So take your pick, winter or spring, whichever you prefer (as mild as winter has been here this year either way works for me).

And just for fun, in case you didn’t wake up to it this morning:

It all started with a rumor she said. A rumor passed on by her daughter. One of cool water at a picnic on a hot day.

L.L. Barkat begins her latest book on writing, creativity, and raising creative daughters talking of rumors. Talking of frustration. Of ups and downs. Of not living, experiencing enough. Of feeling immensely creative and times of a well run dry.

It is those downs, those dry times, when not knowing where to begin that she finds solace in a Rumor of Water.

And that is what I have found through the years. Comfort can come many times from a rumor, a look, an overheard line of conversation. Sometimes the rumor shows up in a photograph, a painting, a sculpture. Many times the rumor arrives in the midst of silence, in a quiet creeping sliver of light.

Over the course of the next several weeks I invite you to join me in exploring and discussing Barkat’s book and journey down the road of creative discovery and to start the discussion:

What rumors have you encountered?

Art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God.

— Ingmar Bergman (via Dave Griffith @poorerthandead)

The fog is thick this morning. Both outside, creating a colorless, gray morning, and inside our home casting a misty veil among the rooms. One close to us has passed through the veil this past weekend.

My father-in-law left this world after several years of battle. He fought the war with Alzheimer disease, with heart issues and strokes, giving in after almost 87 years. Though not unexpected, the grief and mourning have been going on for sometime now, the moment it happens, the moment the soul leaves the body is still a shock to those left behind.

As I sip the green tea in my Puccini mug from the Met, the steam rises, warms my nose, and fogs my glasses while I consider this death. This is the first death of someone close that my children with have to deal with and I ponder this situation remembering when my own paternal grandmother died when I was ten. How did I react? What did I feel? The only thing that stands out was that we missed going to the Dodgers baseball game that evening.

I wonder how my two will feel when we talk about it this evening. What will go on in a six year old’s mind when she hears that Papa, whom she has known little of, has gone to live with God? What will a grandson, who was the true apple of his Papa’s eye, think when the news is broken to him.

All I can ask for is the grace and wisdom of God that I might have the words that these little ones (and us big ones) need to hear.

As I turn to my right I see out the study window that the fog is beginning to lift. The sun’s rays peek through the shroud to show us that hope and love is still here.

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This post is part of L.L. Barkat’s On, In, and Around Mondays (though the post doesn’t have to be posted on a Monday. You can visit her at Seedlings in Stone to read her posts as well as others participating in On, In, and Around.

morning glory courtesy of nance marie

Resolution
one resolution
at the dawning of the year
quiet listening

photo courtesy of nance marie