| Sunny Side Up April 27, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Follow the wind with prayer I walked today between winter and spring. Took to the back alleys I love to wander, reacquainting myself with the dogs who knew me before winter drove me indoors, and meeting the new ones. The Duchess wasn't home. Sophie and Sebastian threatened to eat me, as usual. Magic turned around three times, then barked, also as usual. At one backyard two small dogs, one white, one black, announced me loudly. They're new. I introduced myself and dubbed them Salt and Pepper. It's an untidy period, this pause between seasons. Does anyone know whether it truly belongs in winter or spring? Fences totter, pressed by too much wind and snow. Bedraggled perennial stalks hunker in their beds, dry and brown. Lawns lay littered with molding leaves. As I walk, mud oozes from under my shoes. Debris from the neighbourhood's winter redecorating and renovation projects collects in those back alleys. It's piled along fences, stacked beside dumpsters. Old cupboards, their doors gaping; worn carpeting, held to a roll with twisting spirals of grey duct tape; broken bookshelves, tired sofas, spilling stuffing. A clutter of broken bricks from a fireplace deconstruction. It's all so depressing. I don't like these in-between days. Broken branches, surprised from their perch by a two day gale, dot my own backyard. Our once tall hollyhocks, last summer's brightest splashes of color, kiss the ground now, or nearly so, their pallid stalks tangled. Better for their dignity that I'd cut them down last fall, when they were merely leaning into the wind, not conquered by it. I try to pray as I walk, using my favorite pattern to talk to the God who walks with me, unseen. ACTS: Adoration. Confession. Thanksgiving. Supplication. It's a good prayer tool, one I've used for years to help me stay focused. It keeps my mind from wandering to things like tonight's dinner, or my last conversation with my best friend. ("You're coughing," Glenda said. "What's the matter? Got a furball?") But like this unsettling season, my thoughts are untidy too, today. All right, then. So be it. I resort to my emergency tactic: Pray where your mind wanders. Follow it, like the severed branches trace the path of the wind, or as the hollyhocks bow in submission. Follow the wind of thought. Turn it into prayer. What a gorgeous green on that spruce! I could just stand and stare. Lord, thanks for that. And for Judy's cheery call in my 'brown' morning today. How'd she know I neede� Such awful mud�Father, somehow I've gotten mud on my spirit. Sludge that makes me slow to follow you. Forgive my laziness, and selfishness, and pri..�. Oh, look, a robin! Jesus, remember when Amanda used to sing like that? As she goes about the serious business of 'nestwork'� grant her joy�remind her to sing� I walk an hour like that. Between winter and spring. Between prayer and distraction. Between you and me�it works. He hears. Cares. Whatever unsettling season you're in, trace its wind with prayer. Respond Home |
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