Because Beginnings are Fresh (Multitudes on Mondays)

Today I want to begin anew. I want to start Lent over - all the learning be my starting point, my new beginning. I don't want to be in the middle, in media res, the story in the mundane fourth chapter. I want newness. I want light.

And then the remembrance, as my school welcomes a new president, as I look at the crocus quivering in the harsh morning air as I head to school from my brief sojourn home, as I hear once again, in the praise song I first learned freshman year... Jesus makes all things new.

So the story is never rewritten but always written, always new ink on the pages of old, always a fresh beginning. The fourth chapter or the six or the hundreth. The first paragraph or the twentieth... it's rich with goodness, even if it feels small, even when the notes are scribbled and you think, it isn't glamorous, this chapter of working, this chapter of anonymity, this chapter where the main character doesn't do much more than drink a cup of tea while watching the wind blow through old fall leaves outside the window. I hear Rilke gently reprimand:

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty."


And the discipline is the ache of praise:


26. For the crocus pushing its head above the hard ground in the garden
27. For the words Lord, give me water.
28. For sunshine today in the window where Joanna and I sit for breakfast, stealing a moment to enjoy friendship before the day roars away from us. 
29. For my heartbeat.
30. For blood in my veins and life in its usual miracle. 


Love,
Hilary