Sightings

This past week I was on vacation in Illinois staying with my parents. They have a small ranch house in bloomington. While there I made a trip to Borders and discovered this book "Sightings" by Sam Keen. This book takes a spiritual glance at birds and birdwatching. Keen tells marvelous stories of bird watching as a kid and finding the Sacred in the midst of what seems like a very mundane activity. His description of the Indigo Bunting was fabulous and seeing it in a book allowed me to see the awe that comes with sighting a bird so beautiful. I was reminded by Keen how much I love nature and birds. It also reminded me of my all time favorite college course, the required science lab I decided to take, "Winter Birds of Illinois (I got an A by the way)". We used to bird watch growing up all the time. I was reminded how much my grandfather loves to put out feeders for birds every year and how that was connected to his childhood home in Kentucky where birds flocked to my great grandmother's home. I also have to laugh because my grandfather thinks that squirrels are such pests that he designs his own squirrel traps. He has proudly caught 35 or so in the last several months. When they are caught in his trap, he hops in his Buick Century and drives them across town and drops them off somewhere. Not sure how sound this approach is, but it was a reminder to me of humanity's differing ways of dealing with so-called "pests," we usually like to remove them quickly without ever dealing with the real issue at hand. Truthfully, I like bird-watching because birds demonstrate a metaphor for how I wish I could live....unfettered and free. It is as if when I watch the birds I am seeing God dance with nature. So, thanks to Sam Keen, my winter birds of illinois class, my mother, my grandfather, my great-grandmother, and God for reminding me that sighting a bird is a sighting of the divine.

Out of the Mouths....Part Deux

Okay, so, not everything that comes out of Isa's mouth is desired. I just wrote a blog not that long ago about how cute she was sharing her love for animals, for her parents, and thanking different objects for their existence. Well, the other shoe drops occasionally.

This Sunday I was preaching a sermon on the concept of love. I was speaking about the glowing experience of love I felt when I first saw Isabel or when she tells everyone at the dinner table that she loves us. As soon as I got done saying this we hear out of nowhere, "You stink, daddy!" It was Isa shouting in the middle of church that I stink!!! How about that. I wasn't angry, just more embarassed. Shannon was over there trying to get her to say "I love you, daddy!" to compliment my sermon, but instead we heard "You stink, daddy!" Kids will say just about anything to get a rise out of us adults. I was reminded of the one time Shannon and I were at Broadway UMC here in Indianapolis and there were two kids sitting behind us who were squabbling with each other in the middle of a communal prayer. At the end of the prayer when it got silent you heard loudly, "ewh....your breath smells like glue." We lost it and could not stop laughing. Well, now it is my own daughter whose funny ways could not make us stop laughing. Certainly, out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom and compassion and truth, but perhaps in times when we need it most, comedy. Thanks, Isa, for letting the world know I stink.

Out of the Mouths of Babes....

I ate lunch today with my daughter, Isabel. We were both eating leftovers. I told her it was time to go eat and she ran all excited to her chair like a squirrel does to a bird feeder. When she arrived at the chair she shouted, “Oh, thank you, chair!” Now, you have to imagine a toddler saying this with the elongated “O’s.” Both the words “Oh” and “you” were dragged out a little more than usual. It was absolutely hilarious. It got me to thinking about all the things she says “thank you” to each day or even “hi” to as she passes. Just yesterday I heard her say, “Oh, thank you, tree” and “Oh, thank you, bird.” We just bought some new indoor tropical plants that she calls trees. We also have been doing a lot of bird watching in the front of our house. So, to say “thank you” to these elements of our home environment was to suggest Isabel’s clear awareness of her surroundings.

As Isabel thanked her chair this morning, I was intrigued at the theological implications of such a proclamation. Could it be that we pass by each encounter of our day without even acknowledging the true gift of its presence in our world? Do we truly pass by trees, birds, roads, fields of corn, water, plants, chairs, dare I say human beings, without a sense of thankfulness? Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hahn, often speaks of the world in terms of “inter-being.” That is, the being of all things is interconnected so much that human actions and the natural order are directly impacted by the results of our interaction or lack thereof. Perhaps my little toddler was trying to simply point out the “inter-being” of chair, tree, bird, daddy, mommy, God, and all of creation. Perhaps every time I turn on a faucet of water, there could be a prayer of thankfulness for our water. Or, every time I take a bite of food, I am thankful and aware of the origins of my food. It could even enter our human relationships to the point that when we are particularly angry with another, we might begin to see ourselves in that person and give thanks for their beautiful existence.

It is often out of the mouths of our little ones that we hear clearly the messages we daily miss because we are so distracted from our present reality. A child sees the simple usefulness of a chair, or the beauty of a tree, and the dazzling dance of the birds. I miss seeing these things so clearly. So, today, I have something to say back to my little girl: “Oh, Thank You, Isabel!” and “Oh, Thank you, God, for my little darling Isabel!”

New Year's Resolutions

I have rarely participated in the yearly ritual of making New Year's resolutions. I suppose one could call me a cynic when it comes to these rituals. My logic simply followed the idea that if we were unable to follow through on the things important to us on a regular basis, then why choose one particular day to try and make that right? Why not just do it?

Well, I am a cynic no longer.....at least when it comes to New Year's resolutions. I have found myself in a circumstance of being unable to control my consumption of food and beverages, nor being committed to exercise of any kind. I am probably the most unhealthy I have been in my entire life. I have always been active, always been relatively skinny, and never had a problem with my health. Well, I had a concern arise this past week. I took a parishioner to, of all places, WalMart to fill his wife's prescriptions because they will fill it for $4 there. While we were waiting in the pharmacy area, I decided to take one of those free blood pressure tests. I hadn't taken my blood pressure in a long time. After my fingers came back to life from being numb and the numbers flashed out on the screen it read 145 over 84. I was horrified. What is worse, one of the pharmacist caught a glimpse afterwards and said, "Whoever's blood pressure that is, man, that is high." Okay, so it could have actually been worse, but she was right, it was high. According to the screen, these numbers suggest stages of full on hypertension and prehypertension. My family has a history of high blood pressure and heart disease, and needless to say this was an alarming wake up call to me.

In our worship service on Sunday we had a covenant renewal service. I spoke of our need to be healthy and connect ourselves and renew ourselves with all of creation. In the middle of my sermon, I took a Diet Dr. Pepper that I bought and placed it in the middle of the sanctuary high up, as if on an altar....an idol of sorts. I spoke of my addiction to Dr. Pepper, my inability to lose its hold on me, and my unhealthy lifestyle of inactivity and lethargy. I threw my Dr. Pepper in a trash can and laid it on the altar as I renewed my covenant with God and my congregation....even with myself to commit to loving myself and my body. So, my New Year's resolution for 2008 is to find a way to eat healthy, exercise weekly, read more, write more, and to make my life overall more whole. For those of you who are my close friends and family, please hold me to this standard and remind me to love myself and my body, for it is God's gift. Happy New Year!