Spring in Texas

When I stepped outside to feed Moses and Zipporah this morning, I discovered it was already warm. My days of walking the dogs whenever I feel like it are disappearing once again. Soon it will be too hot for such an adventure unless we go soon after breakfast. I will miss being able to walk whenever I feel like it. The air this morning was pregnant with the promise of new life. I heard a lawn mower going at a neighbor's house. Only a few have any grass at present, but I could smell the new mown grass. The mocking birds were challenging each other in the trees at one house and other birds seemed suddenly to be all around me. Soon, the trees out back will begin to leaf out again, and we will lose the view of the small lake in the distance. Each year, my husband says he plans on chopping down some of the trees that block the view in the summer, but as the windows along the back face west and the afternoon sun, I am content to have a winter view and a summer view that shades us from the worst of the Texas heat. One thing I have learned in thirty years of living here is to look for spring and savor it when it comes. Blink, and I will miss it's swift passage. All too soon the sun will be blazing each day, and I will be complaining about the 100 degree heat of the Texas summer. But for now, I am grateful for the spring breeze and the birdsong and the scent of fresh mown grass as the earth wakes from its slumber and all seems possible in the spring sunshine.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue

In the company of poets

I am home again and missing the music of the beautiful language I heard this weekend among the poets and other writers at an annual writers' festival I have attended for five years. It is always a blessing to be among people who see life honestly and with the wonder and innocence I so value in children. Too many of us seem to lose that ability when we become adults. But good poets see the world through different lenses. The really good ones are able to share that vision with the rest of us. I find I see God's world with fresh eyes myself after being among these good friends again, and I am enabled to return to my own writing efforts renewed and reminded of the importance of this work to which God has called me. So thanks, Anne and Alan and Brady and Chris. And Paul, who came to teach us.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue

Contrite and Humble

I read in the book of Isaiah this morning that God, who is high and Holy, inhabits eternity and yet dwells with "those who are contrite and humble in spirit." Isaiah 57:15. The point of dwelling with the contrite and humble is to revive their hearts and spirits. I work at being contrite and try to be humble, but I'm not sure how well I do at either of those tasks most of the time. I have spent the last week in the company of pastors and other theologians, some old friends and some new ones. I am feeling generally contrite at present, for I have realized how much I have pushed God aside in the business of my life and then wondered why I was feeling burnt out and soul weary. I guess I am also feeling more humble as God has reminded me yet again that I cannot do it all myself, by myself, and more importantly that I do not have to. How often I have learned and forgotten that lesson. So I am trying once again to remind myself that I need God in daily doses to keep my soul happy and healthy and that I am not nearly as important as my frenetic activity would lead me to believe. Except to God and to those who know and love me for who I am, not for what I do. For that I am most grateful.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue