The Restoration of All Things (Part 2)

My sweet friend Dustin took one look at my situation with Eddie and prescribed me the song "Say Goodnight and Go" by Imogen Heap, which I proceeded to listen to again and again until I wore it out completely. I then continued to listen to it until my ever patient roommate likely had dreams of strangling me in my sleep with my stereo's power cord.

(Dustin made a habit out of sneaking "Say Goodnight and Go" into any given car's stereo, even from the back seat. He would then look at me with a glint in his eye and a suppressed smile until I would figure out what was going on and have a mini freak out. This was especially the case if Eddie was in the car with us as well.) 

(Ever-patient roommate in her denim dress after we decided to go to an 80's party thing. It's a good thing she wasn't really the power-cord-strangling sort.)

The journey into crazy-land had begun but I was happy and unaware. Well, mostly happy. Except for the nagging feeling that if I had a serious and ever growing crush on my friend, I should probably tell him.

Of course I had a hopefulness in the pit of my stomach that it might be reciprocated. A girl can dream. But the thing that really ate at me was how unfair it seemed to have a thing for a friend and just carry on like normal. I knew I was acting funny and I felt he, as my friend, had a right to know why.

I was nervous he didn't dig me back, and I was not looking forward to doing the work of getting back friendship normalcy if that was the case, but my expectations were colored by my past.

That is to say that every crush I had ever had, had been on friends. I didn't "date", exactly. I never knew how. I also didn't understand (and still don't for that matter) how people skipped friendship altogether and went straight from being strangers to being interested in each other. To put it bluntly, I didn't (and don't) have "wiles".

But the first boy I had a crush on chose to ignore it to spare us the awkwardness, and eventually it just went away and we were solid again. The next boy I had a crush on was precious and actually went so far as to say that if I was feeling sad that my feelings for him were not reciprocated, I could feel free to call him and we could talk about it. Which, we did. And my feelings for him dissolved into friendship and sibling-hood. He remained one of my dearest friends.

When boys had crushes on me and I didn't feel the same way towards them, I told them I didn't and would never have plans for dating them, but that our friendship wouldn't change. We would press through until it was normal again. And we always did.

So honestly, I was more concerned with how I was going to suck it up and tell him and work through it before I went to study abroad in Australia in the following semester then anything.

I remember my first attempt at embarrassing crush-laden honesty. If you could call it an attempt. I went over to Eddie's room with intentions of spilling it, but I was waiting for some mysterious "right moment" (hoping for some kind of lead in so it wouldn't seem quite so out of nowhere). Finally, Eddie needed a bathroom break, so he ever so thoughtfully directed me to his AIM buddy window, which was open, and suggested that I find a mutual friend to chat with momentarily in his absence.

Dustin was online. The conversation went something like this:

Eddie'sScreenname: Hey duseroo! It's Sarah. Eddie stepped out for a sec. How's it goin'?

Dustin'sScreename: Hey! Did you tell him yet?

Eddie'sScreenname: What! No! Dus, we can't talk about that on here, I'm

Eddie'sScreenname: He could come back any minute!

Dustin'sScreename: You have to tell him, just say it like we practiced!

Eddie'sScreenname: "I like you....nicorns???"

Dustin'sScreename: "I like you....nicycles!!!"

Eddie'sScreenname: "I like you....nibrows!!!"

Dustin'sScreename: "I like you....phemisms!"

Eddie'sScreenname: Hahahaha ok ok, let's talk about something else! We gotta get this conversation off the screen STAT! Quick! Before he comes back!

We successfully talked a bit more about trivial things expressly to hide that conversation, so when Eddie came back, and my phone rang, I hopped off his computer without a second thought to answer my call.

It was Dustin. "Seriously, you can do it! I believe in you! Tell him, tell him!", said he. I was grateful for the encouragement, but I wasn't sure how to field that phone call now that Eddie was back in the room. I anxiously fidgeted with Eddie's skate board. I stood on Eddie's skateboard. I wheeled myself forward a foot or so, staring intently at the floor and trying to use vague terms with Dustin, hoping he knew what I was saying in stilted, awkward code.

I finally took my eyes off the floor only to find Eddie was curiously scrolling up in the message box conversation. I panicked, shouted "NO!", hung up on Dustin, and fell off the skateboard. It wasn't a graceful fall, but it was well aimed (kind of). Mid-fall, I managed to reach over Eddie's shoulder and click the X on the message box. Whew. That conversation was deleted forever.

Eddie looked shocked and confused. The skateboard was hanging arbitrarily off the top bunk with it's wheels spinning furiously, and I sat on the floor where I had fallen laughing and blushing and making haphazard excuses for my bizarre behavior.

That was the first of many attempts that ended similarly. In an effort to make me feel better Dustin started drawing cartoons of me and Eddie in my journal.

One was of me with squiggly arms screaming "I AM ZA LIKING YOU!!!", Eddie saying, "Schwat?", me being blindsided by a giant fish yelling "FISHED!" and then me saying "shnothing.".

Finally the last day of the semester was upon me and there was nothing for it but to pack up and go home. So that's what I did. I said goodbye to Eddie, who was distant and a little weird. And I went home.

I got a miserable job at a factory that made boat motors to save up for Australia and contemplated my options in the millions of hours I spent alone in my station.

One day Eddie called and left a message on my phone. It was a really sweet message, about how he wanted me to know how amazing I was and how much I would be missed in the following semester. Also, he was going out to eat with his mom. Or something.

I heard that message out and in an impulsive burst of energy, I called and left him a message. I told him that if he wanted to call me later, there was something I really needed to tell him.

Later that night he called me back and asked what was up. I told him I really wanted to tell him, but my tricky gumption just wasn't around when I wanted it to be. "Silly gumption", he noted, "It's like trying to nail jello to a wall." It was like that. So I confessed that I wasn't ready to tell him yet and asked if he could please call me back in an hour. He said that would be fine.

I went outside in my front yard and sat down in the grass under my stars. I watched the fireflies winking and took a deep breath of night air. I might have been a weenie, but I was going to get this out once and for all.

(Here, except at nightfall.)

The phone rang and I answered. "Hi". Silence. "Um... so... I .. uh... Ilikeyou." More silence. "Huh."

That was all he had to say. Just, Huh.

We fumbled through the rest of the conversation, "So I just thought I should tell...", "No, yeah... um .. it's..", "And I'm going to Australia in a few weeks...", "Hey, that'll be fun!", "Yes. Yes it will be.", "OK well, I'd better be going...", "OK, um... bye", "Bye."

Click.

Well, OK, I thought. At least the telling-him is out of the way.

And I tossed my phone aside, collapsed in the grass, and rested in God's arms.

(Continued here)

The Restoration of All Things (Part 1)

I surely didn't see it coming. Any of it. In this whole story. How could I have? I was starry eyed and held in my hands a heart that believed (easily) the best of anyone I considered a friend. I knew, theoretically, that friends were capable of hurting each other. But I didn't really believe that. Way down in my knower, I knew that all broken friendships mended. That all hurts were healed.

"Hey, I really like those shoes", he grinned, pointing at my sandals (which I also happened to like, very much). That's how it all started. An 8am Geography class, and a compliment. I found him entertaining even though (OK, OK, probably largely due to the fact that) he was wearing old man thrift store pants and literally styled his hair with elmer's glue.

His name was Eddie Kindle. (No. It wasn't. But for the sake of this story, it was.) He was very secretly a bit of a player, but my happy-go-lucky self didn't notice that in the least. All I saw was a sweet and outrageously fun boy who would get online and wait for me to show up on AIM so we could hang out when I was too broke to own a cell phone.

Was he ever charming! Before I knew it, my little heart was doing a dance of joy whenever I returned to my room to find his screen name popped up on my computer monitor with a subtly flirtatious invitation to an adventure.

Coffee? A movie? Dinner? Oh no. He was way too creative and interesting for such cliche pastimes. Once, I went home to find his AIM box reading, "Want to go to the store? I'll bring the goggles!"

Yes. He was serious. When I climbed into his SUV, he had on a gas mask, and handed me a pair of snow boarding goggles. I put them on like it was normal, and we went to Ingles, where we proceeded to march right over to the lobster tank and sit down in front of it. There we sat, wearing strange things on our faces and watching the lobsters. Just when we thought we couldn't be more pleased with ourselves, a small child skipping past us pointed and shouted, "Look Mom! Super heroes!"

Thus was the nature of our antics. We formed a close bond pretending that the world was our playground. When it snowed, we convinced ourselves that the snowmen popping up all around campus were an army bent on destroying us. It was us against them. And we sought them out and battled each one to the death until the wee hours of the morning.

We went contra dancing ("hippie line dancing", as he called it) and ate at Waffle House afterwards, where we invented an interactive more-fun-than-chess chess spin off board game out of ketchup and other condiments.

When we realized that our dorms were on opposite ends of the campus, and we should probably choose a meeting place that was somewhere in the middle, did we choose the bell tower, like normal people? Noooooooo. Of course not. We chose a grave site that had a tombstone that read "Hattie". We did this specifically so that when people heard us say to each other, "See you at Hattie's!", they would think we were going to a living person's house. But they would be wrong.

When I came down with a nasty cold, he invited me over to sit on the floor with him in his room and watch a movie (the only way we would be watching a movie) on a tiny black and white thrift store television. He made us both some tea, and we sat in comfortable silence, stirring it with pens.

We searched together for a church we could call home. The rickety old Baptist one had it's charm, but a series of glances was all it took for us to communicate our boredom to each other. At the very first moment in which we thought it wouldn't be too conspicuous, we made a stealthy exit. One at a time, so as not to be obvious, we slipped out of our pew and out the back door. When I got outside, he literally somersaulted "stealthily" (read: clumsily) down the hill and scurried behind a bush. Oh, I knew this game. We mission-impossibled it all the way through the darkened parking lot and into the car.

In the Walmart parking-lot there was a yard sale. He purchased a wheelchair for $3, scooped me up in it, and then spent the duration of our grocery shopping wheeling me about the store. Strangers looked at me with a face that said, "Poor thing, she's so young!", and I mentioned to him that we might want to keep an eye out for lightning because as much fun as this game was, it was probably awful of us.

We had antics for the sake of antics. Like the time we broke into Dodson cafeteria just so we could pretend we were in jail.

He had chronic random nosebleeds. Whoever thought nosebleeds could be endearing? One would think not. But I was so proud of him the evening that we built a fire in his backyard, and with no tissues anywhere to be found, he tore up a box and used the cardboard to draw a bloody Christmas tree, a sunshine, and some presents with his nose.

If I thought I stood a chance, I was wrong. The night I finally fell for him was the night the Presbyterian church had a free midnight pancake dinner for college kids. I was eating my pancakes like a civilized lady, and out of nowhere, Eddie picked up a glob of syrup from this plate and smeared it on my arm. I blinked a few times and then threw my kool aid right in his face. Hilarious. I'm sure we were horrifically obnoxious, but you must know that this meant war. The syrup fight that ensued was nothing short of epic.

I might mention here, that I won.

On our way back, we jumped a fence and I cut my finger. It was bleeding, and he kissed it.

That was it. That right there. I was in love with my friend. Just, gone.

(Continued here)

The Dirt and the Sweat

And in those days (yeah, I'm still reminiscing about college life here) my church and my dear ones struggled, but we struggled together. On the other side of the struggle, we look back and see God's unrelenting faithfulness. But dang.

I once said to my pastor, "I just don't understand why [in the Chronicles of Narnia] Aslan is always GOING AWAY!". And she said to me, "I know why He goes away. It is so we can hunger for Him."

You, dearest ones, I have always known to be so steady.

C

onstant in emotion and reaction.

But this season finds us most out of character.

E

motional.

Ready to cry or laugh at any moment for any reason.

I hurt with you in the car on the way home.

And cling to your hand as if I would pull your sorrows out through it,

and shake them off until only the joy is left...

but the only balm for this heaviness is Sufjan Stevens on repeat.

I hate goodbyes.

Lately we beg the question, "God... where are you??!"

I have heard my closest friends confess that they have felt a silence.

We don't go through it alone...

We all feel this emptiness at the same time - but it still, it remains personal.

Not so much, "Do You exist God?" , as it is more like... "Do I exist, God?".

Wendsday night in the livingroom,

we all stop to seek Him together

I put my face in my hands and let my soul cry,

"God... where ARE you??!?!",

without knowing that at the same moment,

you put your face in your hands and let your soul cry

"God... I feel like I'm DYING!!!".

And He whispers to you,

as you look up to see all of us who love you to the moon and back,

"It's a good place to die in, huh?".

When you share this with us, we are comforted.

But my heart still aches with... vacancy?

It feels like vacancy.

I feel like I can't see more then 3 hours ahead.

I'm confused for no reason at all.

But, oh the glory,

when I wanted only Him last night

and I drove miles upon miles,

to try to keep Him in my veins,

and finally decided I needed to be on the parkway.

Because it's easier to tell God I'm sorry

when I can say it with my face in the grass

on the mountian where He comforts me.

But I first went the wrong way,

and in turning around I was afraid.

Once righted, I found fog almost immediately.

Suddenly I was engulfed!

Did it just come out of nowhere?

When did I get here?

I couldn't see more then three feet in front of me.

I was confused.

Why would He tell me to keep going?

I could drive off the mountian!

I could get maimed by hobos!

But I drove and drove ...

until I finally reached my intended destination.

Would you believe...

that's where the fog cleared.

When I got out of my car and looked over the mountian tops,

what I saw was breathtaking.

Fog draped gloriously around mountians sillohetted black against the purple sky.

Stars shining in their proper places.

And I think I heard Poppa say,

"See? You had to go through it to make it to the top

so you could see that it was beautiful".

And oh

It was beautiful.

Sobriety.

This was a product of my life as a college kid. I wrote it before marriage and the settling that tends to bring. Back when I lived in the dorms of a secular school, surrounded by sweet people who wanted to live life fully and not miss a moment, just as I did. We attempted to achieve that goal in different ways, but I longed for them to know my heart regardless of the differences of our choices and convictions.

It's not that I'm "religious".

Oh, I hope I am not religious!

The dreadful things that go along with that word!

Routine.

Judgement.

Mindless comfort.

Works mentality.

Guilt.

No.

I don't want any of that.

I want to know God's heart.

I want to learn to love like Him.

Relationship is a beautiful word when one remembers what it means.

He is the King who would wash my feet?

Really? I mean, He is God...

And I?

I am a blunderer.

I blunder into everything!

Into danger.

Into safety.

Into trouble.

Into friendships.

Into class.

Into diversion.

Into life.

So there's that.

It's not that I'm religious.

I love Him.

He loves me.

And He has been forever showing me how beautiful life is.

When it's easy and when it's hard.

In the sun and in the rain.

The joyous moments of friendship and laughter...

And the times no one wants to mention

because they hurt so deeply.

And the closer He takes me into His heart, the more I crave to know.

And that is why I would rather sit quietly in the living room,

and doodle in my journal

than drink with you guys.

It's not that I think I'm better than you.

No no no no no.

It's that I adore being sober.

Because I don't know what's going to happen,

but I sure don't want to miss it.

And when I live it, I want to know that I will remember it in the morning.

God never told me to make a decision about whether you are living like you should be or not.

That's not my assignment.

Why do Christians take that on?

I don't want that responsibility.

Its a beautiful thing that it has nothing to do with me.

It frees me up

to attempt my actual assignment.

And that is to love.

Deep and genuine and for real.

I don't claim to have it right.

Or that I find it easy to get a heart for every imperfectly beautiful human that crosses my path.

But I am learning.

And I can tell you right now that it wasn't hard to be endeared to you.

You and your accents.

You and your curiosity.

You with your nose scrinched up making faces at Aquene

as she sleeps snuggled in her bandana,

tail curled around her for warmth.

And you appreciate it.

That's what I see when I see you.

So don't mind me.

I'm content.

I'm sober.

The Queen of Third Grade

This is a story that was shared with me in a conversation on a message board that I enjoy immensely. I know the author who lived this story and who wrote it down for us as Cherish. I am so grateful to her for guest blogging here by allowing me to post her words. Cherish can be contacted at: stories.from.my.heart.@gmail.com

When I was a child, I was a bit of a misfit. In those days I was too skinny, a know-it-all, I had coke bottle glasses and wore all the wrong clothes. I was not what you would call one of the "in crowd" and yes, there's an "in crowd" even in the Third Grade. One thing I did have was a wonderful relationship with Jesus. That's how I recognized Him in other people.
One afternoon, a little girl in my class did something amazing. We were all about 8 years old. She was the prettiest girl in the class, maybe even the school. She was very well off, and very popular. (She had multiple birthday party invitations every week!). One day, she asked the teacher if she could rearrange the tables and change the seating around. For some reason (popularity, maybe?) the teacher let her.

Everyone snickered as she started gathering up the "misfits" and putting them at one table, having other people trade seats with them. I was already at that table, and she didn't move me. Then, the most astounding thing of all...She took the last chair at the table. Even as young as I was, I knew that I'd just witnessed some sort of holy, defiant act. We would have crowned her queen, but we never got the chance.

The first thing she did was tell each one of us why she wanted to sit at a table with us. She told a little boy (named James) that everyone picked on that he was the nicest boy in the school because he never did the same mean things back that other people did to him. She told me that she always wanted a smart friend who was as kind as I was. She told one very chaotic little girl that she was so creative and picked beautiful, fun things to wear. (This little girl started the trend of mismatched everything! )

The funny thing is, I don't remember her name. Just her honey blond hair and her sweet smile, and the most incredible act of goodness that I'd seen up to that point in my life. I decided then and there that if I was ever "popular" or "one of the good kids" I would do exactly what she did. She had God's heart. Later on, I realized I didn't have to be in the "in crowd" to love people, to include them, and to tell them exactly how wonderful they are.

To Save a Mockingbird

I love how it is generally understood that the greatest lessons one learns in high school have little or nothing to do with a school's curriculum.

For me, many of the greatest lessons I learned in high school began on an otherwise totally mundane and regular sort of day. In fact nothing of consequence or even remotely memorable happened until I exited the building after my last class with my usual tremendous sigh of day's end relief.

I was sailing out the doors, relishing the first breaths of freedom when I walked straight into it. "It" being a group of thoughtless freshman boys playing hacky sack with a tiny almost-fledgling.

Naturally, I was appalled. Much to their annoyance, I scooped the tiny puffball up, gave the boys a hefty piece of my mind, and began inspecting the tiny creature for signs of injury.

It seemed, miraculously, unscathed.

To be honest, though, I had no experience keeping a babyish bird. I knew they were fragile, but beyond that I was at a loss. So, I put him in my shirt and popped back into the school to see if I could catch my biology teacher before she went home.

That endeavor was successful in that she was still there, but unsuccessful in that she didn't have much help to offer me regarding my newly acquired ball of fuzz. She asked if I had found a nest. I hadn't, but I thought I'd give it another shot.

So I went outside and searched everywhere I could think to search, but it was to no avail. One more trip back to her classroom resulted in my biology teacher handing me a box and saying, "Good luck."

Great. So, now what?

Upon my arrival home, my mom looked uncertain and my dad became extremely grumpy and forbade me to keep the bird before huffing off to go work on something downstairs.

Not that we make a habit out of ignoring my dad, but a few hours later when I decided (based on a hunch) that this baby bird might thrive on a diet of gerber chicken puree baby food (I figured it was loaded with protein which is the same thing worms are made out of), my mom put me in the car and took me to the grocery store to get what little fluff ball needed. I noted the irony that I was choosing to feed a bird, well, bird in order to keep it alive. But, I figured this was the best idea I had, and those chickens were already dead. Don't judge me.

Of course, the first night with a tiny animal is always a big deal. Oh how hard I prayed that he would still be alive when I woke the next day!

When he was, indeed, alive and well to greet the morning, I decided it would be safe to give him a name. So, since the birdwatcher book my grandma had given me as a child identified him as a mockingbird, it only seemed appropriate to call him Scout.

I found a shoe box and lined it with wash clothes, cut slightly too-large holes in the top, and tucked Scout's baby food and a straw in the corner before nestling Scout in warmly and heading off to school.

As one might imagine, that was quite a day.

It started off with my English class, in which I discovered that the holes in the top of the shoe box were slightly too big when Scout insisted on poking his head through them and chirping at the everyone. My attempts to keep him inside the box distinctly resembled that old arcade game called whack-a-mole.

When that class ended, I found myself confronted in the hallway by a teacher and told to go to the principal's office.

I was not a teenager who handled confrontation well, and on my way there, I could already feel my throat starting to tighten.

By an incredible twist of fate, our villainous principal was out for a week, recovering from having melanoma removed from his face.

So my meeting was with the next man down in the chain of command. A man I (until this moment) had little to no experience with. The assistant principal, Coach Gremmer.

This guy was a hulking, intimidating, beast of a man. He had to have been eight feet tall, with shoulders as broad as the hallway was wide.

High school senior version of me just knew this wasn't going to end well.

But I shuffled into his office with Scout in tow, nonetheless, and tried to say "Hello, you asked for me?" without allowing my voice to betray how badly I wanted to freak out.

"I hear you have a bird.", he stated, with a giant voice that matched his giant self, "and you know as well as I do that it's against school policy to have a bird here. You'll have to go home and leave it there."

That was all it took. I totally cracked. The dam broke. And there I sat in front of giant Coach Gremmer, sobbing like a child and choking out, "But... but... nobody in my family can take him to work with them, and I don't know what else to do! I don't want him to (sniff ) DIE!!!"

I wiped my eyes somewhat dry and looked up to find (astonishingly) that Coach Gremmer had joined me in my weeping. He dried his eyes too and sniffled, "I wasn't trying to be the Big Bad Wolf! And I certainly didn't mean to make you cry! You can keep bringing the bird to school, just... try to keep him in your back pack during class, ok?"

I promised I would do my best, and he dismissed me.

Looking back on that moment as an adult and realizing how much trouble Coach Gremmer might have gotten in for allowing me to continue keeping Scout with me is overwhelming. I feel intense gratitude in my heart for that moment.

Another incident that still feeds my soul to this day occurred a few days later in English class.

I was not a part of the "popular" preppy crowd at my high school, but I never experienced any blatant shunning until Scout entered the scene. I was surprised at the number of students who opposed my plan to care for this fledgling until it was ready to fly away. For a teenager, it was a bit intense at times.

This shunning had already begun within a few days of my having Scout, and I was feeling the impact of it in a pretty big way. So, imagine the gratitude I felt when a boy who was popular with pretty much everyone chose to continue being my friend in the middle of all this.

After walking down the hall on my way to English class, enduring various sneering comments about that "disease infested, disgusting bird that's going to die anyway", and dodging one sophomore who tried to steal Scout in his shoe box out of my arms and smash it, I arrived at my class disheartened and disheveled.

I plopped the box down on my desk and collapsed in a heap with my head in my arms.

Imagine my shock when Mr. Mcpopularpants (my friend Brian) came over, scrumfled my hair, and asked how Scout was doing. He then proceeded to take the lid off the shoe box to check on him, declare gleefully that he looked healthy, and then tenderly tuck a washcloth around him for added warmth.

It was precious, and I was encouraged.

As the weeks passed by and Scout grew out of his pin feathers and into his adult feathers, he began to look sleek and grown up.

One day, another friend of mine (Chase) teased me as we walked outside, "You're not a bird. You'll never teach him to fly!"

I had worried about this, and I had spent afternoons giving Scout tiny tosses onto soft things so he could practice flapping his wings. I told Chase that we had been practicing and prepared to demonstrate with a gentle toss.

I never expected Scout to fly from my hands, over Chase's head, and into a tree like he did. It was a perfect moment... until Chase and I both realized we had no idea how to get him down. I was concerned, and Chase thought it was hilarious. He threw a few pine cones at Scout and then proceeded on his merry, laughing way.

Fortunately I didn't have to stand there with my arms crossed staring up at Scout for long before he got hungry and came down.

And that was the thing. In stories about birds, they make it out like the biggest challenge is teaching them to fly. But it's not true. The biggest challenge is teaching them to eat on their own.

When Scout learned to fly, the taunting from those who opposed got worse. They thought I was being some kind of freak for not letting him go already.

One day, as I sat outside on the senior deck (I understood how it would gross everyone out to have a bird in the cafeteria) with Scout propped on the edge of my messenger bag, contentedly, one unkind boy looked on him with disdain and told me that if he ever so much as saw Scout again, he would kill him in front of me. He then went on to describe how he would do it until I left the table, tossing the rest of my unfinished lunch in the trash.

That evening, I sat on the stairs in my home and wept. I didn't know what to do. I believed deep inside that Scout wasn't ready to be on his own. Yes, he could fly, kind of. But he wasn't a strong flyer yet. Certainly not strong enough that I would feel comfortable leaving him outside at the mercy of our dogs and our cat! And he also wasn't eating on his own. I had tried to encourage him with crickets and meal worms but it simply seemed that he wasn't ready.

I regret to say that the jerkwads won that round. I dug an old birdcage out of the basement, and put him in it the next morning before school. I left him with water and an ample supply of crickets and the like in the bottom of the cage. I hoped he would catch on. I glanced back one last time before I headed out the door and noted that Scout, the wild bird, looked completely and totally un-natural in that cage. It broke my heart but I braced myself to muscle through the day without him.

When I returned home at the end of the day, I raced up the stairs and threw open my bedroom door only to have my deepest fear confirmed. There he lay, limp and still on the bottom of the cage.

My stomach dropped like a rock, and I rushed to him.

I held him in my hands, and tears of relief spilled down my cheeks. He was still warm. And he was still breathing.

I fed him and he ate. And oh, how I prayed.

That was the last time I would ever allow anyone to intimidate me out of following through on my convictions.

Scout came to school with me the next day. My English teacher found me in my computer science class and allowed Scout to perch on his finger for an inspection. He said to me, "It's probably illegal to have this bird at school, isn't it?". To which I replied, "Most likely". He chuckled and added that Scout was looking good and regal before he handed him back to me and went on his way.

I took up leaving Scout outside for short somewhat supervised lengths of time when I was home. The dogs and the cat, of course, I dragged indoors so they wouldn't bother or maim him.

One afternoon when Scout was outside, a sudden downpour struck. I went outside to check on him and found myself standing in the rain laughing hysterically at my silly bird who didn't know to get out of a downpour to protect his feathers! I hollered for him to come on down without thinking that he might actually try. Without a second of hesitation, he launched himself, sopping wet feathers and all, into the air... and dropped like a brick. He even landed with a thud, despite my athletically challenged attempt to catch him.

This was a hearty bird. I'm convinced that it was my prayers much more than my nurture that kept him alive and thriving through all of this. Despite his fall, he was solid. I brought him inside and blew is feathers dry with a hair drier. He sat on my desk looking disgruntled.

Another thing I took up doing was attempting to teach him to eat on his own by putting him on the front porch with some crickets and then running inside and upstairs to hide and watch him from a window. If he knew I was present, he would only look at his food, and then throw his head back and squawk at me. This was, of course, his way of demanding that I drop food down his throat.

Once I did my usual run-upstairs-and-hide only to look out the window and see my big, burly dad (who had grown secretly rather attached to Scout), slip out the front door, look around to make sure no one was watching, and then sneak and feed Scout a cricket.

I may never stop giggling over that.

Time marched on as it tends to do. Scout finally learned to eat on his own, and his flying skills got stronger. Eventually I was completely comfortable leaving him outside, at home alone, even with the dogs out while I was gone.

I would come home from school and whistle at the tree-line, and Scout would come swooping down onto my shoulder and we'd go inside.

He would usually go back out again, but reliably he would come peck on my window around nightfall. I would let him in and he would flutter up to the top of my closet's door and zonk out up there for the night.

At last there came a night that I wasn't home for that nightly tradition. I was out with friends, and Scout spent his first night outside.

In the morning, I rubbed my eyes and went out on the front porch to eat my fruitloops and watch the sun come up.

Scout flew down and chirped a greeting.

To be honest, it turned out to be more of a farewell. When he flew off into the sunrise that morning, it was to be the last I ever saw of him.

A few days later, my dad plunked down on the couch and said, "Hey, where has Scout been lately?". He looked sad.

I smiled, "He flew away, Dad. That's what we wanted, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

I hold on to this story. I cherish it. Because naysayers are everywhere. They will say "don't", and they will say "can't" , and they will look at your convictions and cross their arms and call you silly.

But the naysayers of my teenage-hood did not get to witness my little mockingbird as he soared into the sunrise.

And neither would I have, had I listened to them.

The Beauty of This

My eyes trace the odd curves that jut out of the florida live oak
in 47 or so different directions.
I let my gaze linger on one angle
then another
and had a sudden longing
to leap out of the car
and wrap my hands around a branch,
pull myself into the tree,
let my feet dangle in the air,
stay there until the sky grew dark,
watching ants carry things many times their size
to and fro.
But presently the light changed.
Red to green.
And we drove on.

I watched a movie once.
Troy.
Not my favorite.
But good!
And as we continued down the highway
a quote from it came back to me.
"I'll tell you a secret", Achilles had whispered,
"The gods are jealous of us.
they are jealous of our mortality....
the fact that any moment could be our last
makes us so beautiful."

Now, I don't believe God is jealous of us.
He is jealous for us,
desiring that we worship Him alone.
And this is one reason why He put such beauty
in our very mortality.
and in every plain
every broken
every joyful
every ordinary
every curious
every pain-ridden
every simple
and every mysterious
second of our existence.
All of which are made more beautiful
because they could easily be our last
Like how the crooked bends in the florida live oak
give it a beauty all it's own.
And just like how the stars could not shine through
without the darkness of night.
The the fact that we can hurt
means that we feel
and that we love
and that is beautiful.

And I thought, be still my heart.

In Mexico
there are little concrete houses
painted with whatever color was available.
I slide my roller into a peach color
reflecting sun into my eyes
rolled it over a dingy and flaking old coat
and over the drips
before they make it to the ground.
There's nothing quite like a fresh coat of paint.
Little brown faces pop up from behind a wall to my side
and peer over the edge
chins propped on tiny hands
with fingers sticky from snowcones with chili peppers.
They smile at me.
Beaming.
I beam back at them.
We communicate with our eyes
for lack of words.
Two new friends appear.
My age.
They take me from my peach-colored-paint fest
by the hands
...still no words.
My hands, though tan
pale next to theirs.
They shout to their friends as we pass
in a language I know very little of.
I am included
but there is so much I don't know.

I watched a movie once
Les Miserables.
Not my favorite.
But good!
And that night as I tried to sleep
a quote from it came back to me.
"Life's greatest happiness", Victor Hugo stated,
"is to be convinced that we are loved."

A new day.
A different side of town.
Shacks built with wooden street signs
or tin meant only for rooftops.
Dirt floors.
Hungry children.
One hands me a puppy.
Proudly.
Holding it up with both hands.
Ragged little dog.
Look!
"Esto es tu perrito?" I ask,
"Si, si!"
I'm told by a comrade
I should set the dog down.
Lest I get ringworm.
Humph.
I hand the puppy back to the boy.
Then gather them both into my arms.
"Que bueno perrito!" I exclaim,
What a good puppy!
The little one breaks into a grin
and throws his arms around my neck.

And I thought, be still my heart.

Back at my school in the mountains
I watch the college kids
like I'm not one of them.
I watch them sharing their umbrellas when it rains,
fighting with their significant others in the parking lot,
hugging books to theirs chests,
while they walk down the sidewalk
that goes through the ornimental pear trees
that blossom with gorgeous pink and white flowers
but smell like fish food.

I watched a movie once
An Ideal Husband.
Not my favorite.
But good!
And now as I wave hello to a group of passing scene kids,
a quote from it comes back to me
"You have not truly seen something", Minnie Driver said,
"until you have seen the beauty in it"

If we can find the love
we can find the beauty
and then maybe we will finally be able
to see things
a little more like God sees them.
And maybe we will at last
be able to see
that life is beautiful.
So beautiful.

That's right heart, be still.