Category Archives: Faith

Low And On The Ground

Posted on by

Back porch early and Psalm 71.

The Psalmist who has seen many troubles and calamities proclaims God’s wondrous deeds, and mighty deeds, and deeds of salvation all day and to the next generation.  I am compelled to join in.

But first I must learn.

Seven tiny wonderballs of writhing gray-black fur under the heavy cathedral arch of hydrangea limbs seem like the farthest thing from a mighty deed.  But the scripture and the kittens came to me on the same morning, so for him who has ears to hear, let him hear.

DSCN4956

Andrew and I knew the kittens were coming.  I won’t describe the tell-tale signs, but even non-animal people like us could put two and two together.  We ran around like first time parents-to-be:  On the porch or off the porch?  In a box or not?  Could she make it up the ladder to the place she had the last litter indecently recently?

Finally the event started and I saw stars and had to go inside and drink some lemon water.

My heart went out to her as to any mother in birth pangs, but Andrew said that the only animal in the animal world that feels pain in childbirth is the human.  He read it in an article and it carried some theological sense too.  It certainly seemed fair.  But I still couldn’t really believe it.  The marquise-shaped pupils of Midge’s wild eyes were dilated wide, and she paced.  Maybe she felt no technical pain, but make no mistake, she was affected by Adam and Eve’s fall.  This was no average day, no walk in the park, and she knew it.

And the next six weeks won’t be average days either.  In addition to being all and only a milk jug to the seven in the panting summer heat – we paused to wonder if she has enough “outlets” for seven milk drinkers – she also has three other offspring four months old who think they get to live here permanently too.

And yes, I feel terrible that she must have been back in the family way before those three were even a month old.  But, I ask, what could I have done?  The orange hooligan Tom that I am constantly scatting off looks like a bad boy, but couldn’t have contributed any DNA to this monochrome group.  This litter’s sire is straight out of Brontё – dark, brooding, and gone by morning.

DSCN4963

So the seven join their muted squeak-toy solos to the bird chorus of the morning and I learn.

I am as blind and helpless as they are. In a shady Alabama pine straw wallow revival  begins low and on the ground.

When I am low and on the ground I search out His mighty deeds and join the Psalmist’s song.  And so against reason and emotion, I choose to be glad for the things that keep me low because those are the things that force me to the rock of refuge where my lips can shout for joy.

~

 

Back Porch Seminary

Posted on by

I am a Christian.

And I am waiting for something.

To say I have no control over the situation is to say all.  The USPS and the airlines and the individual mail carriers on their good days and bad and the cars they drive and the wind and the rain and the butterfly wafting his wings in the rainforest have more to contribute to this than I do.

So I, the wait-er with no part to play in the delivery of documents through 14 hours of time zones on a firm and approaching deadline, sit in the seminary of the back porch and wait.

DSCN4953

I tell God in our time together that I know He sees the documents in their dark and obscure mailbag in the hold of a plane that is somewhere in all of Asia.  The papers in their fat envelope, one of a million similar envelopes, are as lit up and on top of His desk as His angel itinerary for the day.  This is so true and so comforting.

And then without conscious choice, I forget that He, Himself, is the divine Mail Carrier who appoints delivery on a perfect schedule.  Instead I go sit in the what-ifs of three months from now assuming the documents never arrive and plan B is my responsibility.

Then His word calls me back.  And I read that His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom:
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”   Psalm 45: 6.
And His name and His praise cover this earth – this earth and this back porch:
”As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.”  Psalm 48: 10

Pondering His absolute sovereignty, I look up at the pecan trunk that crumbled and collapsed in last night’s wind.  With it went the slumbering woodpecker fledglings and now daddy woodpecker, the beautiful one, is as distressed as Rachel who wept for her children but refused to be comforted because they were no more.

I also listen to this morning’s addition to the bird chorus – our neighbors’ adult grandson who is profoundly autistic.  When he comes to visit, he strides their backyard and screams incoherent distress to the heavens. He is part of the morning chorus.

And for a moment the lost documents pale beside the magnitude of the grand redemption story we are in.  Sorrow and glory always entwined, and glory triumphant.  With the certainty of the story’s end, there is no getting wrong this chapter about documents delivered or undelivered.  He will make right out of whatever happens.  How could it go wrong when the kingdom is an everlasting kingdom?

But the deadline is tomorrow, and . . .

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom!

Even the tiny world of the back porch confirms this.

~