As the boxes are packed and the moving van looms, I’ve learned to sit back, relax, and intentionally reflect upon the things I love about my house…
… the conversation booth, where we’ve sat and shared and laughed and cried and even lit numerous birthday candles through the years… friends, strangers… all have been welcome…
… the basement built for (mostly) playful roughhousing and fictional reenactments, remembering the many days my teens and ‘tweens decided to channel their inner Batman, Han Solo, and Adam West…
… and my outdoor, covered patio — shielded by the winds and the rain all seasons of the year, where we’ve sat with blankets in the cold, shorts in the sun, and coffee, etc. in so many precious quiet times…
… so many days have been sat in silence there… so many times I’ve sensed something so more than me…
Off of that patio, we’ve been blessed with near three acres of land. It’s all pretty flat — good for the 70 yard football field our boys enjoyed each fall — goal posts and all. And in the very back of the yard, we share woods with the neighbors — full in the summer and leafless in the fall, when we can actually see those neighbors.
What else we see in the yard has been beautiful these past 18 years. I’ll admit… this city-girl has never been a huge nature fan, but God changed me these many years, showing me a beauty that the city never sees. There’s just something about deer grazing and galloping through the yard each week that causes the me to stop, drop, and watch roll. Then the hawks soar high above, again reminding me of something bigger than me.
The wildlife sightings have been wonderful. In fact, just yesterday, all at the same time, I spotted a chipmunk, robin, and toad. And then it dawned on me, the bigger point for today’s blog…
The chipmunk scampers about the ground, taking everything in so quickly… making such fast decisions on what to believe and where to go. It’s small and spotted and mostly brown, but with that lightning quick speed, I don’t often notice his color.
The robin seems to either sit or soar. It sits on the branches, with its seemingly proud perch, taking in all of its surroundings. But then on a whim it takes off, soaring either low to the ground or high above — a totally different viewpoint than the chipmunk.
And then there’s that toad. With no disrespect intended to the tailless amphibian, he’s a little bit slimy. And he just kind of sits there. He only seems to jump when he feels like it, and while he’s not exactly my favorite kind of animal, I find myself fascinated with how he takes it all in, observing, aware of his surroundings, never moving seemingly irrationally.
Here the chipmunk, robin, and toad are all so different. They are animals, no less, but they see the world differently.
And yet, we don’t have conversations about how better a toad is than a chipmunk… how wiser a robin is than a toad. We recognize the irrelevance of comparison.
We appreciate each for who he is — never expecting them to be something they are not… never judging the robin for his red breast nor the chipmunk for his spots.
We appreciate each for who he is, thankful for how he/she was uniquely, beautifully created by the God of the universe.
There is no judgment. No comparison. Simply appreciation.
Oh, how I love my backyard…
Oh, how we can learn from the animals…
Respectfully…
AR