Poems, Prayers and Promises

The warm rays of light from the lamp that stood next to me in the living room seemed to welcome the tiny crystals that blew past the picture window looking out over the forest below. The cold flakes of snow seemed to encircle the house, providing a protective barrier against the cold dreary weather beyond. I sat in my old overstuffed rocking chair, covered in a flannel sheet, and sipped thoughtfully on a cup of fresh, warm, coffee. My gaze was help captive by this dance of an unlikely pair, the warm glow with the cold flakes that were falling the last few feet of their great decent from above. A chilly view beyond the curtain of white was just becoming clear as the first light of the day whispered softly through the clouds hanging above. What was revealed resembled the interior of an ice box, and contrasted sharply yet tantalizingly with the snug room I could feel around me, with the supple carpet that my toes now sought refuge in. This winter spectacle so common yet so beautiful may have been what held my gaze, but if you followed my gaze back into my mind you could see that the thoughts that played within were not warm like the light, not cold like the snow. Rather my thoughts were held captive by an object that stood right in the window between the two. A little Canadian Pine that held out it’s branches as if to hold the warmth in, and the bitter weather out. Memories of the 21 winters I have seen are brought to mind by this tree that has come to symbolize the onset of winter and home. I reflected on each winter that seemed as a dramatic pause in an otherwise lively melody; markers of progress characterized by hope for the next verse. I looked at the last puddle of coffee in my cup that had now been allowed to cool in my absent mindedness and began to remember the list of things I had to do that day. They came back to me like a nagging task master, rudely directing my actions with no regard to what I desired. With an air of finality, I closed my eyes and downed the last bitter swallow of coffee. When I opened my eyes, gone were the warm glow, gone was the dance of contrast between the glow and the snow; the sun was now shinning through the overcast with a deepening voice and had erased the battle lines drawn between the light room and the dark world outside. Everything was now coated with a layer of dull gray. The day had begun.

Interesting. I sit down to write on something meaningful and I never get past the introduction. I was just trying to write an “attention getting” intro, or “zapper” as one of the teachers I had used to call it, to a paper, er, post in which I was going talk about….. well it honestly doesn’t matter now. I have just skimmed the cream off the milk of my thoughts with the passage above, and it’s much more romantic if I leave it at that and don’t spoil it by making a point. Rather look at the theme of it, and there really is some depth to it. Romance is all the more exhilarating when there is depth to it. It seems to hint, among other things, that maybe what’s important is not the past or present interpretation of “the tree” but rather the life that I live apart from the tree. If I am so focused on the glory outside the window, God, and my heart is bent around his will then “the tree” will play but a small part in my life and, in fact, it will complement and lend itself to glorifying “the view” (um yeah. “the view”= God if you didn’t catch it). I have said more than I meant to, but I will also note for curiosity sake that there are some other unrelated ideas, thought about my future, and a hint to the password on my computer all contained in that pile of junk above. Mwa ha ha ha. Don’t think about it too long it’s really not worth it.