of timber and meadow: December 2011

Kellen and my Thanksgiving Day walk around Cherokee Park

A few weeks ago, during the height of Autumn here in Louisville, a co-worker and I were casually talking about hiking and how much this time of the year causes me to long for the mountains. He told me all about Red River Gorge, a supposedly gorgeous substitute for the North Georgia mountains that I miss so much. Then I told him stories about my mountaineer father and husband, specifically my joy in sharing days at a time with only them and the wilderness. Somehow in this kindred dialogue of nature and creative recreation, I began to notice a completely differing perspective on our dispositions toward beauty. At one point he said, "A falling leaf is only beautiful because it's a falling leaf." Gratefully customers began to fill the shop, anxious for coffee, so I had no opportunity for a response---I don't think I could have withheld a snippety remark.

Later that day I went to Orchard Slope to read and think and so Bailey could get out some energy. The wind was boisterous, sending all the leaves dancing through the sky in a delightful fashion. The sight stirred my heart with joy. I thought about what my friend had said and felt a tinge of sorrow for what he misses. A single falling leaf is intricately and utterly full of the magic of Love in this world. It "speaks bliss" and sings praises to the One who sent it. The essence of Autumn's beauty lay not in it's existence---but in God's presence.

There are moments when something so beautiful catches me, like a brightly ornamented Autumn tree or the early dawn breaking the night sky (not a Twilight reference!), so much so that I desperately wish to physically be apart and plunge into it as Dick Van Dyke jumps into a chalk drawing. But the leaves fall and fade and the dawn drowns out. Moments of utter beauty slip between my fingers and I am usually left with a feeling of disappointment.

But that is not the end!

This ache...this longing...is what the Inklings would call (the day is never wasted when you use a German word) Sehnsucht---which my sister just got as a tatoo (she is so cool). This word describes an insatiable longing, a yearning that is in fact a homesickness for our true home---where there is not a waning of color or an ending of beauty.

I cannot express how much I love the season of Christmas. Mostly I enjoy the attention of Advent....a time of expectation and preparation for, as Lewis would say, deep heaven to fall upon our heads. A season to focus on the fact that Christ has come, as a mortal baby, and is coming again to console our every souls ache and be the "joy of every longing heart". Each falling leaf is beautiful because it whispers of this reality.

Worlds that I have never seen still call to me and haunt my dreams and quiet things still stir belief that you alone are home for me. So I may never see your shores, but such a place exists. (My Epic)

I am so thankful that each day can be lived with joy because of the Hope within me and the Hope awaiting me.

Even still, Come Lord Jesus.

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Finals are over (something I wasn't disappointed about ending...) and we had an unconventional Thanksgiving. Because of our jobs, we couldn't make it home. My sister, Corie, and our daughter, Quinn, made our Thanksgiving very thanks-FULL by the gift of their presence! I made my first Thanksgiving dinner with their help and the years of Gamaw's training.