New Year's Day is a good time for reflection. A friend asked what the strangest thing in my house was. This is a difficult question to answer when one has gopher tails and deer ears in the freezer. Next year I will have to take my new tails in for the bounty, rather than just think about it. The deer ears are required in case a DNR agent comes by to confirm that the venison in those same freezers match the ears with their recorded tags. I suppose the 2014 ears can be tossed...if I can unearth them. This reminds me: I need to clean all the freezers while the cold weather holds.

Paper bags full of feathers might qualify. But probably not, once put together with the nearby card stock.

Most of the odd items found in my household relate to ongoing projects: shells and driftwood for making jewelry; roots and minerals for dying wool; sacks of fleece; soap making chemicals, branches from fruit trees waiting to be made into buttons...pity the person who has to sort through any of this without the vision that led to its initial retention.

Occasionally, the detritus gathered never had an ulterior purpose.

Which brings me back to the first photo: the items in my house that tend to disturb those who take time to notice them are the bones. Life in the country brings you closer, on a daily basis, to both life and death. One is necessary to the other and both deserve to be remembered and honored.

Physical objects help us to remember, as well as to honor.

Detail of a tapestry included in the Marin Luther Exhibit currently at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

We become absorbed in thinking that cataclysmic current events will change things forever as if this a bad thing. Remembering Martin Luther's act of pinning his 95 theses to that church door 500 years ago...and what vast changes accompanied this act, gives both context and comfort. Yes, a lot of destruction. Yes, more growth. Yes, a lot of pain and also beauty.

In honor and remembrance of all that came before, as well as in celebration of all that will follow, I share with you the smallest icons: bare bones.