Hummingbird

I have a bird bucket list.

A list (mostly in my head, not actually written out) of birds I want to see before I die, hopefully randomly in nature, though I suppose in a pinch I would accept a zoo visit.

At the top of that list sits—or flutters—the hummingbird.

It has been shocking to me that I have never seen one.  Hummingbird feeders are ubiquitous.  My step-mother keeps one near the back deck of their house and claims to see hummingbirds quite frequently.

As for me—nothing.

At least not until this past Saturday.  I was at my dad and step-mother’s house doing laundry and dog-sitting for a couple of hours, sitting in the living room, watching reruns of Bargain Block, when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the flapping of wings outside a far window.

I hopped up, investigated, saw nothing and sat back down on the couch.

Over many years of birdwatching, I have learned to notice the small things, the flutter of wings, the flash of color among green leaves, the sound of a burbling brook which turns out to be—somewhat bizarrely—the call of a cowbird.

I notice the little things, because those things might be nothing, but sometimes turn out to be quite something to behold.

So, on Saturday, as I sat back to watch TV, I found myself glancing out the window every few seconds, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bird, any bird, really—when, once again, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something gray dart by the window.

I leapt up again and this time, I saw it.  A small grayish bird, with a pale splash of red, and long, hooked beak, hovering about a foot away from the hummingbird feeder.

It was there for only a breath.

Seriously, for as long as it took me to take a breath and hold it—and then it was gone.

I did not see it again.

I obviously didn’t get a picture.

But it was, without a doubt, my first hummingbird.

And I might have missed it had I not conditioned myself for years to be on the lookout for birds.

Trust me, if your daily goal is to find birds and, if possible, get a picture, you will be attuned to the world differently than if your goal once you step outside your door is to simply go grocery shopping.

It is the same way with God.

One of my goals, when I do workshops with people, is to get them to see that God is everywhere in their lives.  You don’t have to invite God to enter your life.  He is already there.  You just have to learn to recognize His presence.

And recognizing God’s presence in our lives, looking for God in our lives, needs to be a daily habit—not one, like flossing, that we know is good for us and promise our dentist that we will do, but ultimately don’t—but a habit that becomes as natural to us as breathing—and ultimately as essential to us as breathing.

At the end of each day, if we ask ourselves, “Where did I see God today?” eventually, we will see Him everywhere, without even thinking about it.

But we have to make it a central purpose of our lives or we will miss out.

For all we know, the Holy Spirit has been hovering like that hummingbird right next to us, not for seconds—not for minutes—not for days—but for years, and we have been blind to Him, focusing instead on other things.

Yesterday, I went out to take some Fall pictures.  Fall is nowhere close to being at its peak, but as it is my first Fall in more than twenty-five years, I don’t want to miss a second of it.

I also don’t want to miss a second of God’s presence in my life.

So where did I see Him yesterday?

I saw Him in a fallen leaf I found that had been caught by a flower before it hit the ground.  White flower, brown leaf—and all I could see was God holding us up when we have fallen.

Where will you see God today?

 

Speaking in Verse

 

Yesterday I heard a strange noise outside my front door and just like all those people who die first in horror movies, I decided (without even looking through the peephole) to swing open the door to see what was what.

There was a man standing there.

A large man.

Holding a Swiffer sweeper.

“I’m cleaning spiderwebs,” he said.

“Oh thank goodness,” I said, a wave of relief falling over me.

The spiders here in Ohio are insane.  They’re large and they don’t build the pretty, pearlescent with dew drops, spiderwebs you see hanging off cattails and other vegetation in Florida.

These spiders build fortresses.

There is one particular spider who is currently prepping my door for Halloween.  His spiderwebs are so thick, they look like the cotton you pull apart to create webs for Halloween decorations.  And this spider feels it necessary to build his web right across my door, so every morning, I open the door and a gust of wind blows the web into my face.

I have learned to step back and duck.

And so, I had never been so happy to see a man standing at my door with a duster.

And I am sure he had never seen someone so happy to see him because of said duster.

But I needed him.

And there he was.

A couple of weeks ago, I met with the rector of the church I’m feeling called to join.  We spoke for about an hour and she mentioned to me that every day she prays Luke 10:2 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”  Meaning she was always looking for people who were willing to bring their talent and skills to the church.

Later that afternoon, after I had gotten home, I texted her saying, “You say Luke 10:2.  I say Isaiah 6:8.”

Isaiah 6:8.  I actually had a shirt made a month or so ago with just that on the front.

Isaiah 6:8.  God asked, “Whom shall I send?  And I said, ‘Here I am, send me.’”  That’s the Kendra Lacy translation. 

But the three most important words are these, “Here I am.”

Here I am.

Isaiah 6:8 is about answering the call.  And for me it’s about answering the call when maybe we don’t even know what it is we are being called to do.  All we know is that God has called us and we make ourselves available to Him for whatever it is He needs.

I’m sure the man sweeping away spiderwebs has another job title.  Probably Maintenance Man.  And I’m doubtful that on his list of duties, sweeping spiderwebs is listed. 

But every morning he shows up and he’s told what needs to be done that day.

And he does it.

Whatever it is, even if it’s sweeping spiderwebs.

“The spiderwebs come back almost as soon as I take them down,” he told me yesterday, “but it gives me something to do.”

Purpose.

We all search for purpose.

Reasons to get out of bed in the morning.

Most often that purpose is going to be work.  We all need money to live after all.  

What is God’s purpose for us, though?

If you want to know, start with a simple prayer.

And say to God simply, “Here I am.”

 

 

 

 

Philippians 3:20

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The beauty of the Holy Spirit

is that inside us all,

we carry a little piece of heaven.

 

And it is the quickening

of our heart,

and the catch

in our breath

 

that tells us

the Kingdom of God

lives here now

within us,

 

calling to us,

demanding of us,

 

that we be something better,

that we are something better,

that we are of heaven,

and heaven is of God,

 

and we are so much more

than we can possibly imagine.

 

We are beloved.

We are sons and daughters

of the Creator, the Redeemer,

the One who is Love.

 

Amen.

That Was Fun!

“That was fun!” I said to myself in the car on the way home from church this morning, a smile plastered on my face.

Let’s be honest, I'm not sure how often one thinks of Sunday morning services as fun.

So you might wonder what was so fun about this Rite I no music service?  And I will tell you it wasn’t the service itself.  The service was fine.

It was the building.  It was the grounds.  It was being in a church that was about 150 years old and feeling the Holy Spirit saturating every piece of wood in there from altar rail to pew.  And yes there were the hard, no cushion Puritan Pews—as I call them—and they were fine.

But you could feel the Spirit tremble inside.

And the grounds—beautiful flowers.  I had so many photo ops and that gave me such peace—and then I noticed a clearing, like a courtyard.

“No way,” I whispered.  “Is that a labyrinth?”

And it was!  It was a prayer labyrinth that I didn’t expect to find and it was gorgeous, laid out in a pattern I hadn’t walked before.

I have learned in my two months in Ohio that I was spoiled with prayer labyrinths in Florida, spoiled with being able to walk them whenever I wanted.

Prior to today, the two labyrinths I had seen in Ohio—one was abandoned and overgrown and the other involved the Jesuits siccing security on my dad and me (a story for another day).

So you better believe I walked that labyrinth.  People were pulling in the parking lot for the next service, and I walked that labyrinth with no reservations, no shyness.  I don’t know how many people ever walk that labyrinth and maybe everyone who pulled in was wondering who that strange woman was, walking theirs, and I hope—I hope they wondered.  I hope I brought some mystery to their day.

I need to go back.  I need to get in touch with the church and see about getting a tour and taking more pictures and learning if this is the place God is leading me to.

But for today—I had fun.

Where Did You See God Today?

So, apparently, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles still has my driver’s license in the computer system even though it’s been 25 years.

“Can I use that picture for my new license?” I asked the man.

He grimaced.  “Man, those glasses.”

“It was the 90s!” I said.

Eventually I settled on a new picture even though, as I explained to the man, I look more and more like my mom with each picture taken.

This morning did not start out well.  Finding out shortly after 3 am that I had been locked out of my bank account.  Discovering a speed demon spider in my bathtub a few hours after that and knowing I was going to be spending my morning in the BMV, I started thinking just going back to bed might be the best option, especially after one of my pictures just randomly fell off the wall and shattered, especially after I found yet another spider hiding in the upper corner of my bedroom (actually not exactly hiding-he had a whole condominium complex of webs up there).

I told my dad I felt like the Pink Panther in the cartoon when this rain cloud follows him around all day, raining just on him.

But I also told my dad that I had promised myself that I would find God in today, that I would challenge myself to find God.

For starters, I found Him in the BMV, because if you can find things to laugh about at the BMV, God must be present.  Most people dread heading to the DMV or BMV.  Even the pictures posted online of this particular branch had a long line out the door.  But I was in and out and lucky enough to share a few laughs with the worker helping me.

After I got home from the BMV, I called my dad and asked him to come over, bring his ladder, and kill the bedroom spider for me. 

“Why don’t you just get a broom and knock it down?” he asked me.

“First, I don’t have a broom and second, even if I did, so I knock the spider down, but then he disappears and now he’s just really angry at me.”

“Okay, I’ll bring a broom and knock him down and you keep an eye on him.”

“No, Dad, bring the ladder—please.”

He paused, I think, wondering if I was serious about the whole thing, but wasn’t that one of the reasons I moved to Ohio?  So I could call my dad and have him kill bugs for me?  He also put some furniture together for me today as well, but I told him I most appreciated him taking care of the spider.

The truth is I have an amazing dad.  When I closed on my condo sale, the title lady was explaining how taxes work for the sale of a home and I told her I already knew, that my dad had researched it and already told me.

“What a good dad you have,” the woman said.

“Yeah, he’s sitting in the car right now keeping an eye on the cats.  He’s a good guy.”

Later after we had signed everything and I left, when I got in the car, my dad said, “Some lady walked out and smiled and waved at me.”

I laughed.  “Yeah that was probably the title lady.  We were talking about you.”

So where did I see God today?  In the blessings of having an awesome dad.

And finally, early this morning, after I worked out the issue with my bank account and crawled back into bed, Loki, my little orange kitty, hopped on top of me, butted his head against my arm, and then curled up, but not the way he normally does.

Normally, like a lot of crazy cats, he curls up on top of me and puts his fluffy butt right in my face.

But this morning, he rested his chin right next to my chin.  I could see him out of the corner of my eye.  My brain was racing, obsessively worrying about my bank account, but Loki’s eyes got heavier and heavier and finally closed.  He was perfectly at peace and it was hard not mirror that.

I fell asleep a minute later.

God doesn’t promise us no bad days.  But He does promise He will walk with us through those bad days. 

Realizing that God is always with us is one thing, but finding Him, recognizing His presence in our lives takes practice.  It has to become a habit and when it does, you won’t even have to think about it.

You’ll know He’s there.

Amen.

SuP

Every morning on my walk, I cross the street and am greeted by some wet cement graffiti.

“SuP Hi” the message says.

And I think it’s the “SuP”  and that uppercase “P” that always make me smile.

One of my goals in the workshops I’ve conducted over the years is to help people recognize the presence of God in their lives.  Recognizing God’s presence is definitely something that has to be intentional and it helps to make it a daily habit.

Identifying God’s presence in your life means recognizing that He has always been a part of your life.  It means that He has been calling out to you in little ways that have gone unnoticed.

It may be that every morning, He greets you with a “SuP Hi” and you have walked right on past Him.

So take a moment this morning to say “Hi” back.

Palm Sunday Thoughts

“Is it cold out?” my dad asked me when I got back from my walk this morning.

“It’s brisk,” I said, which probably sounded more like “It’s bwisk,” considering my lips were completely numb from the cold.

Welcoming springtime in Ohio is tough.  It’s cold, then slightly less cold.  It’s gray, then sunny, then gray again in the blink of an eye. 

It’s windy, then still and the most beautiful flowering trees I’ve seen turned out to be an invasive species that has been recently outlawed.

It’s seasonal whiplash.

Today is Palm Sunday and this week of Holy Week presents a spiritual whiplash.  Here we have Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem followed only days later by betrayal by his closest friends and crucifixion. 

It is a miserable, dark, and stormy season.

And yet, it always gives way to resurrection.

I am reminded of the little girl who ran past my open window some years ago on a particularly sunny, warm spring day in Florida.  As she chased her friend, she shouted out, “It smells like Easter down here!” 

What an amazing piece of knowledge—to know somewhere outside of the brain, somewhere deep in the heart, to the very spirit, the soul, that the smell of new growth, of fresh air, of turned dirt and flowers bending and turning to the sun—to know that this is Easter.

That Jesus is life.

Every morning, I step out onto the back deck of my dad and Barb’s house and look to the forest of trees on the other side of their fence.

There is a building green.

There is towering gray above, but there is a building green below.

And one morning, I will walk outside and the gray will have vanished overnight.

The sun will rise on new life.