It is spring here in Montana. Well, today it is. The sun is shining into the breakfast nook at which I sit, the remnant of my breakfast still on the table, surrounding my computer. The mountains I am glancing up at between sentences are capped with snow and blaringly bright in the brilliant sunshine. There are trees outside, but no leaves yet, though some are the deep dark hue of evergreen. There is some green appearing in patches on the ground, as the grass decides that it will live again. This is particularly astonishing to me, as there were about 5 inches of snow on the ground yesterday. Today fits the bill for what spring is supposed to be. Yesterday, not so much. This manic rollercoaster between winter and spring, sometimes within one day, has left me trying to grasp ahold of a rhythm that keeps illuding me.

It also doesn’t help that I moved here one month ago from Florida… Spring, possibly even summer, in Montana is more winter-y than winter in Florida. I am by no means an expert in the seasons, seeing as I spent the larger part of my life in Hawaii, where we tell seasons by which coast the waves are hitting, and whether or not there are guavas on the road to Hana.
But even in the few years I have lived in places with distinct seasons, I have come to realize what a gift the seasons are, and how much I am designed to live within some outward rhythm that keeps me moving, yet keeps me grounded.

I’ve been thinking about these ideas for the last couple days after recently reading these words from CS Lewis’, The Screwtape Letters (in case you’re not familiar with the story, it is a series of conversations between demons, talking about how to keep people from having real relationship with God, whom they refer to as ‘the Enemy’),

“The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable. But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by the union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.”

These words ring true for me. I feel those 2 things at work at the same time inside me. I have sometimes thought my inner conflict between the love of change and love of permanence was a personality disorder… how can I want to live on the road AND collect teacups. Those two things just don’t go together! And though those two things may actually not practically go together (RV+porcelain=bad), the ideas behind both are from God. I value new experiences and exploring the unknown, and at the same time I value knowing that some things never change and there is a thread of constancy through my life.
He has synch-ed me to a Rhythm in which I am always changing and keep moving forward, but He is my Permanence, the Unchanging One, the Corner Stone. He is my immemorial theme.

So on this true Spring day (I’ve got to end this so I can go outside and sit in the sun!) I am reminded of God’s kindness to provide for that part of me that loves an adventure, and the part of me that loves a good cup of tea in grandma’s antique cup.

The update goes like this:
-My upcoming CD, The Coming Glory, is going to be done in few weeks! Keep an eye out for your opportunity to get a copy very soon! If you haven’t downloaded the 2 freebie songs, find those links on my last blog.
-We have an RV!… well, a truck and a 5th wheel camper… close enough! Thank you thank you to Eric and Shawna Nickisch who have offered theirs to us for the duration of the Kirsten Melrose+David Nickisch tour 2K10!
-Plans are coming together for the Melrose/Nickisch wedding extravaganza in June!
-We’re starting to set actual dates for performances this summer. Please let me know if you’re interested in helping set up a church or house show in your area!