From Storm–Some Musings on My 54th Birthday

Today dawned clear and blue, the sky braided with jet contrails and accented with just enough clouds to add drama. More clouds are moving in now, but I don’t mind. The forecast for “mostly cloudy” means we’ll be seeing at least some sunshine, and the temperature is above melting and supposedly will hover in that vicinity through the next ten days. One month away from the vernal equinox and just ten days from meteorological spring, we’re getting what may be our first hint of warmer weather ahead. And we all know what that means: Storm Season 2010. Yeah, baby! Bring it on!

Today is my 54th birthday. Sitting here drinking my coffee, with the sun slanting through the sliding glass doors, the birds flitting about the feeders out on the deck of my apartment, the cat sleeping on the floor, and my sweetheart, Lisa, sitting in her room working on her blogsite, I’m taking a pause to consider how simple and yet how marvelously rich my life really is.

I am a jazz saxophonist and a storm chaser, and those are the topics I mostly write about in this blog. But before them, and above all else, I am a lover and follower of Jesus. That is my true, deep, core identity–the one sure and certain thing that can never be taken from me. All else can be stripped away, and in time, it will be, whether bit by bit, like leaves falling in the autumn, or in an instant that catapults me into eternity.

Most of the things in life by which we define ourselves are temporary. That is not to say they’re unimportant. They’re very important. But they can be removed in a heartbeat–and yet, we are still ourselves. So obviously, our identity as individuals, our “I-ness,” goes much deeper than what we do. We choose our pursuits because, in a very real sense, our pursuits choose us according to God’s intentions for our lives; but the fundamental state of being ourselves–that is not something we choose. We are here by decree, not personal choice.

Right now, if I choose, I can set aside my saxophone for the rest of my life. I can stop chasing storms forever, never trek through another wetland in search of wild orchids and carnivorous plants, never again pick up my fishing pole, never savor another mugful of craft beer, never hike another trail, never write another word. Those are all things I love to do, but I can choose not to do them. The one thing I cannot do is stop being me. That choice is not mine to make.

So today, as I celebrate the family members and friends who bless my life…my vocation as a writer which I work hard to excel at…the interests that I pursue with passion and joy–as I consider all of these rich, wonderful, irreplaceable treasures in my life, I give thanks to the person who has been the source of them all, and who ordained that I should be here to enjoy them, fulfilling, in the process, a purpose that goes deeper than the things themselves, and a pleasure greater and more lasting than the works of my hands.

Thank you, my Lord Jesus. Thank you for everything. Thanks for making me who I am–even in those times when it has been so terribly painful to be me. Thank you for my beautiful lady, Lisa; for my sweet mother and wonderful siblings; for my Jonathan-David buddy, Duane, and other close, close friends who truly know me and love me, and whom I have the privilege of knowing and loving. Thank you for the feel and smell of Gulf moisture, for the rush of inflow winds across the prairie grass, for cloud turrets over the plains that build into turbulent, dark skies and mighty tornadoes. Thank you for gifting me to pour music through the bell of my saxophone, and for my father who gave me that horn as his legacy and is now with you. Thank you for the promise of seeing him again someday.

Thank you for more things than I can possibly say–things I know of, and things I will never know of, all provided by a great, unfathomably deep grace that runs like an invisible current through my life, unfelt but powerful, gentle but mighty, upholding me, carrying me, delivering me, guiding me, providing for me, shaping me. Truly, Lord, you have been a father to me, and a friend, and a brother, and a savior, and my Rock.

Thank you, above all, for You. Your unfailing love has changed me. You, Lord, are the source of my identity and my life. I am who I am because you are who you are. Thank you for the gift of a grateful heart. Grant me to be your faithful follower and friend for all of my life, for there is no one and nothing else whom I desire to worship with all my heart. You, and you alone, are worthy.

I love you, Jesus. On this, my 54th birthday, I thank you for the gift of my life, and the gift of yourself. Imperfect man that I am, warts and all, Lord, let me be a gift to you.

–Bob

February 18, 2010 by
Filed Under: Christian Spirituality & Inspiration, Church Worship, Life, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Countdown to March

It’s the last day of January. Just one month to go till storm season begins! Yeah, baby!

I’m not the only one who thinks this way. A lot of you fellow storm chasers get happy at the thought of March arriving. It won’t be much longer–just four little weeks. Then spring begins.

That’s right, spring. While the vernal equinox will occur on March 20 at 2:35 a.m. EST this year, marking the arrival of astronomical spring, March 1 is the beginning of meteorological spring. Yes, boys and girls, there really is such a thing.

The Roman calendar began the year and the spring season on the first of March, with each season occupying three months. In 1780 the Societas Meteorologica Palatina, an early international organization for meteorology, defined seasons as groupings of three whole months. Ever since, professional meteorologists all over the world have used this definition.[5] So, in meteorology for the Northern hemisphere: spring begins on 1 March, summer on 1 June, autumn on 1 September, and winter on 1 December.

–From “Season,” Wikipedia

The long and short of it is, even as middle-tier states from the Texas panhandle eastward are dealing with the aftermath of an ugly winter storm, spring is just around the corner. On Tuesday, Groundhog Day, we’ll get the authoritative word from Punxatawney Phil on what the next six weeks holds in store weatherwise. But whatever his verdict may be, the fact is, we’re two-thirds of the way through meteorological winter. We’re almost there!

So dust off your laptop. Spring will be here before you know it.

January 31, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

Winter Has Ended. Welcome to the Spring!

In a few short hours, it will be spring. To be more precise, at 7:44 a.m. Eastern Time, the vernal equinox will occur. In a moment of time, the exact center of that enormous ball of gas we call the Sun will cross Earth’s equator, and in that second, winter 2009 will die and this year’s spring will be born.

To celebrate, I thought I’d post a couple of photos. The first is of a medley of pine cones and twigs, artfully woven together by Mother Nature on a bed of needleleaf duff in a grove of evergreens. The forest floor can render some surprising and sublime collages; this one, covered by the snow until only recently, is one of the finest I’ve seen.

Pine cones turn the ground beneath an evergreen grove into a work of art at a roadside park near Ionia, Michigan.

Pine cones transform the floor of an evergreen grove into a work of art at a roadside park near Ionia, Michigan.

The following is a sunset image that I took Wednesday evening at Shaw Lake, just south of Middleville. The lake is surrounded by an incredible example of a rare wetland known as a prairie fen, inhabited by wild orchids and carnivorous plants. It’s an otherworldly place, truly beautiful, and unfortunately, also terribly abused by fishermen who have enough energy to bring in their bait containers, beer cans, and other trash, but evidently not enough muscle, brains, or strength of character to carry their empties out.

Excuse my mini-rant. The photo is of the next-to-last sunset of winter, 2009. It feels more like a sunrise in a sense, with its promise of lengthening days and the rebirth of the green months.

A plume of cirrus lights the sky at sunset at Shaw Lake in northern Barry County.

A plume of cirrus lights the sky at sunset at Shaw Lake in northern Barry County.

March 19, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Beautiful Day in Michigan

IT’SSPRINGIT’SSPRINGIT’SSPRING!!!

It’s SPRIIIIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Okay, maybe it’s not quite spring officially–still another five days before the vernal equinox–but when I see skunk cabbages blooming in the swamps, then as far as I’m concerned, spring has arrived. Everything else is just a formality.

Skunk cabbage, earliest of the Michigan wildflowers

Skunk cabbage, earliest of the Michigan wildflowers.

With its odd-looking purple cowl shielding a flower spathe within, the skunk cabbage is nothing you’d want to put in a pot on the windowsill, but it’s nevertheless one of my favorite wildflowers. It’s a quirky little plant with plenty of character, plucky enough to lead the procession of the spring wildflowers in Michigan.

I came upon the one above while hiking a wetland trail in Yankee Springs the other day. The afternoon was beautiful, a bit chilly but on the leading edge of a warming trend that will put the temperatures into the fifties by today and as high as sixty degrees by Tuesday.

On a broad, blue day filled with the promise of warmer seasons to come, even last year’s vanishing remnants were transfigured by the sun. A bough of old beech leaves hung like Japanese lanterns in a shaft of sunlight.

Old beech tree leaves catch the sunlight.

Old beech tree leaves catch the sun.

Of course “the kids”–my collection of carnivorous plants–are out on the deck. I removed them from the refrigerator three weeks ago to boot them out of hibernation, and they have responded with a vigorous rush of flowers and leaves. The Venus flytraps are now open for business, and the Sarracenia oreophila isn’t far behind, with an exuberant array of young traps already ten inches tall and nearing the point when they’ll pop open.

White mold wiped out most of my flytrap seedlings during the winter, but a good hundred or so have survived. It’ll be interesting to see how much they increase in size this growing season.

All that to say…YAHOO!!! It’s SPRIIINNNGGG!!! Maybe not by the calendar, not quite yet, but don’t tell that to the robins because they don’t care, and neither do I. Just take a walk in the woods and you’ll know. Spring is here at last.

March 15, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,