FREEDOM 2015

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Kevin Swanson, Generations with Vision

When my family decided to move out to South Dakota, moving from the most liberal state in the Union to one of the most conservative, from one of the largest in population to one of the smallest, from an urban state to a rural state, our decision was based hugely on matters of freedom. We are a conservative Christian homeschooling entrepreneurial family. We depend, in a manner of speaking, on freedoms – the freedom to worship as we please throughout the week, to run a business as we see fit, to school at home with the content we feel belongs in the curriculum. Would those freedoms still exist when my sisters and I got married and started families? Given that Illinois is Illinois…there was reason to doubt.

But even here in South Dakota, by far more conservative, more God-fearing, more self-reliant and community-oriented, friendlier to individual rights, prouder of our freedoms and more committed to preserve them, we see those freedoms being eroded and chiseled and defaced.

Governor Bobby Jindal, 2016 Presidential Candidate

So here we were today at the Freedom 2015 Conference, sponsored by Generations with Vision, gathering together with hundreds and hundreds of other likeminded individuals, who believe that our greatest heritage is our Christian heritage, and our most important rights are our religious rights, and the most important foundation of our country the foundation of God’s Word. Praise God for bringing about this conference!

Today we heard from persecuted men and women, who were intentionally targeted by the left for their God-fearing beliefs. We heard from candidates for president, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and Ted Cruz.

Senator Ted Cruz, 2016 Presidential Candidate

I thought the first two were exciting and well-received. But the standing ovation Ted Cruz received before he had even reached the top step to the stage was almost overwhelming. What a testament to his courage, his faith, his willingness to speak the truth in the face of stern opposition. This is a man to rally behind. He can lead a country. When asked how important it was for the president of the United States to fear God, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t hedge around the answer. He stated his conviction plainly – How can a man rule rightly if he himself isn’t governed by God in Heaven?

Even as we mourned for the state of our country, this once-great nation, we rejoiced in the knowledge that God can spark a revival, if he wants, and that throughout history the church of God has only ever strengthened through persecution and opposition. If God allows persecution, I firmly believe he will strengthen beyond measure those of his flock who remain steadfast.

Laura Elizabeth

Autumn waking

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Sometimes all it takes to clear the mind of distraction, sorrow, worry, weariness, and pessimism is the feeling of dew on my jeans, the sound of brown leaves folding beneath my feet, the rush of a scramble into a dry creek bed, and the glint of the sun through and in the trees.

It is impossible to capture the flicker of dew in the long grass, or to describe the captivating fragrance of the wet earth, a draught stronger than wine, the musk of earth, the sweet of grass, subtle and fresh and intangible. The flicker of scarlet and orange of berries clinging in the twigs of trees, the yellow of a fallen leaf. I wish I could put words to the changing touch of the air from shadowed ravine to sunny hillside – The chill kiss and the warm caress. Sometimes they blend – The warm caress of a breeze wafting into the cool of the ravine, or the chill wind curling and streaming into the warmth of a fragrant open trail.

The hum of bees blends with the whisper of wind in the pines, and the trail curves ahead and disappears from sight. The ground is dark with heavy dew and the green is greener, the gold golder, the brown browner, the red redder in the rich, warm light.

What a mystery, to be walking straight into the sun, which seems hardly to hover above the tops of the trees, the sky brilliant with light, but to be enveloped in cool, moist valley air, walking briskly and without effort – the mystery of autumn in the morning. Or to top a small rise, emerging from a twilight-shadowed creek bed, and find ahead a glowing warmly bank of red-gold brush and sheer wall of golden rock, the pine trees standing like sentinels against the line of sky – the mystery of autumn at dusk.

“The Heavens declare the glory of God,” the Bible says. “Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard,” said Standing Bear. Who can help but marvel at the silhouettes of trees against a lavender sky, the moon tangled in the evening branches of the reaching oaks? Who can harden the heart when the world around is glowing with life, and the air is ripe with sunshine and piney resin and heavy with the damp of morning? The clouds glow like gold in the fading sun, just dipped below the horizon, then turn to the dark of steel and sit heavy in the trees. The sky releases the last of its light with a sigh, a slumbering, sleepy, lazy breeze that quietly stirs the trees, and a few leaves drop.

How can I tame the wildness of the eerie howls of coyotes just over the hill, or calm the unbidden racing of my heart, relishing the delicious thrill of the woods at evening? How can I keep forever the ghostly beauty of the birch trees at twilight, and call to mind their silver glow? It is all too much, too beautiful.

What a glorious way to fire the imagination, to calm and awaken the soul, to revive the weary body. What a refreshing, reviving cup to drink from – The cup of God’s creation, the cup of the green earth. “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone,” a man once said, thought to be Martin Luther, “but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.” The dew in the morning, the bees flying low in the grass, the heavens and trees, the moon and lavender sky, the stones underfoot and the dying red of the cliffs in sunset all make it impossible for me to believe anything other than that this world was created by a loving, awesome, infinite God who is worthy of my worship and adoration.

“To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.” said Helen Keller.

I agree.

Sisters

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Jess was here to visit this past week – We kept her busy, scurrying her around from one adventure to another, relishing having all four of us together again. That may sound sappy to some, but if you grew up as we did in a close-knit homeschooling household, you’ll understand what I mean when I say, “My sisters are my bestest friends. They are all I need.” When you grow up spending all of your waking hours with your family, there is a closeness that is inevitable. And it is hard having one of those siblings 1000 miles away. So glad she got to come to the Hills for a week, short as it was.

On Saturday, the 19th, we took a jaunt over to Little Falls – The girls wanted to swim, which was a firm no for me, but they managed to talk me into getting in up to my knees. I don’t handle cold water very well, so I was whining the whole time about my feet hurting (they did. The water was cold.), but we managed to get a couple of cute pictures on Jess’s phone.

Anna spent most of her time garnet hunting. As I’ve written about once or twice before, garnets are plentiful in the streams here and, while we mostly hunt them in the dry creek beds, we like to hunt them whenever we go to Little or Big Falls. Some good garnets can be found in those places…

Jess, Sarah, and the Dog scrambled around on the rocks – I followed behind slowly, enjoying my time through the lens of a camera, and simply enjoying the presence of all three of my sisters.

God has blessed me with wonderful friends in my sisters. When I was younger, I don’t think I appreciated them nearly enough, but they grow more dear to me with each passing year. They are the lights of my life. Not sure what I’d do without them. While siblings are so close that you know one another’s foibles, quirks, and annoying habits, they also are the friends who have the potential to be the closest friends on earth.

Who else shares the same history, the same upbringing, the same genetics or legal heritage? My youngest sister, Anna, is adopted, but even though she doesn’t share my genes, she shares a heritage by virtue of us being children of the same parents. She participates in the legacy that our parents are building for us.

We’ve all spent all of our childhoods together. We’ve been homeschooled together, we’ve argued together, shared beds, brushed teeth together, owned pets together, accidentally killed pets together, shared silverware, shared secrets, shared deodorant, spent all our best memories together. We’ve shared mishaps, successes, and failures. We share facial expressions, complexions, and quirks. We compare tans in the summer. We fight over snow boots in the winter. We all try to get out of dishes, and then enjoy doing the dishes together.

Who else can boast or blush at the mention of each of those things? Who else can claim the closeness that siblings have? We share a past, a present, and a future. A friend can walk away without a part of you going with them. Your siblings, no matter how rocky the relationship, are always going to be part of who you are.

When God created families, he wasn’t just creating an institution – He was creating companions, opportunities to experience closeness probably only surpassed by a spouse. That’s a pretty special relationship. And I’ve got three of them.

Roseberries

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The roses that bloomed profusely this summer faded long ago, and in their place is a bounty of red rose hips. A friend, Hannah, and I found them a week ago while we were hiking on a logging trail on forest service land. I immediately started making plans to harvest some, which Anna and I did yesterday afternoon.

Rose hips, if you didn’t know this already, are the fruit of the rose plant. The hips are edible, but not raw–they have large seeds and a hairy pulp that need to be removed before the fruit can be consumed. But they can be made into jelly, or dried for use in teas. I’ve never harvested them before, since wild roses weren’t profuse enough in Illinois for any sort of meaningful gathering. Like with any small fruit, it takes a lot of plant to produce enough to logically and practically harvest from it!

But here, wild roses grow with abandon, as do raspberries, sunflowers, and any other number of wildflowers which lavish their abundant color and life onto an otherwise often hash landscape. There is a beautiful paradox in the presence of a fragile flower beneath the shadow of a towering granite peak. The delicacy of a flower or the perfection of its fruit highlight the grandeur and power of towering peaks and granite spires, just as their magnificence highlights the delicate beauty and diminutive intricacy of the wildflowers. Can they really belong to the same world? Yes, and the same God created them all! What goodness.

Anna and I spent two hours out on that forest service trail. A lot of it we spent walking, but the weather was perfect and the 5:00 sun soon hid itself behind trees and hills. We found one particularly good patch of rose hips, and gleaned from there for quite some time before moving on. Next summer, I’ll have to remember that rose hips come into season earlier. There were a few places where the rose hips were much overripe, considerably past pickable ripeness. Notes for next year. But we ended up with enough hips to make some jelly (I’m thinking rose-rhubarb sounds good…) and dry some for tea. Not as much as we’d like, but enough for the first year.

Birch and aspen trees have been catching my eye lately, and more yesterday, it would seem. There is something haunting and sylph-like about their white trunks and branching limbs, more noticeable against a backdrop of ponderosa pine and grey granite than perhaps they would be otherwise. Perhaps it is C.S. Lewis’ references to birch trees and dryads in his wonderful Narnia series that have haunted my imagination and still do. They’ve always seemed different to me, otherworldly, enchanted. Along the forest service road, they clustered in hollows and lined meadowland, stark and beautiful and dreamlike.

Little things can be so profound–The gentle cup of a harebell, or the golden glow of a head of grass. Profound and captivating, if you let yourself look hard enough and without any other expectation than to see something beautiful. How common a harebell is! How common a head of grass is! Yet how uncommon, how wonderful, how full of meaning. And how temporal, how fragile, how short-lived, soon to be struck away by the first hard frosts and the winter snow.

What a joy it is to have the sense of sight, the sense of smell, of touch, taste, of perception, the ability to recognize color, the permission to experience the joys of this world. Sometimes we go so quickly through life that we miss much, we miss the meaning in a harebell, or in ripe and golden grass. We miss the meaning in a towering peak, or in the racing openness of a prairie, open to the skyline. We look right past everything, missing those gifts that God has given us, the gifts we never had to work for, the gifts that demand nothing of us except the expectation of joy.

Some gifts we do have to work for, and those give even greater pleasure. One of those would be the joy of family, whether it be spiritual family or earthly. Yesterday, I got to experience some of the joy that comes from earthly family, the joy of cultivating healthy and loving relationships before God. I’ve got some pretty wonderful sisters. And hopefully they’ll help me with the rose-rhubarb jelly.

September sky

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

What better way to end a Sunday than by marveling at the glories of God’s creation? I could have sat there for hours, just staring at the sky, watching the occasional meteor come flaming into sight, basking in the silver light of a thousand million stars.

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. ~Psalm 147:4

Is not God high in the heavens? See the highest stars, how lofty they are! ~Job 22:12

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

²“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³Dress for action like a man;
    I will question you, and you make it known to me.
⁴“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷when the morning stars sang together
    and all the sons of God shouted for joy? ~Job 38:1-7

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. ~Psalm 19:1

God is good.

Keeping focused

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Started work officially as a scribe at a family practice clinic in Rapid City today. What a learning experience this will be! In spite of only four hours of sleep last night, the day went well and I think I’m learning. A lot.

For those of my readers who don’t know, I have absolutely no medical background. I am an artist, of various sorts. But I have a love of learning and a desire for knowledge. As a writer, any new experience, however challenging, can only add to the depth and breadth of my writing! This will be an opportunity to grow as a writer, but more importantly to cultivate a Christlike love for people, to grow in compassion, empathy, and in my desire to serve.

Of course I was exhausted by the end of the day (actually, by 10 a.m.), but tiredness doesn’t extinguish the joy of the art of photography. I found a few pictures just waiting to be taken on the way home this evening…These pictures caught my eye as I was almost home, in an open valley on Hwy. 40. We’ve had a lot of smoke in the Hills from fires further west, and a little fog this evening, too. The haze was illuminated by the evening sun, just as it was disappearing into a bank of cloud on the horizon. The sunlight streamed golden onto neat rows of hay bales, onto the western slopes of the foothills, onto a herd of cattle grazing in the last light of today.

Photography is a way of reminding myself of what a gift life is. Life can be bleak, daunting, or even just tiring. Days are long. I’m realizing September is going to be a very long month (working six days a week). But keeping myself focused on the beauty of life, on God’s goodness as I can express it through photography and writing, is a way of keeping centered on what is really important, lasting, and blessed.