Just like that, I am swept
into the bluebird’s orbit,
captivated by color
that suggests fibers
raveled from heaven’s hem.
It feels like a benediction. Memory leaps to internalize this feathered streak that signals spring.
In response, I drape a shawl the changing colors of sky around my shoulders and throat. Even sing a little, heart lifting. The moment feels Oz-like—minus any pressure to soar over somewhere’s elusive rainbow.
My mother knit the shawl lavishly; I enwrap myself, twice. When events sap my spirits, when someone I’ve trusted fails someone I love, when anxiety rises, I envelop myself in the blues that love wrought.
Is it misguided to reach for peace through a tangible semblance of nature’s garments?
. . . blue of the sea or distant hills
. . . skeins of mist, overhanging a pond
. . . quirky nests strewn with blue plastic foraged by Satin Bowerbirds
In his sermon on the mount, Jesus urged us to notice the birds in his father’s care, reminding us worry takes us nowhere.
So, is donning the shawl a small act of faith? I hope I’m expressing wonder over the bluebird; I also wonder if I’m just playing dress up.
Or worse, giving in to a gimmick: Accessorize, to distract the mind and resist dismay.
When I read about the dusk-to-dawn eyesight of deer, who perceive blue 20 times better than we do, wonder reclaims me.
“It is an amazing thing,”
a Puritan wrote, addressing God,
“to see that thy many gifts and creatures
are but thy hands taking hold of me.”
Through the natural world the Infinite downsizes and then distills itself. It beckons us closer, inviting personal contact. Enfolding us.
Perhaps our response resizes the wild to suit our domestic realm. Human hands seek things scaled to their grasp—like the bent-over woman who reached for the Savior’s hem, then rose, standing erect for the first time in years, arrayed in wholeness.
A robe, a shawl, a bluebird — perhaps these are placeholders: stand-ins, until the next occasion we sense God’s touch.
“Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream.”
—Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
Have you experienced a nature-based benediction you might consider sharing here?
You might also enjoy this: Blues Apprentice: True-blue Confessions
Photo: Photo by Noah Rosenfield on Unsplash
First quote from In The Valley of Vision
Oh yes, so many, my dear poet friend. This spring I sculpted a garden between the boulders, and every day something wild or planted there with my own hands has surprised me. This week in August, the first Casablanca lilies are blooming, and I find myself making a beeline several times a day to bow reverently in the midst of its heaven-scent. Frogs, lizards, songbirds, ungainly turkeys, jewel-toned bugs, bumblebees and butterflies, squirrels, chipmunks, even a feral cat and his dead shrew offerings. Every day, I am prepared for wonder as I venture out into the morning hush. Thank you for your lovely blog posts… They were going to my promotion folder instead of the inbox. Will try to fix that now!
“A robe, a shawl, a bluebird — perhaps these are placeholders: stand-ins, until the next occasion we sense God’s touch.”
Dear Laurie,
This reminder is true and lifts my heart in hope while I wait for how God will answer. Thank you a million Swedish fish :).
Katherine, thank you for highlighting those lines, words I needed to read again this morning. May their truth lodge gently within our souls, dear friend. Love you!
How beautiful to be able to wrap yourself in your mother’s love, Laurie. Given the number of tangibles Jesus used for his teaching, I don’t think you’re misguided at all to reach for peace through a semblance of nature’s garments. As for my own nature-based benediction: a butterfly once landed on my knee and sat for a short spell, allowing me to study her (him?) for some time before fluttering away. For those several minutes, I did experience a heightened awareness of God’s presence, his peace and calm. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.
Nancy, thank you for that assurance. : > )
What a breathless moment for you, utterly stilled, I’d imagine, gazing upon such delicate evanescence, the butterfly “tasting” you with its feet, wings fanning or, perhaps, closed like praying hands, time’s passage forgotten — just three beautiful beings sharing a few heartbeats. Magical.
Oh my! This was so beautiful. It’s that blue thread the Israelites brought forward as a free-will offering for the Temple curtains. I wrote a piece on it once as God showed me that He still asks us to bring forward blue thread (Promises of heaven, of all healed and restored and made whole) today for the building of His dwelling place.
He showed me how it was He who had compelled me to bring forward several Promises of His Word right before I went into therapy for CPTSD. I had been so ashamed of that prayer entry in my diary because I had angrily asked Him why He hadn’t fulfilled several Promises in my life.
But in that very first therapy session, when we went back to my most traumatic memories He rewrote them in His Word. I saw, felt, heard, even smelt Him transform those moments as I saw heaven unfolding before me.
I saw my precious Mum, who died of brain cancer, healed, whole and walking hand-in-hand with Jesus. And the room she died in, that I nursed her in and watched her suffer in, filled with blooming flowers I could even smell. Beauty for ashes. He filled me with the faith to believe Him at His Word.
He later showed me that He delighted in my genuine cry for help and for how I brought forward His Word. And He showed me it was He who had stirred my heart with the longing to see those Promises fulfilled in the first place.
So, keep wrapping that blue thread around you and know Jesus is wrapping you in the Promises of heaven, as he catches every tear you shed. Oh how He loves us.
Dear Anna, what a gift it is to glimpse these moments you’ve shared in your journey from trauma toward wholeness. I am moved by the severe yet redemptive mercy that enabled you to relive so many wrenching moments — heart and senses and memory fully engaged, safely companioned by God and your therapist. And how beyond words it is, these ways we are graced to go back so as to move forward.
Your faith and gratitude move me. I want to think more about this connection between the free-will gifting of blue thread and the promises. You’ve inspired me, thank you!
Laurie, we have an overwrought love affair with the birds that visit us daily and notice much about their flight, their beauty, their trust of God in their very existence. I can clearly grasp Jesus’ significance of citing them in his parables and admonitions to not worry.
And draping yourself in blue makes perfect sense–the first phrase that came to mind was “prayer shawl.” It seems apt.
I do have a bit of a benediction/reflection/prayer that I wrote a while back–here you are:
Mining the Bright Birds
I strain towards the future,
eyes focused on the far away
past empty, quiet gray,
like looking for a
hummingbird
in the snow.
Squint at fine twig lines
sliced across white
over emerald in front
of dormant sienna.
Spy her there, gemstone
stately in her royal stance
among the branches.
It is no effort, truly, to find
my way through buried days,
if I but gentle my busy self,
settle and sit, sip and settle,
welcome the daytime darkness
while mining the bright birds.
Jody, thank you mining treasures from (daytime) darkness.
“Mining the Bright Birds”
“past empty, quiet gray”
“Squint”
“hummingbird in the snow”
“gemstone … among the branches”
“if I but gentle my busy self”
And that contagious lilt: “settle and sit, sip and settle.”
Oh, and you nailed it: It is, indeed, a prayer shawl : > )
What better way to find our center , a walk through the woods , a trip along a river in spring with new life hatching and beginning their journey . Protected , guided , watched over by ever vigilant parents … a blue shawl lovingly made , reflecting the colors of mountains, sky and blue rivers that wind their way around the next bend ..
Finding peace and comfort in loving memories of those who went before, and who understood the lasting meaning of a gift hand made , created for our benefit. Whether it’s a shawl, a blue bird , a mountain , or a stream , it was created out of love …
Love your writing Laurie ,
Dear Larry, you have it exactly, seeing the Love behind and beyond and within it all. In your words I catch the rhythm of your steps as you ramble, camera in hand, moving through landscapes as well as soul scapes, immersing in moments you capture, then share, with your friends and family. I am so grateful for you and your work.
Blue . . . we dwell in blue. The universe wraps us in our blue shawl. “The blue planet,” our description-designation from where the astronauts peeked through their tiny windows and hung tentatively between our blue and bursts & whips of fire in the unending night. Blue is perhaps the color of our Gift of life.
LOVE your way of draping it!
Judith, thank you for zooming me out into the vast reaches of space, allowing me to gaze back on our earthly home from an imagined celestial remove. I should do this more often. Talk about restoring perspective!
I’m gently liltng between Hubble Telescope images and half-remembered fragments of dreams and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” — picturing the planet wrapped in God’s equivalent of the prayer shawl my momma made.
Whoa.
Where do I start?
You write well.
Have already extracted some to my journal.
Like…
**wonder reclaims me.
“It is an amazing thing,”
a Puritan wrote, addressing God,
“to see that thy many gifts and creatures
are but thy hands taking hold of me.”
Through the natural world the Infinite downsizes and then distills itself. It beckons us closer, inviting personal contact. Enfolding us.**
Have I experienced a nature-based benediction I might consider sharing here?
Yes.
Just recently I was sitting by the water.
Melancholy.
I knew I had chosen the right thing to do in the right place.
I stole myself away for respite.
Taking a stone into my hand, I felt it.
Looking at every contour.
I examined it like I have never done to any stone my entire life.
Like it was something living.
I knew I was going to throw it as far as I could into the middle of the canal.
Knowing that probably no other human will ever see it again, let alone touch it.
I tried to imagine that stone being forever unfound.
Me the last to touch.
Our bodies, one day will suffer the same fate.
I was taken back to childhood, in my searching of life’s meaning.
Walking the local church cemetery, wondering, is this it?
But now was different.
Years passing by.
Leading to that moment by the water.
I knew hope.
I knew promise.
I knew the touch of a garment.
Wonder reclaimed me.
And still does.
Ever thankful for eyes to see.
Eyes of the heart.
And for friends like you.
I have read this three times, Rick, catching my breath at each pass through your words. You take us there. The rock. The water. The slippage through time. The pondering. The knowing.
Your experience offers me a respite today. And a benediction, my friend. I am richer for having imagined myself, stone in hand, beside a canal. And for having wondered what objects or people or creatures or growing things I might be the last to touch in this life. A profound wonderment. Thank you.