Little Feathers: Younger Than Springtime

Little Feathers: Younger Than Springtime: I always, even when I was young, felt it was odd that we celebrate youth so emphatically in our culture. It seemed like we wrote people off ...

Younger Than Springtime

I always, even when I was young, felt it was odd that we celebrate youth so emphatically in our culture. It seemed like we wrote people off the minute they no longer had that youthful glow. And we chase the preservation of that look to the tune of millions of dollars. I'm not judging that. I would love to look 30 again if I didn't have to live all the years over again (and learn all those dad-gummed lessons). But I'm just beginning to glimpse what seems to lie beneath the desire to look young.

Last night I went to a Sun City choir concert with my mom and friends. One hundred and forty voices. They put on a great show. Clearly they loved to sing, and the audience responded. During the concert, two things struck me, and they've been milling around in my mind ever since.

The first is that we do to voices the same thing we do to faces. We love them when they are young. That is how they are supposed to be, right? Strong and clear. And why do we not consider that they are still good, in fact still beautiful, when they are no longer that way?  Are they not also a shared part of a person, a gift to the listener? If people are interesting and beautiful their whole lives, even after the coveted tight skin and sparkling eyes are not so much there anymore, can't we learn to hear the beauty in voices that have lived a lifetime? I'm guilty of listening with a narrow ear, a mind-made-up as to how a voice is supposed to sound. Now, I'm thinking I might learn something by abandoning that judgmental approach. I might hear beauty where I've closed my mind to it before.

The other thing that happened involved a rendition of Younger Than Springtime showcasing the men. The narrator admitted that though the song from South Pacific was originally sung by a very young man to an even younger woman, these Sun City men, these singers of a certain age, remembered. They could remember. And they sang like it. I get teary thinking about it. Their faces showed the depth of their memories. It was beautiful. And it got me thinking about youth.

What if a big reason we chase and adore and covet youth has as much to do with where we are in time as it does with the physical aspects? Maybe knowing we are much closer to death than we were when were young causes us to try and put a stop to the clock. Maybe we just don't want to go. We don't want to look like it's time to go. Maybe this seems obvious, but if it does, I've missed it along the way. Maybe it hasn't occurred to me because I don't want to know. Maybe. But I can tell you that on the inside, most of the people I know whose outsides say otherwise, still feel younger than springtime.

Little Feathers: Quiet Gifts

Little Feathers: Quiet Gifts: It's misty and still on the river this morning. The new Spring green is still popping out of the trees in the ravine, giving that rocky ...

Quiet Gifts

It's misty and still on the river this morning. The new Spring green is still popping out of the trees in the ravine, giving that rocky chasm some youth. This time of year in the Texas Hill Country brings changing weather, and the bright sunshine I know is up above these low clouds is staying away. For now. It's cool, and damp, and lovely. There's a blue heron fishing the river, and lots of rippled rings from fish hitting the bugs on the surface. And there are birds out there, singing their wordless tunes they always sing. But it's mostly quiet. Seems like we're waiting.

That sense of waiting follows me around, and it's one that I have to turn toward, calling it out for the sneaky siren it is. How much of my life have I spent waiting? Years ago, waiting to fall in love. Waiting for children, Waiting to feel like I've arrived at some level of wisdom. Waiting to find my voice...

The only antidote for the waiting game is awareness. There is nothing new, no startling revelation from people smarter than me that spells out answers to the big questions in life. The ones that niggle at the edges of my awareness. The lessons I do keep learning, over and over as if they were prepared just for me to learn at this moment in time, those lessons are the ones I must be content with. That life is fleeting. That the only thing I control is my behavior. That moving through today worrying about tomorrow is looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. That the goal is not more, more, more, but gratitude for now, now, now. That the sweetest thing in this life is to cherish the people I've been given to love.

The little windmill across the river is almost never still. Its three blades, frozen in place right now, are reminding me. In the hurry hurry hurry of life, this small piece of a day, these minutes of this quiet morning are precious.I think I'll take my cup of coffee out on the porch. Shhhh. I'm not waiting. I'm listening.

Little Feathers: Room at the Top for Cream

Little Feathers: Room At The Top For Cream: Science is a rock star in our world. A giant presence filling the blanks, solving the puzzles, reducing the riddles to cause and effect. Exc...

Room at the Top for Cream

Science is a rock star in our world. A giant presence filling in the blanks, solving the puzzles, reducing the riddles to cause and effect. Except for the mysteries still remaining: the room at the top for cream.

I had never heard that expression until Starbucks. And because I have almost always treated myself to a latte, I didn't hear it until recently. Ordering an ordinary coffee (I know, a little expensive for ordinary coffee), the barista asked me, "Do you want to leave room at the top for cream?" A little light went off in my mind. Shouldn't I always leave room at the top for cream? No matter what?

This question came on the heels of some other thinkering I had been doing lately. A combo of thinking and tinkering. Playing around with thoughts is a specialty of mine. Maybe that's why kidlit is my genre of choice. Anyway, as I get older it seems I crave more scientific evidence. More proof of things before I can settle down to believe them. Yet, that is a very unsatisfactory way to approach my spiritual journey, because the science is pretty scarce on the ground.

The Sunday before I heard the barista's question, I was sitting in church. I love the ancient liturgy, I love the hymns and the rhythm of worship. But that day I was attacked by, "yeah, but" and, "I just am not sure about that". I was busy trying to reconcile things in my mind when I got another little gift. A voice that I have come to believe is an assist from beyond (yes, I think it's God in my ear, and I love when it happens) said, "You don't have to get it right." Really? I don't have to get it right? What a load off! What a relief! You mean, I can leave room in my mind for the mystery, the unknowable, the true enigma/conundrum/riddle?

It's a temptation in life to try and control the plot-line. To boss the characters in your life by any means possible, including nice-ing them into doing what you want. That same control freak streak wants to have the cheat sheet. To know exactly what God has in mind, and not be drawn into the mistakes of seekers from the past. But, not only is that harmful to the spirit, it is impossible. What a relief it is to let go of all that (again, and yes again, and no-doubt again and again) and just allow the blanks to be filled in later. Leave some questions unanswered rather than settling for the multiple choice bubble you know is not quite right. Leave some room at the top for cream.

Little Feathers: The Search for Joyful

Little Feathers: The Search for Joyful: It's a book title. The sequel to one of my favorites from my youth, Mrs. Mike . But it's also a to-do list. The search for joyful. T...