Influential Ink

Having been recently entrenched in graduate school, I have not had the opportunity to blog much. But in anticipation of one of my favorite editorialists coming to speak, I hereby post his latest article: http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2710

Here is a quote to whet your appetite: “A punch in the nose — or the threat of one — still deters bullies far better than signed agreements, which they have no intention of honoring. Why have the world’s bullies suddenly become more galvanized against the West, especially the United States? It’s because they believe President Obama’s loftiness about talking to despots instead of standing up to them demonstrates weakness.”  ~Cal Thomas

A friend recently passed along this website, and while it is a well-crafted point academically (naturally, being written by C.S. Lewis), I have found it to be spiritually comforting. Most struggles for satisfaction could probably be traced back to our inborn lust for the “Inner Ring”, as Lewis calls it, and it does an amazing amount of good to identify that as the problem. May you find as much encouragement as I did.

http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php

I spent this morning under an awning overlooking a lily-pad pond. Raindrops danced over the surface of the calm water, making it look as though it were sparkling. The patio my chair was positioned on was brick, and ferns were hung all around. An old rusty wood stove sat as decoration on an edge, the pipe leading out into the open air. Behind me, a massive (and quite friendly) dog roughhoused with his penmate and would occasionally put his paws up on the fence to ask for a petting. Standing on his back two legs he towered over me by a foot and a half. In the pen next to his, long horn sheep curiously surveyed us visitors. A V of geese circled the pond, trying to decide whether or not it was where they wanted to land.

Maybe it was the animal life. Maybe it was the country air. Maybe it was just the fact that I wasn’t looking at a building every way that I turned or hearing the rumble of motors on the highway. But it felt like home. It was an oasis of sorts. A sanctuary; a momentary haven that I didn’t know I’d needed so badly. Like a cactus soaking up a rare rain, I felt as though I had been refreshed when I left two hours later. Returning to the city every year, I get so busy that I sometimes don’t know how much I miss home and the spectacular, uninterrupted display of God’s nature. During mornings like these, though, I come to understand how much I miss, and really, need such moments.

My soul needs an oasis as surely as my body. It needs something keeping it alive and renewed, well-watered and refreshed. If I had my way, I’d hike to the mountains every morning to do it. But I can’t—and I thank God I don’t have to. A simple page of His Word fills my soul with fresh air and I can drink from clear springs anytime I choose, anywhere. I’m so glad He knows what I need long before I do.

He didn’t see me sitting there on a blanket of my own thoughts. Maybe he was just as entranced with the sunrise as I was and simply missed me. Or perhaps he was just hunting for breakfast. But as he paused in his mad little dash only a reach away, he gave me the rare opportunity to marvel at this atom of creation.

As small as a six-week old kitten, he could have easily fit in my hand, grown-up as he was. Two perfectly-shaped, trim stripes ran down his back. His little legs were so short that his tiny tummy, heaving with quick breaths, was almost brushing the ground. His eyes were dark and bright and missed nothing that moved—which was why he didn’t see me.

At my utter delight in his small presence, I made the smallest sound of pleasure—and he was gone. He moved so fast that I didn’t see him go; like a curl of smoke that has suddenly dissipated into the air.

I will have to take a few nuts with me the next time I go sunrising. Maybe my chipmunk and I can be friends.

I have only recently realized just how necessary music is to my writing. It helps me concentrate and zero in on using just the right words to create the emotion I want in my reader. Without music, I am prone to rabbit trails and weed patches. I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because I was born to a family who really used that piano in the living room. Maybe it comes from twirling to violin records when I was small until I was too dizzy to see straight. Or perhaps it comes from being awakened by singing from the next room most mornings of my childhood. It could be that since many of my happiest memories involve music somehow or another, I need it now when I think most deeply. Or maybe I’m just borrowing mood. Devorak does find his way to my CD player when I’m trying to write something particularly evocative.

But there has always been one exception to the connection between music and my deepest thoughts. I have never been able to pray while listening to music. Talking with the Lord requires every bit of my heart and the smallest tune robs Him of the praise I would give. Even wordless hymns distract me as I try to sort out the notes from my own words.

So perhaps, after all, music has a bigger role than I imagined. It’s not just a supplementary sound, but an engaging activity. No wonder it requires such caution.

When I left for school almost a week ago, I reached inside the cat house in the early morning and patted three small heads goodbye. By the time I come home, they’ll be too big to fit in my cupped hands. But Dad has faithfully promised to continue the taming process, which is well under way as it is. At the sound of any human voice, those tiny fur balls pop out of the cat house and start wobbling toward the sound.

Here in the southern states, with only the centipedes and cockroaches for pets, I miss my baby predators. Screamer, at 6 weeks, is just about the cutest little lady I’ve ever seen. She has little white socks, a stripey, chubby little body, a white face, and a pink nose. Her enormous blue eyes are her biggest charm and I wish they wouldn’t change color.Tiger is all stripes and never says a word (a vast difference from her sister, Screamer) and patiently takes a good cuddling. I have high hopes for a very sweet lap cat. Patch, so named for his one bad eye, is solid black after the tradition of his many forefathers. Not a hair on his tiny self is another color and of the three, he’s the scrawniest. But that can’t be helped. He just doesn’t have time for food. There are places to see, and people to visit and just so much to do!

I could go on and on about the many qualities of the youngest members of our cat clan, but suffice it to say that I wish I wasn’t missing their playful stage.

I missed them even more this morning when I squashed a centipede that was trying to get into my bed.

But maybe centipedes aren’t so bad. After all, it was furry…

A Grandfather storm tore through our neck of the woods yesterday, making a glorious mess of the yard and the farm in general. I was gone and so missed it, but I could imagine what it had been like when I saw the yard. Grandfather had taken it into his mind to do some pruning, and limbs were twisted right out of the trees all around the house. The Surprise Lilies—each one a pink crown of blossoms arranged on long, graceful stems—were mashed flat. So one of my first orders of business was to collect the broken stems and bring them in.

As I was carefully sorting through the prostrate flowers, a small movement below the pile caught my eye. When I pushed them aside, a small bird stared back at me, breathing heavily. In a second, all my immediate plans changed and I was heading toward the house for a towel.

Quite soon, Peeps (I had to call him something) was installed in a warm box inside the house, and making all sorts of little sounds. He hadn’t enjoyed being picked up so much, and when I gently held him up in inspect him, he made a few more comments of displeasure. As his feathers dried, he started flopping around in his box as though he had a pretty good idea of what it was like to fly. But as his flopping became more animated, I feared he was going to wear himself out. So off I went to dig for worms.

The first sign that all might not be well was when he wouldn’t take the worm. The worm, I am sure, didn’t mind, but I did. I put Peeps back in his box and his flopping became worse. I had checked his wings and his legs both, and all was well, but the more he flopped, the more it seemed that something was very wrong. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get upright, and all his efforts only landed him onto his back where he kicked his tiny feet hopelessly in the air and snagged his feathers on his toes. The only thing that calmed him down was when I offered him my finger to curl his claws around. His center of gravity seemed to be gone and any measure of stability offered comfort.

I had hoped that his fall from the tree hadn’t been too bad, but he must have had a rough landing. An hour after his rescue, his small body with its blue wing feathers lay in the box, still and quiet. Perhaps I hadn’t been able to save him, but at least he had died warm and dry. I gave him a burial of the wild by offering his tiny body to the cats, who quickly and gratefully reduced him to a pile of blue feathers.

We have countless encounters with life of one kind or another every day, and sometimes it might be easier to pass it by. But I wonder how many people I meet each day who have recently fallen from the tree as it were, and haven’t much time left. Can I not offer a place warm and dry?

I hope!

Winken, Blinken and Nod are now in their second week, and unlike the sleeping inhabitants of the poem, they’ve begun to open their eyes–gorgeous little baby-blue eyes registering the wide world from a ball of baby fur. I faithfully visit them in the dog house every day—when Momma Stripes is off hunting, of course. Wouldn’t do to have her see me and move them again. To make sure she doesn’t smell of my visiting, I pile a nest of fresh weeds inside the doghouse for me to prop myself up on and remove them when I leave.

This is how to properly tame a kitten. When he is very small, touch him every day. When he is a bit bigger, hold him. When he is walking, he’ll be so used to you that he’ll be falling all over his uncertain little legs to get to you. And when he is a cat, he will come when you call and be a most delightful lap cat—provided that you raise him right. So with my weeds and shenanigans, that’s what I am doing.

Today’s visit had to fast. I poked my head in and whispered “hello” to the sleeping pile of kittens. Not so much as a rustle. “Pipsqueaks!” I called, and this time I got an answering hiss. Now a hiss is an alarming sound worthy of respect in even an eight-week old kitten. But in a two-week old it’s adorable. Their instincts tell them to fight when they can’t even move each tiny paw independently. But give them another week and they’ll be so used to me that they won’t even hiss any more.

I intend to have three lap cats. See if I don’t!

I took a midnight walk last night, and as I was padding on my moccasins through the wet grass with Stripes trotting beside me, I took a good look at the ground-stars. Known as lightning bugs, I prefer to think of them as stars on the ground, for that is what they are. They spangle the ground and light up the shadows with their luminous green bodies, making spending a summer evening inside almost impossible.

As I recall, the females sit in the grass, blinking their lights slowly. The males flit around the breezes, flashing signals quickly on and quickly off. Like tiny lanterns strung for a festival, they light up the pasture from the ground and the sky.

But have you ever seen a lightning bug die? It’s light comes on—and never goes off. It glows, and glows, the only sign of its death the gradual dimming of the light. And only when life is gone does the light finally go out.

To my chagrin, I can note myself in the life of that insect. My light tends to flicker on and off, rarely steady or constant. But I hope that I end in a constant glow. I want to glow, and glow, and glow, only growing faint—never out.