Tag Archives: learning

Trapped

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I want you to imagine you’re me for a moment. It’s early morning before work. The sun is up, but not quite fully awake, much like your own brain at this hour of the day. It’s time to do morning “farm chores”. Bunny basket is loaded with fresh veggies and fresh water, snacks for the chickens are there too. You’ve made your way through the barn in the dark and loaded up on pellets for the rabbits. Gathering up your stuff, and squeaking in your wet Crocs, you head for the side doorway… there’s no real door, just a passage under the old beams. Just before you make it to the dew laden grass, it smacks you square in the face: a sticky spider web!

If you’re like me, you recoil back, and in disgust, pull the dusty string from your eyelashes and hair, hoping it didn’t get in your mouth or contain its creepy maker, who may be halfway down your t-shirt by now. Now, I don’t have a problem with spiders. They are welcomed here as mosquito eaters and horse fly catchers. They don’t freak me out, in fact, I find the arachnids quite fascinating. You’ll recall how enamoured I was with our garden spider last year (read about it here). Spiders are cool, and neat to watch, but the webs in the barn are strong, sticky and huge! And when you don’t see them and get an eye-full, it is just a little bit unnerving!

In terms of strength to density ratio, a spider silk is 5x stronger than steel. So, although I am able to peel the sticky stuff off my face, the ingenuity of the creature and its trap is surely one for the books. So, let’s muse for a bit. Which side of the web do we wish to be on? Morticia Addams, of the iconic Addams family, once said, “What is normal for the spider, is chaos for the fly.” Perspective is everything. Let’s face it, no one likes to be trapped. Especially if your trapped in something 5x stronger than steel and beady little eyes are staring you down with lunch in mind. Alas, people aren’t often targeted for lunch… but we certainly feel trapped from time to time.

Perhaps it’s a job you hate. Maybe it’s a trying relationship, or a financial struggle you just can’t seem to pull yourself out of. Many suffer from ailments and are in constant pain. It’s hard to help when someone you love is struggling with health or mental illness. Depression can be just as real as broken bones. It’s everywhere. People are so trapped in darkness, that we so often just give up and allow ourselves to be wrapped in the “death cocoon” waiting to be devoured completely. Like the fly, we are stung and paralysed by our own circumstances, rendering ourselves incapable of getting free.

If you’re there, my friend, I encourage you to seek help. We need each other to pull us out of the muck and mire. Call a friend or find guidance in a program or your local church. God is so much bigger than any situation we face, but He uses people to do His good work. Sometimes seeking help is hard though, too. I don’t like to share with others or ask them to pray for me. It’s being vulnerable, and I have to “think it through”, removed from my emotions, to get there. That’s why relationships are worth the effort. It makes the asking easier. Did you know that if a bee gets tangled in a web and returns to her hive, the other bees will surround her and peel the sticky bee free until she is able to spread her wings again? What a picture of what our churches should be like!

And so, we come to another week of pondering life’s little mysteries. As usual, I have little answers to share, but thoughts nonetheless. I try and learn the lessons presented to me as they come, even when it’s being trapped in dusty, icky spider webs in an early morning barn! Welcome to the journey, my beloved. See you again next week!

The Expert Master Gardener: A Reflection on Life and Lavender

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Welcome back to another week of Livin’ the Dream! It’s been a full week of activity… the hubby and I celebrated another wedding anniversary year of not killing each other, and we hosted our friends for a grand gathering and Bar-B-Que at Itsnotta Farm. One of our kids moved into a new place today, and we found a fabulous little nook off the lake to watch sunsets together (aren’t we romantic?) All around, a good time.

On with the muse for this week, though… enough about me. At said Bar-B-Que, I was touring around a friend and showing off my albeit colourful, but disaster of a flower garden. I have a variety of flowers there, but the goldenrod (aka giant ragweed) is about to take over and give my daughter-in-law a severe case of the sneezes. As the friend and I chatted about this and that that I would like to do in the garden, what I want to swap out, what I love etc. etc. it occurred to me how much I really do recognize in the flower world. I know quite a few plants by name and how tall they get, and where they like to be, and when they are in their prime. I’m not sure how I acquired such knowledge over the years… but it’s somewhere in there rattling around in my brain. Huh! I was impressed with even myself.

One of the many varieties of lavender!

Now, I will openly admit, I am certainly not a horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination. I dabble and dig and hope for the best. I know some common plant names, and googled a few, but certainly don’t know the Latin derivatives nor all their uses. I’m learning though. For our anniversary, the hubby and I visited a working lavender farm for a relaxing afternoon. I love lavender, and it’s been on my list for awhile… even though lavender is not in season at the moment, it was fun to walk through the bee loving “bushes”. Did you know there were several varieties of lavender? Buena vista, lavandin, and edelweiss (a white one!) and 450 some odd other varieties! Of lavender alone, people…

Let’s look back at my golden rod mess… golden rod is a “wild flower” … to me, a weed. Along with cosmos, daisies, buttercups and I’m sure you can name a few others. Tiger lilies are also weeds for me… you can’t kill those things! I found out that one of my favourite wild blue flowers (which grows along the road side but never will transplant to my spaces!) is actually a chicory… like the coffee substitute. A lesson I just learned this week. Now just start to let your mind wander a bit to add flowers to your list from mine. What do you know? Roses. Tropical plants, grasses… it goes on and on. And there is a name for every one! I am sure all the gardening books couldn’t put a dent in the list. Let alone the gardener get it all right.

Oh my beloved, do you see the comparison here? Our Master gardener knows not only every tree, flower and blade of grass, but He knows YOU! Every hair on your head, every wrinkle and every scar. He knows your name and why you are here. And He knows all of us. From the beginning of time to the end – God knows us all! I cannot begin to imagine. I have trouble enough keeping my own kids and pets straight… not to mention cousins and extended relatives. Yet, God knows every minute detail about you and me… and cares about it! Like an expert, He tends the hearts of each of us, like a flower farmer tends his rows of lavender. He knows the conditions necessary for us to flourish, and the things that choke us out and cause us not to flower and bloom where we are planted.

I don’t know about you, but this is so encouraging to me. God’s got this. He knows me better than I know myself! Which can be a little frightening, I suppose. Yet, the awesomeness of it, seems to outweigh the fear for me. A deep muse which I don’t understand, but captivates me nonetheless.

So, next time you drive by a field of wildflowers, or pull those “weeds” from your flowerbed, be reminded that there is a Master gardener, who’s got it all figured out!

The Importance of Rest: Finding Time to Pause and Reflect

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Ever feel like you need a vacation from a vacation? I wonder why we feel like that. It seems as though we are in prime season for vacations, and everyone is off doing this or that for “holidays” … but no one seems to have really had a time of “rest”. We plan and organize and fill our days with activities – which – don’t get me wrong – are all fun things to do – but it seems like often the time off seems like time on. Take our weekend for example, we visited family and friends and worked on the farm, did house chores, animal chores, church etc. etc. and then boom! we were back at work again! Where did the down time come in to effect? I am sad to say that I didn’t carve out that time to chill with just me and God and our thoughts for each other. I had a great weekend… just not a restful one.

Rest seems to be an elusive creature, doesn’t it? Even when our kids were small, we made sure they were active and involved in extra curricular sports and clubs, so that they enjoyed their time. Now, as they are older, we’ve shipped them off to summer jobs to work their summer holidays away. Yet, I find myself wondering if what we really need is time to do “nothing”. Not scrolling on our phones, not napping, not reading, but simply breathing. Still. Listening to the world around us and watching it go by. Waiting to hear God’s still, soft voice in the wind, echoing into our hearts, which only when we rest are attuned to His voice. It’s tough to do. Our minds and bodies are so busy.

Psalm 37 says “be still before the Lord”. How many times do we do this? What does it mean? A few verses before remind us to “delight in the Lord” and “dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture”. Moving to the country has allowed me to witness this. Cows and chickens “dwell in safe pasture” easily. They sit. They stare at the world going by them with little worry. (Have you ever watched a cow’s face when you drive by? They watch you as if to say, “slow down and enjoy the ride, you silly human!”) They chew some grass, they peck at some bugs, wander down field or up a hill. They enjoy a good drink when it’s hot. They “rest” without stress. They take the time to just “dwell” in the land. People seldom do.

We are so hurried. We need to get stuff done. We flit from job to job like busy bees upon a field of wildflowers. Even when we are on vacation. Have you ever looked at a mini van packed for a road trip? Or sat in an airport and watched people prepare for a flight? Passports, paperwork, lists and suitcases chocked full of things to do and an outfit for every activity. And I don’t have all the answers… my suitcase is just as full as yours. I simply muse at the fact that we are asked and reminded to “rest” … and we don’t. Until we, sometimes, are forced to.

Burn outs are real and common place in our day and age. Stress related illnesses and all kinds of ailments are the result of not taking a moment to breathe. We were not meant to be the energizer bunny. Eventually, our batteries give out and we come to a grinding halt. God designed us that way. We are meant to rest. Our physical and mental (and spiritual!) bodies need to reset and recoup. It’s in this time of rest that we fill up our own cups so that we can spill out and fill other people’s buckets up.

Therefore, as we muse about this thing called rest together, I will try remind myself to pause and reflect once and awhile, as I write to encourage you to do the same. Even when we embark on the remainder of the summer season with all it’s leisure activities – remember to pencil in some time for “nothing” but rest.

A Day off to Rest!