain 

and loss and beauty 

and grace

and with gratitude

brimming

there find His loving face

 words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2014

noticing the details......

images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2014

Practicing Sabbath

It's officially spring.  I am soaking in a hot bath with the window open, watching lazy snowflakes drift inside.  I settle into the quiet. I breathe.  I listen.  I let the beating of my heart accompany the spring-infused song of a lone bird on a bare branch out back.  

I admit there is a tiny, persistent voice asking me if I really deserve this luxury - this lavish gift of peaceful stillness, but I ignore it.  I resist the impulse to fill this vacant moment with something more productive than just "being."  

I choose to practice rest, to honor this gift of a moment by giving God thanks for it and by paying attention to it. This sabbath --this sacred seeing--is something I'm longing to understand more fully and practice more regularly; but it is counter to the way most of life spins around me and, therefore, it feels suspect at times.  It feels indulgent.  If feels "princess-ish."  

Still, I persist.  And in doing so, I find that my heart keeps filling with each quiet moment till I spill with gratitude and my perspective shifts in surprising ways.  The heaviness I've felt for all the hurting people in my life simply lifts.  I'm reminded that I can trust them to God...that He knows their needs and promises to be their refuge.  I can release them to his providential care and just rest.

I pay attention to this moment instead; and to the simplicity of beauty around me --the treasures of shells and rocks and driftwood I've collected along water's edge, the candle that smells like spearmint, the heart rock I found at the bottom of a stream, the  pewter letters that say "B E", the coconut shell we once broke open, drank of its milk, nourished ourselves on and then re-filled with beach-found treasures. 

I notice.  I give thanks. 

Mark Buchanan in his book The Rest of God.  Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath writes:

"this is the essence of a Sabbath heart: paying attention.  It is being fully present, wholly awake, in each moment.  It is the trained ability to inhabit our own existence without remainder, so that even the simplest things--the in and out of our own breathing, the coolness of tiles on our bare feet, the way wind sculpts clouds into crocodiles and polar bears--gain the force of discovery and revelation.  True attentiveness burns away the layers of indifference and ennui and distraction--all those attitudes that blend our days into a monochrome sameness--and reveals what's hidden beneath: the staggering surprise and infinite variety of every last little thing."(pg. 50)

I find myself hidden in the cleft of the Rock, safe and secure.  My heart rests in this quiet moment --a moment filled with beauty, birdsong and God's unspeakable peace.  

I practice Sabbath.

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2014

(Unless otherwise cited)

my heart at home

within this place

I find a space...

where I am safe to be me

allowed to stand tall or fall

and nothing changes

where love is framed 

on walls along the halls

and inside arms

where there is always room

to grow and know

it's never crowded 

where there are hugs and smiles

to treasure through weather 

of changing seasons

where peace is not a stranger

where living is forgiving

and hearts heal

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2014