Day 233 without the sun. Of course, that’s an exaggeration – what else can you expect from someone who overuses exclamation points like I do?

I walked into my warm house after work today, looked out on the cold, bleak landscape, and said “phooey.” I’m not going to sugarcoat or censor this blog for you – that’s what I said: “PHOOEY” (probably said it in capital letters, too.).

Instead of a real walk, I decided to go across the street to look over the property where the house burned down last year. The city has been using it as a place to dump excess snow. I saw branches stripped of their bark and thought, “deer!”

Further back, there was an exciting moment when I saw, for a fleeting moment, a deer behind the snow mounds running away. Here’s proof:

I stood for a long time in the cold, waiting.

A cardinal took pity on me. At first he played hard to get, but then he came out boldly into the open and played to the camera like a professional model. We had a silent conversation in which I thanked him for his courtesy and he opined that for a camera-toting human, I was tolerable.

Greetings from the un-sunlit lands.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

I don’t remember how old I was when I figured out that our household was an unusual one regarding music. It turns out that having a mother who played Chopin, Scott Joplin rags and all manner of folk songs and classical music on the piano was not the reality that any of my friends had in their homes. I am embarrassed to say that I not only took it for granted, I didn’t even particularly value it.

My mother lived and breathed music (still does) – I can hardly remember a time when our house wasn’t filled with it. My dad was a band teacher, and generally left his music at the office, but he had an undergirding appreciation for music that also permeated the household. We all learned to play instruments, we all learned to play the piano and we all sang – some more than others, it’s true. My mom could spend hours playing the piano and singing, but with six children she didn’t often have the opportunity for extended sessions, so she grabbed the time when she could. With a great deal of long-suffering, she taught most of us how to play the piano (two of the six of us had to get their piano instruction outsourced, my mom being wise enough to see that those two needed a teacher who wasn’t also their mother). With the exception of my oldest sister, none of us came close to my mom’s level of expertise, but she made sure we knew how to read music, a skill which all of us eventually came to appreciate.

Everything I know, enjoy and love about music was nurtured and encouraged in our home, as much by osmosis as by intentional instruction. I visited my mom today and she spent some time at the piano, although she’s not able to play as often as she’d like. Half blind and with arthritic fingers, she still has that musician’s touch. I love watching her fingers move over the keys.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…but maybe I’ll sit down at our piano first and see what I can do.

The skies and trees were crow-infested today. I didn’t take any photos of them – I was too busy thinking about the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” and wishing I’d never seen it.

How many days has it been since we have seen the sun? I trudged along under dull skies and later thought of Eustace, Jill and dear old Puddleglum when they ended up in the Deep Realm Underland and the warden there kept telling them “many sink down, but few return to the sunlit lands” (The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis). Sunlit lands, where are you? These are times that call for simple faith: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The sun is where it always has been, seen or unseen. It helps during these long passages of sunlessness to remember that.

I took a longish walk, the camera slung around my neck growing heavier with each step. Yesterday’s hoarfrost was gone and there were no poems swirling around in my head. In the end, the photo I took today that I liked the most was one I took through our kitchen window: a chickadee in flight. I love how the wings look.

I greet you from the un-sunlit lands.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. Psalm 147:16

HOARFROST
A beautiful coat,
Covers graceful limbs and leaves,
Like the breath of God.

Oh, how I love the hoarfrost days of winter!

I’ll probably (but maybe not) delete this in the morning.

Let’s wait a moment and see if Stephen King’s muse shows up (the guy with the cigar that makes magic).

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I don’t see him anywhere. Do you? Of course none of that makes sense if you haven’t read my January 4 blog. In lieu of any sort of magical muse appearing, I’ll give you some random thoughts for the day. After all, I can’t feed you C.S. Lewis quotes all the time – it’s too rich a diet for every day.

‘Twas the third day in a row in which it was snowing while I walked. I quite enjoyed it and almost didn’t mind having my hands freeze while I was taking photos. I ended up back in the cemetery where I am always by myself. It’s like entering a secret vault that no one else knows about. I like it that way. I strolled along having happy snow thoughts and wished for a squirrel to come pose for me. My wish did not come true.

As I was nearing home, a man approached me while I was walking with my camera and asked, “Are you a photographer?” It was my husband, teasing me about an earlier post I’d written about delusions of grandeur. I asked if he wanted my autograph. While I was out gallivanting around looking dewey-eyed at all the snow, he was doing the practical business of clearing it from our walkways. We can’t all be dreamers.

Well, I knew there’d be days like this when I decided to write a blog every day. Sometimes there’s just not much to say. Too-da-loo, peeps!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Some quotes to encourage you along the way.

If you’re called to speak light into the darkness, then believe this: the darkness wants to shut you up. Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark

It is our job, it is our ministry, it is the sword we swing in the Kingdom, to remind children that the good guys win, that the stories are true, and that a fool’s hope may be the best kind. Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark

The pure light walks the earth; the darkness, received into the heart of Deity, is there swallowed up. Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned? C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

“In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” JRR Tolkien, Galadriel in The Two Towers

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105

The Lord bless you and keep you, friends.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Many years ago we bought an X-Box Kinect. It was an absolute marvel of technology. We had a lot of fun setting it up, creating our own individual avatars and then watching the avatar do whatever we did. Like all amazing technologies, we only had the barest glimmer of what it took to bring that thing into being and make it work. The next morning, I looked out the window and saw our trees. They left the X-Box way behind. All the scientists and engineers in the world, working their brains into a frenzy, couldn’t make the simplest unit of life – a cell – much less a tree. Time and chance, given a million, trillion, years, couldn’t make any of these:

Admit it once and for all – evolution is silly. The emperor has no clothes!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, but you should continue to think on it.

I’m not sure I should tell you this, but…I spent some time this afternoon stalking a wild chickadee. I’ll get back to that.

I’ve been reading a book by C.S. Lewis called Letters to Malcolm – Chiefly on Prayer. Lewis operates on a different intellectual plane than most of us; certainly, he’s miles above me. I read The Abolition of Man once to my two youngest when they were in 8th and 9th grade. I had to stop after every other paragraph so we could try to grasp what he had written, but it was like trying to catch a wild bird – we always ended up with just feathers in our hands. Was this is the same man who wrote my favorite books: The Chronicles of Narnia, which I have read over and over and over?

I was worried that this book would also be so far out of my reach that I’d just catch glimpses now and again of Lewis flitting about on the highest branches. But this morning I read a paragraph in that book that made me laugh with recognition. Maybe he and I are not so far apart, for he says this about prayer:

Well, let’s now at any rate come clean. Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. When it is over, this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While we are at prayer, but not while we are reading a novel or solving a cross-word puzzle, any trifle is enough to distract us.

Oh yes, Jack and I are in the same room after all – I see him quite clearly, and he definitely sees me.

I was outside for awhile this afternoon, but my walking turned into stalking. I could hear that bird, I could hear quite a few of them way up high. I thought if I stood still silently out in the snow, under the trees and just waited, my waiting would be rewarded. Never mind the cold! Surely, a bird would eventually show itself. I watched and waited. There! Way up high – I see you! I got a photo, a very poor photo, of a little bird body almost indistinguishable from the branches. You shall not see it. After 15 minutes or so, I walked over to the back door, thinking it was time to call it a day. I turned around and there he was. I saw him. He saw me. And then we went our separate ways.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Those of you who follow this blog (a small, but statistically significant group) will have noticed that I frequently throw in some poetry. Although I would hesitate to assign the title “poet” to myself, I have noticed that I often need poetry when I write. I haven’t even traditionally been a big fan of poetry until the last year or so. (As an aside, I want to give a shout out to the podcast “The Daily Poem,” which has helped whet my appetite for different kinds of poetry. There’s only one poem read out loud per day and each podcast is only 7-10 minutes long, Monday through Friday. Check it out!)

Back to the original discussion, some poetry seems inaccessible and I haven’t really had to patience to slog through the obtuse mental meanderings of someone else. Have you ever felt like that? Maybe you’ve felt like that when reading my poetry. 🙂 And yet, when I have need of it, nothing else will do.

Here’s a poem I wrote when I was in my early 20’s. God was calling my name, but I had lots of doubts and questions and since I have always loved writing letters, I decided to write one to Him and sort of have it out, as it were.

Correspondence
Dear Deity
of dubious gender:
Show me your garden
of infinite splendor.
Tell me truly
(between you and me)
is being omnipotent
all it’s cracked up to be?
Give me a sign,
not a bush all aflame,
send me a breeze
that whispers my name.
Or maybe tomorrow
when I open my eyes,
bring me a mood
to match the sunrise.
You see, O Great One,
I don’t lack respect,
but without definition
what can you expect?
I must also confess
I question with despair –
can this nebulous concept
even hear my prayers?
Well, enough of my queries,
but one last request:
to the souls I know,
please give my best.
And if you should happen
to pass through my town,
I hope you’ll come see me
and prove you’re a noun.
Best regards,
Lynn B.

I want it on record that He did, indeed, answer my questions and prove He is a noun. Maybe I’ll write more on that in future blog posts…

Here’s what I saw on my walk today:

I think I scared them away.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Early this morning, I looked out one of our windows and saw the crescent moon.

It’s not a great photo because I had to take it through the glass and the window screen – there are limits to how devoted I am to getting a good shot, especially from the second floor. However, it reminded me of a time in our homeschooling experience many years ago. We were using a science curriculum that was very hands-on called Science the Search. Almost all of the learning was done by observation, not by reading a text about the subject. This particular lesson was on the moon. We were instructed to wait until the first day of the full moon to start and on that evening, we were to take notes on when the moon came out, how high in the sky it was, what it looked like, etc.. And then we were to do the same thing for the whole month. On the first night we went out with our papers on clipboards and made our notes. Check. We went out the second night at the same time and were perplexed to find out that the moon didn’t show up until 45 minutes or so later. And so it went for the rest of the month. Well, it’s certainly understandable that our young children didn’t realize what the moon cycle was all about, but I was shocked that in all my 40+ years of living, I’d never even noticed that the moon rose at a different time each night, going all the way through the 24-hour cycle throughout the month. Eureka! That was a great homeschooling moment for me, although plenty embarrassing. How could I not have known?

The works of the LORD are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them. Psalm 111:2

This amazing world is such a grand testimony to God’s greatness – it’s a shame I don’t always pay attention to what He is saying right outside my windows.

By the way, my great ignorance about the moon is just between you and me. I wouldn’t want too many people to know what an airhead I’ve been.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.