Nest

I originally posted this on another site on June 22, 2007...
An amazing thing happened recently: a cardinal built her nest right outside of my bedroom window. I had such a great time watching her bring all of the materials together, one piece at a time, and put them all together to make this very impressive structure that I doubt very seriously I could make and I have opposable thumbs and a college degree. Anyway, she finished her nest just in time for her magnum opus to arrive…three of them, and they were perfect and spotted and you would think I had laid them myself from the fuss I have made over the whole production. But then yesterday I noticed that she was strangely absent from her nest every time I passed the window and then again today no lady cardinal anywhere to be seen. I couldn't take it…I had to sneek outside and peer down in the nest…really get a good look. No eggs. Not one. The nest was perfectly undisturbed, but no eggs. I was so disappointed, so much so that you would think I was the mother. Okay I wasn't THAT upset, but I was still considerably bummed over the whole thing. First of all, I had invested wayyyy too much time observing this whole thing ( and feeling strangely voyeuristic, I might add) and now I wasn't going to get to see the big show. No babies pecking their way out of their shells. No worms dropping into little open mouths from a caring mother and I sure as heck won't be seeing those little guys take off like Orville and Wilbur. I felt so cheated.
And then it hit me. That is how I have been feeling about my mom dying. I feel cheated. She won't be around next year when I turn the big 4-0. She won't be here to see my sons graduate from high school or get married. I won't even get to buy her Christmas presents this year. It doesn't seem to matter now what she didn't do right when I was ten or all of the times she wasn't there for me when I was something-teen. Pretty soon she just won't be here at all. So I am going to be "looking out of the window" a lot these next days or weeks or however much time there is left so that I can enjoy her while I still can. It is hard to understand why some natural processes seem to be cut short and what you are supposed to do with yourself as you stand helplessly by and watch the agony of another person. But I figure that if God is big enough to fashion a creature that can perform amazing architectural feats with only a beak, then He can mend my broken heart and catch my tears as I gaze out of the window.

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This thing called blogging

I originally posted this on another site on June 8, 2007...
I just can't get over this cyber fixation on blogging. Blogging, by any other name, is still just writing. In fact, it is just journaling and I have been doing this "amazing" activity since I learned to write, sometime in kindergarten. I have always used archaic implements such as paper and a pen, which by modern standards are not nearly as exciting as a keyboard made of plastic. And, of course, journals of old were not for public consumption except perhaps posthumously. I suppose ordinary things made public are of greater interest. Take sex for example. Sex behind closed bedroom doors has been happening uneventfully since the dawn of mankind, but put it up on a big screen, accompanied by huge tubs of popcorn, and charge way too much money and then you've REALLY got something interesting. People come in droves to see that! So those of us who have been "blogging" privately for decades in the privacy of our own homes are now being encouraged by the computer literate to blog. "You should blog...it is such fun...have you tried it?" To those folks I would like to say, "Why yes, for longer than you have been living and I have mountains of old journals filling my closets to prove it."
In truth, I am happy for the nou veau writers out there who, though mistaken in their belief that blogging is a new invention, are finding satisfaction in the written word. One day I hope to get paid for this great medium known as writing and, until then, I blog, I journal, I write and my heart is happy!

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simplicity

I originally posted this on another site on September 4, 2006...
Today I will attempt a Martha Stewart miracle...to bring order and simplicity to life...spiritual life, that is. Okay, seriously, in my time with God this morning, He reminded me of the ease and simplicity of this thing we call Christianity. Oswald Chambers once said, "A disciple of Christ is one over whom Jesus writes the word "Mine". So, I was thinking, many are saved and heaven-bound by simply believing and confessing (John 3:16-17). But to be a disciple of Christ denotes ownership. We become His intimate possession for whom He is now responsible. He says that "Ye shall be my witnesses unto Me" (Acts 1:8). It is not a matter of DOING anything for Him but rather, as O.C. puts it, "being a perfect delight to Him." Yes! That's it-to be His intimate possession takes all of the pressure off of us. We are to live and move and have our being in Him-that is all! Any plans or courses of action, well, that is His business, and He said He will direct and order our steps on a need-to-know basis (apparently He feels I don't usually need to know until the very last minute on most things, but I digress). Being in daily, vital union with Him-that is all that we must see to today and tomorrow and every day for the rest of our lives. That is why He says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light--when joined to Him, as animals are to one another, HE carries the weight of it all and we have only to go in the same direction as He. Oh the sweet simplicity of being His! Even Martha Stewart would recognize that as "a good thing!"

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