Saturday, December 15, 2012

When a Child is Born, so is a Mother.

Twenty-one years of hands to work.  Twenty-one of the same;  the hidden and the glorious.  Hidden work inside walls decked with beloved faces,  grazing past brave works of art reaching for milk or cheese.  Blessed  years learning to patiently speak or not to speak at all, learning to respect the unspoken words, and reassure with special "glances".  

Twenty-one watching, awestruck gazing--offspring amazing, racing heart beating out love rhythms.   Twenty-one years watching new eyes unfolding his world of wonder.

Twenty-one years of gardening, washing, teaching, learning, bandaging, scolding, praising, buying, creating, repenting, cooking, budgeting, hosting, laughing, and crying. Twenty-one years of the same; twenty-one of loving.  

Years being all full and emptying all out.  Years cherished, unblemished, hands open, heart throbbing to be all of this.  

Twenty-one years looking into grey-blue eyes of glass;  trusting eyes, laughing eyes, innocent.  
Growing, learning, searching eyes, questioning, finding. Grey-blue eyes like glass, deep as cool well waters, eyes exquisite reflecting heart and reflecting soul. Twenty-one years adoring.

Twenty-one years thankful, and twenty-one blessed.   

                Happiest 21st birthday Josiah Tyler Drain 
                When a child is born, so is a mother.
 

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Boyhood Passing

He helps me around here.  He pulled the carpet tacks out of the floor and helped haul away the old carpet.  There was no stopping him until the floor was all clear of tacks.
He and I swing until the bats come out.  He says we should count them every time.  He wants to talk with me into the night; how blessed am I. 




He went on vacation with Uncle Wayne and Aunt June.  He packed this perfectly organized suitcase himself.  


He always wears a hat, except on Sunday which we've declared our one day to enjoy the site of his shiny brown hair.  And he owns more than one black Captain America t-shirt.


He is excellent in all that he does and fries fish to perfection.


He has a highly developed sense of humor and sometimes plays the mandolin or drums. 



 Some more of the things I love about him: 

He's the only 11 year old that I know who uses the phrase, "Woe Nelly!" 

 He likes to cut down trees and make his own glue from pine tree sap and charcoal.  

One of his favorite friends (and heros) is our 82 year old neighbor, Mr. S. I love how he stalks the fence line waiting to see if Mr. S. will come out to work in his yard just so that he can snag a few minutes to talk to him.  

When I tell him how wonderful he is, he always asks me why.  I  tell him all the ways that he blesses me and why I am so proud of him.  It always takes awhile.

I've been thinking a lot of how he will turn 12 in a few months and how these little boys days are drawing to a quiet close.  So, I plan to hold his hand in parking lots every chance that I get, even though he lets go when he realizes what he's doing these days. I plan to let him come out as often as he wants and interrupt my prayers in the pine thicket, because he only wants to chat for a minute, and I hope to sit with him and count the bats into the  night for as many nights as we can see our way out to the old swing. 

Fishin' at Gar Creek


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

What He Really Needs

He said, "I need a Chinese water stone", used to sharpen the blades of knifes, scissors, hedge clippers, machetes,  and axes, etc.  Why a boy of 11 needs to sharpen all of these things remains a mystery to me.  Do we even own a machete?  

He said, "I almost have enough money saved to buy an ax."  I wonder what does a boy this size do with an ax?  He says, "I will cut down trees that I can use for stuff". Since there is no ax here (yet) he and his brother have gone out to saw down a small tree for bow making.

Last week he said he needed a roll of black string; he was making a net to trap animals with (we buy our meat from the store!).  He needed a piece of wood.  He was making a net making tool.  Always he needs new and curious things to work out what he's been working on within. 

net making tool and card

He's just this little boy with a big hat and bigger thirst for bringing his imagination to reality every day.

I felt Him nudge me as I thought of my son; nudged about imagination and the way in which I use mine, or don't.  I've never liked it much....didn't have many  little girl dreams,  didn't "get" the dreamers of this world, didn't read fiction ( a waste of time, I thought)   A teacher once coined it, "The Theater of Your Mind".   When my son's imagination engages, I can only imagine that he is the greatest hunter ever beheld; trapping wild game, shooting the 12 point buck, trapping the craftiest bobcat, raccoon, and possum, catching the leviathan of fish. Only occasionally does he have to scale back his assault when he inadvertently snags a goat by the hoof, or the biggest catch of all, the day he caught his father while he brush hogged the pine thicket.  Quickly a request was made to remove all high hanging snares that could possibly endanger inadvertent human prey.  (Dad was able to stop the tractor in time to save his hand).  There is no hiding what exploits he's dreaming of  as it all spills out around here in visible heaps.  

A couple of years accumulated Christmas gift--live traps


 So the idea that HE would like ME (and maybe You too) to dream and imagine is new and bewildering--- and not just a little exciting.  And I have been doing it....doing the work of a dreamer, blowing the dust off of the imagination station and seeing big things.  

When I was very small I had one memorable dream...I imagined having a pony of my own.  When I was 39 years old a woman from out east called to inquire on purchasing sheep from our farm.  In the course of the conversations, she, a Christian, felt lead of God to give me a gift.  She sent a photograph .



Why would a complete stranger want to give such a gift?  It had been more than 35 years since I had dreamed the dream of having one.........and I didn't ask for a registered Welsh pony of such quality.  I only  wanted a pony. 

I tried to trade the woman, my sheep for this animal, but she would not have it.  She said a gift is not paid for, it is given.  In the end, she purchased our sheep and delivered this beautiful pony to our farm.  I don't ride him, yet I enjoy his presence like no other animal I've ever had.  I hug him, I brush him, I watch him run with this glory that is unearthly.   I imagined and He supplied.  

So, these days of imagining and day dreaming, I'm asking Him to supply even the dreams and let me see in my  mind's eye what He has for me .  I'm asking that He won't let me shrink down His plans, not dowse His flames, not limit Him and me.   And I think that what He is working within will have their day, will have their moment in the sun like my son's secret thoughts revealed in real time and real life.  Never had it occurred to me to ask the Almighty for imagination until the day He invited me to. 

And I made the statement at the start, "What He Really Needs" and I pause thinking.  Until right now, I'm not really sure.  Until now I didn't know that I needed it too.  He needs to stay there, right where he is.  Stay in the place where he broods over the well spring that his dreams flow up from, that place of wonder that is God's. 

And lastly, I will add that today we brought home an ax from the farmer's co-op.  He saved enough.  We chopped down a tree.  He is going to "use it for stuff".   And I am going to see where my imagination takes me as well.  ;)  Takes me away into His will.




Thursday, July 5, 2012

Something About Her Was Beautiful

I'm remembering the day I first saw her at Gar Creek and how I was beside her before I noticed that she was there. I thought she was amazing and beautiful. She had apparently been laboring a long while before I crossed her path and I'm sure she would have preferred that I never did. It's strange to express how mesmerizing she was to me, and how profound the moment. If I tried to tell you later what I'd seen, I would mumble something about seeing a turtle on the path at the park in my clumsy, uninteresting speech, but could never articulate my real regard for her.

In her movements there was no hurry, worry, or tension. Her presence was patience and resolve. She had already burrowed, apparently, with just her hind legs, a narrow hole that descended into the earth. I think she was resting, or attempting to remain unseen when I stopped, and in deference to her holy work, I only watched for a moment. I only watched for a moment, but I came around to her many times for the next hour or so. Sometimes she'd be resting and sometimes she'd have her leg inside of the hole as she removed more dirt. One of the last times that I came to her, I saw them; shining, white leathery balls. They lay softly tucked inside the hole now, but later she would push them further down and out of sight before burying them completely. This was the treasure that she had been working for all along; her offspring, her babies.

The next day when I arrived, I headed straight to her, only she was not there. No, I didn't expect to find her, but I wanted to see how it was that she finished. I had made note of the spot, though there were no real good markers, I thought I could remember. I searched but couldn't find it, it was as if she hadn't been there. In time I thought I found it, swept clean and all but hidden under the shade of the sugarberry trees. I marveled that no one else but me, no one knew what she had done, and that in two to three months the ground would give way to a great increase, and what was hidden would burst forth and have the potential in this tiny lake ecosystem of multiplying many times over again. In secret the seeds of life were planted.

So what of it all? Her ancient ritual of God-breathed instinct seemed to utter unspoken words. And I couldn't help but imagine a parallel between her and me. Only she was carrying on her calling and I, I deny the gift inside it's due life because of fear and insecurity. She was no more than a mother turtle, and me, I wonder who it is that I am at times? Is who I am made to be o.k. to just be? And I bury the clutch so deep that no one will ever see what God has planted there, yet she, having no reason to do anything but what her instinct told her to do, was doing what was necessary to see an increase.


I resolve. I resolve to be more like her because she spent her days doing what she was made to do. It's so simple, yet so profound to learn from her, and something about her was so beautiful.