“Train a child in the way he should go, and when they are older they will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Yesterday morning I stopped at one of my regular coffee haunts for a short respite before heading to the office. I had settled into my favorite chair that provides a particularly appealing view of two of the crossroads in our neighborhood. I enjoy watching the movement of the community from this view. Across the street, teenagers stood in sleepy clumps waiting for the school bus to arrive. They each carried their own brand of disengaged looks on their faces and their body language continued the theme. Cars zoomed past the window going east and west, north and south, some with more care and attention to driving than others. With a certain rhythm, the front door of the coffee shop opened and closed as people came and went. This door, which has been there since the early nineteen hundreds when the building was built, has known many comings and goings.

One such arrival was a couple accompanied by a little boy probably about five years old. As the door opened, he looked me square in the face and grinned. I melted. He was wearing a SpiderMan stocking cap pulled down to warm his young ears against the frigid morning. His adult companions followed and I began to piece together the picture of this threesome. It became clearer as the man walked up to the counter and began to order. He told the barista what he was having and, I’m assuming, gave his wife’s order as well. Then he said:”And Zach will have his regular. Hot chocolate, not too hot. And potato chips.”

First of all, I have always loved the idea of having ‘a regular’ order at any shop or restaurant. It says volumes about being known. It is one of the reasons I frequent this shop. They know my ‘regular’. But to think that Zach has a regular and that it is made up of hot chocolate(not too hot) and potato chips made me weak with joy. These were obviously Zach’s grandparents who brought him here frequently enough that he had a ‘regular’.

Now I am, I know, assuming much in this picture I have painted. But the observation of this young one in the company of these adults who would allow such a snack concoction said grandparents to me. And it said much about the kind of grandparent I hope to be. One that knows a child’s parents need to be about nutrition and what is ‘right’. But grandparents can have the role of bending the rules, of allowing a perfectly appropriate food experience made up of cocoa and chips. I thought of my own children who have always known that their Gee, their grandma,my mom, was always a bottomless source of peppermints and other candies, slipped secretly between them when I was not looking. Before dinner. After dinner. Even, I suspect, after teeth had been brushed.

I am not suggesting that children be given all manner of junk food on a whim. What I am recognizing is that children need a few adults in their lives who gently break the rules in places where little harm will be done. It provides them with the nests to which they can flee when they have broken more important rules, rules that may have the ability to do great harm. These can become the adults who are the safety nets of unconditional love that help those young ones make the slow slog back toward remembering who, and whose, they are.

As I left the coffee shop yesterday, Zach was perched on his knees on the end of his chair. On each side of him was an adult who had  brought him to a place where he is known and has a ‘regular’. On the table a board game was being spread out. In front of his fresh, happy face? A hot chocolate, not too hot, and an open bag of potato chips. He was looking up at his grown up companion smiling at the recklessness of it all.

For all the children who will break the rules this day, may they be surrounded by those who will hold them in care and listen well. And for all the grown ups who are building nests of safety, may they be blessed with hearts of compassion and love.

I told my son this morning that I knew the house we have lived in for over two decades was the right house for us because we had toured it, and purchased it, in March. I said this after looking outside at the dirty piles of snow, the dark, standing water, the basically desolate landscape that is our backyard at this point in time. Earlier in the morning, I had taken a long walk and was acutely aware of all the ugliness around me. Snow that had been lovely and white a few days ago was now streaked with a weird brownness. What was that seeping through? All along the streets there were abandoned pieces of debris….soda bottles, plastic bags with who knows what in them, an envelope here, a soggy mitten there. Yuck!

I went on to explain to our eldest that the reason his father and I had fallen in love with the house is that the owners, wisely, had put pictures on the dining room table of their home taken in different seasons. They were not trusting those without imagination to see their home has it could be in spring with the leaves just jumping out of their skin to make a gentle entrance. They wanted those who walked through their house to catch a glimpse of summer, trees in full green array, flowers blooming in colorful clumps along the sidewalk. They had a desire to show off how lovely their house looked in autumn with the maples flashing red and the birches white trunks making room for golden yellow leaves. They had even included a winter scene….their home nestled in soft, white mounds of snow, a Currier and Ives scene to be sure.

But there were no photos that could have been taken in March on the table, March with its frayed sense of beauty. Make no mistake, I have nothing personally against this month. Some of my favorite people are born in March. But it can be a dreary month and can demand a certain amount of imagination to remember the beauty of winter and the anticipation of the spring that is within our reach.

As I was driving around today making my way from church to several visits I needed to make, I realized I was kind of hunched into my coat not looking at particularly anything. I just had the goal of getting from door to car, from car to door.Until something wonderful happened. Overhead I heard a sound that made me smile and look up toward the sky. A lone, wild goose was honking for all he was worth as he flew in a crisscrossed pattern in the gray and dreary sky. It felt like a wake up call to me. “Quit your gloomy mood!” it seemed to say. “Watch me flying and notice how beautiful I am!”

I was reminded of a song we sang not long ago at a memorial service for a dear one who passed from this life far too soon. It has a haunting melody that sticks with you:
“The lone, wild bird in lofty flight
is still with you,
nor leaves your sight.
And I am yours! I rest in you,
Great Spirit, come, rest in me, too.”

Sometimes our imagination keeps us from seeing beyond the gray and gloomy times that can surround us. These can be the shades of March or other life events that have created shadows on our path. Unfortunately,no one has placed photos within our sight of what was, or what has the potential to be, images to nudge us into memory or hope.

In the Celtic tradition, the wild goose is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Today the Holy Spirit honked overhead and I was reminded once again, that even on the gloomiest of days, I am held in the Lap of All Seasons. It was a loud and wonderful reminder.

“So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,

one of which was you.”
~Mary Oliver

Sometimes it takes a very few words to say something stupendous. I must remember this. This morning I sat down with my devotional book to begin this third week of Lent. Before I headed to my chair, coffee cup in one hand and book in the other, I walked by a shelf that holds my collection of Mary Oliver poetry. I reached, rather absent mindedly really, toward a volume I had not dogeared and read and reread often. I decided to include it my morning ritual. This morning’s devotion didn’t really grab my attention as others have and so I shifted my attention to the poetry. Before long I was reveling in beautiful words about herons and chickadees and imagining the fullness of the landscape scenes Oliver is so gifted at describing.

Then my eyes moved to the page with just these 21 words and I was stopped in my tracks. Now here was something to carry with me into the day. “So every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God…..” What truth! And how often I forget it! I tried to think of every sight my eyes had beheld since yesterday morning. Of course, I could remember only a few things. How I wished for a replay of the day so I could be appropriately and adequately grateful. But like a CSI agent, I began recreating the scenes I could remember:

The darkness around me as I rose early to prepare for church. The big black dog’s wiggly greeting at the bottom of the stairs. The dark blue sky and the dancing white lights of stars as I opened to door for his early morning constitutional. The smell of coffee in the warm glow of the kitchen. The tiny, yellow daffodils blooming in the bulb garden on the mantel.  Ice crystals that had formed on my car windows, sparkling their winter message. The smiles of faces as they arrived at church, happy to see friends, hopeful in their approach to the day. Warm hugs every where. Music that floated all around. Sweet simple songs sung with enthusiasm and intensity. Words shared in honesty, invitation and truth. Candlelight dancing behind pieces of broken, colored glass. Prayers offered in sorrow, humor and longing. One more song, sung in harmony, as smiling faces offered blessing upon blessing. All this in the first four hours of the day. So much beauty. So many ideas of God crying forth. And my only work was to be present, to receive and notice.

On Friday evening I had had one of those visceral experiences of how blessed I am. Having dinner with friends, I was suddenly aware of the gifts with which I travel this world. Sharing laughter and good food, celebrating birthdays and long friendships, taking in their lovely and loved faces, I had an overwhelming sense of gratitude. I felt this warmth from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. And as I reflect on that evening and the next and on yesterday, I am reminded that this is a gift offered each and every day, if I but have the eyes and the heart to see.

What beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God are coming your way this day? Who are the beautiful ideas of God with whom you walk this equally beautiful earth? May you, may I, continue to be awakened to this amazing gift offered….. to those with eyes to see.

“I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

This morning I opened a book of poetry I planned to reread only to have a sheet of paper fall out. The page held several quotes I had tucked away for further reflection. This quote by Emerson was one. For some reason, it captured my imagination in a particular way today. In fact, it felt like a challenge, a challenge I might want to accept during these days of Lent.

Of all the messages we have attached to the life of Jesus over the years, I believe we have been less attentive to his message of ‘I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.’ In most church circles we have been pretty good at talking about how Jesus came to save us. Depending on the tradition people make their way in, that message gets played out in a variety of ways. My more feisty friends might say, ‘save us from what?’. There can be a variety of answers: damnation, going to hell, not going to heaven, being included in an elect group of people, being excluded from a group of people named as sinners. It depends on who you ask and the lens with which they see their faith and the world, how the question is answered.

As I have been living into this particular Lent, I have thought about Jesus and his wandering in the wilderness. In this place of preparation, where he was formed for the ministry he would take up, he did battle with many distractions. Power, wealth, personal satisfaction and, the real clincher, ego. To all these allurements and distractions, which of course we also are confronted with in our daily lives, he said an emphatic ‘no!’ Instead of being seduced by what may be called cheapness, he chose to embrace the sacredness of life. His life. The life he was blessed to live in his time.

From the way I read the scriptures about the life of Jesus, he was all about encouraging people to hold on to the sacredness of their lives. He did this, not only for the privileged and the elite, but for the poor, those on the margins, those whom society had cast aside as worthless. Over and over he lifted people from the depths of their despair and healed them with hope. Hope in a life that mattered. Hope in the sacredness of their lives.

Every day we are offered the gift of re-upping our lives. We can choose all that pulls and pushes us to embrace what does not bring more fullness to our living. We can choose the cheap way or the sacred way. It is up to us. For me, Lent can provide a particular time to reflect on the choices I am making. If I choose the sacred path, I believe my days will be as centuries, loaded with a life I had not imagined could be so full. If I choose to see the world with sacred eyes, I will be saved from a life lived small, a life lived cheaply.

These are some of the things I am wrestling with this Lent. My hope is that I will come to the end of these forty days feeling as if I have lived hundreds of years, hundreds of ‘loaded and fragrant’ years. This practice may not reflect the self denial often associated with this season. But, I think, it is in keeping with the message of the one who walked in life’s wilderness before me. And for that I am grateful.

“No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”
~Robert Lowry, 1826-1899 

On Monday, several of the people in the office were talking about how they were hoping for a storm. The weather forecast had reported that a winter snow storm was headed our way. We felt due. There has not been a single snowfall to speak of this winter and we all were feeling the need for a good, old fashioned snow storm. We weren’t asking for ‘the storm of the century’. Just several inches that would cause things to stop….meetings, errands, games, whatever it was that was keeping us going like gerbils on a wheel.

I had just started reading a thriller written by one of our church members. It had hooked me and I longed for a time to just sit down in a comfy chair and read to the end, a chance to find out ‘who done it’. A co-worker mentioned she had two books to read in order to be ready for some upcoming book club meetings. Others I spoke to during the day talked of just wanting a storm to call a halt to everything. Each had their own reason. Things they wanted to do. Things they didn’t want to do. Everyone spoke of ‘hoping for a storm.’

It is an odd thing to hope for, isn’t it? A storm. Something that whips up wind and rain or snow, that causes ice to form and temperatures to feel frigid. A storm sweeps in and suddenly we cannot do what is normal, what is planned or expected. Most often, storms are far from what we want. They just happen to us and we are left trying to piece together and put back together what was.

I think of the people I know right now who are reeling from a storm sweeping into their lives. Those who were moving along just as happy as clams, doing the regular activities that make up their days, and then illness comes to call. The storm of an illness as simple as the common cold or as complex and threatening as cancer, provides that halt that reminds us what is really important to accomplish in a day.

Others I know have been hit by the storm of grief. What seemed normal and predictable in their waking and sleeping has been torn to bits by the loss of someone they loved, someone they walked with on their daily path. This loss can come through death or the ending of a relationship. This was not a hoped for storm. But it was a storm that hit without warning and now they are stopped in their tracks, unable to decide what to do next, needing to chart a different course from the one they had planned.

This morning as I made my way along the path of the not-so-real storm that had its way with our night time, I saw limb after broken limb split from trees that could not withstand the weight of ice and snow. Some limbs were old, dead wood that probably would have been trimmed away in the spring.  Others were new wood, the places where they split showed the raw, aliveness cut from its life source too soon. The storm was impartial in how it spread out its fury. So it is with other kinds of life’s storms.

The truth is, those of us ‘hoping for a storm’ were really only hoping for a break, a time-out, a sabbath moment, a vacation day. Most of the time we have more power to create those moments that we give ourselves credit for. It is really a matter of choosing between two or more activities or planning with more intention or being willing to let things go that we’ve given more power over us than we want to admit.  It doesn’t take a storm to make a choice like this and that is probably an important point to remember.

Today my prayer is for those who did not want a storm but got one anyway. May they know the comfort of a time of stopping, of a sabbath meal, of a deep breath that connects them to something or someone greater than their pain and grief. May the injured trees heal into a form they did not know before. And may the human ones find that same growth that stems from a time spent in the eye of a storm.

Saturday’s Star Tribune had an interesting article about three south Minneapolis churches who worked together to solve the problem of aging buildings that were keeping them from doing the ministry they wanted to do. It is a common problem across the nation. Buildings built when pews were full of people. People who were able to support these churches in financial ways that are now more difficult. These buildings are now at a point of needing repairs, are not fuel efficient, and are home to fewer people with less income. You easily see the problem.

So, when faced with deteriorating buildings and vital, yet smaller, congregations these three communities came together to become something new. It was a courageous act. They are now sharing a newly renovated building with three varied worship spaces. Attached is affordable housing and space for retail. In describing the process they engaged in to create this trio of communities, one of the clergy said: “It took a lot of holy imagination. We didn’t know where we were going or what would happen.”

I smiled all over myself when I read those words. Holy imagination! I think of the times when I have been caught up in the fervor of holy imagination. Those times when the Spirit dances through some idea or conversation and surprises me beyond belief. It is always a time when I have no idea where I might be going or what might happen. I love it!

Thinking about the holy imagination it took for three different congregations from three distinct denominations to come together in this way seems remarkable. In order to create this ‘something new, I would imagine that each had to make compromises and let go of some things that in other times they would have thought to be non-negotiable. Two of the communities left the land on which they had built traditions and called home, buildings in which they had at one time made their mark in their neighborhood. All three released worship space that had held some of the most profound experiences of the congregation’s lives…..births, baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals.Each community had to commit to memory, and I am sure a few well-honored photographs, the special events that had shaped their communal life.

When we agree to let Holy Imagination guide our actions, it almost always requires letting go. It also requires being open in ways that can be scary, practicing deep listening, being able to unclench our fists and our hearts. Holy Imagination will almost always take us places we only could glimpse out of the corner of our eye until the very moment when we say ‘yes’. Yes to being swept up in the Spirit’s movement and yes to not having all the control over every detail. It is my experience that Holy Imagination is never far away. Our work is to still ourselves long enough to feel its breeze blow through our words, our actions, our dreams. Our work is to be present and willing to let go of control long enough to see what might happen without our pushing and prodding. It is not easy. But, from my experience, it is always worth it.

Are there places in your life that could use a little holy imagination? My prayer is that Holy Imagination continues to bless these congregations in their new spaces and that this same Spirit move through all our lives, taking us places we never thought possible, helping us do things that will amaze us.

“Regarded properly, anything can become a sacrament, by which I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual connection.”
~Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

Yesterday I spent the majority of my time preparing worship spaces for Ash Wednesday observances. It is something I love. Having time to be in a space that will welcome worshipers, laying the worship table with cloths and objects that invite people to connect with scripture, story, music, prayer, paying attention to what is seen and what might be felt and experienced in worship is one of the joys of the work I do. I like having time in be in the space alone, to really spend time placing a candle just so or taking the time to drape a piece of cloth to evoke a certain feeling.

As I prepared the spaces yesterday I was armed with various shades of purple cloth, the color assigned to this Christian seasoning Lent. It is a color that has many shades and shadows. It can express so much. I also carried terra cotta pots and placed them on the table. These pots, made of earth, fired into their red-orange form, also hold earth. When we speak the words common to this service about dust and ashes, these pots reflect that image. Also scattered around the table and coming out of the pots were shards of broken glass, many colored,from bright orange to aquamarine. Nestled in between the pots and broken glass were tall purple glass globes with candlelight flickering yellow.

These pieces of broken glass were placed there to help illuminate our theme for Lent of ‘Breaking’. As people entered the space they chose a broken piece of pottery or tile. These assorted pieces were from cracked bowls, chipped coffee cups, nicked plates and cast-off floor and wall tiles. Again, many colors and varied shapes. I watched as people chose carefully without even knowing what they were doing or why. We all settled into the quiet worship space,our bulletins and broken pottery in our hands.

As the service began I invited people to look at the piece of brokenness they had chosen. Where were the sharp edges? How did the smooth places feel against their skin? What color was their broken piece? And how did this shard speak to them of their own broken places? I shared that I had chosen a piece of pale yellow with bright green stripes, a piece of a broken bowl that had once belonged to a grandmother I had never known. Was the energy of her in this broken sliver? Did it still hold the imprint of her washing and drying, her filling it with warm food?

At the appointed time, people came forward to receive the mark of ashes on their foreheads. As they did they also placed their broken pieces, now infused with their prayers and their own energy, on the worship table. These broken pieces of pottery joined the other colorful broken glass creating a wave of brokenness that filled the table. Sharp edges dug into other sharp edges. Smooth pieces nestled against those points creating a rainbow of color and texture and form. So much brokenness. But yet so much beauty.

As my blackened finger made the sign of the cross on forehead after forehead, I was struck by the way people looked into my eyes. There was tenderness and embarrassment. There was longing and joy. There was apathy and hopefulness. There was a sense of being connected to something deeply planted within each of us. It was a moment of sacrament. An outward sign of an inward and spiritual connection. To our beauty. To our brokenness. To what it means to walk this path together.

I have just returned from a few days away at a friend’s cabin. It was a much welcomed and needed retreat from the daily grind. It is always a good sign to me that I need this break when the things that normally I find exciting in my life’s work become, instead, something I want to run from. Over the last couple of years, I have actually come to experience and name this in a particular way. I describe it as a need to ‘push away from the table’. By this I mean that there becomes a time when it feels like I am sitting at a table laden with all kinds of great food, interesting conversation,and fine people surrounding a feast. But I feel as if I can’t swallow one more thing. I can’t think of another word to add to the conversational mix. I need to push away from the table. The past few days have provided just that opportunity.

This morning I sat down to look through a book I purchased as a guide to my daily walk through Lent.This 40 day observance of the Christian household begins tomorrow. It is a book by Paula Huston called Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit. As I read through the introduction I was struck with her words: “I’m surprised anew by the knowledge that I’m once again undergoing a spiritual ‘recalibration’. The mechanism of my soul is, in a very real way, being cleaned, repaired, and reset.”

Yes! That’s what I needed. That is what happens when I need to push away from the table. It is not that there is anything inherently wrong with me or with my life. I just need a recalibration to restore the balance my spirit longs to hold, a balance that is most truly who I am. Does this make sense to you? Have you ever had this experience? Huston later goes on: “I am released from the bondage of complexity.” Yes! That’s it. The bondage of complexity.

One of the thoughts that I wrestled with over the last few days was the ‘bondage of complexity’. So often I find I allow my days to be filled to the brim with detail upon detail with little room for taking the long, cleansing breaths that connect me with my body, with my own daily walk with the Holy. Before I know it my shoulders ride closer to my ears, my breath becomes shallow, my ability to focus on the present without allowing my mind to jump ahead to the ‘what next?’ is nearly impossible to control.

So what happened in these last few days that allowed those chains of complexity to loosen? Staring out at a frozen lake helps. Spending time watching people fish also works. Watching birds fly in lacy formations in the sky and come to feed or squirrels chasing from tree to tree is also a mind calmer. Turning off the television and most technology is a given. Watching the day arrive is also good. Waiting for the darkness to lift, holding the gaze of a pink sky until the golden disk of the sun moves over the horizon is also a way to remember to connect with Breath. Noticing the fingernail of the moon in a deep blue sky is a good ingredient to add to the mix. Walking and walking some more can’t hurt. Looking down and seeing the prints of those with whom you walk the Earth, those who don’t hold the bondage of complexity in their consciousness, those who are vulnerable at every turn,is important. Allowing your breath to slow and rise and fall with the gentle breeze moving through the trees is also good.

What needs to be recalibrated in your life? What complexities are holding you in bondage? As this day unfolds and the season of walking with Jesus in the wilderness becomes an invitation, may you find all you need for the journey. May you also have the wisdom and grace to let go of all that will not serve you well. May we all find what we need to be cleaned, repaired and reset.

As we arrived at our chapel service on Monday evening, we were asked to take a small container that contained one of four things: flour, salt, yeast and water. We each made our way into the lovely little worship space that holds the oblate’s and brother’s prayers on a daily basis. We were guests here. Guests who had been given the privilege of coming together in the evening to offer our prayers. Prayers of gratitude, hope, weariness and enthusiasm. At an appointed time our worship leader invited us forward to add our ingredients into a large bowl placed on the worship table. Flour first, then salt, followed by yeast and finally water. As scripture was read, songs sung and prayers offered, he slowly and with gentle touch, made bread dough before our eyes. His hands were skilled and familiar with this process. It was a joy to behold.

Yesterday morning as we met and interviewed candidates for ministry, we began to smell the delicious aroma of bread baking from an oven that is in a centrally located kitchen. As we came to refill coffee cups and take bathroom breaks, the sweet smell began to surround everything we were doing. Smiles passed between us. Our bread, made through our worship, was coming into being. At lunchtime, in addition to the meal created by the retreat center staff,there were two beautifully shaped and perfect loaves of honey colored bread. We lined up to receive the slices in the same spirit in which we had received communion the night before. Hands outstretched. Hearts full.

Here was what we had produced. Not individually but all together. Those who had held the flour could not have created the loaf. Those with salt were only salty without the flour. The yeast-holders just carried a minute bit of smelly granules until it was added to the other ingredients. And then there was the water…..ahhhh, the water. All three single ingredients were only dry, dusty particles until the water caused them to come together in a form new to their nature, surprising their components into a fresh and different life.

As I added a little butter to my luscious bread I realized that the bread was an example of what we had been doing all along in our time here together. We had come here with our individual gifts, our own life experiences, our own lens for the world and how we see God’s movement in it. Together we had made something more. As we listened to the faith stories and the calls to ministry of the candidates, at some deep level we understood that not one single person could hear the stories fully. We needed the ingredients of each other to become the fullest body we could be, to create a container of safety and grace for those offering their very lives for our examination. It made the work I know to be holy even more so.

And yet, I believe, this is what we do all the time, isn’t it? In our families, our schools, our work settings, our churches, our nations, our world, we bring our individual gifts for the good of all. I pray that I will be forgiven for the many times I think I carry all the answers, all the ideas, all the ingredients to solve a particular problem or create a specific result to fill a need. I pray I may always remember that I have only my own ingredients to offer.I pray I learn to rely on, expect and anticipate the God-given gifts of all those who travel life’s path with me.

Closing our worship together, the smooth and beautiful round of dough now formed in a clear bowl for us all to see, we prayed these words from a prayer by Graham Sparkes:

‘Be careful when you touch bread.
Let it not lie uncared for….unwanted.
So often bread is taken for granted.
There is so much beauty in bread,
Beauty of sun and soil, beauty of patient toil.
Winds and rain have created it. Christ so often blessed it.
Be gentle when you touch bread.’

For all the gifts we bring, all the ingredients we offer, may we be careful to touch gently and welcome graciously, recognizing the beauty and the blessing that comes individually and creates more than we can imagine. The One who created us has made it so.

It is early morning and I am sitting in a quiet little room at Christ the King Retreat Center near Buffalo, Minnesota. I am here for the yearly retreat in which I am privileged to meet and hear the stories of those coming to be ordained as ministers in the United Methodist Church. It is always a time I look forward to, not only for the opportunity to be present to these people on their journeys but also to be in this place set apart for quiet, reflection and connecting with the Holy. As I write this a deep fog is hanging over the frozen lake outside my window. The leafless trees are standing watch over the tiny houses owned by people who are more courageous than I, people who have not heeded the warnings that our winter has been too warm for such activities as ice fishing, ice houses and driving on the lakes. In the dense fog, I can just make out one house and a truck that has pulled up to it. This scene defies wisdom for me but then I am not originally ‘from around here’ and perhaps don’t understand this lake the way the driver does.

Yesterday on the drive here, I had another experience that baffled me in another way. Tooling along Highway 55, I was minding my own business not thinking about much of anything, when two large white birds flew over the highway right in the path of my car. Flying in tandem, these enormous, beautiful birds stretched their long necks toward their destination. Snow geese. I quickly turned my head to see if there were more where they came from, thinking it odd that they were flying as a duo instead of in a flock. Instead of seeing more white flying wings, I saw a large tree with the primeval stick nest of an eagle. Sitting, watching the snow geese just as I had, was a mature white headed eagle. The two of us had been offered the gift of these soaring birds of winter. As some of my more conservative Christian friends say, I felt ‘twice blessed’.

Just last week I had had a conversation with someone about flying, about how she often sees the presence of the Sacred One in those that rise above the earth. This person talked of the many ways she had seen both the immanence and transcendence of God in flying creatures both large and small. We both shared the times when we had slept and then dreamed of flying, how it felt, the freedom of it, the sense of soaring above all we could see. Certainly there are scriptures that talk of the power and prominence of eagles, some even liken the movement of the Spirit to those with wings. As far as I know there is no reference snow geese in the scriptures. But I could be wrong.

All I know is that on this one particular day, I was lifted above the ordinary by a soaring I will never be able to attain on my power.  A soaring that is not available to me with my two legs. A soaring that must feel like a freedom I have never known. A soaring that would allow me to grasp a perspective I do not have in my groundedness. Being caught off guard by these three beautiful birds seemed a wake up call. While two flew and one surveyed the earth from a high perch, I continued on my way blessed by their presence. It felt like a holy moment in an otherwise ordinary day.

This morning as I reflected on this experience that felt like sacred gift, I was reminded of a poem by (surprise!) Mary Oliver in which she describes an experience of snow geese. She ends the poem with these words: “ The geese flew on, I may never see them again. Maybe I will, someday, somewhere. Maybe I won’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.”

And to that I say ‘amen’. My encounter with snow geese at 55 miles an hour on a highway in the less than beautiful days of February was a gift that allowed me to glimpse both the nearness and the soaring nature of both bird and Creator. I don’t understand this encounter anymore than I do driving a car on a frozen lake. But as I joined my fellow earth traveler, the eagle, in observing their flight, I would like to think that we both shared in the experience secretly, joyfully and clearly.