10/8/22 - Over a month has gone by since I started writing this blog but i'm only on the 4th day of my sabbatical journal entries, and at this point I'm still at an isolated cabin in the NC mountains.
Without anything else begging my attention I observe - and record - everything, down to the minutia of what pen I am - or am not using. I've been using one pen, with good, flowing ink and a really nice feel as I draw it across the page, to write in my thicker-paged journal. For my thin-paged Bible, I've been using a simple ballpoint pen that doesn't bleed through: Western Carolina University Catamounts Dining pen for the win!!
Anyway, I was in the office the other day and noticed one of our parishioners in the workroom at the big copy machine. Her 2 year old daughter, arrayed in her best princess pink and tiara, stood, hands clasped, with patient and hopeful expectation: in that moment nothing could have been more exciting or wondrous than copies dispensing in the tray right there at eye level. Her mom and I remarked how we adults could benefit from the lesson of how small and mundane things, in the eyes of a child, become moments of wonder and play.
I forget this lesson more than I remember it. And I can't say I sat there that day on the front porch enraptured with my plain old ballpoint pen, glad for the opportunity now to use it instead of the other. Nevertheless, I wonder if recognizing the holy moments, where God of heaven touches earth through countless everyday things and people, begins with a pause and an intentional awareness of the world around us. Pens become swords and stories; copiers, agents of change and transformation; and spider webs tell the story of Creation.
7/1/22 - Fr - 10:55a - My other pen ran out. That's all. I've been using this one to write in my Bible since it doesn't bleed through like the other one would.
I slept later this morning than any other since returning from our trip to Kenya - 9:45a. Maybe it's because I was up last night watching a spider spin its web! I started watching it @8:55p until the spider finished and settled in the middle of the web around 9:35p. It may not have taken her as long as it usually does, but I think my presence made her nervous there at the start with me standing so close and continually adjusting the position of my phone light to try to see the web better. At first I didn't think it would be a spiral web at all: it looked too random. But eventually I could see the "spokes" in place. And once they were in place she reenforced the center, moving the spiral outward from there just enough. Then she went to the outside and started working her way back to the center. It was meticulously, skillfully, artistically done. How would Sophie have described it had she seen it on YouTube?: "It is so satisfying." In fact, had I videoed it and posted at 2x the speed it may have been my first viral video. Ha! I was amazed.
My phone camera, this morning, couldn't see the web so it just looks like a pic of one of the supporting posts on the front porch. And my drawing above doesn't come close to doing it justice, of capturing the fine detail.
I look up from my writing just now and down to my left, peeking out from behind the front porch steps - I'm sitting on the porch floor, top step - is my lizard friend this week. He seems content. He hasn't moved. He may be scared to death since I'm supposed to be sitting in a rocking chair and not down where he roams. He's lost his tail. I noticed that yesterday.
He had it the day before. Must've seen some action (some lizards can detach their tails to aid in escaping predators.)
And I think I know why they call bumblebees bumblebees. I sat and watched one along its flight path this morning for at least a minute before I finally lost it altogether. They are the clumsy, aimless bungling albatrosses of the bee family. Their flight path is wandering and aimless and appears to be completely happenstance until they crash land on a flower - or patch of grass near the intended clover. And they crawl around, tipping over until finally they right themselves and start all over. To my uneducated eye they are very much the bumblebee. But they are determined and, obviously, very much the survivors.
[Amendment: not just one lizard but a whole troupe of lizard friends. 2 more with their tails and one of them even a brighter blue (tail) then the one in my picture]
10:35p - I've washed dishes and clothes and packed up as much as I can so I can "Keurig" some coffee in the morning, load up, and get on the road. I'm meeting Mom and Dad at my aunt and uncle's in Floyd tomorrow and it'll take me about 5 hours to get there.
A couple of thoughts I've had since this morning and then I'll wrap it up for tonight.
1) "They" - this word came to me as I wrote about bumblebees this morning and reminded me about Davis telling us how at Marching Band auditions this past time they were to introduce themselves and share their preferred pronouns. "They." Plus "Courtesy," a word which came up in my reading this morning as part of Paul's charge to Timothy in 1Tim6:11 ("Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy.")
They + Courtesy = Lord, you have shown us great kindness, patience, grace and mercy, warm welcome and sincere invitation, and we've not deserved any of that. In fact, if anyone has a right to act offended toward us and deal with us accordingly then it surely is You. God teach me, keep on teaching me, as often as it takes, to show the same kind of grace and courtesy. They will know we are Christians - by our love for one another, yes, but also, simply, by our love for them, they, he, she - those created in the image of God as well. Lord, be with Davis as he navigates this new world with truth and grace and love and leadership.**
2) I think the second thought I've had since this morning had something to do with that old phrase, "Stop and smell the roses." These days of silence and reflection and observation and thought and reading and writing have been a treasure...and a rhythm that is unsustainable in the ebb and flow of life. But just because THIS rhythm, this tempo is infeasible back home doesn't mean that NO rhythm will work. What do I do with my time, my energy? What's a rhythm that will work for me? Does my journaling end here on page 13?
Help me, Lord, for it seems insurmountable. I know myself too well. Perhaps, in my Bible reading each day I can simply grab onto a word and carry it throughout the day like I did with "courtesy" today. Maybe at the end of the day I can write down my word with maybe a few thoughts. I'm gonna need your help in this - as in everything. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help.
**included with Davis's permission
For a little more about the web and the spider and how it became an apt metaphor for my summer, check out this post which appeared originally in my church's newsletter, The Bell.
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