A pheasant flew across the road this morning as I made my way toward town. The stubbled corn field perhaps looked more promising than the mowed hay field it was leaving. Or perhaps it was simply bored with its view and was ready to move on. I have little experience with pheasants -- turkey, quail and doves were the game birds common to my growing up -- but I instinctively recognized it…
...the speckled feathers
...the plumed tail
...the bottom-heavy flight that seemed little more than an airborne “scoot.”
And in a moment it was gone, lost in the camouflage of the bordering culvert, and me further along the gravel road.
Blessings are commonly like that -- surprising, glancing, easily missed for our constant motion, and theirs; but recognized somehow, even in their unfamiliarity.
I rather believe that advent -- this subtler time of watching, waiting, hoping, even aching that precedes the celebration of noteworthy fulfillment -- is intended to be a training season; a time spent practicing the discipline of paying closer attention; of willed awareness and studious openness for that being of beauty and wonder that, at any random moment, might wing its way across the roadway…
...of my heart
...of my loves
...of my insight
...of my soul.
It’s not that December is more fertile than other seasons, as though blessings are more plentiful this time of year. Quite the opposite might well be true. There is snow on the ground, after all, and virtually anything still protruding from it is stripped and brittle and dormant -- if not altogether dead. People shuffle cautiously along, mummified in goose down and scarves and gloves and hoods, concentrating on safe footing and expedient return to someplace warm, reluctant to pause and chat.
The season’s austerity, however, just might benefit us by affording a clearer, more unencumbered view. And it is worth the practice, because there is almost no telling what we might manage to see fluttering and flitting across our path…
...if we are looking.
2 comments:
The more brush that you mow down with your new DR Brush trimmer, the less wildlife habitat that you will have on your property. 713 edells
I appreciate the view from your field of vision, Tim! Let us all keep looking...for signs that God has touched down in our place and the Wings of God's Spirit have brushed us with holiness.
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