Oh Happy Day 041610: Glass

April 16th, 2010

Hello Friday!

My office is on the second floor of our building in the Starkville Industrial Park, and I have a window that faces the north side. I regularly enjoy the decision the Queen made to let the crape myrtle trees next to the building follow nature’s course and grow to their hearts’ content rather than chopping them off at the fork in the branches (read metaphorical knees) like some poor myrtles endure. This particular landscaping technique (letting them grow) has often afforded me a wonderful view out of my window despite the standard pre-fab metal-sided glimpse of our industrial neighbors. “My” crape myrtle has been home to several bird families over the years. It’s offered beautiful blooms interspersed with blue sky on summer days. It’s displayed the waning colors of fall among bare branches and revealed the new growth of Spring. Right there on the other side of the glass, it’s given me a walk through the park in the middle of industrial manufacturing central. It makes me smile.

However, this week it’s brought me a touch of jaw-dropping surprise and just a smidgen of annoyance. This week I (and my crape myrtle) have been visited by a very persistent bird. And, frankly, he (and I’m assuming he’s a he) seems to be highly ticked off. At me? I don’t really know. Sometimes it seems like it. But, maybe that’s presumptuous and possibly a bit delusional.

Maybe he (and I’m assuming he’s a he) thought he saw a hot little birdie mama in the glass reflection he’d like to build a nest with among the newly sprouted crape myrtle leaves. Maybe he thought he saw another available boy bird honing in on his crape myrtle territory. Maybe it was seeing the great beyond through the slivers of light at the other end of our building. Maybe the very existence of the glass itself just ticked him off. Maybe that transparent, but obviously apparent boundary just pushed his buttons. I don’t really know.

Here’s what I do know. He had his eye on me. He scoped out the glass. He flapped his wings with everything he had. He moved back and forth from side to side right in front of the window without ever touching it. That’s the part that brought the jaw-dropping surprise. He opened his tiny beak. And he SANG. Repeatedly. Persistently. LOUDLY. Much more loudly than expected from such a tiny beak, from such a tiny bird. So much so that it got his little feathers all ruffled. And, although that’s the part that brought me the smidgen of annoyance given the disruption to my thought process it produced, it’s also the part that I really sort of respect. What a bird!

He walked flew right up to that glass wall–the one that caused him doubt and fear and maybe anger. He did what any self-respecting bird does best. Intimidated or confused or not, he sang the loudest and most defiant song he could muster. It got MY attention. He hauled off and sang. He showed me.

And he did. Show me.

Fresh on the heels of nature’s little object lesson, the report for today’s Oh Happy Day! gratitude project has me thinking about boundaries. And about singing. And, oddly, about how grateful I am for both. We all have boundaries whether internal or external. The boundaries make themselves most apparent in times of transition. When we contemplate change–a change in perspective, in thinking, in lifestyle, in action–sometimes all we can see are the boundaries. Within those walls, we feel our own limitations. It’s easy to lose our vision, our gumption, our selves there.

Yet, if we look carefully, most boundaries are glass. Humans have the unique capacity to see the transparency and the transiency of limits. God designed us with the ability to hope, to imagine, to see beyond, to see through. And, whatever real or imagined situation we see through that looking glass, we can glean new perspective and new courage to push against those limitations–to alter and expand the space in which we live and move and breathe. Whether through the time-tested promises of faith and hope found in the Bible, or the caring words of others that often shift our perspective, or our own sheer defiance of a particular situation, we can haul off and sing. We can sing the loudest and most persistent song we’ve ever sung. We can push through a week with a sick and crying Baby Girl in need of Mommy’s care. We can juggle and act based on our own priorities, rather than those of the world around us. We can bend a creative block and make it produce something fresh and timely. We can change a situation that has caused us pain for too long. We can learn to do something new. We can choose to do what brings us joy. We can say “no.” We can say “yes.” We can say “enough.” We can say “more.” We can sing. Out loud.

This week I’m thankful for the singing lessons of that little bird. I’m thankful for the songs of faith and of faithful friends and family I’ve heard this week. I’m thankful for boundaries. And for recognizing their transparency. I’m thankful for the ability to sing.

Oh Happy Day!

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Spring Forward

March 14th, 2010

The time has changed. At least that’s what I call it. I did remember to move Mickey’s big hand forward, thankfully. The whole concept of “losing an hour” is always hard for me to adjust to, but I love the resulting presentation of daylight in the afternoon. That one little extra hour of light that progressively grows makes me feel like I have a whole extra day at the end of the normal work day. It’s an unmistakable sign of Winter’s end.

It’s getting to be Springtime in Mississippi. Each year in March, we begin that yearly flirtation with warmer days, sunnier skies and the emergence of color. The emergence is my favorite part. Yesterday, I took advantage of one of the few sun-sightings we had during the day and went out to photograph the Bradford Pear tree in front of my house. Bradford Pears are spectacular in Spring and Fall, but their Spring display always seems to be most welcomed to my spirit–probably because it brings a break from the gray of January and February. The white blossoms against bare brown branches are always a visual display of Winter’s dormancy giving way to Spring’s flourish. The buds are beginning to open and spread the surface area of their petals to soak up the sun. Soon, the green leaves will accompany them and the blossoms will fall away, having done their part in initiating Spring.

I find blossoming to be quite courageous.

Perhaps it’s Nature’s discipline in performing the task so resiliantly year after year that makes us take blossoming for granted, that makes us assume it is effortless. But I’m convinced that in the plant world and in the soul’s world, the courage to bear your color against the gray sky and prickly bramble and bare branch is remarkable. It doesn’t happen without pushing, withstanding, unwrapping, exposing, releasing. Whether it’s the first new blades of yellow-green grass that push their way through the straw-like ground or the rising stalk of a hyacinth bulb inching through a tight cluster of thick leaves, blossoming requires effort. In search of light, bulbs and new grass deliberately and patiently push through the hard and rigid ground to reach the surface, to break free from the dark earth. That journey is one of courage, to be sure.

The buds on my Bradford Pear have been there, lying dormant, for months now. In a tightly held cone of velvety leaves, they’ve been waiting for the right time. It happens that way every year. And somehow, taking their cues from the promise of sunlight and warmer temperatures, they choose when to unfold, when to begin that process of revealing themselves as the pink-tinged white blooms they are inside. As if simply surviving the dormant season wasn’t enough, they gently, consistently and methodically release the tightly wrapped surfaces to expose their petals to sunlight.

Although I’m half a month behind, the blossoms in my front yard served as inspiration for March’s desktop wallpaper calendar, just as they provided inspiration for my own state of flowering. And despite my tardiness (again), this day when we “spring forward” an hour seems the perfect time for my own call to spring forward. [If you need that inspiration as well, just point-click the image to get a full size copy.]

This season of beginning to save the daylight offers a new opportunity for blossoming of spirit. It creates the backdrop for new seasons of growth, revealing the true color lying dormant beneath the surface. I’m ready. But, I’m also realizing through the Bradford’s lessons that this new season requires my deliberate attention. Blossoming, indeed flourishing, doesn’t just happen. Like the grass seed, it requires resistance and persistence through my own rigid ground–those areas where I might meet with obstacles or misunderstanding. Like the bulb, it requires the expansion and cracking of the bounds in my own confined spaces–those areas where I have become complacent, accepting of my own seeming limitations. Like the bud, it requires the shedding of my own layers, my own willingness to open closed places–those areas where I’m tightly held and fearful of exposure. Spring brings the emergence of something new in defiance of Winter’s gloom. Do I have the courage to emerge? What am I made of? What’s inside? It’s time to show my colors.

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Courage 2010: The Post Behind the Post

February 8th, 2010

“If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Little Drummer Boy recently informed me that he is no longer afraid of Pinocchio. He received the Disney classic from G-Mo and Paw-T for his birthday last year. He got several movies as gifts, and it took us a while to get around to watching Pinocchio. LDB didn’t make it far into the story before he decided it was scary. We turned it off, put it out of sight and that was that.

Now, if you haven’t seen Pinocchio lately, let me indoctrinate you. There’s plenty for a four-year-old to find scary, and plenty to get me kicked out of the Mommy-of-the-Year running. It’s filled with all kinds of questionable activities: wooden boys coming to life, wiley fox hoodlums enticing boys away from school, child labor forced by one-toothed men, child slavery forced by seedy carnival producers, boys turning into donkeys, cigar smoking (sorry with a smile, #17), lying, ferocious ship-swallowing whales, all those tick-tocking clocks while everyone’s trying to sleep, and the word “jackass.” Yep, plenty to instill trepidation.

So, through what I can only surmise was the influence of peer pressure, LDB announced that he was no longer afraid to watch the movie. “I promise,” he said. It sounds like maybe they watched the movie in his preschool class or read the book, and during that process of comraderie, he overcame his fear of growing donkey ears. That’s how it is with Little Drummer Boy. When confronted with a new and somewhat scary situation, his preference is to wait until he’s suddenly ready–until he grows more or forgets more or learns more, until he can partake effortlessly of the thing he can no longer remember frightened him. He just waits for the experience to sneak up on him.

Squiggle Bug is different. I’m not actually sure Bug’s ever been afraid of anything, which makes ME lose a lot of sleep. He’s apt to put his whole tiny being into whatever presents itself, and caution has never been a barrier for him in making the experience completely his own. When we’re watching Pinocchio, there are a few parts that cause him concern, but they are often overcome by his desire to dance during the musical numbers that surround them. He might get up from his chair and run to the edge of the hallway, peeking around to see the upcoming scary scene from a safer distance. Or, he may run over and sit right next to me in anticipation of a frightening moment. He always continues watching, though. And, he’s somehow always able to overlook those troublesome scenes in favor of choreographing his dance moves for the next song. It’s courage, I tell you. And, I have a lot to learn.

There’s never been a time in this world when courage was needed more than today. It seems like more humans are in hunger than ever before. More in slavery. More in despair of governments and poverty and disease and court decisions. Yes, adequate courage is indeed wanted in nation building, but I’m realizing that just as profound a courage is wanted in basic human living. Can I really maintain myself as a human BEING if I am forever cautious about the being part? Of all the battlefields requiring valor in this day, perhaps the one most insistent is the battlefield of the ordinary, the daily living of life–living connected and engaged with all that such a life entails. That battlefield is the one where I’m required to BE the human being I am, staking claim to each moment with the courage to live it fully, and rescuing real, meaningful life from the abyss of complacency. No, there’s never been a time in MY life when courage was needed more. And, when I come to the end of it, I want to know that I’ve partaken of that courage and built that sustainable life beyond mere existence.

That’s the crux of my 2010 theme word pursuit. I started it with a quick Tuesday 25 last week, and the concept is in dire need of elaboration in the form of a post that’s been staring me in the face, unflinching, for several months now. Courage. I want to find it, to maintain it, to live by it in this one life with which I’m blessed. I want to apply it where the voids of hunger and hope for something more need filling. I want to adopt it where the constraints of routine need more freedom. I want to employ it where the chills of exposure need more covering. I want to speak with it where silence needs more breaking.

Yes, I have a lot to learn. From Little Drummer Boy. From Bug. From Pinocchio. I don’t want to spend my life waiting for the experience to sneak up on me at a time when I might be prepared to live it. To live a life unbounded requires courage–the courage to sit through the hard parts, to stand through them, to raise a fist at them, to grab someone’s hand through them, to run and hide from them, but to come back, to sneak a peek at them, to ask questions about them, to choreograph them and dance around them. I want to have the sheer audacity to move beyond existence. I want courage.

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Tuesday Twenty-Five: Courageous Acts

February 2nd, 2010

Back in December I was trying to decide if I wanted to adopt a theme word again for 2010. If you followed EyeJunkie last year, you’ll barely recognize the concept since I was woefully inconsistent in posting about “harmony,” my theme word for 2009. The purpose of the theme word was to center my thoughts on a single concept I was interested in developing in my life over the course of the year. Lofty goal! And not one easily achieved for a wandering mind like mine. Before choosing something for this year, I was determined that I would commit myself to posting at least once each month on the theme. Good news! I’ve already missed January. (Such is life. What’s it to you?) Laugh with me. Please.

Tardiness aside, the chief determining factor for whether I would go live with the theme word posting pursuit again was this: if I chose a word, WHAT IN THE WORLD would it be? It took me all of five seconds to realize that the word was staring me right in the face, socking me between the eyes with the sheer craving for it in my life. November and December were filled with conversations and current events and mundane activities and life experiences urging me, cajoling me, demanding me to really live, to commit myself to moving beyond existence. To soak up the marrow of my life in all its dailiness and embrace it. Engage it. Pay attention to it. Live it. Vibrantly.

And in this day and age of slow slumber, all that living takes a rousing amount of… (wait for it)

COURAGE.

cour•age
–noun
1. the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery. (thank you dictionary.com)

Ta Da! Theme Word 2010 presented itself without so much as one tiny strain on my brain. Yes, courage is needed in abundant supply. If only I had some! So, this year I’m pursuing courage in my mind, in my writing, in my loving, in my living. And, you can hear tell of it here on occasion. I’ll follow up with the “post behind the post” soon enough, but to begin this pursuit, I give you another jumbo-sized Tuesday Ten: 25 Courageous Acts I hope to really act on in 2010. What about you?

Garnering the courage…

1. to speak

2. to feel

3. to embrace difficulty

4. to confront issues

5. to ask the question

6. to take a chance

7. to think

8. to decide

9. to be who I am

10. to stand

11. to let go