Wasn’t going to post today. Writer’s block. Or simply too lazy and uninspired. Yet, Spring doesn’t allow you to be uninspired. There’s just too much life starting anew not to embrace it!
And so, a little blessing I found. I think it’s Gaelic and I cannot credit it adequately, but I hope it makes you smile. Until we meet again:
May there always be work for your hands to do. May your purse always hold a coin or two. May the sun always shine upon your window pane. May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain. May the hand of a friend always be near to you and May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
(traditional blessing)
Faithandworship.com
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This was the display at the front of our new church on Sunday. Simple. Rustic. Country. And I love it! ‘Tis the season of change in Ontario and it’s never more evident than in the heart of farm country! Our neighbours have started harvesting the soy bean field behind us and we have seen several large green farm vehicles in various fields around. We are still learning about what goes on and will probably never fully understand it all, but we hear that the dust is about to start flying and the roar of tractors and diesel engines will likely be heard for the next several weeks. Months, apparently, if you harvest cow corn for winter. It’s not dry and ready until December we’ve been told – if you want to “silo” it.
The sun sets so early now. Yet the colours are absolutely spectacular! Vibrant pink hues against the golden fields and touches of auburn yellow and orange forests mix with the still green rolling hills of our pathway home. Tonite, as we walked the dog, I marvelled at a vine so crimson, it looked almost dyed. Dipped in some cherry stain – rich and fermented. Like a well aged wine.
Of course, fall fair season has begun. That’s when your sense of smell takes over from sight. Fried donuts and funnel cakes. Cinnamon and cloves in the baked goods. Apple pies. Pumpkins and root vegetables. Rich coffee with cream that warms your insides. Now that I have my own barn and have been to the feed lot, I have learned that hay and straw actually has a very sweet smell. Again, slightly fermented. Okay, I suppose you have to include that sharp ammonia smell of urine and manure, since we are musing about the whole gamut of the senses. Let’s pretend we worked hard to muck out the stalls and only fresh, sweet straw is left okay?
My husband is thankful the mosquitoes have disappeared. My garden spider is gone. A few fuzzy caterpillars still cross my path now and then and the squirrels and chipmunks are busier than ever. In the heat of the mid day the wasps still swarm my porch and this weekend the lady bug invasion began. Hundreds of biting beetles snuck in through the cracks and hovered at my front door. Yuk. We vacuumed them up into oblivion.
Via houseofhawthorns.com
I marvel and muse at this time of year because nature simply cannot help but display the majesty of a master artist. If you live in a place that seldom changes with the seasons, I pity you because God’s creation is so diverse, it’s a shame that the entire world doesn’t get to see what we do in Canada. I hope you can love it through my words.
There truly is a season for everything and a time for every activity under Heaven. A unique design for beauty in, essentially, preparation for death. I am trying to prepare myself for winter. It’s an inevitablereality. And like death, it will come all to quickly. Country people prepare for winter. Wood is cut and piled. Chains and winter tires. We need a snowblower. My new bunnies need to be protected from the wind. I wonder if we prepare for death as much as we do winter? That’s a dark reality for thought at another time. Let’s go back to donuts and funnel cakes, shall we?
Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up. We will be celebrating here at the farmhouse and my porch display is lacking. I’m trying to up my decorating game – even found a box labelled “fall” with goodies in it for use. I’m gonna try. I just can’t help but celebrate the beauty it represents! Yet, I am reminded that it goes so much deeper than orange hues and pumpkins – it points to the One who set science ablaze with seasonal changes and a fully functional world based on lifecycles and minute cellular workings that cause food chains to explode with sights, sounds, smells and tastes!
We truly have much to be thankful for. Be blessed, my friends, for there is a supernatural Creator who decorated for fall just for us!
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I wore jeans this week. Real, official blue jeans with a button and zippered fly. Am I wrong, or has 2020 just killed off any likelihood of people wearing real pants again? We work and play from home via Zoom and we only see the top halves of people anymore, am I right? Not that I was much of a fashionista before the national pandemic. If I really wanted to dress up I put a little lip gloss on… and a special, special occasion warranted a dollop of mascara. I’m quite the plain jane when it comes to make-up.
photo Unsplash
Nonetheless, I do love a good make up tutorial video. It fascinates me what true artists can do with powder and gels! Blending, contour, sparkle. My social medias force me to dabble in the unknown and I am drawn in for fake eyelashes … even the odd drag queen makes me marvel. It truly is art. Especially at this time of year. Whatever you think about halloween or drag, one must agree that painted faces can be cool to look at. Which had me musing…
Who comes up with these things?! Have you seen the latest “trend” of using glue as a fashion accessory? Truly! Superglue on upper lips for that “pumped up look” and a kid’s glue stick for eyebrows! You know that purple glue stick we all used in kindergarten to paste our fall leaves on paper? Apparently it works wonders on the finer points of eyebrow definition… or making them disappear in the case of cover up Halloween displays. Seriously. Dollar store glue sticks. Fascinating.
Interestingly enough, the Bible chats often of beauty and fashion. Frequently referring to vanity and being cautious not to let beauty become “a hindrance”, shall we say. Yet, I read anew some passages in Esther this week and it struck me just how serious our biblical sisters took to such things as beauty — and all the pomp and circumstance that comes with. Let’s read Esther’s first few introductions to her life at the palace:
12 Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. 13 And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. 14 In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name.
Esther 2:12-14
Perhaps I’m reading too much into the story and missing the point of God’s plan for Esther to save her people, but verses are included in the Bible for a reason, right?! Look again. A full year of spa days! Six months of oil drenched massages. I get it. Girl, I’m sure living in the desert does a number on your skin…cracked heels and parched lips. Apparently oils like myrrh and olive were mixed with fragrant fruits and left to sit in the sun until they had infused into “essential oils”. Anyone heard of those today?! Yup, another beauty trend toting wellness and health benefits.
photo by chelsea shapouri
I recently visited a friend’s bathroom and was a little taken aback by the sheer amount of soaps, creams and lotions she had in there! I’m sure many of you can attest to trying out this or that only to find you need another this or that to work with the first one. I’m lucky in that beauty products are not my weakness. (Now pretty paper on the other hand… but we are not talking about that!) Some of you, I know, have drawers of the stuff… half used lipsticks and cakes of powders. It was on sale. Perhaps you are searching for the fountain of youth and are willing to try anything new to cover up the latest wrinkle. No worries. Embrace the lines! We all have our flaws. Yet, I can’t help but wonder … was Esther’s beauty queen status all for not? Obviously King Xerxes thought she was pretty hot. He picked her out from all those other supermodels.
Alas, my friends, I’m not sure I’m ready to raid the piggy bank just yet and go crazy buying pallets from Sephora, or infusing every room in the house with Thieves and cardamom, but it is an interesting thought. Can God use beauty to weave the web of His grand plan? Should we embrace it? Or is it all a worldly ploy? The verdict is out on this one … but I think I may pull out the lipgloss next week, just for fun.
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