by Christie Purifoy | Mar 13, 2013 | Family, God's promises, motherhood, Pregnancy, Seasons, Spring, Uncategorized, Winter
I spent most of Saturday outside. It looked nothing like spring, but I could feel it. By afternoon we had taken off our jackets and were warming ourselves with shovels and gardening gloves.
The firstborn and I cleared away some of the invasive (but gorgeous) vine that blankets the edge of our property.
Do you remember, I asked her, what the porcelain berries look like? Do you remember that china blue?
They looked fake, she says.
Which is true. And telling. The most beautiful things look unreal to us. Maybe they are a part of some other reality. Maybe we are too, for that matter.
The dead vines were papery and grey in our hands, but when I ripped one open we could see a shocking, acid green.
They only look dead, my daughter said with round eyes.
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We are in those last days of winter. Those days when the cold has moved deep into my bones, and I no longer believe in spring.
I mean this quite literally. Three days ago I had myself convinced that the bleached yellow shade of our lawn was a sign it would never turn green. We killed it, I thought. Too many weeds, too many autumn leaves, and we killed it.
Today, I noticed a spotty green haze. Just here and there. And I remembered: I have seen resurrection. There is such a thing.
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Six months ago, we named our daughter Elsa Spring. Soon – very soon – she will see her first spring. There are no words for all I feel about that.
Born in late summer, we named her Spring. Our last baby, our second daughter, she is yet everything new to us.
Before she was ever conceived “My beloved spoke and said to me, ‘Arise my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come …” (Song of Songs 2: 10-12).
For a hundred and one foolish reasons I had not allowed myself to want another child, but I knew what those words meant. I bought a tiny, pink sweater, and I hid it in my dresser drawer.
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Sometimes winter fools us. We are taken in by the surface of things, and death seems total and irreversible.
The truth is, we aren’t waiting for resurrection. We are living it.
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“On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem … in summer and in winter.”
Zechariah 14:8
by Christie Purifoy | Feb 28, 2012 | Florida, God's Love, Lent, Seasons, Waiting
I live in Florida, but my inner calendar has been tuned by the north. In other words, no matter what I see outside my window, January means cold and snow and spring never shows up until after Easter. I suppose ten years living in Chicago did this, although I think it may go back even farther.
Growing up in Texas, I felt cheated by February heatwaves. I have always had an idealized version of the seasons; one more rooted in classic literature for children than in lived experience. Late winter meant sugar snow because I read Little House in the Big Woods no matter that late winter in Texas looks like fields full of bluebonnets.
In Chicago, Lent was appropriately dark, cold, and gray. A fitting backdrop for contemplating dust to dust. The right atmosphere for remembering the cross.
Last year, Lent in Florida surprised me with its very different rightness. The hot pink azaleas and vivid blue skies could not be reconciled with the grey smudges on our foreheads. They simply could not. But I decided that this was best. To practice Lent in such a place is to say, “I will not be distracted by youth or beauty. I will remember that death is ever present. I will not be seduced by sunshine and forget to pick up my cross.” How can we truly celebrate the resurrection power of God’s kingdom if we’ve forgotten how and why Jesus suffered?
Last year, I determined always to make an effort for Lent. It was necessary whether the fruit trees were blooming or not.
This year, I didn’t even make it to my church’s Ash Wednesday service. I was too tired. Too sick. Which says it all, I’m afraid, about the past few months of my life.
I thought about making an effort in some other way. What would I give up? Could I read through a special book of devotions? Make some goal for prayer or good works?
If only I weren’t so tired. If only my asthma would go away. If only I didn’t already feel crushed and weak. If only I didn’t already feel like dust, I might be able to make some effort to remember that I am dust.
Of course, If I had phrased it to myself just like that I might have realized sooner how foolish, how hopelessly circular my thinking had become.
Now I know that if Lent is about making some effort then the end result must always be gratitude that I need never make that effort.
With no effort on my part, I am loved.
With no effort on my part, I am redeemed.
Having made no choice, I might be led through a wintery, Lenten wilderness. Whether my calendar says it’s time for that or not.
Having done little but wait and rest, I will be led out again.
That in itself, I’ve learned, is a kind of discipline. God did tell his children, “It is a day of Sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves” (Leviticus 23:32). Would he have put it like that if rest came easily and naturally?
What, then, is my Lenten discipline for 2012? Merely to rest in the shadow of the cross. And wait.
