All Good Gifts

Thinking back to Christmas morning....In this case the presents were not something I asked for or would have even thought to ask for. It had been a full and bustling Christmas Eve and Christmas day overflowing with happy times with family and joyous conversations. We live in a small ranch house and the common area consists of a smallish kitchen/dining room combination and a living room. When that space is filled with a large Christmas tree, 7 people and 2 neurotic dogs stepping outside for some calm and fresh air can be a refreshing respite whether anything noteworthy is happening in the yard or not. This morning as the dark gave way to early light I was expecting to see the various sparrow species, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches and woodpeckers that are here all the time and had good reason to hope for the flocks of pine siskens that have been visiting lately. But in addition to the familiar birds, I was greeted with the calls of a handful of cedar waxwings, sitting high up in the honey locust. Whether they stopped to eat at the crabapple tree before leaving again I do not know.

The most surprising outside gift of the day, however, was the presence of what I have called "The Christmas Pheasant". We have had pheasants in the yard now and then over the years, but never one so bright and beautiful and never on Christmas day. After all the kids had left for their next destinations, and my husband the same, I was in the process of taking the leftover wrappings out to the trash when a large male pheasant scooted away from me, just 15 ft or so from the back door. He puttered about the yard for the next hour or so and then sailed over the fence and was gone, leaving nothing but a delighted memory of his visit...such a glorious and unexpected present on this day of days. Immediately words from the old hymn (and remembered in the Godspell rendition) sprang to mind.

"All good gifts around us, are sent from heaven above. So, thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all His love." A fitting reminder for heading into the new year and all it brings.

Starting Over

For those who are still checking this almost abandoned blog, I thank you. I figured everyone had given up on me ever having a noteworthy thought or post again and when I just looked at the blog statistics I saw that I had been wrong. So thank you.

I'll be writing again soon but not today. Today I am enjoying the fragrance of fresh Russian teacake cookies, peanut butter popcorn and berry candles. And listening to quiet reflective Christmas music and watching the many birds out in the yard feasting on the bounty there. There must be 50 pine siskens on thistle feeders and seed producing plants and a family of 6 or so bluebirds eating from the crabapples and winterberry bushes. There are white-crowned sparrows and juncos all over the ground, chickadees and titmice at the sunflower feeders, woodpeckers at the suet, and blue-jays coming in for peanuts in the platform feeder. The yard is like something out of Narnia at the moment... ice hanging from every branch and feeder. If the sun were out I'm sure all would glisten like jewels.

Today is a day to be thankful for Christmas coming, for remembering God's work in our world and for humbly accepting His grace and nearness. Writing can wait a bit longer.
A Merry Christmas to all who stumble upon these words and God's peace to you all.

Listen With Your Heart

For many of us, and as I have written before, autumn is a season that sparks restlessness and the urge to explore. It brings the kinds of days that are well described in a line from a favorite childhood book, Champion Dog, Prince Tom, ( paraphrased since I can't remember the exact words)...days that make you feel as though you could "walk across the top of the world without getting tired". And these days bring to mind a poem that I have been reciting to myself for almost than 30 years now, a poem I came across in a British magazine while living in Botswana in the late 1970's. I hope you enjoy it and even more, take it to heart.

Listen With Your Heart (Edna Jaques)
Go out, go out I beg of you,

And taste the beauty of the wild.
Behold the miracle of Earth
With all the wonder of a child.
Walk hand in hand with nature's God
Where scarlet lilies brightly flame.
Make footprints in the virgin sod
By some clear lake without a name.

Listen not only with your ears,
But make your heart a listening post.

Travel above the timber line,
Make fires along some lonely coast.
Breathe the high air of snow-crowned peaks,
Taste fog and kelp and salty tides.
Go pitch your tent among the pines
Where golden sun and peace abide.

Follow the trail of moose and deer,
The wild goose on her lonely flight.
Savor the fragrance of the wild,
The sweetness of a northern night.
Drink deep of distance, rest your eyes
Where centuries of peace have lain.
And let your thoughts go winging out,
Beyond the realm of man's domain.

Lay hold upon the out-of-doors
With heart and soul and seeking brain.
You'll find the answers to all life
Held in the sun and wind and rain.
Where'er you walk, by land or sea,
The page is clear for all who seek.
If you will listen with your heart
And let the voice of nature speak.

The Stuff of Earth

Many readers know Rich Mullins' song "If I Stand" and the chorus is usually pointed to as having particular significance. The chorus proclaims standing firm in faith and God's grace when we fail, good messages of course. It is the verses that have special significance for me, however, and the words are printed below.

There's more that rises in the morning than the sun
And more that shines in the night than just the moon
It's more than just this fire here that keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger than this room

And there's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance
I owe only to the giver of all good things

There's more that dances on the prairies than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean than the tide
There's a love that is fiercer than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother's when her baby's at her side

And there's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance
I owe only to the giver of all good things

All who follow God wrestle at times with that which tends to draw them away from Him, with that which compromises "following hard after God". Sometimes it is clearly sin or willful pursuit of something we should avoid. A friend of mine has just written a thoughtful blog post about "Issues of Personal Holiness" that speaks directly to the matter. (A link to his blog, Heart for God, appears on my Blog links.) But other times what pulls us away is what Rich Mullins has called "the stuff of Earth"...that which is good and beautiful, noble and commendable... that which in and of itself is not a stumbling block to faith nor to seeking God. What I appreciate about these lyrics is the recognition that sometimes what moves me the most deeply...literally the stuff of the physical earth and of relationships can "compete for the allegiance" that is due God alone. And when allegiance to the Giver is challenged by allegiance to the gift I need to be reminded that the two are not the same... that as much as I love and appreciate the gifts, the Giver stands separate and above them all.

Because I am finite, many times what I can see and touch, what I can experience with my senses looms largest in my mind and heart. I am captivated by images of dancing prairie grasses and ocean currents, sun and moon rises. I am captivated by the natural wonders I so often write about and appreciate every day. And because I am finite and because I am moved by music that sinks Truth into my very heart, I appreciate this poetic reminder to exalt the "Giver of all good things" above all else. This reminder is a needed call to personal holiness as I live out my days in wonder of the world around me.

Parable of the Late Summer's Song

Do you ever stand outside in your back yard at night in the late summer and listen to the myriad crickets and katydids calling? Do you ever listen closely to the individual calls and try to count the species? A few minutes ago I was out in the yard doing just that and after listening a while tried to imagine just how many noisy creatures might have been calling within the borders of our yard. It isn't always easy, discerning the various pitches and cadences of these nocturnal mating invitations but with practice I have become better at recognizing some of them. Tonight I counted 12 species, though there could easily be more since many of them sound similar. I have a CD entitled Songs of Crickets and Katydids of the Mid-Atlantic States that I listen to each year before the seasonal chorus begins in hopes of becoming better acquainted with the various voices. As difficult as it is for me to pick out and remember each call, I have a friend who knows them intimately and recognizes them all without effort. I also have a couple of friends who are knowledgeable about the nocturnal flight calls of migrating thrushes. They position themselves in a quiet spot well before sunrise and sit and just listen to the various thrushes calling far up in the darkness as they fly overhead. Sometimes the listeners tally what they have heard and will report that they counted 400 wood thrushes, 100 veeries, and 50 Swainson thrushes in the pre-dawn migration flight on a given day. While I am pretty good at recognizing many bird songs in the daylight, I have not yet even attempted to learn the nocturnal flight calls. And yet, I have no doubt that others can do it.

As I was outside listening a little while ago, my mind turned to thinking about God's ability to listen to the prayers of so many of us all at the same time, knowing not only who we are, but our very hearts as well. Whenever I have previously wondered about this I must have been sitting indoors rather than outside listening. When outdoors, I need only pay attention to realize that each voice is different even within the same species. It seems to me that the reason God recognizes of each our prayers is because He listens attentively and expectantly... just like I do when I'm out birding or mentally tallying birds while I am busy doing something else. It is their voice that reveals their identity and their proximity.

This evening I was part of a small group that meets to pray and encourage one another and as with any group, the members came together each with their own concerns, needs, fears and joys. And as we prayed God listened and attended to our cries, spoken and unspoken. He listens to our prayer because He loves us and He attends to our prayer because He knows us even better than we know ourselves. In future years when this late summer season rolls around, or when the spring avian migration begins and I once again have to tune my ears to recognize bird calls, I will be reminded to thank God yet again for His ability and His willingness to stoop to listen to the cries my heart, knowing that at the same time He is doing so for all who call on Him.

The World is So Full of a Number of Things...

This year's garden as it is today.

The Riches of Non-Ownership

This would be a great time of year to be a vagabond, wandering from place to place carrying just what is needed, stopping and moving on as one pleases. It is a time of year to stroll rather than rush, to be still and drink in the sights, the songs and fragrance of the season, to glory in the earth's bounty and to embrace its God. It is a time for thanksgiving and for wonder...wonder at the sudden departure of barn swallows who somehow know on just which day to leave their summer home and head south towards Central America...wonder at the hummingbird migration and the tiny brains that remember the exact places they found sustenance on their southern journey the preceding year...wonder at individual leaves that are green one day are changed into their autumn color the next. This season always reminds me of Robert Louis Stevenson's line, "The world is so full of a number of things. I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

This is also a great a time of year to be not tied too closely to possessions that weigh us down nor longings for what we do not have. Recently, whether a product of getting older or of God being at work, I have felt the allure of ownership lessen and the tug of "things" become more burdensome. I have managed to give away a few substantial possessions and have felt the old familiar invitation to a more simplified life. Somehow, our culture has come to confuse ownership with fulfillment and possessions as the bringers of satisfaction. How tightly we have come to hold onto what is "ours", all the while longing for a freedom that seems elusive. We have turned to reality shows to bring us the sense of adventure and risk we have personally forgotten. We have forfeited the first hand experience in favor of attempting to live it vicariously through someone else. And we have lost out on so much real life in the process, though the good news is that it is never too late to start again. As Gandalf said (more or less), it is dangerous going out one's front door. You never know where the Path will take you.

The Path has taken me in a new and gratifying direction of late. I have started working at a native plant nursery some distance from where I live and have realized that I have been confused for some time. I have thought about starting and owning a native plant nursery for more than 10 years. And I have wanted to own a piece of land with an old house and room for animals set in the midst of trees and meadows where I could watch the birds and listen to the insects. For years I have equated owning with experiencing and I am finding out I was wrong. Now I work at just such a nursery. I care for plants surrounded by a cacophony of honking geese, screeching peacocks and babbling turkeys and I watch the branches wave on huge old willows and horse-chestnuts whenever I look up. The nursery is ringed with wild meadows filled with the singing of summer insects and soon the meadows will play host to migrating southbound warblers, sparrows and hawks . I have found a kindred spirit in the nursery owner and have become friends with my co-workers, the Amish girls and women who have been at the nursery far longer than I. As I get to know them all, I am gaining insight into their world and their values. We talk of foals and cutting gardens, of community and family, of priorities and life choices, of tragedies and triumphs. I am at home there. At home in a place that is not "mine"and never will be.

And when I come back home to my own place...my house and yard and family, I am surrounded by those who like and love me and our half-acre is filled with flowers, with grasses and trees, with the singing of insects and birds and with hummingbirds zipping about. A couple of nights ago a screech owl called from in the back yard and I almost stepped on a toad who was waiting for insects on the stone path. What a rich and wonderful life! Not because of what I possess but by embracing what no one can own. This life of gratitude, of curiosity about the natural world, of communion with God in the wideness of what He has made is open and available to all who seek, to all who thirst for more than what they can lay claim to, to all who know their need. The world and the Creator are waiting with open arms to gather in all who embark on the journey and those who dare to will be enriched beyond measure.