Thorn bird

                     

                                                       

It was one of those textbook spring mornings.  Your winter-weary flesh initiates a love affair with the near-perfect temperature, the sun softly butters everything around you, and a southerly breeze licks your face and massages your feet.  I suppose it was a perfect morning for sitting on the back porch of the farmhouse, listening to the cardinals' chirps and a weaning, homesick calf crying for its momma; but it was also a perfect morning to get a little work done.

Armed with a sling blade (Karl would call it a Kaiser Blade), a weedeater, and some pruning shears, I headed off for a spot that was absolutely crawling with thorn trees.  All sizes - from infant to young adult.  All worthy opponents, even with my high tech gear.  You see, a thorn tree has a mind of its own, even as you are working to snip it or chop it, it's thinking of ways to get even.  Ways to hurt you.  Ways to maneuver its hateful spikes into your skin.  Gloves?  Forget about it.  Any thorn tree worth its salt will make short work of even the thickest gloves and sink a thorn into the most vulnerable fleshy part of your hand.

What, I wondered, was God thinking when he created this weird tree, this plant of absolutely no redeemable value?  Surely it was a busy day for Him and somehow this anomaly slipped by his otherwise impeccable creativity.  Because I figured that I could spend a day or two just simply trying to find some modicum of worth for this wretched excuse for vegetation, and I wouldn't be able to come up with a single thing.

Regardless,  I was winning the battle and had the field cleared with the exception of two plants.  One a bruising six or seven footer and the other about hip high, qualifying more as a bush than a tree.  I decided to make quick work of Shorty and then move on to Wilt.  As I bent over the small thorn tree with pruner open,  ready to snip it at its roots, I noticed something sitting near the top of the little tree, almost dead center.  I looked closely and saw that it was a bird's nest, perfect in shape and placement.   Meticulously woven shreds of grass had created a nicely rounded chamber for the future deposit of eggs.  I heard a flutter to the side and turned and saw the momma bird sitting along the fence, her beak loaded with a fresh batch of building materials.  She was a tiny sparrow, perfect in her own way, tail flitting back and forth and tiny, black, marble eyes peering at a gawky human hovering about her nearly finished home.

My initial thought was of our farm cats and how they would make short work of a nest full of naked baby birds and that maybe the best thing I could do for Momma Bird would be to destroy the thorn tree and the nest so she could start over in a safer place.  Wait a minute.  Thorn tree.  That's the ticket!  What could be a more perfect place for a low lying nest than dead center of a thorn tree.  I figured there wasn't a domestic cat born capable of  penetrating a thorn tree, regardless of the hapless havoc they could create with a nest of baby birds.

She was one sharp momma, that little sparrow.  Yessiree.  And God?  Well, I reckon His eye is on the sparrow.  As well as the thorn tree.  And I knew what I had always known, but, in a very human way, tended to forget.  God makes no junk.  And He certainly doesn't waste creativity.  Not a drop.

When I slipped away from her tree, Momma Sparrow flew over with her beakful of grass and starting weaving away.  Me?  I shouldered my shears and eased on over to Wilt.  Wasn't any nest in that big boy, and I had a job to finish.

Sunny

 God moves in mysterious ways, it is said.  And God knows that I'm not a big fan of surprises, but that doesn't stop Him from messing with me from time to time.  God knows when I need a messing with.  A sharp elbow in the side.

Like today...

I was doing some cleaning up and cleaning out, and, believe me, that's a rare thing for me, when I ran across something that I wrote on August 3, 2010.  I know the date from the content, just as I know I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas when I wrote it because it was scribbled on stationery from the Inn at Carnall Hall, the hotel that sits at the University of Arkansas.  (Pig, Sooie, y'all.)

Here's what it said:

The text message read:  "Bobby Hebb died today in Nashville."  It was from my wife and it took me a minute to recall who Bobby Hebb was.  Then I remembered.  He was the "Sunny" writer and singer, the son of blind musicians and from my home state of Tennessee. What a song!  And I was instantly transported back to 1966, a 17 year old in the passenger seat of a 1959 gold Cadillac, squinting into the early morning southern California sun assaulting the windshield.  I know the skies are a blue that is ubiquitous to that part of the country just as the Pall Mall being balanced between an index finger and middle finger is ubiquitous to my dad's hand.  The right hand that sits atop the steering wheel, guiding us to Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino.   Our jobs await, my dad's permanent and my temporary, filling the gap between high school and my first year of college.  KHJ out of Los Angeles was tuned on the radio.  Probably the Real Don Steele spinning the wax.

"Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain.
Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain."

I spent three months that summer of '66 copying, over and over, a blueprint of something.  I don't remember what design I labored over, the job being less important than was having a purpose in one of the most difficult transitions of life.  That shaky suspension bridge between high school and real school.  My employers thought they were prepping a future engineer while in reality they were boring a future English Lit major.

But, in those uncertain, awkward times, Mr. Bobby Hebb made things a little easier, a little less trepidatious.  A little more copacetic. 

"The dark days are gone, and the bright days are here,
My Sunny one shines so sincere,
Sunny one so true, I love you."

There was war and rumors of war in Southeast Asia, and the British rock community had slipped in while Paul Revere slept.  It wasn't by land or by sea, actually.  They arrived by jetliner.  In droves.  In fact, old Paul gathered up a bunch of chaps and called them the Raiders and bolstered the invasion by one more Beatle wannabe band.

Maybe every 17 year old  boy believed in those days that everything was on the brink, but I was pretty certain we had reached what we would one day call the tipping point.

"Sunny, thank you for the truth you let me see,
Sunny, thank you for the facts from A to Z."

But, singlehandedly, Bobby Hebb wrote a prescription to treat the angst of hormonal disharmony, long before the pharmaceutical companies manufactured dozens of smart pills to combat stress and anxiety.  Because in "Sunny," we found the perfect woman, a combination of mother, lover, and friend.  In "Sunny," we found optimism of a color that blended perfectly with the yellow southern California sun, the icy blue of the southern California sky, and the kaleidoscope of teenage existence. 

We found hope.

"You're the spark of nature's fire, you're my sweet complete desire,
Sunny one so true, I love you."

Little did I know at the time that Sunny was written just hours following a surreal time for this nation as well as a double whammy of heartbreak for Bobby Hebb.  It was November 22, 1963.  A few hours after Lee Harvey Oswald snuffed the light of John F. Kennedy, someone stabbed Bobby Hebb's brother to death outside a nightclub in Nashville, Tennessee.  It was from the deepest of darkness that "Sunny" was born.

So thank you, Bobby Hebb.  Your desire to see a silver lining in your darkest days brought light hearts and smiles to a generation of young people preparing to enter the fray of adulthood.  Thank you for an anthem accompanying a generation marching into a different kind of war, a war euphemized to a conflict.  Thank you for a feel-good song in an act-bad world.

And most of all, thank you for the lesson that rain soaks us only as long as we are dumb enough to stand in it.  You truly did, Mr. Hebb, "ease the pain."  I hope and pray yours was eased as well.  Rest in peace, Bobby.

I needed to find that little scrap of writing today.  I was glad that I misplaced it over five years ago.  There have been many changes in my life during those five years, including another shaky suspension bridge, this one between professional life and retirement.  I also lost my mother and my brother.  And my wife and I are facing the dilemma of aging, ailing pets, all of them hitting the ten and twelve year mark at the same time.  It's overcast today with a still, cold pallor over everything.  Winter glowers with leafless trees, brown grass, and a chill in the air.

But guess what?  Twenty seconds to download "Sunny" and for three and a half minutes I'm back in the passenger seat of that gold Cadillac, the smoke from Dad's Pall Mall getting sucked out of his open window, to disappear like the ghost of troubles past in the rearview mirror.  His Old Spice tickles my nose as my sunburned hand reaches over to turn the radio up just a little more.  Bobby is thanking Sunny for "the gleam that shows its grace."

Dad smiles, and, when I lean back,  through the spotless windshield there's nothing but excitement and hope.  Blue skies diffused by bright yellow rays.  Check that out, young man, that's the future that sits down the road, just over that hill and around that curve.  That's your future.  And a future, then as now, that is best left to God.

My gleaming, gracious God of surprises. My God with the sharp elbows.

To those who fell

 As my wife and I drove though Chattanooga this past Thursday, just after 11:00 o'clock on a muggy July morning, I was completely unaware of the level of terror and mayhem being dispensed with fury that very moment.  While we skirted the east side of town, on our way to Roanoke, bedlam erupted some ten miles away,  as four unarmed marines were being murdered while three other men sustained wounds.  One of the three wounded, Petty Officer Randall Smith, died this morning.  A police officer and a marine recruiter are expected to recover.  So, in addition to the twenty-three year old father of three, Petty Officer Smith,  the following men are no longer with us on this earthly plane:  Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, Lance Corporal Skip Wells, Staff Sergeant David Wyatt, and Sergeant Carson Holmquist.

I didn't know them but my heart aches.  Like the nine innocent beings who were shot to death in Charleston, South Carolina just a month before, these young men got up on the morning of the last day of their lives with death not even a thought.

Kids, jobs, grocery lists, birthdays, lunch destinations, weekend plans, God, friends - yes.

Death at the hands of consummate evil in the flesh - no.

But don't let me digress into that soul-less, pit-bound, grisly, rotten evil and the so-called human being who breathed and bled that evil.  The so-called human being whose name I refuse to type in the same space as five American heroes.  There's another time and place for that.  And a wise and loving Power beyond my comprehension will handle that issue in good time.

I also don't want to allow my mind to wander to how horrific it must have been for those tried and trained soldiers, including a two-time purple heart recipient, to be in the position of facing an armed enemy with no weapons with which to protect themselves.  How absolutely mind-blowing to try to comprehend that after tours in battle zones, after learning how to counter-attack, how to fight fire with fire - in their last battle on this earth, they were left to face death without a fighting chance.  To slap at their sides and find nothing there.  To be empty handed in the face of mortal conflict.

No I don't want to do that.

What I really want to do here is something personal and self-serving.  I want to acknowledge the five men by name, thank God for their lives and service to this country, and rejoice in the knowledge that they have been welcomed with  great joy and celebration into the heavenly realm.  I want to send bear hugs and love to their families and loved ones.  I want to wish them comfort and healing.

I want to pray for the wounded to recover.

And, if I could, one more thing, please.

 I want to ask God to instill fresh courage, insight, and wisdom into the elected leadership of this great country, even as it staggers and reels from cancerous divisiveness.  Even as it shows the weakening of spirit brought about by too many years of real and hypothetical enemy fire and friendly fire.  Even as the cracks widen and deepen in its aging foundation for our lack of strong craftsmen to render repairs.  Even as the absolute fiber of this nation unravels because we don't have leadership in place at any level capable of stemming the unraveling and managing the repair.

Some twenty-four hours after the first four young men lost their lives, four sleek black hearses led by state troopers, winded their way north in the inside lane of I-81,  along the exact path my wife and I traveled the day before.  Just as I had no idea of what was unfolding in Chattanooga as we passed through Thursday morning, I had no idea that we were traveling what would become, at least for some time, hallowed ground.  If I had known, I might have found even greater glory in the Blue Ridge mountains ahead of us as they pushed their way through the clouds toward heaven.  I might have perceived the green of the endless forests to be a little greener and the blue of the sharp Virginia sky to be a little bluer.  For there were, after all, heroes on the way.

So when I pray to God for divine guidance out of this sinkhole we seem to be trapped in, I'm not just doing it for me - or for you.   And I'm not just doing for the five most recent casualties of our national illness.  I'm praying for our children and their children.  And for the children beyond that.  I'm praying for our future.   I want them to have a better and braver nation than we have.   Because, let's face it, we need a better an braver nation.  A good deal better and braver.

And, dear God, we need it fast.

You go, Pluto!

I wanted to re-share this post I did in March of 2014.  Looking at it now, in concert with all the hype that Pluto has gotten over the past couple of days, I think I may have taken a pretty good swing at the head of the nail.  If you google Pluto, you get over 56 million results.  Not bad for a planet delegated to dwarf status.  John Grunsfeld, NASA's science chief, has been quoted:  "Pluto is an extraordinarily complex and interesting world."

Take that, you eight full-sized planets!

Stand by.  I think the accolades have just begun.

************************************************************************
From March 13, 2014

Shakespeare might have written:

Alas, poor Pluto, we knew him Horatio; when he was a planet full; though tiny icy sphere he had pedigree in the Heavens.  Though flung furtherest afar, a simple dot, a flea on Neptune's knee, nonetheless we paid homage to him and his five moons.  Now, Horatio, he dons the dress of the dwarf, a cuckolded planet, a plutoid if you dare, while us poor mortals who once claimed nine, must now make do with eight.

Sorry, Will.  I know you could have done a much better job giving notice of Pluto's ignominious delegation to a dwarf planet.  I'm not certain why we felt it necessary to strip Pluto of planet status.  You'd think the guy would have been grandfathered in after all these years.  Let's face it, he'd been around since 1930 and we were all quite content as fifth graders to triumphantly name him last as we recited the nine planets in our solar system.  Maybe it's just me, but there was something magic about nine.  (I've always been partial to anything divisible by three.)  Eight planets and the sun just doesn't do it for me.  And honestly, he was one of the easiest to remember in order of distance from the sun.  I always got hung up around Neptune and Saturn.

But I digress.

What we did to Pluto would be akin to removing Doc from Dwarf status just because he was the only dwarf who had a name that didn't describe a disposition or mood.  The original Snow White movie was released in 1938, so Pluto had seniority on Doc.  I happen to think that Walt Disney had better judgement and a much higher degree of emotional intelligence than the International Astronomical Union.  He knew that "Snow White and the Six Dwarfs" would be a day late and a dwarf short.  (Oooooh...that was bad...real bad.)

That said, Pluto will soon have a visitor.  The space probe New Horizons will reach Pluto in 2015.  July 14, 2015 if all goes as planned.  Interestingly, New Horizons was launched in 2006, just before the IAU decided to embarrass Pluto, and has zipped along at the pace of just over 36,000 miles per hour since launch.  Sort of a long way and a short time to get there, at least from the perspective of our 13.2 billion year old galaxy. I wonder if NASA had waited a few months to when Pluto was canned as a planet if they would have spent those billions of dollars to visit a plutoid.  I wonder if maybe they might have had New Horizons dip and weave through the belt of Saturn, do a quick flyover of Neptune, and then pull a u-ey and head back home?

We will never know.  I think it would be great if the probe got to Pluto and discovered that though it was small, the dwarf formally known as a planet had more character than Venus and more spunk than Mercury, hidden attributes to the point that it deserved to be reinstated to full planet status.  A formal apology would be issued by the IAU guys and NASA would be exonerated in its decision to send a probe about three billion miles to inspect a chunk of dirty ice.

I think that would be neat, don't you?  Exactly what the Doc ordered.

This morning

This morning, I don't care about the Confederate flag.  Or that the fleur-di-lis is now being investigated as a potential symbol of racism.  I don't care that the umpteenth Republican has thrown his hat or her scarf into the ring.  I'm not concerned about Greece's debt or  which food group Ariana Grande is going to lick with her careless tongue.

I do care about the little four-year-old from down the road who got tangled up with a bulldozer this past weekend and is now hospitalized and struggling through the pain of recovery.  My thoughts have traveled this July morning to many people I know who are personally waging battles against injury, disease, or grief or those who are hunkered down in the bunkers on behalf of those in the thick of the battle.  This morning, those who I am close to on a daily basis or those who I tend at a distance, or even through social media, are on my mind.  They are in my heart as I ponder my own way through life's journey on the roadbed of God's plan.

I covet, on their behalf, the blessings that await them just around the next sharp corner.

At the same time, I always try to remain mindful of the simple pleasures of life that surround and envelop me:  the amazing greens of this summer landscape; the piercing blue sky, finger-smudged by clouds; the insistent and incessant buzz and rattle of July flies.  Even the dream-induced whimpers of two, lazy black cats, stretched out on the shady floor of the screened-in porch.  I even try to find pleasure in heat so humid and thick it permeates the rich bottom soil of the old homeplace, then arises to be stirred and lifted by the occasional breeze, prompting that full, fertile smell to wing its way into my senses.

And I see that life is good.

Life is good because it is life.  I think the parents of that little cast-imprisoned four-year-old would tell us, as bad as it is today and with a long road ahead, life is good because their son lives.

In all the current divisiveness that infects us like a mental and emotional plague - like a germ for which there is no antibiotic -  we must step away for just a minute and be thankful for a heart that beats strongly every second or so, for the ability to breathe the next  breath, for eyes that can choose to see the beauty, ears that can choose to hear the blessings, and mouths that can choose to sing the glory and speak the good news.

This morning, I choose no flag, I claim no politics, I have no soapbox, and  commit to nothing more than the commandment to love my neighbor as myself.  This morning, I give my heart to all who need it in a way that is good and kind.  This morning, I share a smile.

If anyone needs anything else...check with me tomorrow.

Steve and Lady

My wife is growing a tad concerned toward my relationship with our two pool swans.  She uses words like "obsession" and "creepy."  But, hey, sticks and stones...right? Though I have quietly observed her journey around my so-called creepy obsession going from "playing along," to complete disinterest (poorly feigned, I must say), to me discovering a Google search history on "mental health facilities in central Tennessee."

Frankly, I don't know what the problem is.

I purchased, inflated, and installed Steve a couple of years ago.  I found him on Amazon and thought that his stately presence would be a nice addition to our pool.  I was quite proud of him and he became, for lack of a better phrase, something of a son to me.  For that year, and last year, he seemed satisfied to be the lone occupant of the pool, except for an occasional spider, frog, and, in one instance, a very confused and frightened baby rabbit.  I have to credit Steve with taking on the suave demeanor of the consummate confirmed bachelor.  He was truly an exceptional son.  I mean, swan.

This spring, I noticed that Steve looked a bit, should I say, downtrodden.  He'd let his appearance go over the winter.  Unbeknownst to me, a hard southern wind had buffeted him from the pool, into the surrounding foliage,  and he had endured February and March trapped up against the corner of the fence that surrounds the pool.  Out of sight.  Out of mind.  Anyway, when I finally noticed him missing and searched him out, he had quite a bit of mildew buildup and was remarkably deflated.  Not to mention a good dose of goosey attitude.

After a bleach bath and a few puffs of air, accompanied by my contrite explanation as to why it took me so long to notice him missing,  he was as good as new.  Almost.  Some of the mildew had been impossible to remove, giving him the appearance of a 5 o'clock shadow.  There were a few scratches and scrapes on his body, and his eyes and beak line had faded slightly.  But that wasn't the real problem.  Nope.  The real problem was latex deep.  Somewhere in his great, airy void.  Steve was lonely.  I knew it.  He knew it.

My wife didn't know it, and according to her, she frankly didn't care.

So back to Amazon, and, thanks to Prime membership, two days later, Lady arrived.

And was she a looker!  The beak on that gal!

I couldn't wait to remove the packaging, resuscitate her, and set her afloat.

I did and the results were instantaneous.  As soon as Lady's cute little swan butt hit the water, Steve made a beeline toward her.   A stiff breeze from the north didn't hurt.

And since then?  Inseparable.

Swans mate for life, you know.  Yep.  Other than the occasional nesting failure (hey, it happens to the best of us) or the untimely death of one of the pair, swans are in it for the long haul.  It's obvious when you observe Steve and Lady.  Where one goes, the other goes. It's like they're connected at the wing.  Sometimes, especially on hot, calm days, they will hook necks and just bob around and around in the same spot.

The pool is their universe and love is their language.

I'm not saying that they don't have a spat now and again.  It happens.  How does a swan know what perfection feels like unless there's a little imperfection stirred in every so often?  And when that rare tiff erupts, Lady will scoot to the other end of the pool and sulk, bouncing and bobbing against the pool liner like she's going to leave and never come back.   Then it's just a matter of time before ole Steve slinks over and apologizes.  He's such a sucker for her feminine wiles.

I'm sure that there's more than one of you out there who shares my wife's skepticism around the Steve and Lady love affair.  That's okay.  I don't expect everyone to get it.  I've seen it with my own eyes.  Plus, you can't be around pool swans for long without picking up on their vibes.  And, you know, at the end of the day, the important thing is that they have each other and what people think doesn't really matter.  Does it?

In fact, they would like nothing better than to be able to declare their undying love for each other in voices so loud the entire world could hear.  They would like to proclaim their monogamy from the rooftops.  Or at least from the deep end to the shallow end.  If it were even remotely possible, they wouldn't hesitate to snort it across the the mountains, hiss it upon the four winds, and wou wou their whoopee to the masses.

Nope.  That would suit them just fine.

You know, it's too bad they're mute swans.

Almost a cardinal sin

I was trimming a bush today - you know, those evergreen ones with the hard little leaves with a half dozen needle sharp points to do you in - and taking great care because I knew there was a cardinal nest in the center of the bush.  For years now, smart birds, usually mockingbirds, have been building there, realizing that even my ornery cats aren't going to expose themselves to lots of excruciating pain trying to maneuver through the bush to destroy the eggs or the baby birds.

Unfortunately, upon the first or second snap of my clippers, two startled baby cardinals plummeted out of their nest and through the bottom of the bush, hopped a half dozen hops, and then made what I believe was the first flight of their life.  Mamma and Poppa bird materialized out of nowhere and started making warning chirps and circling the cardinal Wright brothers.  (Or sisters.)

I observed the commotion for a time, and when it appeared that the little fellows had the ability to fly short distances and attain sufficient height, I assumed all would be well, even though I'm certain flying lessons weren't scheduled that day.

Continuing to trim, I glanced over my shoulder at some point and saw Tiger, one of our three city cats, stretched against the chainlink fence, paws above her head, like she was going to leap or climb up the fence - something she just might be able to do but something she wouldn't do.  Would she?  Raising my gaze a few feet, I spotted one of the baby cardinals sitting on the top rail of the fence, three feet from my cat's paws.  Tiger was poised to pounce and all of a sudden I saw me spending weeks agonizing over the fact that it was my fault that the baby birds had exited their nest prematurely and one of them ended up as Tiger's brunch.

Momma and Poppa Cardinal were swooping like the Red Baron, screaming out warnings to the clueless chick. I dropped the clippers and grabbed Tiger by the scruff of her neck and carried her to the patio.  Simultaneously, the baby Cardinal, already sporting a little mohawk-looking cardinal peak, took the longest flight of his (or her) life, managing to wing his (or her) way across the back yard to the top of the fence on the other side.

Catastrophe avoided.  As long as both birds kept moving and I kept an eye on my cats.  Which I did and was able to feel completely at ease when, after a few minutes,  I noticed that both babies and both parents had made it to the stand of trees at the edge of my back pasture.

Later, I encountered a pouting Tiger in the basement.  Already the most standoffish of the three, she was, at this moment,  particularly perturbed at me.  And I knew it was because I had intervened on behalf of the baby bird.  And I'm sure Tiger couldn't understand why I had chosen to preserve the bird as opposed to allowing nature, and her cat instincts, to take their course.

So, I chose to tell Tiger the story of how she and her sister Gracie and brother Rocky came to have the life they've had for the last eight years.  How one late afternoon in July, we had discovered some evil people in a Toyota parked on a country road and reaching into their trunk and throwing things out.  And those "things" were Momma Kitty and her three kittens.  And how they had hit the ground running and disappeared into the woods.  And I told Tiger, pulling her toward me and scratching her behind her ears in an attempt to smooth things over, how the four of them were on the side of that dirt and gravel road the next morning.  Looking like forlorn little hitchhikers, flea-bitten bags of bones, hungry, thirsty, and near death.  And I told Tiger how we had rescued them and slowly nursed them back to health, and, except for maybe stepping on the toes of their cat nature a few times over the years, how we had given them a chance for a pretty doggone good life.

And, Tiger, I said, that's why I saved that baby bird from you.  The same reason I saved you.  To give it a chance for a good life.

Of course, Tiger didn't really care.  She pulled away from me, walked over to her water bowl, got a drink, and then disappeared through her cat door, tail high in the air and twitching with agitation.  Leaving me sitting there without even a glance over her shoulder.  Not even a bored yawn or dismissive gaze.  Out the door and into the yard.  Gone.

Probably to try to hunt down that very lucky little bird.