What would St. Francis do?

A little update on the squirrel situation--

I did buy the hardware cloth. It wasn't quite enough, but with it and some bricks and stakes and chicken wire, we managed (yes, I had help from my beloved) to build a little fortress around the petunias that we hoped was impenetrable.

I covered four planters of impatiens with chicken wire and a couple of garden utensils, and the other four I booby-trapped with some single strands of wire that had been wrapped around the hardware cloth when I bought it. Well, I didn't really booby-trap them; I just arranged wire around them hoping it would make it hard for squirrels to "dig in."

At Home Depot, I also saw a squirrel feeder for less than ten dollars. And here is where St. Francis comes in.

I had really struggled with some questions because of this situation (and still do):

Would and could I really shoot a squirrel, either to kill it or just to hurt it?
What is the best thing to do when the ecology is out of whack and creatures have no "natural enemies?"
Why should a squirrel suffer just because it is hungry and trying to get food?
Why am I so easily angered by creatures that have no malicious intent?
How do my beliefs about being a good steward of God's creation apply to this scenario?
Is the life of a squirrel worth more than the life of a flower? Or vice versa?

(So, now you can see why I almost went into a master of philosophy program. And would love to study more theology. Though I'm not sure any of these issues would be addressed in either program!)

Anyway, I bought the squirrel feeder. And they have found it and have partaken.

And I did not buy a pellet gun.

And so far all the flowers are okay.

And I have been able to sleep at night.

I'll try to share the story in photos tomorrow.

Going nuts

Aaaaagggghhhh ! ! !

Okay, maybe I can think a bit more rationally now. Or maybe not. We'll see.

I planted petunias and impatiens yesterday afternoon and evening. But I didn't buy and plant them until I had ordered "Shake Away," a granular product composed of fox urine, which I was assured would repel squirrels without harming them or the plants or anything else.

Unfortunately, not until I had the product in my hand and could read the label did I learn that it might take up to two weeks to become effective, with repeated applications.

In two weeks, my flowers might be no longer viable. I had to get them in the ground.

So I planted them, and shook the fox urine around in hope that "effective" might mean the squirrels would have learned to stay away for good. And that up until two weeks, they might keep coming around, but would back off from the scent of a predator.

I came home from work today to check on the flowers and to finish planting the ones I didn't get to last night.

I should have taken a picture of my flower bed. It looked like a war zone on a small scale. If you remember the photo from last year, it's a small area, a circle with about a five-foot diameter or less. And about a quarter of the area is covered in bricks. So in the part that actually holds dirt, I saw between fifteen and twenty distinct holes. Some of the plants looked as if they'd been fighting for their lives.

And I thought I must have miscounted my petunias, because one spot was clearly empty--until I noticed that one entire plant had been dug up and carried, dragged, or perhaps thrown (?) five feet away from the bed!

I had in previous weeks noticed pansies that looked as if they'd been intentionally uprooted and tossed out of their pots. My first impulse was to shout imprecatory things at the creatures up in the trees, unable to believe their nerve. But then I thought they couldn't be actually uprooting the plants on purpose. My anger was getting the better of me, assigning such intentionality to simple squirrels. Of course, they were just digging around and happened to kick the plants out.

Tonight assured me that they were intentionally removing the plants. And I'm afraid I would have continued my anthropomorphizing, letting myself think they were doing it just to show they could, or because they took some glee in watching me lose my cool every time I walked out on to the porch. Or perhaps even to get me back for not filling the birdfeeders for two weeks, thus cutting off their food supply.

That may actually be somewhat true. My neighbor came out, and I lamented and asked his advice. He recommended a pellet gun or bb gun, which I just can't quite see myself employing. But he also informed me that squirrels will dig up plant to eat their roots.

And since the squirrels stuck in the city have no natural enemies to speak of--well, our dog Tosca has killed a few, but she is confined to the back yard--their population is out of control, and there is not enough food for them all. That's my neighbor's theory. Oh, and the red hawk that lived around here last year has not been seen lately.

I don't know. I just know that they have been driving me crazy.

Okay, as a trained counselor, I know they can only drive me crazy if I let them. In fact, I was actually taking deep breaths and telling myself to calm down a half hour ago, as I stood out there surveying the damage!

I'm going to Plan B, which involves a trip to the hardware store for "hardware cloth," a fine type of wire that I'm told should keep them out.

And maybe in two weeks the fox urine will become effective.

Which doesn't encourage me anymore, because I also read tonight that it only works for a while, until the squirrels get used to it and figure out there's no real fox around. . .

Sigh. . . Anybody got any other ideas? This is getting to be much more work than it ought to be, I think. But if I don't get those flowers covered tonight, I will lose money and time already spent. Not to mention that the flowers can't fend for themselves. I brought them here, I feel a responsibility to protect them!

I also have a responsibility to be at chorus rehearsal right now, but I'm not. I'm on my way to the hardware store. Lives depend on it.

Does anybody know . . .

. . . the name of this flower? It grows on a hedge sort of plant, it's in bloom right now, and it has an incredibly pungent scent.

I'm trying to find out what it is and see if I can get some to grow here at home.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but I'm still learning how to do close-ups with our new camera. (Which tells you I'm getting older, because we've had the camera for two or three years, and I think of it as new!)

Grandmother's Freezer

Grandmother had a big “deep freeze” down in her basement. Actually, she had two, but this is the one I tend to remember, because it was there the longest.

I wish I had a picture of her basement pantry, too. She was always prepared to feed any number of people with her multiple freezers and many shelves full of food. I remember when some friends of ours decided to just stop by her house, unannounced, because they figured that way they would save her the trouble of fixing a meal, which she was sure to offer if they had called ahead and planned a visit.

So they just showed up to say hello. Of course she insisted they stay to lunch. I can’t remember what they told me they ate, but it was a full meal with several dishes, bread, etc.

She was just that way.

So, this freezer was at the bottom of the stairs. You can see the staircase on the left side, actually. She would send us down to bring up corn on the cob, or frozen fruit, or a pie shell, or some cut of meat. It was freezing in that freezer! I remember having to stop and warm my fingers up before I could resume looking for something.

Two things amaze me about the freezer. No, three.

First, I’m amazed at how much she cared about people, and how she showed that so concretely in her preparing of food. I don’t know many people who do that today. As much as I admire the trait and love it when I can manage a “real” meal for my husband or for company, I can only hope to someday do it the way she did.

Second, I’m amazed at how well she remembered what all she had in stock! She had these two deep freezes in the basement, as well as a freezer upstairs by the kitchen. And somehow she could tell us which freezer to search for which food, and often she knew which side of the freezer it would be on. Just amazing.

Third, I’m amazed at how well her freezers worked. Just tonight—April 25, 2007—I opened a jar of apple butter that my dad brought to me after Grandmother’s death. (That means it’s been in my freezer for at least three years, so I have to add that I’m amazed it survived so well in our somewhat puny freezer, too.)

But as you can see, this jar was put in her freezer in 1992! And that apple butter is still delicious! (It was unopened until tonight.)

I remember her talking once about wanting to make some apple butter, so I have reason to believe she made this herself, probably with some help.

So, we’re still feeling her love through her cooking. I think that’s pretty amazing.

Easter Green

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Can you imagine, can any of us imagine what it must have been like to see Him risen from the dead? After that horror-filled experience of witnessing his brutal death?

And can you imagine what our lives would be like had his death been the end of the story. I don't even want to imagine. And we don't need to. He is risen indeed.

I would like to share a song that is new to me and really touched me this Easter. (It fits well with my earlier post on the green after the storm.) It's a lovely blending of the natural and the supernatural.


Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, Love whom hate had slain,
thinking that never he would wake again;
laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
he that for three days in the grave had lain,
quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
thy touch can call us back to life again,
fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Happy Easter!

(Words by John Macleod Campbell Crum [1872-1958.] I heard it sung to Noel nouvelet, a medieval French carol.)

Good Friday

Earlier in my life, I used to look at calendars and see the words "Good Friday." I had no idea what it meant. My school never let out for this day. My church certainly knew nothing of this day. (Or if it knew, it did not pass this on! I'm sure someone knew, because one leader in our church had formerly belonged to the Roman Catholic Church.)

Now this day has become one of the most meaningful of the year.

I remember the first time I attended a Good Friday service. It was during the time of the Kosovo war. I was in the midst of remembering the war in Croatia, and beginning to remember and feel things I had not been able to remember and feel since we left Croatia. I was very aware of suffering, death, sin, injustice, and deep pain.

A friend invited to me to the Good Friday service. I went with no idea what to expect.

At that time, we attended a church that had "happy clappy" worship, as some call it. I found it increasingly difficulty to worship there. The emphasis on feeling good because of God's love seemed to have no place for what my heart was going through as I mourned, in my small way, the suffering of two nations. It seemed the only part of life acknowledged in that place was the triumph, the joy, the overcoming. The experiences of war and desolation and homelessness and hunger and inhumanity were never brought up.

So, I went to the Good Friday service with my friend. And for worship, we listened to, and sometimes read aloud together, the Word:

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 -- "Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows."
Psalm 22:1-11 -- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Hebrews 10:1-25 -- emphasizing the necessity of Christ's sacrifice because sin is so real
John 18:1-19:37 -- the long and painful story of Christ's death

We didn't lift our hands or clap or sway. We knelt. We kept much silence.

We prayed (among other things):

Let us pray for all who suffer and are afflicted in body or in mind;
For the hungry and the homeless, the destitute and the oppressed
For the sick, the wounded, and the crippled
For those in loneliness, fear, and anguish
For those who face tempatation, doubt, and despair
For the sorrowful and bereaved
For prisoners and captives, and those in mortal danger....

Gracious God, the comfort of all who sorrow, the strength of all who suffer: Let the cry of those in misery and need come to you, that they may find your mercy present with them in all their afflictions; and give us, we pray, the strength to serve them for the sake of him who suffered for us, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here was a way of worship that, to me, was much more in touch with reality than the cotton candy of our Sunday mornings. In touch with the reality of what happened 2000 years ago, and in touch with the reality of the suffering of the world we live in today.

Living in America as I do, I worry that we are often so out of touch with the larger world, that God cannot possibly use us to make a difference. And because we are so disconnected from suffering, we cannot begin to understand the suffering that God and Christ went through in order to save us.

We live in a culture that wants to medicate or ignore pain and suffering. But medicating and ignoring do not bring healing. Real medicine can heal, but painkillers don't heal. Sometimes our very worship can be more of a painkiller, or a mood alterer, than real medicine.

But Good Friday is good medicine. It reminds us that we are sick and in need of healing. We are sinners in need of saving.

And He did come to heal and to save. And that is what makes the horrible, sickening events of that day 2000 year ago good. It is truly Good Friday.

And Easter is not far away.

Green

Today I drove to Wynne, Arkansas, to return my nephews to their dad. On the way, I noticed how beautiful the green fields were. Also on the way, it started raining.

Before long, the rain was pouring torrentially. Traffic slowed on the curvy road. I learned later that what I thought was incredibly hard rain was probably actually hail. (I still need to check my roof to see if it was dented.)

Instead of noticing the green, I peered through the grey onto the black asphalt, watching the yellow and white lines carefully, as well as the red lights of the cars in front of me.

By the time we reached our destination, the rain had slowed, allowing me to deliver my passengers without anyone getting completely soaked.

But then on my way back home, the downpour began again, even more intensely than before. I drove more slowly than I had on the way over. I flashed my car lights at people who didn’t have their lights on, because the rain was so heavy they could hardly be seen.

It was amazing. In fact, as I crossed the Mississippi River, I could barely make out the city skyline. The skyscrapers were like blurry brown images against a grayish-brown background. The river was an imaginary thing, lost in the soup of grayish-brown wetness. I think I’ll always remember that image when I cross the bridge.

More amazing than the rain, though, was the green that greeted me once I got onto North Parkway. By then the rain had slowed somewhat so that visibility was no longer a problem.

And the trees and grass were so green! You know how the light is after a storm. And all this green, this cholorophyll-saturated green, pulsed with light and life.

That drive down the parkways and then down Central Avenue, filled with green, green, and more green, was like a dream. But a dream of something more real, not less real.

I could imagine that the green of heaven would be like that. So filled with life that we can see and feel the life coming through it.

It seems true that the only times you experience this kind of soul-stirring green are right before a storm, or right after one. So that without the showers, it wouldn’t happen.

I won’t make the obvious point about when in life we tend to experience the deepest sense of life and growth. Or feel the most alive, or connected, or however you experience it.

What struck me more today was that it wasn’t just the storm that caused the green. It was the light and what the water did to alter the way the light was experienced.

If there is something to be learned about my own life, I think it is that the Light is the most important factor. The storms are simply a part of reality that change the way I perceive and experience the Light.

And that’s enough of trying to make points. The main thing is just that it was incredibly beautiful, and for a while I felt more alive because of the green, green life all around me.

(This photo is from the woods behind the house where I grew up. There was no way to take a photo today during the rain! But I’ve always thought this photo had that similar intensity to it.)

I Did It!

No, I haven't been hang gliding again, and I haven't succeeding in writing another Grandmother essay.

But this may in the long run be bigger than either of those:

For the first time that I can clearly remember since about 1995-ish, I went jogging by myself. Which is a bigger deal when you realize that the only times I've jogged with someone else in the meantime are countable on one hand.

You see, in 1988, I repeatedly injured my left knee, hyperextending it in a crazy child's running-in-a-circle-with-your-arms-locked-together-with-another-person kind of game, which I was playing with a bunch of adults. It was bad enough that I was on crutches for a while, required x-rays, etc.

And each time I've tried to jog since then, that knee has wound up hurting and getting wobbly, despite wearing a knee support. For a while I was even doing the thigh exercises recommended by two MD's, but the knee still suffered beyond what I could consider healthy.

So I said goodbye to jogging/running and went on with my life, finding adrenaline in other ways. And I really missed it at times, because in junior high and high school, I was a runner both competitively and just as a way to wind down and keep my mind in balance.

Then, last year, I went jogging with a friend and discovered that if I stayed on the grass, my knee didn't hurt.

Being a heat-intolerable type of person, I wasn't about to try to continue that in the June/July/August of the year. I don't know why I didn't start in the fall. I went once with another friend in the winter, but she is such an athlete and I'm such a competitor (i.e., I won't admit that I'm dying and can't breathe and need to stop.... now!) that I nearly killed myself and was sore for days on end. And then it kept getting cold, and I was having earaches. And on and on.

I did buy a watch for running. And some other apparel. A little calendar for recording times and distances, etc. Psyching myself up even while the weather and ear didn't cooperate.

But today I did it. I'm not going to say how much, or little, I ran, because it's embarrassing.

But I did it.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, right?

Dust

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

In case you have never been to an Ash Wednesday service, those are the words spoken as the ashes are imposed. It is a powerful reminder of the temporary nature of earthly life.

The past month has been a good reminder to me of my human limitations. Since high school days, I’ve had a strong tendency to take on more than I can actually do. Over the years, I’ve worked very hard to respect my limits and live a life that is gentler to myself, and consequently gentler to others.

January could be considered a “relapse,” I suppose, and February has been spent evaluating my activities, getting a better perspective, and making some changes. Changes that better respect my nature as a human being made of dust, with limitations.

So, in time for Lent, I have finished some things (a seminar, a recital, a conference, a talk at church . . .), given up some things (taking piano lessons, time spent on the Internet), and committed to saying “no” to everything new until my MFT licensure exam is behind me.

I hope that this renewed discipline will allow me to write more often, so please do come back to my blog when you can.

And remember that you are dust, and that to dust you shall return. It just may bring about powerful change in your life, too.

Grandmother and Birthdays

(Photos are of the birthday card sent to me in 1974, if you can't see the date. The front of the card is faded from touching another paper in the scrapbook.)

Almost three weeks later, here comes another significant day in my life: the day I was born. And it gives me a wonderful starting place in the series about my grandmother.

(I hadn’t planned to wait this long, but January was “crazy busy,” resulting in my getting sick, so it just hasn’t been a good time for writing.)

Grandmother and birthdays go hand in hand for more than one reason.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Grandmother always, and I mean always, sent birthday cards. To her family. To her friends. To her former preachers. And to their wives. To friends she had met while traveling and did not want to forget. I’m sure I’m leaving someone out.

She kept a large calendar in her kitchen, from Gulf Oil Company. Granddaddy used to own some gas stations, so she received a calendar every year. The calendars had wonderful big photos of various subjects, usually some kind of landscape or scenery picture. And the blocks for the days were large, too.

And Grandmother filled them up with birthdays, wedding anniversaries, anniversaries of the deaths of beloved people. Each month had many entries. She kept the calendar near the phone and would sometimes point out to us who all in the family had a birthday that month, and sometimes we would call the person who was nearest that day.

And she sent cards. She usually triple-underlined words printed in the card, like the Happy Birthday, or the [to a] special [person like you] . . . you get the idea. She always wrote a personal note, too. Like, “I remember this day x number of years ago! We were so excited. You were granddaughter number one!

And she always wrote the date of the day she was commemorating with the sending of the card. So now I can look back at all the birthday cards from her and trace them, year by year, through her (and my) life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I also remember Grandmother’s 80th birthday. We surprised her. Almost the whole extended family gathered at my aunt and uncle’s house, where Grandmother was staying while she recovered from a broken hip.

We have wonderful photos (not digital, unfortunately) capturing the look of surprise on her face when she returned from a little shopping outing with my cousin and found all of us, and balloons and streamers, and cake and ice cream, waiting for her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mostly, though, I remember something she shared with me ten years ago.

I was interviewing her for a graduate school class, asking questions about her life and her spiritual growth. Maybe it had something to do with her father dying when she was ten, maybe not. For whatever reason, she said that on every birthday that started a new decade, she would always find herself reflecting on her life— and how she wanted to grow, what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. How she could serve God better.

Birthdays have become that for me. Not a time to worry about age, but to see what God has done and ponder what He may be wanting to do. So next weekend I’ll take off for St. Columba to do my pondering and my personal celebrating of my own birthday.

Today I’m not doing much pondering, but I am thankful to have been born into the family that gave me a very precious grandmother.