Room for Waiting

On time, out of time, spending time, waiting time.
Waiting need not be a waste of time.
How will I choose to use the wait?

Sitting, knitting?
Cell phone talking, restless walking?
Watching, listening to an also waiter?
Making plans for what comes later?

Flipping through magazines’ glossy ads of products I would not buy?
Reading a chosen book I brought with me to try?
Tuning out noise from the TV intended to entertain?
Can I make something happen instead of complain?

Could I, would I pray?
If the wait is too long, will I stay?

If the waiting is in a place in my life instead of a place of medical appointment, is my choice the same?

Letting Go

When my sons were in elementary school, they all went to Davis Elementary In Plano, Texas,several blocks from our house. Adjoining the school grounds was a small greenbelt area that had a creek running through it. When it was raining hard, that creek rose pretty fast. One day when it had been raining, as he walked home from school Sean spotted something caught in the underbrush by the creek and he stopped, pulled it out and brought it home. They were always rescuing something. This time it was a very large bird that Sean was sure was a Peregrine Falcon. All three boys loved medieval castle and knight stories complete with falconry, so it must be a falcon! It was obviously hand trained because it had a leather jess on its foot. It also had a BB hole in its wing. Wounded and unable to fly it fell near the creek which had risen enough to reach it as it lay caught in the scrubby growth. When Sean ran into the kitchen with it, explanations were rushed as he wrapped the soggy exhausted bird in a towel, then got my hair dryer and dried it! Sean had a large cage leftover from his parakeet breeding phase so they put it there but it didn't stay long. Ben and Jeremy were amazed at the new bird! It didn’t take long for this bird to revive somewhat. Before we realized just how mobile or strong he was, he had decided to have a snack on another resident of the garage: Jeremy's King snake that was living in a gallon jar with a screen on top. The screen was like paper for that sharp beak. Jeremy was of course very upset, but he was excited enough about the bird to forgive him.

This was before the days of Googling Hawks and Falcons! They read everything they could find about the bird. Jeremy even took him to school for a show and tell! The bird rode on Jeremy's towel wrapped arm with what they had devised for a jess strap and Jeremy told the kids about intelligence and wingspan and strength and speed. (This is the son who is now a jet pilot.) After Jeremy's talk, another boy in his class came up to Jeremy with tears in his eyes and remorsefully confessed he was the one who shot the bird with his BB gun! Mrs. Wharton, his 2nd grade teacher is our friend even now (over thirty years later) and she remembers the story.

I told the boys I didn't think we were supposed to keep a falcon, and we began calling agencies to find out what to do with him. Texas Parks and Wildlife would only say we were not allowed to keep the bird. Finally we contacted a wildlife rehabilitation organization in McKinney, TX that worked to rehabilitate wounded birds of prey. They said they would take care of his wound and when he was well enough, gradually teach him to hunt for his own food again , then release him. It was a tearful day when Ben and Jeremy and Sean and I drove up to the Heard Museum in McKinney, 30 minutes away, with the bird in the car. Again, he rode peacefully on the boy's arms. He could have decimated some flesh or at the least caused a major distraction for mom the driver. I was probably crazy for taking him loose like that in the car, but that is what we did. When we arrived, he was identified not as the falcon that they had hoped, but as a Texas Red Tailed Hawk. They were shown the cage he would be kept in and told about his feeding and rehabilitation.

About a month afterward, we received a call that "our" hawk was ready to leave. The boys were invited to come up and release him. As they carried him out into the field, we talked about how good he would feel to have air under his wings again, to fly! When he left us, he circled and then flew higher and higher until he was only a dot and then gone, leaving three boys growing into strength and wisdom and freedom of spirit, and a mom who herself was only beginning to understand about nurturing and letting go. When I see a hawk I remember him. Sometimes when I stand with an upraised wave of my arm as I see the plane my son is piloting fade into a dot in the sky I remember, too.

Patchwork Promises: On being kept and keeping.

I once was asked to speak to a women's group at our church about peace. I talked about my grandmother, who loved to quilt and did what she called piece work. I said she also was known for her peace work, making patchwork quilts. She was the grandmother whose table around which our family still gathers. I wrote about that table in one of my first blog entries. Grandma Terrell fed us teacakes and garden vegetables but she also fed us the nourishment of love and peace that came from her deep faith. She covered us in her feather bed with quilts she had pieced from scraps of worn out clothing or pieces left over from making a new dress, but she also covered us with grace. She taught me the joy of being kept. She taught me the value in keeping.

Now I am the grandmother. Last week I had the special blessing of keeping my two youngest granddaughters for a few days while their parents traveled. We pulled out a quilt to place on the family room floor. 2 year old Maddie and I added a card table and coverings to make a play house, and had our lunch there. 5 month old Jordann practiced her rolling overs and carefully examined the new colors and patterns in the old quilt pieces. As I watched her, I realized the little daisy and strawberry print she was fingering was cut from a scrap of cloth that made a sundress I had worn when I myself was a very little girl. I felt a leap to and from the past. Mine, my mother's, this special grandmother who had sewn the quilt. I felt tears that must have made my eyes shine almost as brightly as Jordann's, and I laughed with Maddie as we pretended.

A Psalm 46:10 Ponder

What tone of Psalmist voice says "Be Still"?
Admonition? Invitation? Consolation? Consternation?

A mother's voice to a restless chld fighting sleep? "Time to be quiet, I'll watch you and keep."
A daddy's reassurance as he holds out his arm? "Come, let me hold you, safe from harm."
A friend's response to grief or to pain? "Take your peace. I am with you, in loss or in gain."

Pulling thorn, setting bone. I am still, but not alone.
I read the words in all the voices and don't yet know what more will be.
But in every voice I hear God telling He knows a way that's best for me.

Be Still.
Cease Striving.
Kinow that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

But you, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.

Psalm 3:3

January Garden Gifts

Clumps of fountain grass whisper as they dance with the wind.
Branches with curling bark and a few hanging leaves silhouette against pewter sky.
Pond fish swish far back under rocks.
Today is wet Winter. Yesterday felt like Spring sunshine.
Narcissus and daffodil are just beginning their green peep through.
But pansies and snapdragons still offer golden yellow and crimson and velvety purple petals. Rosemary,thyme, oregano, and dill provide a whole palette of green, plus fragrance for my fingers when I cut them for soups. Lentil, chicken, potato and tomato.

And the roses, oh the roses! A table with steaming bowls of soup and a little jar of golden roses warms my body and my soul.

New Song

Learning new ways of writing is like learning new music. It is easier to hum along with familiar melodies and rhythms. Learning the yet untried means deliberate focus, attention to details, and risking mistakes. I need to listen and learn as I work on song. I am listening and learning as I work with words. May singer and writer stretch to embrace the new notes.



The Untried Melody
Howard Thurman

I will sing a new song.
I must learn the new song for the new needs
I must fashion new words born of all the new growth in my life---of my mind---of my spirit.
I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before,
That all that is within me may lift my voice unto God.

How I love the old familiarity of the wearied melody,
How I shrink from the harsh discords of the new untried harmonies.

Teach me, my Father, that I might learn with the abandonment and enthusiasm of Jesus,
The fresh new accent, the untried melody,
to meet the need of the untried morrow.

Source: from "I Will Sing a New Song" in Meditations of the Heart

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