25.4.09

Sabbath Greetings After Texas

I take my last bite of vanilla yogurt, sprinkled with ground, golden flax seed. The final contrast of smooth and gritty goes down. In the same moment I turn to the trinity of tiny windows that let too little light into my dining room (Tudors can be like that... designed to mute the sunny possibilities I've always loved).

Glancing through the winter-wearied glass, I see the little woods is lit up green. It was not so just four days ago, when I flew off to Texas for an artist's retreat. Did I consider how this place would blossom in my absence? Did I know?

I think of something one of the speakers said at the retreat. Something that disturbed me. I know he was telling the reticent artist to get up and get going, embrace ambition and stop waiting around for something to happen, as if things will just do that. It's a message for a certain kind of season. But I wondered if ambition could always be the answer. This is, if you will, my continuing thoughts on Sabbath come to life.

Which is grit? Ambition or waiting? Which is smooth? I swallow the two together, not knowing the answer. I swallow and marvel at the green parade outside my windows, yellow trumpets of forsythia already making way for lines of pink bleeding hearts. Sabbath thoughts. Smooth and gritty, marching on, going down.

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7 Comments:

Blogger elaine @ peace for the journey said...

Tasting the grit and smooth with you on this particular post. You pose a worthy question, one I will sit with tonight. I feel at a loss, right now, about what I am to be "doing" as it pertains to my writing; I'm still writing, but I'm pondering the worth of it and the motives therein.

A good word, LL, for my pondering tonight and tomorrow as I embark on another day of Sabbath pause. I hope to find Father God somewhere in the mix.

peace~elaine

25.4.09  
Blogger Joelle said...

Love the description "winter-wearied." I do think the waiting and growing, the being and doing, the action and contemplation go hand in hand. Or smooth and grit. Swallowed whole.

25.4.09  
Blogger cindy hanson said...

The contrast of grit and smooth, both nurishing in terms of the sabbath, the body, and the emergence of slumbering life within. The expectations of the 'fruits' and 'flowers' and curiosity of balance... nice connections. always, cindy

26.4.09  
Blogger Laurie A. said...

i wonder with you.

spring is the questioning season, content in paradox ...

26.4.09  
Blogger Monica Sharman said...

Makes me wonder if there is also a kind of waiting that includes ambition, like an active waiting (not passive)...
And your previous post on the give-receive cycle -- does the giving make the receiving easier? The more we give, does that make it easier to receive?

27.4.09  
Blogger Unknown said...

I struggle with the waiting and going.
It seems, often, that I do both or either against my will or chosen time and place , being a mother , wife, part-time gardener etc. I do think that crossroads can be exciting and terrifying, but am blessed to be learning from people such as yourself how to process either and still bear fruit.
Hope that makes sense... lots of mind swirls today. Must be the spring winds.

28.4.09  
Blogger Sharon Goemaere said...

Wonderfully though provoking!You are such a beautiful writer.Blessings~Sharon

5.5.09  

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