Prairie Lily Arts

Love Is... Patient

 
The potter's masterful hands cast the clay upon the wheel.  He labors gently. He lingers in the moment.  Haste does not provoke him to pluck the work after but a few turns. He tenderly molds, shapes... encouraging the work to take form.

Once again I see the same words come before me in different variations from different angles but the same words nonetheless.  I've learned to listen.

"Love is patient." I Corinthians 13:4

Yet we hear, "Always leave them wanting more."  The world teaches us in both our professional and personal lives to leave people wanting more. Draw them in.  Partially fill them. But leave them thirsting a bit.  Leave them wondering a bit.  And in many of our relationships this practice seems successful, at least superficially, because we covet what we can't have... because the hunt is exhilarating.  Are we afraid that if we fill their needs that they won't return?

Review Day At the Village: The Well-Versed Family

Happy Tuesday means Happy Review/Giveaway Day at The Homeschool Village!  Join me in taking a look at Caroline Boykin's The Well-Versed Family.  Share your family's focal verse below the review post to enter to win a copy for your home.

Our verse? I Corinthians 13:13.  "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love."  Love.  It's what John 3:16 is about. Colossians 3:23. Deuteronomy 6. Psalm 103:12. Proverbs 31.  Old Testament. New Testament.  It's what it's all about... unconditional, incomprehensible love.

See you at the Village,

Susan

Winter's Last

 

 
What seems cold

Is warm... and about to grow warmer.

What seems stark

Is budding... and about to prove full.

What seems harsh

Is soft... and about to blossom tender.

Though the sun is masked,

These clouds of gray are but a blanket's comfort.

Trees towering bare

Teem with life anew.

Winter bids an unassuming adieu.

Double Malt... Double Straws

 
I had to laugh.  I had to laugh out loud... breaking the still of a quiet house, dim with sleep.  I laughed at myself... simple girl... in a big world.  Sometimes that world seems much smaller when the Facebook exchanges come from those in countries of unrest... not knowing whether the day would mean violence too foreboding for children to join together in play and song, when the morning's conference call brings together colleagues around the world... sunrise for some... sunset for others, when dear ones I haven't seen or heard in years feel like they are but a step away.  In those moments, indeed the world seems smaller... closer.

Curriculum Reviews and Giveaways

Join me each Tuesday at The Homeschool Village as we review curricula, books and resources which not only offer options for homeschool instruction but provide resources for your journey as a family.  To provide a variety of perspectives, homeschool moms from our review team will link with my review each week.  And the fun part?!  Each publisher/author sponsors a giveaway to a participating reader!

Today we are reviewing a delightful Spanish language immersion program, Speekee.  I hope you'll stop by each week and discover some new gems for your family!

Come explore the community we call The Homeschool Village! 

Susan

Words of Love

Tenderly I open pages aged delicate.  More than words, more than poems, songs of two hearts overflowing... the love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning spilling out in ink. She wanted so wholly to please that for so very long she could not even bear to show him those of these that were hers, lest they not fully express the soul music she longed to sing into his as if a bow across heartstrings.

Among the leaves of print I find a note card... adorned with roses stained by time.  Flowing script speaks of the sale of an estate.  Between the lines I read love.  Time is but air.  We must breathe it in, drink it in, feed it to our hearts, drawing it into our deepest core...  or it is gone.  It does not come again.  It doesn't linger by the path as we hesitate.  It is simply for that moment.  Followed by another... and another.  Until a river of months and years and lifetimes have been swept in its current.

 

Now is now.  Now is the moment to listen rather than hear, to hold rather than loose, to gaze rather than glance, to love rather than feign... neither deflect.

Love Is...

 
Love is patient,

Love is kind.

It does not envy,

It does not boast

It is not proud.

When I Grow Up...

 
I love listening to little boy dreams.  I need to stop more often... for more moments... to hear them with my heart... these aspirations soaring above clouds, above obstacles, above limitations.  Eyes dance.  Words race fast. One thought building on the one before, as if constructing life bricks this second out of sheer breath and lamp light. 

 
"Mama when I grow up I want to...."

When does that stop?

When do we stop dreaming? Reaching? Building?

New Growth

 
Grass brown yields spongy

Beneath gentle footfall.

Toes brush against,

Sweeping back and forth...

Unveiling it...

New life.

Tiny green leaves tender

Spring forth.