Workouts, Late Nights and Teaching Teaching Teaching

Today is one of many days lately when I am just thrilled to be alive. I wake up happy. I work hard, happily. I generally fall asleep (tired and) happy.

This isn't every day. Some days I wake up scared of new things. Scared of looking like a fool. Scared of disappointing people. Sad to see treasured features of the life I've known the last five years wrapping up to a soon coming end. Scared of the turns ahead in the future obscuring the landscape to come.

But today I'm thankful to rest in the knowledge that my Jesus is already in that future. Literally. The God that holds me now is already holding me then. If my whole life is about glorifying Him and serving others, I can have no fear of meaninglessness. If he is my deepest joy, then all other joys are blessed but not foundational. To lose them would ache but not destroy. If He is my Light, then I can have no fear of utter darkness: that sort of unknown which saps courage and drains hope. All facts which define my ultimate destiny are already known, embraced and incapable of changing. There is comfort.

So today? I got to lay aside those fears for a time and just live. I got to teach children I have already come to love so deeply. These are my kids. I can't wait to watch them grow up and help them smile and work hard and love each other. And if I can even show a few of them the life changing love of Jesus, it would fulfill my deepest hopes and prayers.

Today I got to hang out with one of my pedagogy mentors and learn how to make pinky and thumb houses and "slidey poles" for development of little bow holds. Today I got to watch a little one play her first notes on a real violin. Today I got to hit the gym with one of my best friends, Faith Lau, and laugh our way through exercises to strengthen our week musician backs and core. Today I got to unexpectedly spend the evening studying and eating tasty food with my favorite man. Today I smiled a lot.

I've got a hunch I'll smile a lot tomorrow too. But if I wake up and find tomorrow to be "one of those days" I've got more than a hunch that I'll also find the same God present in that day. And He will be my Savior in that situation too. And though days will come when I can't form a smile on the outside, I need not truly fear. My hope is secure. And heaven is nearer than even I can hope. May we be faithful and hopeful till that day.

Snapshots of these days...

Braving this week's crazy cold weather :P Negative 30 degree wind chills are not my favorite. 

 One Bow hold at a time...

Time to cook on Sundays

My own faculty mailbox and master key. Feeling official :)

My first bow attempt at pinky and thumb houses. 

Making business cards in studio administration. 

Spending time at my favorite spot in the Midwest with my adopted sisters. 

Free Starbucks from a friend and quality study time. 

Watching Austin read one of my favorite books while I study. 

And Mason Jars salad lunches. With a fork on a pocket knife. It's my version of cool :P 

Hey Brother

Today I got to hang out with my big brother Ben. Talking, shopping, reading, listening to good music and eating (lots of) sushi filled the few hours we had together, and I'm already bummed that it will be another 8 weeks until I see him again. I'll miss seeing this hat striding around a good foot above my head, and even more I'll miss engaging the wonderful mind it keeps warm and laughing with the smile its faded bill shades. 

"Hey Brother" by Avicii has been stuck in my head for a good part of Christmas break. 

Tonight I got all choked up listening to the chorus again...

December 27th - January 1st through the (phone) lens

A Light...

"...in the land where death has cast its shadow, a Light has dawned."

(Matthew 4:16)

As I took my morning walk (after a delicious Christmas breakfast!), I listened to Matthew's account of the Christmas narrative. This of course doesn't last very long so I listened a few chapters on and came to the verse above. It struck me with such joy and poignancy that it brought me to tears. Perhaps this is partly because I and several of my dear friends have felt Death's bitter sting more deeply this year than some other Christmas's. I felt it most sorely last night when my family and I attended the annual Christmas Eve celebration with my Dad's family. This was the first Christmas without my Grandaddy, and it is this time of year that I hold my most precious memories with him. It just wasn't the same without him. 

There was extra country ham left on the platter. There was no Christmas Eve football game rumbling in the background. His chair sat empty half of the night, still situated opposite the blank TV screen. There was no rib-cracking hug in greeting and farewell. I didn't even bother bringing my violin...it was him that I had played for every year since I was 8. No one asked the questions he always leveled at us grandchildren about our grades at college. He would have been proud of the answer this year. He would have been so proud of the job opportunities that are opening up back in Wheaton...a pride he would have shown with a smirk around the left corner of his mouth, a raised eyebrow and a nod. 

I miss him. But it is not merely his absence that stings, is it? It is this whole world - this life itself - over which Death has cast its shadow. As the Scripture says, "the sting of death is sin," and with the first disobedience, Death flung that shadow thick and dark over all creation. Bitterness and pride and lust and self indulgence grow rank and fester beneath our superficial veneers which still display evidence of pre-fallen splendor. It is into this darkness that the Word descended. He took on just such a veneer, with all it's constraints and weights and weaknesses. But instead of cloaking evil, this tattered mantle concealed God himself, the Triune Glory in created flesh, the Equal Son of the Almighty Father, our Emmanuel, the Light of the world. 

My mind is overwhelmed at this image of light. There are so many examples in literature of battles between Light and Darkness. The relief is always immense when Light finally penetrates Darkness. And it always does, for "After night, comes Day!" Darkness is indeed the weaker foe. The absence of a thing cannot wage battle indefinitely against the presence of the real article. With Advent, the Real Article did appear. In the words of Milton: 

And though the shady gloom 

Had given day her room, 

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, 

And hid his head for shame

As his inferior flame

The new-enlightened world no more should need;

He saw a greater Sun appear

Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear. 

The Light has dawned. He has conquered the sting of Death, but he has not yet dealt it the final blow. We have a hope which is stronger than any pleasure and more stable than any earthly security or comfort. And yet the shadows linger, and will continue to cloud and sicken and snare until that final day of Justice when all will be made fully new. That day, our Almighty Judge will mount His throne and say to Death and the shadows of sin, "Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!" And He will be right, and sin will be no more, and the shadows will be gone forever. Until that day, we have the immense privilege of carrying the Light of Christ ever deeper in to those shadows. May we be the Evenstar of Truth and lead, in beauty, many towards the great Light. With Him there there will be no need for any sun, and there He will wipe every tear from our eyes.  

Beloved

"My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come. Arise my beautiful one, and come away." 

 I've been thinking a lot lately about a very familiar but not so universally embraced idea: what it means to be the beloved, the bride of Christ. There are lots of reasons why we need to be careful with these analogies as we apply them to God, but it is an analogy presented by scripture so we are right to consider it. Tell me: when you first started falling in love or when you think of your family hundreds of miles away at home, or when you sorely miss a friend who has passed away - do you not feel an urge to see their face again, to hear their voice - just one more time, to share one more conversation?  Do you not ache to bask in the light of their smile and rest, if only for a moment, in their warm and loyal embrace? 

Maybe all this is too mushy for you. You aren't in love and don't want to be. You've steeled yourself to the realities of death. Home and family are places full of hurt and distrust. At the risk of sounding harsh, I'm realizing that since such things are only whispers of a deeper longing, their absence is sad but not fatal. You may not wish to dance with your beloved. You may not know the deep rest of home. You may not be able to think of a single face you ache to see. But you long for joy. You long to be understood truly and respected deeply. You long for solidity. You long to be a part of something real and bigger than yourself. Or at least these are things that I long for. We long for eternal wonder. We long for perfection. We long for order and adventure and rest - all at once and in infinite quantity. 

So are we willing to encounter the fulfillment of these longings in their daunting Reality? Are we ready to absorb the full weight of the knowledge that such eternal wonder and perfection and power and loyalty and respect and truth and solidity and rest and joy find their source in Christ...and that this God has chosen you as his bride. He made His love to you indisputably clear by laying down his life to purchase your freedom. And he calls to you, "Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away!" Come away and find all that you need and all you truly desire! Are we willing to wait with eager anticipation for this final fulfillment which His love promises? And in the meantime do we seek to know Him better with the exuberance we pursue our earthly loves? Do we wake in the morning saying, "Let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely." Can we declare truthfully, "I sought Him whom my soul loves"? And do we lie down to sleep, evaluating the difficulties of the past day and the responsibilities of the days ahead in light of the reality that "my Beloved is mine and I am His"? Through His grace in us and His righteousness over us, may we learn to be lovers worthy of such a Beloved!

(All Scripture from the English Standard Version, Song of Solomon 2 & 3)  

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Before bed last night I found myself puttering about my study looking for my copy of the Norton Anthology of English Literature. The last author in this volume is John Milton, and included in the collected poems is his "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." The entire poem is wonderful, although I can't say I fully understand it all yet! But here are a few of the lines that I have begun to grasp and which especially struck me: some because of the powerful way in which they capture advent and others simply because they are so beautiful. (If you have the time, stop reading this post now and just go read the whole poem! You can find it here.)

This is the month, and this the happy morn

Wherein the son of Heaven's eternal King 

Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,

Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy sages once did sing, 

That he our deadly forfeit should release, 

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. 

That glorious form, that light unsufferable, 

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty 

Wherewith he wont at heaven's high council-table

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, 

He laid aside; and here with us to be, 

Forsook the courts of everlasting day, 

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. 

                                  **

Only with speeches fair 

She [Nature] woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, 

And on her naked shame, 

Pollute with sinful blame, 

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw, 

Confounded that her Makers eyes 

Should look so near upon her foul deformities. 

                                 **

Such music (as 'tis said) 

Before was never made, 

But when of old the sons of morning sung, [Job 38: 4-7]

While the Creator great 

His constellations set,

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, 

And cast the dark foundations deep, 

And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep. 

                                **

So when the sun in bed, 

Curtained with cloudy red, 

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, 

The flocking shadows pale 

Troop to th' infernal jail; 

Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; 

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. 

Home...at last.

My packing always seems to start with books: I never go on a trip without my bibles and this book. Such a treasury of beauty and truth. 

And I pretty much never go anywhere without a stack of music too. 

Sweet southern sunshine at last. This weather is "simply sublime"

 

Burtons Grill for lunch with my Mum and both brothers - what a real pleasure!!

We split this beauty to finish off the meal. Wow is all I can say

Dinner at home...

Living room mantle dressed for Christmas.

Cookies by candlelight

With a cup of cream tea of course

Mum reading our nightly christmas story. One of my favorite advent traditions.