Saturday, January 31, 2009

Front Yard Magic

I walked out into a warm winter day a week and a half ago, which at that point was nearly fifty. While walking across the street I heard noise around the tall 10 foot bushes blocking our driveway from the next door neighbor's house. Looking over I saw a young girl wearing a pink sweatshirt. I noticed that she carried a two-foot stick in her hand. She was thrusting the stick at a branch about twice as long on the ground in front of her. It appeared as if the stick was serving as some sort of magic wand, and she was directing the magic to the longer branch below. I called out a hello to her, and she cheerfully said hello back. Before I could even ask her what exactly she was doing she told me that she was trying to make the branch disappear. I asked her how that was coming. She scrunched up her face, wrinkled her nose, faintly smiled, and held the sapling wand to her body with both arms as if she was suddenly embarrassed. "Half of it?" I asked her. Then she shook her head, held up her hand, and made parallel her thumb and index finger indicating that she had made just a little bit of the branch disappear. I wished her luck with the rest of it. As I drove down the street in front of her, I waved good bye. She just kept hugging the stick with her body and scrunching her face, making that embarrassed look again. I wonder if she was embarrassed that she was trying to make the stick disappear in the first place or that she had made just a small portion of it disappear. I very much hope that it was the latter. Imagine.

Monday, January 19, 2009

MLK Day

Prophetic words from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his extraordinary 'Letter from Birmingham Jail.'

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens' Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection...'

Friday, January 16, 2009

Notice

A week and a half ago, I was trudging up the steps, dragging my feet to the third floor of McPheeters at 7:45 in the morning. Taking deep breaths, I was hoping that the expansion of my lungs my start to wake me up a bit. I have often considered myself a morning person, someone who enjoyed being up before the sun. And I still do. But this morning, I would be the first to admit that I was thinking of my matress on the floor, or the comfortable, blanket-laden couch in the living room. However, as I ascended the last set of stairs, my heavy head slightly tilted down, I noticed a dark silhouette of a man facing the window. He was a tall slender man with a large brimmed hat on, that I may have more quickly noted to be Dr. Mulholland if it had been later in the day or not that particular day. He was looking out the window holding his cell phone to the glass. He had a content and curious look on his face, a look that I often see on his face. But it did not take long for me to venture my eyes through the window and see something huge and glorious that I had somehow missed. The sky was filled with soft red and purple clouds, like the cover of 'The Sound and the Fury.' It was like an ocean in the sky, an upside down ocean, filled with soft billowy waves rolling on and on into a distant solar light. It was the kind of picture that instantly made you think of the eternal, the holy, the awesome. I had somehow missed it. I normally consider myself someone who notices, but I clearly didn't that morning. I suddenly had a tremendous gratitude for Dr. Mulholland and those like him who are able to notice and disciplined enough to notice when I cannot.

On another note, I hope you notice the new banner I put up. I've made effort to get it up numerous times, but I have finally succeeded.