Change

If February Doesn’t March, April May

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

Springtime lessons from my favorite nonsense quote.

Black dog smelling yellow flower

I have a friend who is rapturously joyful at the first bug of spring. I about drove off the road once trying to ascertain her sudden gasp until she finally sputtered, “It’s a bug! It’s the first bug of spring!”

To me, this foretells mosquitos, biting flies, no-see-ums, and the unfurling of poison ivy. My response is therefore more of a groan. I’ll be itchy now until the first hard frost in October.

To her, the first bug of spring represents something else: Sunshine, gardening, the imminent onset of summer. Things she has been looking forward to all winter.

Flowers in rocks

I’ll take fall as my season of choice. Cool nights, sunny days, the earthy smell of falling leaves. And best of all, less bugs. There is one thing about the months of spring that can’t be matched by autumn though, and that is the litany of linguistic treasures.

Spring Quotes – Wisdom in Nonsense

Anyone raised in a northern climate is probably familiar with the “in like a lion, out like a lamb” references to March. And I’ve often heard “April showers bring May flowers.” The New England-born take this one step further with the quip – If April showers bring May flowers, what does the May flower bring?”

Answer: The Pilgrims!

September just doesn’t have this. Compared to the unfurling anticipation that has brought out generations of springtime poets, fall just drops peacefully into winter.

I’ll give the springtime months their due. As I swish the encroaching bugs away from my face, my footsteps keep time with one my favorite springtime rhythms chanting in my head: If February doesn’t march, April may.

Single red tulip in green grass

It’s a nonsensical play on words that also manages to capture the very essence of spring. Spring marches forward. Winter can try to hold it back, but ultimately spring will always win. Where we fit in the rhythm is up to us. Are we like February refusing to march forward? Are we like March roaring one minute and gentle as a lamb the next as we deal with the turmoil of transition? Are we like a soaking April rain, grey in the deluge but bursting forth in greenery in due time? Are we like May, the shoulder of summer, flowering in color and sunshine to welcome the new season?

Our Next Step

Of course, seasons come earlier or later depending on where in the world we reside. My springtime chants don’t work in the southern hemisphere when March is ushering in winter rather than sending it packing. But the message this little chant contains is true for all of us. In this season of transition, we are being pulled forward with the tide of time.

What’s holding you back this spring? Swish the bugs away and lace up your marching shoes. A whole new season is calling us forward!

This post was first written for inspireafire.com. Happy Spring!

How I Started Recycling: An analogy of our Father’s method for change

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

I recycle because I have a friend who recycles.

I mean, I have a friend who recycles.  She carries a bag with her when she goes on walks simply so she can pick up trash.  When she comes to visit, she brings me all the recyclables she can’t recycle in her own town, because my town has a broader recycling program.  “Maybe I’ll inspire someone else,” she says.  And by someone, she occasionally means me.

Any activist will tell you that the hardest thing to initiate is a change in someone’s behavior. This was certainly true for me.  I agreed 100% with everything my friend told me.  “Be the change you want to see in the world,” she’d quote.  “Absolutely!”  I’d agree.

But my behavior didn’t change.

Plastic bag in hand.

Now I should clarify.  I would occasionally pick up trash and pack it out of my favorite hiking haunts.  Or I might pick up something blown from a dumpster and return it.  I would recycle when it was convenient, but when it took a little more effort… not so much.

This same friend sent me an article about the impacts of plastics in our oceans.  It made me sad at what we are doing to our planet. It made me feel guilty over my part in it. But it still didn’t drive me to action.

So what was it that actually changed my behavior?  First, my friend’s persistence.  But more importantly, she didn’t drive me to it.  She led me to it.

Too often when we are trying to change someone’s behavior – or even when we are trying to change our own – we try to drive the change like a cowboy driving a herd of cattle.  We crack the whip of reason. We coerce. We plead.  But instead of a stampede toward the corral, the result is usually more like a baulking bull.  Even when we want to change, we find ourselves pushing back rather than embracing a new behavior.

The Bible gives us a different analogy of change.

Jesus didn’t ride herd with a whip.  He simply entered the pen through the gate.  “I am the good Shepherd,” Jesus told his followers. “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep… He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:2-3,14).

Jesus wasn’t driving the change; Jesus was leading the change.  And this is precisely what my friend did to change my recycling habits.  One time when she was visiting, she threw me and her recycling in the car and drove to the recycling center.  She never said: “I’m going to show you how to recycle so that you will start doing it.”  We simply went and recycled together.  And after I had done it once, there was no reason for me not to continue.

Sometimes in life, change is elicited simply because we have someone come alongside us and show us how. We have a Father in heaven who first demonstrated this principle for us, by sending Jesus to not just instruct us from afar, but to walk alongside us. Now we can do the same for others.

I wonder how many of us can say, “I am a Christian because I have a friend who is a Christian.”  And more importantly, how many of us have friends who can say about us, “I am a Christian, because I have a friend who is a Christian.”

A slightly different version of this post was shared in 2012 – can you believe I have been blogging that long? It was revamped to share recently at inspireafire.com. I hope you enjoyed it!

Oh Well

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

“Oh well,” I would say.

“That’s an old hole in the ground now, isn’t it?” My father would reply.

I would roll my eyes in that superior way that only teenagers can do. It was not a new joke. And it was not funny the first 400 times I heard it.

Then one day, years later, the unthinkable happened.

 “Oh well,” a friend sighed.

“That’s an old hole in the ground now, isn’t it?” I said.

“What?”

“An ol’ well? That’s an old hole in the ground.”

Blank stare.

Inside I laughed and laughed and laughed. Because apparently things that drove me batty as a teenager have become uproariously funny now that I’m older.

Heaven help the poor soul who accidentally says, “Well, well, well… What do we have here?”

Because that’s a whole lot of holes in the ground now, isn’t it?

There’s just something about punny dad jokes that beg to be repeated from generation to generation. They drive us crazy, but then we are compelled to inflict them on others with a sense of wisdom from the ages: You may think this is a terrible joke now, but someday you will thank me.

The joke doesn’t change, but we do.

We grow and change into our own personality, but we pick up quirks from those in whose footsteps we follow. This is true of our earthly parents, siblings, and mentors, and it is also true for our heavenly ones. The bible tells us that just as we have born the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49). At the end times, we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye, but in the meantime, our transformation is happening much more slowly.

With Christ as our example and this world as our crucible, we learn obedience, self-control, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, and love. Our heavenly Father calls us to mimic His perfection, and the Holy Spirit within us prompts us toward right decisions.

The more time we spend learning God’s word, listening for the Spirit’s prompting, and communing through worship, the more our heavenly parentage will be reflected within us.

Christ’s light shines within each one of us as surely as the DNA of our physical heritage. It might be years before a spark within us now is parroted back to a subsequent generation, but there will come a time when we laugh uproariously with the knowledge that this word, this action, this punny dad joke was learned from our heavenly family.

This post was first shared at inspireafire.com. I hope you enjoyed!

Shoveling Rain

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

The storm started as rain.

Cold and pelting. Then sluicing. Then softer.

The quality of the sound changed, the texture of the rain changed, and I knew it was time for action. By the time I bundled into winter gear and opened the door, giant white flakes were soaking into the wetness. Slush coated every surface in heavy crystals. I put the blade of my shovel to the pavement and shoved a path forward. The sound was a satisfying slop.

Anyone who has ever chipped ice from a driveway knows that those gentle drops can be deceiving. They are soft only until frozen.

As the white swirl intensified, I scraped as much wetness as I could. Beside me there was a loud crack, and a tree branch crashed to the ground. I felt the thud through the soles of my boots. I jumped; my dog barked. The snow was heavy and wet and covering the shimmer of rain-turned-ice. It was not the first, nor the last branch to fall.

I am grateful we had the trees around the house capped a few weeks ago in anticipation of storms like this. “See that tree,” our tree crew leader said, pointing. “The lower branches are dying but the tree is still healthy. All the growth is up top to get the sunlight. That’s nature’s way of pruning. ”

Pruning. I mull this over as I scrape slush amidst the sound of falling branches.

There’s the arborist who trims limbs and sculpts tree crowns so they don’t get too heavy and pull the whole tree over in a storm. There’s also the trimming of dead branches to devote more nutrients to the living, growing ends. Like the vinedresser coaxing more fruit from the vine.

At its simplest, pruning is the process of cutting back in one area to allow for more growth in another. And it happens one way or another. Either by the caretaker. Or by the storm.

Anyone else see an elephant here? Apparently pruning can also make some fun shapes!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not always good at the cutting back part. I take on more, and more, and even more, but I don’t like the pruning part. I spend much more time thinking about what I will do rather than what I will not do. But like the rain turning to ice or the tree cracking beneath its burden, the pruning needs to happen. And it might be better to take care of it early.

As Christians, we can invite Jesus to show us what needs to be scraped away. He is our caretaker, and His Spirit within us will prompt what needs to be pruned. Sometimes it’s an attitude not reflective of the fruits of the spirit. Sometimes it’s a relationship or an activity or a ready-or-not life transition. Sometimes it’s a message to simply wait on Him.

Our caretaker will prune excesses and scrape lifelessness so that our living end can grow toward the Son.

Our job is to follow His lead. Attend to His promptings early, while it is still slush. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s far better to shovel rain.

This post was originally written and shared for inspireafire.com. I hope you enjoyed it!

Unchangeable

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

The other night I went to the grocery store to buy ice cream.  It was on sale, and I was really looking forward to a carton of my favorite, Cookies and Cream.  Unfortunately, as is often the case with sale items, there was no Cookies and Cream in sight.

Sigh.

I was standing in the freezer aisle debating whether to skip the ice cream or get a less desirable flavor when I decided to not give up the hunt so easily.  Maybe there was a carton shoved back behind some of the others.

I dug through first one shelf and then the other.  I sorted through stacks of Rocky Road and Vanilla Bean, and Peanut Butter Cup.  And would you believe my luck?  There in the back I suddenly uncovered a rogue carton of Cookies and Cream.  I snatched it up triumphantly and placed it in my cart.

I was about to walk away when I suddenly realized that what I really wanted was Chocolate Chip.

So I opened the freezer case again, replaced the Cookies and Cream, and bought a carton of Chocolate Chip.

So far I have been happy with my purchase, although I expect at any moment to begin craving Cookies and Cream. (Help me out here.  Am I the only one who does things like this?)

Isn’t it good to know, amidst all our idiosyncrasies and changeability, that there is One who is not tossed so easily by whimsy?  We worship the unchanging, everlasting, eternal God.  He is the one who is, and was, and is to come (Revelation 1:8).  He does not change with the weather, or the season, or the year, or the culture.  Our God is the great I AM.  He was there when time began, and He will be there at the end of time and the beginning of eternity.  No matter what is going on around us, we can rest securely in the firm foundation of our unchanging God.

Think about that the next time you’re deliberating an ice cream selection.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John: 8:58).

Recycling

/ mustardpatch / 1 Comment

I recycle because I have a friend who recycles. 

I mean, I have a friend who recycles.  She carries a bag with her when she goes on walks simply so she can pick up trash.  When she comes to visit, she brings me all the recyclables she can’t recycle in her own town, because my town has a broader recycling program.  “Maybe I’ll inspire someone else,” she says.  And by someone, she occasionally means me.

Any activist will tell you that the hardest thing to initiate is a change in someone’s behavior.  Changing the way someone thinks is hard enough.  Swaying another’s opinion to agree with you – now that’s a challenge!  But these changes are still a marathon away from actually changing their behavior.  This was certainly true for me.  I agreed 100% with everything my friend told me.  “Be the change you want to see in the world,” she’d quote.  “Absolutely!”  I’d agree. 

Now I should clarify.  I would occasionally pick up trash and pack it out of my favorite hiking haunts.  Or I might pick up something blown from my apartment’s dumpster and return it.  I would recycle when it was convenient, but my apartment complex didn’t have recycling pick-up.  I knew there was a recycling center in town, but… I chose not to figure out how to use it.

So what was it that actually manifested a change in my behavior?  Well, for one, my friend’s persistence.  But more importantly, she didn’t drive me to it.  She led me to it. 

This same friend recently sent me an article with a short video about the impacts of plastics in our oceans.  It made me glad that I recycle.  It made me glad that I was being part of the solution and not part of the problem.  But before I started recycling, the article probably would have garnered a different reaction.  I still would have agreed with the message – Wow, what a mess we are making of our environment!  But rather than drive me to action, it probably would have just made me feel guilty.  I would have exiled the thought to the island of guilty thoughts that I am not going to act on, and I would have continued on as usual.

Too often when we are trying to change someone’s behavior – or even when we are trying to change our own – we try to drive the change like a cowboy driving a herd of cattle.  We crack the whip of reason, we coerce, we plead.  But instead of a stampede toward the corral, the result is usually more like a baulking bull.  The topic of change can become a matter of stubborn principle.  “Well, I’m not going to do it,” we say.  Even when we want to change, we find ourselves pushing back rather than embracing a new behavior.

The Bible gives us a different analogy of change.  Jesus didn’t ride herd with a whip.  He simply entered the pen through the gate.  “I am the good Shepherd,” Jesus told his followers. “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep… He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:2-3,14). 

Jesus wasn’t driving the change; Jesus was leading the change.  And this is precisely what my friend did to change my recycling habits.  One time when she was visiting, she threw me and her recycling in the car and drove to the recycling center.  She never said: “I’m going to show you how to recycle so that you will start doing it.”  We simply went and recycled together.  And after I had done it once, there was no reason for me not to continue. 

Sometimes in life, change is elicited simply because we have someone come alongside us and show us how.  Even when it is something we could easily figure out on our own, we sometimes need that physical presence to help initiate the change.  This is true for the activities of our life, and it is true for our walk of faith.  Positive change comes not from being driven toward it from behind, but from being led by someone walking with us.

I wonder how many of us can say, “I am a Christian because I have a friend who is a Christian.”  And more importantly, how many of us have friends who can say about us, “I am a Christian, because I have a friend who is a Christian.”

 He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:3b).

Adjust

/ mustardpatch / 1 Comment

What can one learn by pet sitting a friend’s dog for two weeks?  An appreciation for one’s own dog, who is quiet and does not pee in the house, perhaps.  But, I suspect the answer is supposed to be a bit deeper than that. 

One night, early on in the visit, while “Ricky” was sitting by the door looking forlorn and my dog was making vain attempts at engaging him in play, I said: “You might as well enjoy it while you’re here, Ricky.  You’re only here for two weeks, and it’s really not that bad.  You’ve got your bed, company, food and water, frequent walks…make the most of it and before you know it you’ll be headed back home.”

Ho, ho!  How easy it was to say, and how many times have I myself been like that puppy dog, sitting by a “door,” pining for something on the other side!  How true it is that the grass is always greener just over the fence.  Why is it that we often miss the blessings immediately surrounding us because we are too caught up in thinking about what we are missing?  And perhaps more importantly, how do we fix it? 

Through his letter to the Philippians (2:14) Paul tells us whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.  And John reminds us: From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another (John 1:16).  Adjusting to a new situation means adjusting our thoughts to focus on those things which God wants us to focus on.  If we are busy counting our blessings, there will be less time for us to count our losses.

I have often struggled with “moving on,” feeling as though allowing my thoughts to stray from what I am missing is somehow unappreciative to where I have been.  Or as though enjoying today means I enjoyed yesterday less.  But this is not true.  Counting our current blessings does not mean we are disrespecting the past or disregarding the future.  It means we are acknowledging the new situation God has presented and acknowledging the blessings – one after another – He bestows.

We also need to do more than train ourselves towards positive thinking and acknowledging the blessings in our current situation.  We also need to act.  James admonishes those who think simply having faith is enough.  What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? …faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead (James 2:14,17). We need to think the right thoughts, but we need to follow through by doing the right deeds.  God prepared in advance works for us to do (Ephesians 2:10), and that includes right here, right now.

I learned quickly there is nothing like a good long romp to help an anxious dog sleep through the night, and there is nothing like taking action, become involved, reaching out to assist others to help us adjust to new situations.  We may be someplace new and scary – physically, emotionally, spiritually – but it is not new and scary to God.  As David writes, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16).  God put us here, right at this moment, for a reason.  It is up to us to actually take action on what He ordained for us to do.  You cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.  Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well (Ecclesiastes 11:5-6).  In other words, take action!  Even if you are not sure what it is you are supposed to do, do something.  You may not know what will succeed, but God does.

What can one learn from watching a friend’s dog for two weeks?  Well, to start, it takes a bit of adjustment – for both of us.  But more importantly, like Ricky, we need to make the most of the situations God presents to us.  It is only for a little while, and before we know it, He will be back to take us home.

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).