Sabbath Gleanings

Last night, as I was watching the weather forecast, I decided today would be a School-Sabbath. I would not so much as practice the presence of papers, finals, essay revisions. I would take care of the other neglected elements of my life and just be. Until the sun sets.

I sleep in til eleven and get dressed, stepping out onto the back porch for some light. The sun's fingers are tickling the birds, setting them atwitter with glee. Eunice is next door hanging out her unmentionables for those same fingers of warmth to caress into dryness. I notice a squirrel, trotting confidently along the telephone wire high above the alley. He must have climbed on from the tree that overhangs our garage. Unfortunately, no other trees intersect with the wires, and he scurries down the length of the alley, stopping every few seconds, room to go forward but not enough to turn around. Ah, well, I think, he'll eventually find a tree or figure a way to go down the telephone pole.

I move to the front stoop, waiting for a flutter of wings that never comes. A female mallard (whom I've dubbed Daisy) appeared several weeks ago and laid her eggs beneath the evergreen shrub that sits by our front door. Always before, she's run for it when I come around the corner. Either she's grown accustomed to me or some biological imperative won't let her leave her eggs at this crucial juncture. I greet her as always, but she just looks up at me with one side-mounted eye.

I glance down at the black ants marching around the sidewalk. One of them carries a larger beetle over its head, the beetle's legs churning the air as if to say (with a thick British accent), "But I'm not dead yet!" I laugh out loud at the way Monty Python interrupts my Discovery Channel mindset.

Our front yard testifies to the rhythms of life. To my right, amid a scattered field of dandelions, sits the remnant of the massive elm that blew down last fall, stump cut too short to even sit on. On the left, the sapling Lisa planted to replace it stands strong and young and beautiful, wearing a garland of tulips like some sixteen-year-old southern belle at her Coming Out party back when the phrase "coming out" carried much lighter baggage.

I've been that squirrel, scurrying down a path that looked great at the front end only to find it leading further than I ever wanted to go. I've been that beetle, dragged and carried ominously toward some unpleasant fate. Heck, I've even been the ant, hijacking the course of others and trying to bear them to a place of my choosing. Hopefully, those seasons are over.

Now I want to be like Daisy, waiting patiently in spite of things that scare me or tire me out, waiting through stiff legs and cramped wings, waiting through rain and wind and sunshine, waiting for new things to come to life. New communities, new adventures, new graces, new joys.

Summer's coming. Bring it on!