The Adventures of Pinky Finger

Once upon a time there was a little pinky finger.  He was enjoying the bright sunshine one day (collecting lots of vitamin D) and enjoy the feeling of the wind in the sparse hair that covered his back when suddenly, with no warning, he was thrown against a hard surface.  For a moment he felt nothing.  Then the kindly eyes looked down at him and the brain sent him a message: something was terribly wrong, he was at least dislocated, if not broken.  He felt a moment of panic but quickly calmed himself.  

After much attention from doctors and about a week of healing he looked like this:

Now, almost completely healed, he would like to give you his personalized holiday greetings:

1. The unbaked turkey-finger (with stuffing) and the baked turkey-finger want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

2. Rudolph, the red-nailed finger-deer wants to wish you a Merry Christmas!

3. He also wants to mention that finger piercings are now the totally in thing and he thinks everyone will be getting them soon.

Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past

I guess there's something about holidays that tends to trigger memories.  Maybe its the observation of long-held traditions that remind us of past years.  Perhaps it's especially prevalent at Thanksgiving as we are asked to reflect on the past year and share what we're thankful for?

Whatever the reasons, I have found myself reflecting on the many differences between this Thanksgiving and last.

1. Last year I was in Israel, this year I'm in Montana.  (There's quite a bit more snow here.  More elk too.)

2. Last year at this time my house had been invaded by seven family members, including a niece...they just were my flatmate's family members, not my own.  

This year my house has been invaded by three of my own family members, including a nephew (with about ten other family members occasionally dropping by).  Both invasions were/are very welcome.  Family is a great blessing.  

3. Last year I celebrated Thanksgiving with my sister and several other JUC students, most of whom I'd only known a couple months.

 This year I celebrated with my mother, father, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, along with some cousins and family friends I've known most of my life.

4. Last year, just for the sake of tradition, my sister and I did a little calculus.

This year we managed to avoid that tradition, but we did experiment with building better windmill-like devices.  What can I say?  We're a bunch of geeks.  

Between now and then much has changed, and I do have much to be thankful for.  For example, I'm thankful for the time that I got to spend in Israel and I'm thankful that I graduated!  However, as I think of things I'm thankful for, I find many hints of the bitter-sweet.  

~ I'm thankful for the good friends that I made while in Israel, and I'm thankful for things like skype and facebook which allow us to keep in touch...as we are literally spread across the globe and I miss them.

~ I'm thankful that I was offered a volunteer position at JUC...though visa difficulties have made it impossible for that opportunity to come to fruition yet and have sort of thrown me into limbo.

~ I'm thankful for another fall in Montana - a beautiful one at that - and I'm thankful to see snow and cold here, though it is not where I would have chosen to be.

I am reminded a little of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I am not going to hypothesize about what Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was, nor am I going to claim a similar situation, but I think I am beginning to understand some of what he must have been feeling.  Things are not all bad, but for the first time I can remember, I've made plans and been unable to follow through.  Just a sudden brick wall.  I  can understand that such an experience is probably good for me in general, I just wish I understood a few more of the specifics.  However, I'm trying to cling to the grace of God, in spite of my confusion.  To summarize:

~ I'm thankful for a God who is still at work in my life, though, at the moment, I don't understand what He's doing.  

Winter

There is nothing quite like winter in Montana.  Each change in weather is like a mood swing, each revealing a little more of the personality of the season.   

Some nights the snow falls: thickly, silently drifting to earth.  Sound pollution, never much, is deadened to almost nothing.  Everything is silent and still.  The ambient light is increased as the cloud cover and each individual flake reflect back everything they catch.  The reddish glow and stillness make one feel small and alone and glad to have a cozy fire to snuggle up to inside.  

Occasionally the winter displays a streak of perversity (and sometimes artistry), contriving to fight against gravity and other held conventions to create unique and bizarre structures of ice and snow (like this inverted ice-cycle).

Though one would imagine the color palate would be more limited in the winter with the pervasive whiteness, in reality the white often serves as a palate where all the colors of the rainbow can dance and play in ways not seen in other seasons.  

After days of clouds and snow, the sun rose this morning on a sparkling winter wonderland.  With the temperature hovering around zero (Farenheit), the air was crisp and clear.  The frost clung to the trees with determined tenacity, causing them to light up and twinkle when the sun hit them. 

Later in the afternoon specks of pixy dust chased each other through the air, glittering and sparkling, making the world seem like a living snow globe.

 The pictures, of course, do not do justice to the sparkling splendor of the air, but you can catch a glimpse of the sparkles, especially in the shaded places.

A glorious but capricious mistress is winter, clothed in splendor one minute, trying to freeze the life out of everything the next.  Beautiful and terrible - but much less terrible with a warm fire, a cup of hot chocolate, and a good book.

Historic Quilt

Family history is a subject of which I seem to know very little.  The more I learn of it, the more I realize there is to know.  Still, I pick up pieces here and there.  One of my more recent acquisitions included a tactile experience.   

If I got the story right, this quilt was given to my mother by her grandmother (or possibly by a great aunt...I'll need to check my sources.)

The note that accompanies the quilt (partially pictured above), though difficult to decipher, tells the story of the quilt.  "It was made by my mother (name) and my grandma (name) in about 1886 out of my dad's brother (name) army blankets of Shilo."  Just in case any question remains, part of the note clarifies: these were blankets used by soldiers during the Civil War.

I think that is one thing I enjoyed so much about Israel - being able to see, touch, and feel history.  There is very little of that in Montana where most history doesn't go back more than 200 years tops.  Sometimes you can find arrowheads that might be a bit older, but that's pretty much the limit.  This quilt is no where near as old as some of the ruins I saw in Israel, but it's still a clue to the past, a picture of what life was like then, a reminder that the men who used those blankets and the women who sewed them together were as real and as human as you or I.  

First Snow

It came, following hard on the heels of days of 60 degree weather.  When I went to bed the temperature was still well above freezing; when I got up, the landscape had changed.  It snowed all day and into the night, blanketing the ground with the purity of its whiteness, clothing newly nude branches in bridal splendor.  When the sun showed its face again, the brilliance was something to behold.  

Having cleverly avoided winter for the better part of two years, it was a sight I had missed.

I took the opportunity to make my first snow-angel in years.  I think I need to work on my technique a little. :)

Autumn

I really can't get over what a spectacular fall it's been here.  It's almost as if God said, "Alana, I know you don't really want to be here right now, but I'm going to make it so beautiful that it will be almost impossible for you to not enjoy it."  Perhaps a bit fanciful, but that has indeed been the case.  Sunny days, blue skies, yellow leaves, bluish mountains, golden brown fields...

It may not have the reds and oranges that make fall memorable in other places, but it's the most brilliant fall I've seen here for years.  It's made me wish that I were a poet so that I could more fully do justice to the feelings it evokes in me, to be able to describe the crisp, fragrant air, the whiff of cottonwood sap, the scent of gently decaying leaves tantalizing the nostrils.  Unfortunately, since smells and feelings cannot be properly captured, I must content myself with pictures, though these also don't do justice to the season.  

I never get tired of looking out my window to the cottonwoods at the end of our pasture and the Spanish Peaks beyond them.  Sometimes the gold leaves and blue mountains shimmer under the fluffy white clouds that float in a peerless blue sky.  

Sometimes the mountains are shrouded in clouds and snow.

 And sometimes it's a mixture.

Oddly enough, though, that is about as close as the snow has come.  Halloween came and went without a snowstorm or freezing temperatures, a happenstance that is almost unheard of.  The unseasonably warm temperatures even allowed me to take a trip up into the mountains...

...to this waterfall.

 It may not hold the record for "tallest" or "widest" or "most water," but I tend to think it's quite spectacular.

I think the forecast calls for snow soon, though.  I've managed to adjust to autumn fairly well; we'll see how I do with winter!