Seth Lewis

A Thousand Miles, And A Poem

This summer I’ve driven well over a thousand miles across the southern states of America. I’m thankful for good air-conditioning, good music, good company (my family), and Chick-Fil-A. I like driving, which certainly helps, even if I have to think hard to get in the car on the side that has the steering wheel, after living in Ireland so long. We’ve been down highways through forests that seem to never end and we’ve been down country roads through corn and cotton and tobacco fields that grow outside of small towns where people sell fresh peaches and watermelons from roadside stands. Every few minutes there’s another white steeple on another red-brick church. One of them was just letting out from some kind of event, and the people were leaving with take-away boxes of food which was probably fried chicken and green beans and devilled eggs or some excellent kind of pie. I would have liked to pull in but it would have been strange for us to arrive at the end as total strangers. I don’t even know what town we were in, because I don’t have to keep track of that kind of information anymore thanks to the sat-nav. I just follow the blue line, keep an eye on how much fuel I have, and enjoy the view. Eventually, we get where we’re going.

The Crooked Apple Tree

Beside a country road in Ireland there are two tall pillars marking the entrance to my friend’s home, down a lane that used to lead to a massive manor house. That mansion is long gone, but the stately pillars remain as crumbling reminders of its past glories. The gravel lane between them now winds its way to the old farm buildings on the estate, which were nothing but ruined walls until my friend rebuilt them into a home. Outside, the chickens wander freely with the dogs among the garden beds and fruit trees.

A Personal Update

It’s been almost a year since I shared a personal update on the blog, and life has been moving along. It’s never boring!

Our children recently turned seventeen, fifteen, and twelve, and Jessica and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary this year as well. I feel like our family has moved decisively into a new stage of life—a middle stage, I suppose—and I have to say that I honestly love it. I have loved the other stages, too, each in their own way, each with their own challenges and joys. I think the stage we’re in now is my favourite so far, though. It has its own unique challenges, but I do love seeing our children grow and mature, and being able to relate to them on a grown-up level. I also love the stability and depth of a romance with two decades of shared life experience under it. We still disagree and argue, of course, but we’re a little better at it, I think, and quicker to forgive.

Outrunning The Rain

Living in Ireland, I’ve gotten used to the rain taking its own sweet time. It softly falls for days or weeks on end, completely oblivious to how egregiously it has overstayed its welcome. In Alabama, where I grew up, things are different. The rain there waits and builds up and waits some more and then suddenly bursts out of the clouds in a mad rush to pelt the ground all at once with all the drama and thunder and sky-splitting electricity it can muster (and sometimes tornadoes).

Pruning (a poem)

Everything grows fast in the garden this time of year. The rose stems stretch themselves upward, then droop with the weight of their own blooms. The grape vine climbs the arbour, blindly grasping anything it can hold on to. The weeds come back, and come back again, from somewhere, everywhere, while the vines on the back wall grow in every direction at once. All of this growth is a beautiful, abundant gift, yet I know that if I leave it untended for too long, my garden will eventually become something else entirely. The strawberries will send runners into the grass, the grass will colonise the herb bed, the weeds will colonise the grass, and the roses will block the path with thorns. The longer I leave it alone, the harder I’ll have to work to reclaim it. And here, in the wild tendencies of my garden, I see a reflection of myself. That’s what this poem is about:

All Of It, All At Once

There was still an hour before I had to be at my first meeting for the day. The morning was beautiful, promising to be one of the nicest days of the year. I had to go outside. I didn’t know the area, but my phone told me there was a park in a nearby town I’d never been to. A few minutes later, I pulled in next to the jogger and dog-walker sedans—the family cars hadn’t arrived yet. The park was extensive. It was build around a lake, with ancient trees and well-maintained lawns, meandering paths, benches, swans, and the dawn chorus echoing in stereo surround-sound all around me.

Beyond Measure

When we speak about blessings, we usually speak about the good things we enjoy, like family, friends, a nice holiday, or a great coffee. These are wonderful blessings, worth counting, and giving thanks for. And yet I was reminded recently (through a prayer of thanks offered by a friend) that when the Bible speaks of blessings, the language it uses is often far more extreme than the language we’re accustomed to using ourselves. Paul tells us that “no human mind has conceived” the greatness of “the things God has prepared for those who love him“ (1 Corinthians 2:9). In other words, God’s blessings for his children are literally off the charts, stretching beyond the borders of imagination. “My cup overflows”, says David, in Psalm 23, and in Psalm 16 he speaks of how,

“You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

One Day Leads To Another

I have learned over the years to temper my expectations about what can actually be accomplished in a single day. I’m not proud of this—I would be far happier if I could tell you that after consistently exceeding my own expectations of productivity I’ve had to adjust them in the other direction. The days are quick, though, and before I know it the morning is almost over and then after lunch the hours fly and it’s evening and I should really get to bed or I’ll be cross in the morning with my sleep-stealing self. I would love to do great things and see great progress today, but it’s hard to fit all those big, shiny things into one little square on the calendar.

Light (a poem)

When the sun comes out in Ireland, the people come out, too. We appreciate the sun, because we never know how long we’ll get to see it. We soak it in as much as possible—the brightness, the warmth, the Vitamin D, the light. I’ve heard that the physics of light are complicated, that it’s simultaneously a wave and a physical particle, which is confusing. But just think of all the things it does: it illuminates the world and makes our eyes work, for starters, but that’s only the beginning. It also carries heat from the sun 150 million kilometres away to warm our world and kiss our skin. Light also helps our bodies create Vitamin D, and even more impressively it helps plants all over the world photosynthesise the energy they need to grow. In other words, without light, we wouldn’t merely be blind—our whole world would be a wasteland.

The Picture Books We Couldn’t Part With

Our children are not really children anymore. It’s been a long time since we read picture book stories to them. But if you look at our bookcases at home, you’ll see that our family still has picture books. We didn’t save most of them—bookcase space is too precious for that—but there are also some picture books that are too precious to part with. Books that were read too many times, that became too much a part of us and our family history together to think of letting go. We had a conversation over dinner recently about the picture books we all remember and love the most, and I thought some of you might like to hear what we came up with. This list represents many hours of read-aloud story times in the Lewis home, times that continue to live on as treasured memories for all of us. So if you have little ones at home, or nephews or nieces or grandchildren or friends with smallies, you might enjoy these, as well. Here’s our list: