Tag: already but not yet

My Soul’s Sap Quivers

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pinkrain3

pinkrain4

 

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?
~T.S. Eliot in the beginning of “Little Gidding” from the Four Quartets

 

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In the eternal “already, but not yet”
my soul struggles to find its footing.
I can feel suspended in ice,
immobile and numb.
I wait impatiently
for the thaw,
caught between freezing and melting,
my soul’s sap smells the spring.
It isn’t summer yet, but I quiver,
anticipating a bloom that does not fade.
It may not be for a long time,
but I know it is coming.

 

pinkrain2

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Buttered Toast Speaks

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toast

The smell of that buttered toast simply spoke to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.
~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

josecat

Longing for Longing

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“It was when I was happiest that I longed most…
The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…
to find the place where all the beauty came from.”
~C.S. Lewis

Like children who long for Christmas,
anticipating for weeks
what that moment will be like
when they see gifts piled high under the tree–

we revel in our longing.

It is the sweetness
of “already but not yet”,
knowing with eager expectancy
there is more to come,
just a bit out of reach
but still intensely seen and felt,
something more wonderful,
a place more beautiful than we can ever imagine…

August Rain

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“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.” — Sylvia Plath
Just past mid-August and the leaves are already showing hints of summer fatigue, curling and yellowing around the edges. Photosynthesis has become a repetitive chore.

Like them, there is only so much sun I can absorb before I say, “Enough!” and beg for clouds and drizzle. Dig a little and my roots cry out for a drenching downpour.

I fear the best has passed me by and I wasn’t paying enough attention to know. It is an already-but-not-yet limbo of anticipating autumn’s descent into dying when I fervently hope I’m still very much alive.

This is an odd and uneven time of recognizing what is to come so I must slowly loosen my grip on what has been.

The time to let go is coming.

Just not quite yet.

There’s work to do, chores to wrap up.

Then not yet may come, drenching my roots.  I’ll be ready.

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Photos by Josh ScholtenCascade Compass

Lenten Reflection–Just the End of the Beginning

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“What God began, God will not abandon. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. God loves everyone, sings the psalmist. What God has named will live forever, Alleluia!
The happy ending has never been easy to believe in. After the Crucifixion the defeated little band of disciples had no hope, no expectation of Resurrection. Everything they believed in had died on the cross with Jesus. The world was right, and they had been wrong. Even when the women told the disciples that Jesus had left the stone-sealed tomb, the disciples found it nearly impossible to believe that it was not all over.
The truth was, it was just beginning.”
Madeleine L’Engle

The Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday always feels like a “already but not yet” kind of day, as if we are between sleep and waking, in weary vigil.  We aren’t celebrating “happily ever after” quite yet.  Actually every day should feel like this day, as that is where we live: we know the extent of sacrifice made, the overwhelming debt paid, but the full completion of His new covenant, His new kingdom is yet to be realized.   We wait, and will wait some more, unsure what comes next.

But one thing is clear.  Burial in the tomb was not the end.  Not even close.

To borrow from Winston Churchill out of context:

“Now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

David Phelps’ The End of the Beginning

Already But Not Yet

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springsunsetcolor(written originally in 2006)
The first full day of spring broke bright, sunny and full of promise.  After a hectic day at work, I turned to my barn chores, rushing to bring the horses in to the barn as the sunset began coloring everything on the farm.  I wanted to take a picture of the paint-streaked sky, but the sun’s descent was faster than I.  By the time I grabbed the camera and headed to the hillside to take photos of the red flushed woods to the east, the amber hue was barely visible as a cloak of gray dusk settled over everything.   I took photos in that mere light and when I loaded them on the computer there reappeared the light I’d lost outside.  Though grainy from the darkness, the red was vibrant and visible after all.  The sun had already set, but not quite yet.

It was an “already but not yet” kind of week.  Spring has already arrived if one looks at the calendar.  Yet there are not the typical signs of full-fledged spring.  The frogs have not begun to chorus at night, the orchard buds are staying stubbornly small, the tulip blossoms are staying tight and green, the grass is only beginning to show growth, the snow is still low in the hills.   So there is a “not yet” feel to spring. We continue to wait, hopeful.

One of our mares seemed “all ready” to deliver her foal last week when we needed to be away for the farm for a couple days, so a “horse sitter” came and stayed until we returned, and but the foal arrival time was “not yet”, so it was an exceedingly boring mare watch for her.

My 85 year old mother spent the week in the hospital after suffering a small stroke which affected her balance and coordination.  Though not a major setback for her physically, it was a blow to her confidence and makes her feel vulnerable to future strokes, which may be worse next time.  She knows, after a long healthy life, she should be “all ready” for the day the Lord takes her home, but it is “not yet” her time.

I am already in the midst of my own life transition with plummeting hormonal levels in my 50s as my teenage daughter’s peak.  I’m most definitely in the proverbial middle of the generational sandwich–whether I’m the meat, the cheese or a condiment is not clear to me. What I do know is that I’m not yet done with this very challenging and compressed part of my life.

Already but not yet.  There is tension in knowing that something profound is happening–a vanishing sunset, a vernal equinox, a life change or transition, but the transformation is not yet complete, and I’m not sure when it will be. I am still unfinished business.

In a few weeks I will be reminded of what is yet to come. I will know the shock of the empty tomb. My heart will burn within me as more is revealed, through the simple act of bread breaking.

It is finished on my behalf.

I’m all ready.