It’s been spring break for most people. Some went out of town. Some tried to go out of town. Some stayed in town.
Us? Well, just on Saturday and Saturday only, we went to the farm, Mother, Silent Bob, me, John and Joshua. It was, for many reasons, the only day we could gather as a family.
We collected eggs from the coup and Mother made egg salad.
We hung a swing under the porch of the new red barn while two little poodles and one big lab dug their noses into newly made gopher holes.
My tiny, tiny seeds of from last year’s harvested African zinnias, were busy getting a bit bigger in my southern most flower bed, their chloroplasts churning out oxygen as they soaked up the packets of sunlight.
For the first time since we put in the new well, we felt free to water the almond and olive trees and the newly planted garden, and the delicate pink antique rose at the split rail fence sent it’s sweet fragrance all around us as the wind blew strong from the south.
What you might be getting here is that although we didn’t do that much, what we did do on Saturday is forever painted on the walls of my heart. It mingles there, mixing in and mixing with memories from other times and other people I love.
Here is how good the mingling was:
We talked about the bicyclists who are practicing on our road for the MS 150 and reminisced that a junior high Jake rode in that. On an old bike that had no business being part of a bike ride from Houston to Austin. And as sweet as that antique rose’s smell floats across our old farmhouse and just like that rose’s ancestors perfume floated across generations past, the spirit of my Jake and the promise of Heaven floated all around me. We wondered what he would think of these crazy, tiny poodles, who have softened even the hardest heart for that breed in our family. I thought about what he would think of this farm. A friend of mind had told me she would remember my Jake this weekend as people celebrate St. Patricks day with green things, because it was one of his favorites.
There is a reality that goes beyond our understanding in this world, to something somewhere beyond. It’s written in things like the love my sons have for me and me for them, that knowledge certain in my heart, the kind of love that doesn’t end. It’s a knowledge that you can’t prove by experiment.
Here’s what I have to say this fine spring weekend.
1) Take the time to note one thing that you love about someone you love so much that you know sometime from now, you will take it out, examine it, them, your love for them, and it will give you joy like little else.
2) Believe in science. You should. There are wonderful things that science informs us about. But if you are the kind that thinks science is all there is, relax for a moment and let your mind consider, just consider that there are things, real things, that science will never give you the answer to. Science actually never even tries to give you the answer to these things, because we know better.
3) If you believe in Heaven and a Father there who knows what it means to sacrifice, then rejoice in today, St. Pat’s day, the Passover season (which is remarkable) and the coming up Easter Sunday, (which is even more remarkable).
Those three items… well they are guaranteed to give you joy.
Who doesn’t want that?
My John took this photo.
