immerse in God, emerge refreshed
Shake-up time: Will this tree die?
Camera in hand, I’ve stepped outdoors primed for delight, hoping for insight: another digitized Blog Fairy seeking truth.
What am I to make of this quaking aspen leaf with its arresting, toxic calligraphy? [Read more…]
Blues apprentice? You decide. This is how it went down:
“Please, God, not a blue one.”
Arms crossed against icy wind—and what I was about to do—I braved the La-Z-Boy store.
“And how may we help you today?” the genteel salesman asked, ignoring my body language.
I did not gnash my teeth. Or mention a long-held personal vow: no recliners. Ever.
Having survived 5 bypasses, Dreamer required safe, adjustable, maximized comfort. I wanted him to have every last thing he needed to heal. As long as it wasn’t blue.
I cleared my throat. Swallowing pride felt like raveled twine was stuck to my tongue and tonsils.
“I need a recliner. For a big guy.” He nodded, starting to turn. “Today,” I added.
His tilted his head. “That sounds important. Follow me.”
The only Big Man Recliner in stock was … wait for it … blue. [Read more…]
Rut — (dubious real estate):
From Middle English rutte, from Middle French ruit, or “disturbance,” from Latin rugire “to roar.”*
Read: frustration. Hair-tearing, hollow, dead-end days. A rut is the one place nobody wants to wallow.
What I’m learning? No matter how slight, every rut, by its nature, has an up-side.
Imagine ambling down a misty dirt road with me after a hard June rain. We pause to map this puddle. 
Note the fjord-like perimeter. The little puddle that wanted to be the Norwegian Sea.
As an art major at St. Olaf College, 46 Junes ago I helped my advisor execute a wall-sized mural for the posh campus restaurant (where students still take visiting parents in hopes of a steak).
Working to scale, we reproduced Norway’s uber-erratic coastline.
A map was enlarged, traced onto paper. Yours truly cut the stencils, hour after hour. No errors or eye rolls allowed. No accidentally lopping off minor headlands, islets or inlets.
Think focused dexterity. Quantum patience. Nordic fortitude (Ja sure, you betcha!).
Then we tackled Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.
Need I mention multitudinous X-acto blades?
My knife and I settled into a mechanical, minimum wage rut.
The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions. —Ellen Glasgow
How quickly routines become habitual. Hidebound. Auto pilot is convenient, but numbing. Increasingly tired, uninspired, our days drag.
Except …
remember the peculiar rut-become-puddle reflecting the heavens?
The same dirt road, above, now glints with myriad ice formations.
Below? Same stretch, last summer. Seems parched earth plays a role in forming those extravagant margins.
I goosed the colors, then added 6 subtle overlays. Can you spot all 6?** (answers below)
No matter your score, you focused precious curiosity on a sight most people would bypass. Or step around to save their shoes.
Roads erode. Metaphorically, unpaved ways wear on the soul. No matter how stuck or dull or sidelined we feel enduring the humdrum—commuting, flossing, wiping down counters, mowing, moisturizing, paying bills—I’m banking on this: there’s an underlying rhythm.
Ephesians translates the Greek word poeima, literally “poem,” as God’s “workmanship”—which includes us: sentient, sensory beings shaped from dust, sometimes groping our way forward.
“So the Poet himself stepped out of heaven and into the poem, onto the dusty trails of the earth and into the desperate ruts of our souls …” writes Emily P. Freeman in A Million Little Ways.
Because of this …
Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. … We have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on earth,” Natalie Goldberg observes (Writing Down the Bones).
After Dreamer’s open heart surgery, I know this as never before. Still, some days recovery is a shared rut, no end in sight.
So we hold hands, stay with it, notice the margins. We watch for random sparkle, reflections of heaven.
Hence, these photos: hard evidence that amid the mundane, something glimmers.
May we do no less.
Are you currently in a rut, or in the groove? Could it be both?
Can one person be a bird sanctuary?
June 3rd marks the feast day for Irish monk St. Kevin and his legendary blackbird. T’is a fine time for admiring flight, I’m thinking. Or savoring an omelette.
Celtic legend describes Kevin at prayer in his one-monk hut, an arm extended through the window, his palm raised.
Enter the Emerald Isle’s elite songster: a blackbird (not to be confused with big-mouth American blackbirds).
American blackbirds—especially en masse—can be bullies: strident, messy, a threat to crops and property.
Kevin’s songbird, on the other hand (literally), alighted gently, perhaps on his thumb. Finding his warmth congenial, she settled in, laid eggs.
Motionless, wonder-struck, Kevin offered her sanctuary. Day after day, so the legend goes.
Why sacrifice plans (and personal space) for a bird?
Psalm 84:3-4 celebrates those who dwell in God’s sanctuary—including birds. In ancient Israel’s temple, a swallow built her nest near the altar. Religious leaders with opinions and brooms probably gathered.
What message did that nest send? Shoddy upkeep? Lazy priests?
Or perhaps, more inclusively, Creation’s feathered counterpoint to the Levite choir?
The nest remained, an audio/visual for the radical hospitality of the One who knows when a sparrow falls to the ground.
Kevin’s hand graciously cradled one small bird—his spirit already a sanctuary for God’s presence.
Confined to his hut, the man’s surrender to the unexpected inspires me.
Outstretched in Lent, Kevin’s hand
did not expect
the blackbird’s egg, its speckled warmth,
new-laid, in his uplifted palm. Think prayer
as nest: an intimate travail whereby
fledgling hopes, like birds, leave behind
a kind of grave. Amen, seeming
premature, the saint-in-waiting
dovetailed faith with knuckles.
Faithfulness takes time. We knuckle down to wait, in hope, for things as yet unseen.
Cue impatience and hunger and the cramp of muscles and numbness and pins-and-needles. Cue ongoing attitude adjustments.
Had it been me in that hut, Mama Bird would have been relocated ASAP.
Saint Laurie, however, prefers to imagine catching aphids for her with my free hand. Naming her something mystical. Learning her song (while suppressing that niggling yen for applause, modest fame, a personal feast day).
Then, having waved farewell, I would weep (beatifically).
And afterward, did Kevin save those eggshell bits,
adorn his windowsill with each goodbye
the smallest beak ever made?
He never said. Nor will he
know these hearts of ours,
more shell than shelter…
Much as I want to faithfully be a safe place for those God sends my way—human, animal, avian—I’m bound to crack, then lament my frailty.
And then begin again, remembering He who was first broken for us will always lovingly
…know these hearts of ours,
more shell than shelter
as they fissure, let in light enough
for Christ to enter. Yes,
let grief be, with every breath, a readied womb.
How do you practice offering sanctuary? I’d love to know.
Click to hear “Lord, Prepare Me”
(sung by Kent Henry, written by Randy Scruggs/John Thompson)
Click to hear the European blackbird’s song
Click to watch blackbirds feeding their young
ALTERNATIVES, noun, definition:
1: options, choices, other possibilities.
2: existing or functioning outside the established cultural, social, or economic system
Day after day, exponential rain. Multiple weekly appointments, and miles logged. Then the waiting. Driving again. More rain.
Aerobic walks? Postponed. Eventually shelved. Rehab for Dreamer (and chauffeur) is time-intensive.
And something’s missing . . .
