Friday, March 11, 2011

47 and SUNNY

Sun is in the forecast today. Considering that we haven't seen it for longer than 10-15 minutes during the past week, I'm pretty darn excited. I hope it stays all day. Please stay, Mr. Sun!
There is a bouquet of brightly colored tulips singing spring from our kitchen table, a gift from mom and dad. They're lovely. I've never received flowers in a box before. That's the stuff of movies :)

In follow up to the squirrel story.
It has stopped scratching. Last Mariah hear of it yesterday was whimpering and "crying." Ok, that makes me a little sad. And now it's probably dead which means it will rot which means our room will smell...just lovely.
Yesterday I was telling the story to C and S during snack time. You know, the whole bit...about the scratching and the suspected squirrel and the fear that it might get in. C looked at me with nothing but sincere concern and said "poor squirrel." POOR SQUIRREL?! "C, it keeps us up at night trying to get in. Don't you understand?!" "But Andrea, it's stuck." Sigh. He's right. I think it hit too close to home because Sammy, the squirrel that lives in the tree out back, right where C can spot him and watch him play, is "gone" for the winter. Gone with his whole family.
"Where did Sammy go," I asked. Hardly a pause, "To Africa. Where it's warm." I couldn't even hold back the laugh. "Oh. Africa. That's really far away. Did he go with anyone?" "Yes, his whole family." So there you have it--Sammy is in Africa for awhile. Wish I could join him! For now one of his distant relatives is beginning to rot in our wall. Just great...

Lenten Learnings.
I've been learning about power and allegiance as I think about ways in which I live as if I'm entitled to things. We live our lives with such distracted allegiance, don't we? We struggle to know where to put our trust and where to invest our hope. We search for places of power--power to be (over others) or powers to succumb and surrender to. Ultimately, I think we do want to find something to give our lives to. The slow-dying that we sign up for in life with Christ means a journey to newness. It's a journey of surrendering power and aligning (realigning) our allegiance to the one in whose presence we find ourselves most alive. Lord, reset our twisted perspectives that look for power-plays and hope in harmful allegiances.

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