Category Archives: Christian Life

Feathering Nests and Floating Hope

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  “Hope is that thing with feathers

 That perches on the soul

That sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.”    ~Emily Dickinson

For many years now, I have believed that when I find a feather, it is a reminder to me that little things are important, and that I am kept in the shadow of God’s wing.  I have found feathers in the most unusual and unexpected places, when I wasn’t really looking.  When my mother was dying, I went out to the car to drive back to sit with her.  When I got to the edge of the lawn, I had to step over the median.  When I looked down, I found a large black and green duck feather sticking straight up out of the grass. A wisp of a feather floated by and stuck on my windshield on another occasion when I sorely needed the reminder.

I had a little feather that was a wonder to me for years.  I don’t remember where I found it or exactly when, although I kept it in a little birthday reminder book that was given to me in 1987, the year we moved to Indonesia.  I put it there in the beginning because on that page there is a drawing of that same feather, right down to the size (tiny) and colors and markings (black and white).  I was amazed at that.  Usually the process is different…you find the object, then obtain or make its resemblance.


The other special thing about that feather was that it lived between the pages of the birthday calendar book where my oldest son’s name is written, January 13, his birthday.  And that it was still there, through 2 moves in Jakarta, an international shipping, and the busy household shuffling of my kitchen desk every day.  Feathers usually don’t stay.  They drift in and blow away.
 
But this little feather stayed between the pages and always caused me to smile when I came upon it.  It reminded me of joy in small things, of hope … of lines of poetry and scripture, and that gifts can come when you open your hand and heart, and sometimes, the door. I gave the feather to my son on his birthday last year, telling him I hoped it would serve as a reminder of the same things for him.  (This story was posted in the blog last September.)

I still find feathers.  And they are still reminders for me of joy and faith…and that I am under the shadow of His wing. A favorite author, Leigh McElroy, likes finding feathers too.  She reminds me that God may wink or whisper in the way He reminds me of His presence, and that He delights in delighting me with the littlest of things.  The opening scene in a movie loved by many tells a story of a feather found and kept. 

Forgiveness

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On our back porch is a basket of stones. On each, a word is printed with white paint that has worn over time. I use these as prayer reminders, but the children love handling the smooth stones. Sometimes they are warm, sometimes cool, but always good to the touch. This week I noticed my 5-year-old granddaughter, Maddie, moving the stones around, then going out to pick flowers to bring inside. As I started to open the back door, I found one smooth black stone lying at the doorsill. This was the one with Forgiveness dimly written across its surface. I looked back at Maddie, who called “I put that there for you. It is special.” And I thought how right she was, what a needed reminder, what a precious gift. A gift rom a 5-year-old little girl who thought it was pretty, from loved ones to whom I may have failed to encourage and bless, from my heavenly Father, who offers it so freely and loves me unconditionally. Forgiveness is indeed a gift. Now that I consider it, so are the words written on all the other stones.

                                                                                                                                                                Light for my darkness                                                                                        

Courage for my fear
                                                                                                                                                                                  Hope for my despair
                                                                                                                                             Peace for my turmoil
                                                                                                                                                                                                          Joy for my sorrow.
                                                                                                                                                          Strength for my weakness.
                                                                                                                                                                                       Wisdom for my confusion.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Forgiveness for my sins.

                                                                                                                                                                          Love for my hates

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Thy Self for my self.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Taken from At The Opening of the Day
                                                                                                                                                                                                By Howard Thurman

Prayers, Old and New

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In 2004, at an estate sale, I was drawn to a framed hand colored piece printed in County Wicklow, Ireland showing a mother looking out an open window at a young child running off to play. Printed below the picture is A Prayer for a Young Child. It was published in Songs from Leinster, by Winifred M. Letts.

“God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and black-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water and hurt of the fire .
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise and from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that waken desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat
From depths o’ seawater by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble — from sickness and weeping.
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.”

I love the cadence of the old-fashioned words. I know how a mother’s heart yearns for her children’s protection and pours that out in prayer. As I read one of Amy Carmichael’s prayers, I was struck by the similarity. Even though she never had children she mothered those with whom she worked in India

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“Father, hear us, we are praying,
Hear the words our hearts are saying,
We are praying for our children…

Read the language of our longing,
Read the wordless pleadings thronging.
Holy Father for our children,
And wherever they may bide,
Lead them home at eventide.”

The opening and closing stanzas of
Amy Carmichael’s 19th century prayer for the children of the Dohnavur Fellowship in India

So today I am praying for mothers. I also pray for fathers. It is not always possible for us to protect our children from harm and hurt, from mistakes that they or someone else will make. I am glad to know that God reads the language of my longing, and hears the words of my heart.

Is Happiness Green?

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“Happiness? The color of it must be spring green, impossible to describe until I see a just-hatched lizard sunning on a stone. That color, the glowing green lizard skin, repeats in every new leaf… The regenerative power of nature explodes in every weed, stalk, branch. Working in the mild sun, I feel the green fuse of my body, too. Surges of energy, kaleidoscopic sunlight through the leaves, the soft breeze that makes me want to say the word “zephyr”—this mindless simplicity can be called happiness.”
—Frances Mayes
What color is my happiness? I could easily say Frances Mayes has said it all, that yes, the color of my happiness is spring green seen in the glowing leaf and lizard, weed and branch. That green does fuel my energy, and I have always loved the dappled sunlight as I stand under swaying branches with leaves transformed into countless shades of green. Indeed, this “mindless simplicity can be called happiness”.
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However, on this Monday, I am soaked in the exhilaration that comes from Eastering. The Alleluias of Sunday morning and joy of my granddaughters as they experienced awe and wonder in all the Easter colors filled my happy cup to the brim. Several years ago, after experiencing a season of sharply declining vision due to a corneal disease, I received cornea transplants, the gift of 2 donor families. Two weeks following the first surgery, as I sat out by our pond, I suddenly realized I could see the cobalt blue of an iris. I was shot through with happiness and gratitude that I could see that flower clearly.

This day, a different way of seeing for me means receiving the gift of seeing through the eyes of my granddaughters as they marveled at  golden Day Lilies, orange fish swishing in the pond, and royal purples of the Zinnias and Salvia. The colors of happiness are the same as those of gratitude, I think.  Alleluia!

The Trellis and the Seed

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The title for a favorite children’s book, The Trellis and the Seed,  provokes thoughts of what emerging parts of life we nurture and support so that new growth and beauty can unfold.  I have given Jan Karon’s book about a moonflower seed and a trellis along with a package of moonflower seeds to my granddaughters and other children.  It is a story of planting and waiting, of faith and hope, a story of creation and shaping and astonishment, a story of tending a garden.  The  latticework  must be strong  as it  balances and supports,  as seeds take root and new green growth stretches  into spaces, bearing fruit and flower, then reseeding for yet more beginnings.

I hold fast to a frame of Grace

Secured, marked, held in place.

One branch of Vine.

Eden to Eternity

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  Included in my writings for Lent, these words are taken from two hymns written for the same hymn tune, Morning Has Broken and Child in a Manger. The original melody was noted by Alexander Fraser from a wandering Scottish Highland minstrel. Mary McDonald (1789 – 1872) wrote the words of the nativity hymn. Later, Eleanor Farjeon wrote words for the same tune which were originally printed in 1931 but not copyrighted until 1957 under its correct title, A Morning Song for the First Day of Spring.

 Until today, I had never considered the two sets of words together and when I did as I listened to the haunting tune, I felt a connection between the thoughts of the two women. My heart filled as I considered the continuity and the depth of holding God’s work of creation, nativity, death, and resurrection in my own thoughts. First Eden, then Bethlehem, then on to Jerusalem.

 Morning has broken,blackbird spoken,

First morning, first bird.

Praise singing and springing.

Sweet rainfall

Heavenly sunlight

First dew, first grass

Praise garden and path.

My sunlight.

My morning.

Newborn Eden displayed

Praise Creator and created.

Then, Manger Child.

Outcast and stranger,

Transgression swaddled,

Wrapped in my wrong.

Child once most holy,

Living that lowly,

Now filled with glory

In salvation story.

Prophesied Wonder,

Royalty revealed.

Word defined… Atoned,

I am His own.

Mary Ann Parker April 12, 2011

A Spiritual Journey

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Every time I enter my front door, even before turning the key in the lock, my eyes rest for a moment on the small engraved stone nestled in the feathers of foxtail fern planted in an urn beside the door.  I take the word into the house with me, breathe deeply, and am grateful once more for being home.  The house itself is only a container for this awareness, though tucked into baseboards and behind walls throughout its rooms are small scripture cards which we placed as the house was built.  The walls are only reminders, with their glad burdens of family pictures and framed statements of faith and hope.  Home is God-given surety inside me.  I love coming home.

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.”

-Wendell Berry

Seed Time

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A gardener’s fingers push a hard dry seed into damp earth… patting, putting it to bed.
Covered in a quilt of soil and sprinkled by Spring rain, the seed hears no lullaby.
Awakening and swelling, a wrinkled husk cracks. A living kernel curls and stretches.
Enlarging, changing, pushing aside its grounding.

Covered in a quilt of soil, sprinkled by Spring rain, the seed hears no lullaby.
Quickening to ancient rhythms, birthing stem and leaf.
Enlarging, changing, pushing aside its grounding.
Reaching for light, unfolding, greening.

Quickening to ancient rhythms, birthing stem and leaf
Awakened and swollen, a wrinkled husk cracked, a living kernel unfurled and stretched.
Reached for light, unfolded, greened.
A gardener’s fingers pushed a hard dry seed into damp earth and marveled at its waking

~Mary Ann Parker, March 29, 2011

Sundial and Delphinium

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Hours and days mark Lent’s  journey.

Wilderness days, nights of shadows –

Shaping time, shaping me.

Gathering grace, forging fortitude.

Wilderness days,  nights of shadows –

Grow green, moss.  Bloom, bluest Delphinium.

Gathering grace, forging fortitude

Kaleidoscope of green and blue.

Grow green moss!  Bloom bluest, Delphinium!

Shaping time, shaping me.

Kaleidoscope of green and blue,

Hours and days mark Lent’s journey.

~Mary Ann Parker

In the form of French Pantoum, this is one of a set of Lenten poems.