Winter mornings dawn in gray monochrome before the sun bursts on the scene like a passionate artist with its gilded palette
Driving to work in this gray in-betweenness I note the doves always sitting on the power lines like heralds their plump bodies of soft sandy colors framed by the oyster sky
reminding me: look for the peace this day live as peacefully as possible this day
Then, in the strange way of life as I drive home weary and worn the golden part of the day nearly spent what should I see on other power lines?
Hawks big and breathtaking still as statues painted in shades of rust
They might remind some people of raw bloodthirstiness or predatory fierceness but their beauty fills me with such awe that it’s all I can do to keep my eyes on the road driving home
as I think about how my winter days are bookended by birds and how there’s something inherently sacred and profoundly satisfying in that.
(One of these days, when I can stop the car safely, I am going to get my own photos of my hawks…)
******* with thanks to Ruth at SOS-Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog for today’s inspiration to write: “You are invited to linger in your winter memories, reach deep and pick a golden moment to share.”
“Heart” is the Spiritual Journey prompt for this first Thursday in February. Thanks to Linda Mitchellfor hosting our group of writers.
On a Sunday afternoon at the end of July, 2019, my husband had a massive heart attack and cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated by EMTs and went straight into surgery after arriving at the hospital. He got four stents and spent several days in induced hypothermia to reduce trauma to his brain, which can happen when blood flow has ceased and is suddenly restored. He recuperated slowly, painfully; his sternum had been broken by the CPR which saved his life. He came home. One morning in September he woke to jolts in his chest and tingling down his arm. I took him back to the hospital. More heart attacks. This time he had four bypasses. The surgeon mended his sternum with a little metal plate.
He is doing well now. In fact, up until winter settled in, he was doing eight-mile hikes in the park a couple of times a week and feeling as good as he ever has.
As this first Thursday in February drew near with Valentine’s Day and “heart” as the Spiritual Journey prompt for the month, I thought of a couple of things I might like to explore. I had chosen one, in fact, when I saw the heart-shaped hospital pillow that remains in our bedroom. This pillow was given to my husband after the bypass surgery. His attending nurse wrote on it with a Sharpie: “Keep hugging your heart!”
I thought, this is it. This is what I need to write about.
These pillows are given to all patients recuperating from open-heart surgery. The patients hug them when they have to cough or sneeze, lessening the severity of the jolt. The pillow protects the incision site whenever the patients move and when they practice the necessary deep-breathing exercises for their lungs.
It just so happens that the hospital where my husband’s surgery and recuperation has the lowest mortality rate in the country for heart bypass patients (according to reports from 2017-2019). It also just so happens that the county’s resuscitation rate is the highest in the nation. So, if you’re going to have cardiac arrest and need cardiac surgery, it’s the best place to be.
My husband is evidence of this.
I think about the surgeon who held my husband’s heart in his hands, who grafted those bypasses. He told us that as soon as the first graft was done, my husband’s heart immediately began beating stronger; it was hungry for the blood. It wanted to live.
Now. Where’s the spiritual element in all this, you ask?
Beyond the miracle that one human can cut open another and repair his heart, and that this repaired person can heal and live life awhile longer, is the Great Physician who is able to transform hearts and lives. When I was young, I attended a Bible study group in which a couple of guys could play guitars and we’d often sing this version of Psalm 51:10-12:
Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit in me Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit in me And cast me not away from thy presence, O Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and renew a right spirit in me.
Godly heart-grafting, I would say. Cleansing, taking away the bad parts, restoring. The heart must be transformed before the spirit can be renewed. Sometimes a great deal of work must be done…but the Lord is able. If we let Him work. If we are hungry for it. We often think of letting Him into our hearts but it’s really more a matter of offering our hearts—battered, damaged, tangled, sick as they may be—to Him. He knows exactly what is needed. Psalm 51 is the cry of David’s heart after Nathan the prophet confronted him with his adultery and murder. It can be the cry of any of our hearts as we place them in the healing hands of Almighty God, craving His mercy.
I rejoice that my husband lives, that he was made well, that the hospital and the EMTs are the best around.
I rejoice more that the Lord forgives and heals hearts and spirits. He works on my own, daily. He is the physician and the pillow, the healer and the comforter. The ultimate heart-hugger. He is the best place to be.
Not to mention that His own mortality record is unsurpassable.
Funny how I ordered “awe” and when it finally came and I put it on, that very night I dreamed
of finding my grandparents’ old car the ’64 Ford Galaxie 500. It was restored shining, fire engine red, beautiful and I drove it home
(of course I’d just been writing poems about this car, so…)
but in this same dream on the night I first wore “awe” I left the Galaxie in the parking lot and the light turned gray like it does right before dawn and I heard one lone cicada rattle one of my favorite sounds in all the world again connected to my grandparents and summers at their country home except in the dream, I knew it was January and it is a miracle, isn’t it, to hear a cicada in winter…
don’t ask how I ended up in the backyard -this part of the dream is erased, alas- but I found myself standing in the grayness, facing the woods, watching a bright red cardinal feeding in the grass maybe because I’d actually seen one doing that earlier in the day of course, this was Grandma’s favorite bird
-I am sensing a theme-
then, then, a little bird was flying zigzagging overhead so I called to it, held out my hand, and it LANDED THERE, right in my outstretched palm. I could feel its tiny feet, its tiny beating heart… I spoke to it, and it flew off… but I was not sad, just amazed and filled with joy
all this I dreamed, the very I night the awe I ordered arrived and I put it on.
If you are in kindergarten or first grade, the 100th day of school is a big deal.
You get to count a hundred beads or macaroni or sundry items.
You get to dress up as an old person.
You get to imagine what you would do at 100 years old.
Such as my kindergarten granddaughter did:
Check out the old-lady perm
“Always fun going through this kid’s backpack,” says her mom.
*******
–with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Writing Challenge. At 100 years old, I will still be writing. And not perming my hair.
Sunday is a stillness in my week not restful for a pastor’s family but restorative and right the church standing tall like a father doors like open arms welcoming the penitent child wrapping me in belonging
Sunday is a stillness in my spirit ever how fierce or frayed ever how dismayed like a calming infusion like a healing balm the stillness seeps so deep, so deep for in all the unholiness the holy remains
Sunday is a stillness in my life for the living for the forgiving for the remembering for the mattering for my walking in the footsteps of those who walked before me in the rhythms of grace singing old songs of belief through all our yesterdays until our eternal Sunday comes at last.
This morning I woke to the sounds of wind gusts and snowflakes striking the window…brought back the memory of my oldest boy and a game we played long ago. A pantoum:
A game played long ago: Little boy crawling into bed, whispering “The North Wind will blow, we will have snow!”
Little boy crawling into bed, whispering “It’s so cold—I can’t get warm. We will have snow! Let me sleep here in your arms.”
“It’s so cold—I can’t get warm. Until I am grown and gone, let me sleep here in your arms” —the memory of these moments!
Until I am dead and gone the North Wind will blow the memory of these moments, a game played long ago.
I had to get Dennis the dachshund new food and water bowls.
He had been using the bowls left behind by our previous dachshund, Nikolaus.
Nik would have been twenty years old this week, if he were still here. He made it to sixteen.
I can see his little grave from my kitchen window. Two days ago the spot was covered in snow. Three tiny sparrows were feeding there or maybe just pecking at the snow for a drink of water. In spring a big rabbit feeds there.
Nik would not mind. He was always an easy old soul.
So, I have been using his bowls for Dennis, who is two.
One of the bowls was cracking (the food bowl; one cannot keep water in a bowl that is cracking).
When I set it it down for Dennis’s supper a couple of days ago, I must have done it a bit too hard: the bowl broke into half a dozen pieces.
So.
New bowls for Dennis.
I knew this was the right one as soon as I saw the wording on it.
It is the truth for Dennis, pampered little autocrat that he is.
It is the truth for me.
Because I have loved and been loved by dogs.
In return for their sustenance, they sustain. They give their whole selves.
Even hardheaded dachshunds.
My six-year-old granddaughter refers to him as “rascally Dennis”
Who wouldn’t love a seahorse pen? Hippocampus reigns in hand and brains! Iridescent eyes awaiting My planner for updating See the daily reminder here… You are made of magic.
This really is my seahorse pen and planner. Just sayin’.
Dedicated to my blogger-friends at SOS—Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog in light of the challenge to capture a bit of whimsy
lit bits and pieces 