Foolish Peanuts

I mean no offense but I think Seagulls are foolish. 

A favourite part of my time away is making friends with shy woodland creatures.  Most stay a respectable distance away, but grace me with their cautious presence in and by the water.   

Two cottage critters,  however, join me regularly on the deck.   One is the chipmunks. 

Skeptical at first, my tiny striped companions soon lose their fear in favour of the peanuts I offer.  And while I am careful, it doesn't take long for them to trust me enough to gently take a treat from my hand, or even my lap. 

This requires lots of time, sitting quietly with peanuts available by my feet.  

Enter the foolish Seagulls.  

Bold and skittish at the same time,  they noisily flap their landing on the deck railing not two feet from me.  They eye the peanuts with no attempt to hide their intentions.  And if I turn my head for a second, they're in for the grab.  

Clearly they are terrified of me.  I need only to lift my head or move my hand to pick up my tea and they make hasty retreat to a safer distance.   But they want that peanut, oh so very much, and will mindlessly, recklessly do the daring dance over and over.

Which brings me to their foolishness. 

Out in front of me is a wide bay full of delicious and nutritious things for a seagull to eat.  No nasty human is guarding those things.   A peanut, on the other hand.  Is that even safe for a seagull to swallow?  I'm no bird biologist or anything but wouldn't that be really awful to pass if you were a bird? Maybe they have a specialized gullet to handle this sort of thing, but I have seen them struggling to swallow a peanut whole.  You can even see it going down.  Ow.

But here they are, literally risking their lives for just one snatch of something that clearly looks yummy but is only going to result in pain. 

And I reflect on the foolishness of Seagulls and disturbingly see something of myself. 

I am aftterall human, and humanity has a foolish way of ignoring all the abundance of God's good provision and risking everything  to grab something that looks good but will ultimately cause great pain. 

Of course substances come to mind first;  the kinds of things we injest to make us feel good for the moment but with devastating consequences. And let's include too much sugar or caffeine while we're at it. If I were a super hero, ice caps would be my kryptonite. 

But there are other peanuts. 

The way we continually eyeball the past hurts in our lives instead of feasting on the sunset of life's joys that we would easily see if we just lifted our heads.   I have caught myself, while journaling down at the dock after supper, doing just that. 

The way we fix our sights on success and gain, completely missing the abundant life-waters of family and friends.  Being away from all that I am tempted to attach my value to makes me realize how much I need my peeps. 

The way life's worries have our beady-eyed attention, while a great blue heron of grace and strength glides by.  Left unchecked, I would be a world class worrier, oh I so would. 

So I will try not to be too hard on the Seagulls, as annoying as they might be.   Rather, I might thank them for their reminder, and consider this more.

"LORD see if there be some foolish way in me, and lead me in the way  everlasting. " Psalm 139:24

And this is why I sit outside so much. 

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A Morning Like This

It's one of those mornings. 

Mist hangs wispy and low over the water. Our little bay is quiet in that breath-snatching way only the absence of human made noise can be. A very large turtle pokes his head through the glass-like surface and eyeballs me in long consideration before silently disappearing again.  A river otter swims into the marsh only to skirt across the rocks at water's edge moments later.   Birds and bullfrogs and the jenny wrens and a pair of cranky red squirrels add their voices as if to tell the forest that it's time to wake up. 

It's 5:30. 

I am often teased about my early rising.   People say that not even God is up at this "ungodly" hour.  But this chorus of quiet praise convinces me otherwise. 

Today is the last of four days alone.   Tonight Ken will arrive and I will come down to the dock to greet the man about whom I am increasingly in awe that I call my husband.   Two days later the first boat load of grandkids will arrive and a few days after that, another.   I am blessed and blessed beyond my imaginings. 

But it will be good in a different way  than these first alone days. 

The solitude grants me the great gift of self-observation.  The time not talking, of listening deeply, to my own heart through the reading of last year's journal, to His heart through the reading of His Word, and the meditations on both, just sitting quietly in a morning like this, provides me with an off to the side seat from which the daily interactions of my life can be more thoroughly inspected.

Free from the responsibilities of my life for just a little while, I can ponder the character defects and wounds and sins for which I am responsible.   And in the absence of human made noise, I can also hear more clearly the Voice of grace and love and encouragement that I find I need so badly. 

It also fills the depleted spaces of my soul.  I feel that physically.

So this holy morning invites me to be alert and patient and still in these last hours of solitude.  To revel in the morning sunshine, and celebrate the process of my becoming.  To drink in the energy.  To feed my chipmunk friends and drink my tea. 

Because it's one of those mornings. 

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No Place Like Homes

If "home " is a place where I feel utterly welcomed and unconditionally accepted, if it's where I can be myself in the mutuality of loving respect, if there is safety and joy and deep delight, then it ocurs to me that I am several times blessed. 

I have a home in Highview, the community of faith that has graciously allowed me to serve with them since the beginning.   I truly enjoy visiting other churches, large and small, but ultimately I know my home is with the beautiful, transforming souls I call family. 

I have a home halfway around the world!   Hot Springs, just east of Chiang Mai, is quite remarkably no longer strange to me.  Quite the opposite.   The heat, the food, the bugs (and sometimes bugs for food! ) the language, the faces - oh those faces! - all seem so familiar to me now that I step off the plane and relax into myself so deeply my heart knows without question that I'm home. 

I have a home with Ken.  This goes without saying.   I love the easy way of being together that only a long love knows.  Wherever Ken and I are together, that is home to me.  I love our empty nest, and how our kids have kids of their own and that for the most part I think they all like me! I love the home of being Gramma! 

I have a home here by the water.  It's a humble dwelling by real estate standards.  But it is a palace of blessing to me.  A refuge from the demands the world would place on me, and the demands I place on myself.  Here I am at home with loon and fox and turtle, with jenny wren and chipmunk and heron.  The quiet walls us round to shut out the insanity.  I am stilled by the water, sky and rock.  I am me. 

Yet there is one Ultimate Dwelling that makes possible this sense of so many homes. 

Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High wiĺl rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 

Two summers ago when I was terrified and exhausted from dealing with what I perceived to be a threat to something highly treasured, this psalm became my home-mantra.  My mind and heart locked on to the concept of God-as-Home in a new and transformative way.   

Since then I have known a deeper experience of home, and it has less and less to do with space.   And while I will likely always connect to some form of sacredness of space, the truth is that my spirit is perpetually at Home. 

My time at this home, the one by the water, is just beginning.   I feel I am being invited to rest and just be, to cease striving and simply know that He is God.  

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