Earth's Crammed With Heaven

Here is an ode to Texas tradition! Bluebonnet pictures! There is something about them that really does call for photos of adorable small children to be taken. I think it's the vivid color as well as the fact that they are the first flowers to pop up everywhere and announce springtime. They are joyful flowers. And so, I put my sweet baby Piper Joy in them to see what she would do...  And she did this. Does it get any cuter?  Lots and lots of bluebonnets! Piper loves them! And the winner... the perfect pose with hands folded and all...

It is a peaceful evening in the Bowyer house. One little Bowyer is sleeping cozily in a crib made by her grandpa, and another is off at play practice learning how to be a broadway star. That leaves me, the mamma, with some quiet time to tie up loose ends. I am purposefully not tying up the loose ends of the house and trying to tend to things that involve deeper thought... like blogging! I have a couple more poems for you all even though it is no longer Lent. This poem definitely has Easter elements to it, ones that I love because Easter means hope, life, newness. I am refreshed just writing those words. I encourage you as you read this to claim those words. Hope. Life. Newness. There is power in them! 4. (Zechariah 3:5) Take away my filthy rags You say ? Can't I keep the smallest tinge Of grey Sooty, rotten, smoldering sin? It hurts to take it off. I must take it all from you Today. You can fight and smash and fume And pray, But that head wrap wi...

This next Lenten poem is written in a kind of freestyle verse. It's always intriguing to me that when you run words and sentences together in certain rhythms they create certain emotions. I was thinking about faith while writing this poem - how absolutely long it takes for any sort of progress to be made on the human heart. Whether the desired end result is healing, contentment, restoration, or holiness, it all takes so so long before you can see fruit, blossoms of springtime growing boldly out of finally fertile soil. 3. (Faith) Why can't my cactuses just bloom already instead of sitting there soaking up all the water I occasionally remember to give them with no semblance of using it for anything more than enriching their spines that get caught in my sweatshirt on moving day when, like prized possessions, they ride up front with me and fall from their forgotten place on the dash when Tom backs out the truck so that I grab at them through a camouflage of plastic wal...

Happy Monday to all! I always dreaded Monday until I stumbled upon a beautiful beginning to any toddler mother's week - Library Day! Every time we drive by our little library in the middle of town, Piper shouts, "Yay Yie-bee! Go there soon?" And I tell her, yes we will go there soon. Unless it's Monday. Then I get to say, "We're going there NOW!" And it just starts the week off on the right foot. The poem below (the second in a series of Lenten poems... if you haven't seen the first, click here ) is about getting started off on the right foot as well. It's not library day, but it's about the practice of beginning the day in prayer. Confession - recently I have completely lagged in my discipline in this arena. Nonetheless, I believe in it and am determined to renew my efforts to begin the day there. A great tool for guided prayer I've been using for the past few months can be found at thetrinitymission.org. For more info, you can also re...

I have recently been working on Piper's knowledge of ballet. Here it is in action as captured by our friend, "Di-nanna" at the Agave Art Gallery during Fredericksburg's monthly Art Walk. "let's see your ballerina moves, Piper!" "Ballerina spin with arms up" "take a bow" "look at the ground and take a bow" free style arabesque wind up "arabesque"  exit stage

Here is sweet baby Piper Joy trying on her potential flower girl dresses... and various other items! Option A: too large, but sooo cute still! also was worn by Nurse Cori in a wedding back in the day... Option B: A better fit and a bit more chic... Hilarious new swimsuit I found on sale... my beloved Tom thinks it's too grandma-y. Flower girl option C suggested by Piper Joy herself Daddy's hat -  the perfect fashion accessory every time

Despite the vernal equinox passing a good two weeks ago, and despite the deceiving name of "April" to describe this month, it is still very much winter. My beloved Tom keeps trying to convince me that cloudy, rainy days with temperatures in the 50's are lovely spring days. I find such days to be more in keeping with the season of Lent we are currently in than with any sort of springtime. And perhaps this is good. I haven't posted here much lately, and part of that is due to a commitment I made to myself to write poems during Lent. My original commitment was to write a poem every day during my sweet baby Piper Joy's  naptime. But lots of things happen during naptime that are out of my control like Nurse Cori visiting, or me needing to do my bookkeeping for Dad, or tutoring sessions with students, or insert any other possible thing here that might make it difficult to keep Lenten commitments. As with most areas in my life these days (motherhood/wifehood days), I am ...

I've been waiting to write this post for a while. In fact, I even started writing it a week or two ago and then realized I wasn't ready. You see, my beloved Tom has been working out of town since January 15th. That's right folks, 48 days of 100% dirty (cloth!) diaper changing. Tom, although he may not realize it yet, owes me a lot of dark chocolate. I am a bit of a sulker when it comes to Tom being gone, prone to sit around and read magazines during Piper's nap time and apt to drink too many glasses of tea to make myself feel better. But that cannot continue, praise the Lord, for 48 days. At some point, (the exact time of this point I'd rather not calculate since it did not happen quickly enough), I pulled myself together and started thinking of all the "projects" I've halfheartedly researched and set aside in despondency. One of those, I am delighted to say, I officially completed as of 12:00 a.m. last night. I am also delighted to have taken some p...

Today my morning began oh so well; my beloved Tom and I listened to an Anglican morning prayer service online. This is not the typical way we Bowyers begin our day. It is the way I, a morning person, always dream of beginning a day (minus the Anglican part until we met an Anglican priest the other day... more on that to follow), and it is the way Tom, a roll-over-in-bed-until-the-last-possible-moment person, wishes that he would consider dreaming of beginning a day. Through a series of events, however, both Tom and I found ourselves at the kitchen table drinking tea, feeding Piper bits of sweet potato left over from yesterday, and listening to lessons and prayers shared with hundreds of other believers around the world. I LOVE that concept. Practicing that concept gets a little more hairy. For example, by the time we made it to the gospel lesson, Piper did not want anymore breakfast. By the Lord's prayer she did not want to play alone anymore. By the final prayer she was whimperi...

I've been thinking about many things since the beginning of the year. First off I was thinking of how this year will probably be amazing because it's 2014 and 14 is my favorite number. Deep thought, I know. But it lead me to another thought: I better have a good year this year because this is the only year with a 14 in it I'll be living. Also, deep, I know. Hang in there. That lead me to another chain of thoughts which is, hopefully, worth sharing. It's crazy to me that we humans know we have a limited amount of time on earth. There's a variable to the number of years of course, but a rough estimate is possible, and we make it and live around it. That's a large weight to carry around every day if you stop to think about it. It's hard to know that you'll be gone by a certain time. For example, I know I won't be around in 2114 - which would be my next possible year with a 14 in it.  Even more amazing is the fact that, in the midst of knowing ou...