E-Letter 163
A waterfall of pale purple wisteria cascades from the line of tall, hardwood trees marking the boundary between fields. I catch my breath at the sight of this delicate, flowering Lenten offering flung capriciously and with abandon across a barren landscape by the twirling Creator God who delights in surprising us with unanticipated gifts of beauty. Curious about this draping flower, I discovered that the largest plant, growing since 1894, may be found in Sierra Madre, California, where it covers more than an acre of land and weighs more than 250 tons! Imagine my disappointment to discover...
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The dark of night lifts slowly this morning, its business unfinished, its mourning so raw, so ragged, that it leaves the usual avian chorus gasping for song. There are no trills, no lighthearted warblings, no joyous descants filling the dawn sky. Instead, the somber, haunting, full-throated cooing of a dusty brown dove accompanies the reluctant opening of the envelope of this day. It is as if all of creation marks the tragic events of yesterday in a moment of silence before saluting the fallen military men and women stationed at Ft. Hood, victims of a fellow soldier whose life as he knew it...
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I watched the pack of shirtless runners glide by the crumpled purple cloths wrapped around some scrub pines lining the freeway. All eyes of this sweaty fraternity of high school track athletes looked straight ahead, focused on the path of their practice run. No one so much as gave the purple cloths a glannce, nor, for that matter, the compact hedge of purple violets lining the street like a rundown strip mall. I angled my car into the church parking lot, jumped out, and crossed the busy street to retrieve the cloths. A blustery morning wind had swept the cloths from the display of three...
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E-Letter 160 March 20 I hear his song before I see him…a familiar avian friend and melodious junkyard bird, the church mockingbird. Last year he and his wife were “evicted” from their summer home in the Japanese maple tree outside my office window by a crazed cardinal who spent most of the year divebombing my window, glazing it with feather oil and shadows of blood. With spring just a promise away, this long-tailed, flighty, gray and white friend stakes out his territory early, filling the air with his beware ! pheromones and throaty warning, “This tree is my tree!” His mate safely esconced...
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The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8 (NRSV) The Wind, Unboxed I study the curvature of my grandson’s 10 year-old shoulders and head hunched over his latest Rube Goldberg science project designed to hoodwink curious leprechauns. “Mom, do you know where I left that purple mechanical pencil?” he calls out with the confidence of a child who believes that mothers are a special breed born with third eyes in the backs of their heads and...
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