Peace and Thank You

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12 (NIV)

A busy couple of days going from tile stores to cabinet makers while Vicki chooses the fabric of her new life in North Carolina. It has been fun helping to spend someone else’s money particularly someone who loves color and is so imaginative in how they go together. With a wintry kitchen and living room full of blue, grey, tan and lilac Smokey Mountains, a spring like iridescent green master bathroom and an autumn guest bath of copper and orange, the house will reflect its setting and the surrounding natural beauty. While I have enjoyed discussing colors, textures and materials, the best part of the day for me came about noon while Vicki and her contractor discussed heating and air conditioning and window placement. I bundled up in my leather jacket, felt hat and scarf and gloves and went outside. Under a bright blue sky, I walked around in the snow which is still quite deep. Her property slopes down to a flat meadow where I could smell the scent of evergreen while I sat on a large rock and enjoyed the sunshine. I heard a small creek rushing and bubbling along one side of the property. Swollen with the melting snow, it raced downhill past dried Queen’s Anne’s Lace left from fall and green spikes of crocus or daffodils. I walked some more discovering fallen limbs dusted with snow and lichens, a pile of firewood covered in white and two antique bed frames standing alone where a garden will one day grow. I slipped a few times as I retraced my steps back to the rock stairway and up to the back deck. I settled into a swing facing the mountains. The air was so clear I could see all the way to Mount Pisgah. Despite the chill and the snow around my feet, the wind was almost balmy with a touch of spring. That must have been what the trees felt as they pushed new growth from their tips. I closed my eyes and listened to the music of the breeze punctuated by the rhythm of woodpeckers. I sat there for more than an hour almost dozing. So relaxed I could not even lift my arm to brush the hair from my eyes. With my mind lulled by the day, all I could think of was “Thank you.” Thank you for the beauty, for the peace, for the calm. It seems so little in comparison with the gift I was given today and the gift I am given every day though life often prevents me from seeing it. Later when I shared with Vicki the emotion of the moment, she told me about the poem that she and Rich quoted at their wedding. It expressed exactly how I felt today. Written by e.e. cummings, it says:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Thanks, e.e. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Except to add “Amen”.