doodlebugs,barefeet and creation

Most of my childhood was lived outdoors. There were no televisions or computers for entertainment and our mothers could only stand us inside if we were helping clean. "Go outside and play" was the standard response to our question "What can I do?" I lived in the deep south where the weather co-operated with being outside most of the year.
We lived at the end of a little dirt road in an old farmhouse. During school, my sister and I would walk to the paved road to catch the bus. I learned to read the tracks left in the sandy road... snake slithers, bird tracks, racoon paws, dog prints, possum paws with tail dragging impressions. When we came home in the afternoon, I would check to see what had changed... who had driven in... a tractor... a truck.
The house we rented was on a farm owned by Mr. Coody who lived down by the paved road. We were surrounded by pastures, barns and sheds, dirt roads, cows, occasional horses and once, pigs. They didn’t last long, though... too smart and too smelly. My sister and I were free to roam the outdoors and we did.
The pasture next to the house had a gully at the very end, far from the house. It was one of my favorite hiding places... warm sun... soft breezes... a good place to read uninterrupted by parent’s demands. The chinaberry tree in the side yard had a fork in the main trunk that cradled my small body perfectly. That was a wonderful place to hide... covered with the lacy foliage and purple blossoms... not to forget the hard little berries that made perfect ammunition for a pea shooter.
Some of my chores were outdoors... feeding and watering the hens, gathering the eggs, picking up walnuts and pecans in season, picking beans in the garden... but mostly, the outdoors was my great escape... my learning lab for fantasy and real life. I wept when I found the dead kitten, killed by some unknown predator... rode my pretend horse wildly around the pretend wild west of my yard... dug for doodlebugs in their little cone shaped homes in the sand... took my shoes off as soon as school ended and lived with gloriously free feet for the summer (except for the occasional painful sandspur)... caught grasshoppers and created little homes for them in jars, providing grass and water, watching them grow and split out of their old skins... ran from rattlesnakes...dressed our patient old cat Goldie in doll clothes and rolled him around the yard as my baby... had mud pie tea parties with pokeberry tea... learned how to suck honeysuckle blossoms and the end of grass blades for a sweet taste...made wigs of long hair from the abundant Spanish Moss hanging from every tree...sat on the front porch and listened to the grown-ups talk, tell stories and laugh as they escaped the heat in those days before central air conditioning.
Almost all of our lives now, are like central air conditioning and heat... indoors, the same temperature all summer and winter long, confined to the known four walls that surround us in our homes and work and transportation. Short walks over pavement to and from home and work and shopping... children who do not have the freedom these days to roam safely nor the space... various and sundry diversions that keep us all indoors observing life through someone else’s eyes.
Michael walks the farm each morning. He checks the cows, gets the paper, sees the first blue bird come back for spring, watches the dogs play, feeds the ducks, hears the screech of Gary the hawk flying overhead. I feed the cows and barn cats each day, see the morning sunrise in a different way each day, hear different birds sing each day, count the ducks on the pond each day. I can report there are no doodlebugs in the North Carolina mountain land on which I live but there is the splendor of creation all around me.
In the 104th Psalm, there is a beautifully lyrical description of God and the creation of our world full of leviathans and mountains and angels and darkness and beasts and gratitude... "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth... I will sing praise to my God while I have my being... Bless thou the Lord, my soul". Perhaps today I will look for the sight of the Holy One as I feed the cows...give thanks for the winter wind that cuts to the bone... see if the possum visited the leaning barn to eat leftover cat food... search for the doodlebug treasures left by my Creator in the world that surrounds me.

Drawh Me Nearuh, Preshus Lawd...

The message light was blinking on the answering machine as I walked in from teaching my morning class in creativity. I pressed the button and heard her voice singing... in an accent that sounded like my south Georgia home... "I am Thine, Oh Lord, I have heard Thy voice and it told Thy love to me; But I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn to Thee. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord to the cross where Thou hast died; Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side".I sang along with Mary Etta, tears flowing as I heard our voices lift the tune and words of that old hymn. It is so sweet to have a friend who loves the same old hymns and remembers the words and the tune. It is doubly sweet to hear them sung with the sounds of my southern childhood in the words.
I have always been fascinated with the accents that reflect the particularities of our origins. My mother’s voice sounded different from everyone else. Her soft, Virginia Tidewater drawl with its definitive "ou" sound in "house" and "about"set her apart from everyone else in our little town. Where she came from was in her voice. I remember as a child trying to acquire her accent because I loved the sound of it so much. My dad had the flatter, middle Georgia accent... not as southern sounding as my mother. Thomasville, Georgia, a small town near us, had a very different drawl peculiar only to Thomasville natives. My friend Mike Amsden sounded like the midwesterner she was... her father was a transplant who worked at the paper mill with my daddy. Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina mountains, Georgia...all the places I have lived have had their own sounds in the voices of those who grew up there... each accent reflecting the answer to the perennial southern question... Where are your people from?
I wonder... do the years of trying to rise in the arms of faith sound in the accent of my voice... can you hear my love for the One who first loved me as I speak to you... did the early years of loving community in Clyattville Baptist Church give a distinctive flavor to my voice...have the gains and losses of my sixty years of living left their mark as my voice rises in song... can you tell where my people come from by the sound of my faith voice.
I pray that I may speak with the accent of Love and Light... the sound of Jesus’ voice echoing in my voice as I speak... I want you to know who I belong to... where I come from... where I am going. And. I treasure the different accents I hear along the way as we all travel through this world going home to God. The homeplaces are different but the journey is the same. Thanks be to God for all the particular and peculiar voices in this faith called Christianity...

Just Enough Snow, Lord, to Sled...

There is snow on the ground at the farm today... not much... not enough to go sledding. There is enough to provide a white blanket in the woods at the base of the trees. You can see the ripple of the land as it marches up and down to the far ridge. The bright green of the black pine and the tall, stalky locust tree shapes are mixed with the other leafless tree shapes frosted with snow. The sky is backlit with the sun shining behind the snow clouds. It is a perfect winter day.
The brightness of the snow reminds me of the old hymn... "Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole. I want Thee forever to live in my soul. Break down every idol, cast out every foe. Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Lord Jesus, Thou see-est I patiently wait. Come now, and within me a new heart create. To those who have sought Thee, Thou never saidst No— Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow".
My soul feels drab and a little dirty this Lenten season. I am caught between the to do list, the want to list and the inertia that comes over me during this time of year. Like the hymn writer, I long to be made whole, clean, fresh... no great sins of murder or adultery or drunkeness... just the ordinary daily drain of sloth, lack of caring, passionless living. Lent suits my mood perfectly.
I do not need to give up, to do without for Lent. I need to acquire... laughter... light... warmth... honest self appraisal... responsible action in search of wholeness... color for my monochrome interior landscape...life with a new heart and a bright white canvas on which to splash the colors of creation. I want to go sledding...
This fallow time gives me a chance to prepare... to prime the painted walls of my life and get ready for the new colors to come. As I remember and cover the past year of my soul’s journey with the primer of repentance for sins done and undone, I can let go and get ready for what is coming... joy in the morning... daffodils for the soul... springtime in the heart... effortless rejoicing in the Love that will not let me go... new ways to be the translucent Body of Christ in the world that needs the blessed gospel light.