Ode to the tempest of weather

****I realize some of you are wondering why I posted twice yesterday. I actually posted once, when I thought my son was just about to take the LSAT, however after he called with his bad frustrating news, I pulled the post, amended it, and reposted it reflecting his troubling news. Therefore the second posting was indeed the more current of the two. All I can do is humbly ask for prayers—that I may provide comfort as well as be comforted in my lack of understanding and frustration as a mother. How to console a grown child when his heart is broken, only for the umpteenth time. . .

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The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour.
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

These shots were taken Thursday evening. It was the first glimpse of color, from what I assumed to be the sun, which we had not seen in truly 7 days—just as it was setting. A tease of what could have been. I don’t mind rain. I don’t mind fog. I don’t mind drizzle. I don’t mind wind (well, that depends on whether it’s a good hair day or not). I don’t mind sleet, I don’t snow. But excess, well that’s another story. Nor am I a fan of the fury of any of the aforementioned weather events.

I worry for the trees–will they be blown over? Will they bend and break under the heavy ice? Will they simply uproot due to the saturated soil? I worry about driving in fog, sleet and rain. I’ve witnessed one too many catastrophes due to wet and / or icy roads.

Lightning and thunder scare the crap out of me. Remember the tree picture I posted a month or so ago? One minute a tree, the next minute a splintered toothpick, along with 5 pictures blown off the walls in the house. Yep, just looove that lighting.

For me, I think that the most troubling aspect of this phenomena known as weather lies with the unseasonableness and unexpectedness of it all. I think that’s what seems to vex me most. Perhaps it is due to the fact that there is an innate connection between our rhythm of life and this living breathing earth of ours. When the cadence is altered, I am altered. My mood shifts from placid and content to agitated, sullen and often as dreary as the day.

I’m not saying that everything should be sun and roses by any means, as I do love a good rainy day. I love that first gentle snow that blankets the earth in pristine silence. I love the anticipation of a summer’s storm. Its presence announced first by the scent of the unmistakable perfume of the earthy rain followed by the distant rumble to thunder which only grows in intensity. I love the change of seasons. The ebb and flow of the weather mirrors my own life’s ebb and flow.

It is however those endless days of grey and gloom— those days of excessive heat sans breeze or heavenly rains, which try my soul to no end. The day in and day outness of it all. Perhaps it is the lack of change, the lack of new that weighs me down with a semiconscious melancholy spirit. To wake each morning, ritually opening the shutters in anticipation of what will lay ahead for the day—only to discover that today is just a reoccurrence of the day before and of the day before that.

And just when it seemed that it would rain forever, that the skies would hide behind the grey heavy clouds, that the heaviness of the air would crush me with it’s weight, suddenly, unexpectedly there is a shift. A parting of the heavens. The light emerges, the winds shift, the mood lifts. There is indeed hope after all.

Here is to the hope of sunnier skies, drier roads, straighter trees, calmer winds, smoother waters, seasonal temperatures. . .here is always to Hope.

Climbing the mountains of our lives

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”
― Edward Whymper

(view of cascade mountains as seen from the rim trail of Crater Lake, Oregon / Julie Cook / 2013)

I had a different post already for today. However last night around midnight it dawned on me that I needed to do something a bit differently. Today our son was to be taking the LSAT. It is the test those students take who wish to pursue a career in Law. It is the admittance requirement to any Law School— a more grown up version of the SAT, just more specific to Law.

It is with a prayerful heart that my thoughts are directed to my son this morning. There is a post waiting to be written about our son, but it simply is not quite the right time. There are, however, many a teacher and or friend who never would or could have imagined that he would ever be here, this day, poised to take this test.

The sad matter here is that he was ready.
And then there was the glitch.

He was diagnosed with a rather profound learning disability in the 1st grade. He did not learn to read until the 3rd grade, after attending a specific school an hour and a half drive from home each day during one long summer when other little boys were out playing ball and swimming. He has battled learning to live with the learning disability, as well as dyslexia and ADD. There are those who never thought he’d finish high school, which he did successfully. Nor those who thought he would get into a college, let alone that he should even try to attend college. But he did.

It has not been easy—on any of us. There was a time in his youthful arrogance that he did not “get” how much he really would need to spend of himself to reach his goals and dreams. Eventually it became quite clear. He rolled up his sleeves, and proceeded to climb the mountain. He is an avid backpacker so the analogy of climbing a mountain is most appropriate for him and this journey.

Upon entering the testing facility this morning to take the test, he was told that his drivers license was considered a passport which would not suffice as a photo ID, that he was to have had an additional photo taped the a piece of paper. ARE YOU KIDDING?! The young lady ahead of him in line had the additional photo but it was not tapped to a piece of paper, they also refused her admittance.

To have spent over a year studying and preparing, only to be refused admittance because he had what he read to be the required photo ID, as we all read the requirements— the language of the instruction stated that if a passport ID was used, an additional photo was required. When did a drivers license become a passport? I am incensed. . .

He is not at the summit obviously just yet, there is a semester and a mini-mester yet to conquer until the long fraught climb of school is partially over. Then there will be another looming mountain beyond the first, more arduous than before. And who is to say that through all of this God may simply have a different plan. But for now, for this day, the climb of the important test of a dream as come to a halt.

I ask for prayers for him, his fiancee, as well as mom and dad. . . I ask for prayers of peace, calm, knowledge–those things that are needed in order to conquer the obstacle of this particular mountain. The ability to accept the current outcome with peace, yet the continued perseverance. Whatever the journey is to be. . .be it the continued pursuit of this mountain or that of a new and different mountain, to make a home on a different peak or not. Either way your prayerful support is most gratefully and humbly welcomed.

Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
Proverbs 24:14