Category Archives: Melissa’s Musings and Doodlings

I wrote in a Wallkill Valley Writers workshop last week, and one of the prompts was the poem “The Machinery of Evening” by Tracy K. Smith. I took a couple of lines as my starting point.

“I am looking for my best words… If I find them, I will understand…” 

I am on a search for understanding. Understanding where truth lies.

Where truth lies… There are two ways those words could be understood. And somehow that brings to mind the title of a book I haven’t yet read: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. How does one care for words? And what are the best words, the words which tell the truth and do not lie? Words wherein truth lies on a firm foundation of reality?

• Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
• Speak the truth in love.
• Let your words be few, for when words are many, sin is not absent.
• A word aptly spoken is like an apple of gold in a setting of silver.

These are a few loose paraphrases from Proverbs and other books of the Bible. A few years ago I read through the book of Proverbs in the Bible and underlined in red all the admonitions about how not to speak and in green all the exhortations about how to speak.

• Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

That one isn’t from Proverbs, but maybe it gives a clue to how understanding may come. Perhaps the best words could be the ones I listen to, rather than the ones I speak.

I want to listen, and listen well and deeply to all there is to hear. To listen to the words others speak and to hear in some way beyond their words to the words they haven’t spoken. And to hear the speech without words of the rocks and trees, the skies and stars, the wind and the sea. To the songs of the birds that speak of the joy of this moment and of their zest for life. To the buzzing of cicadas, serenading all with ears to hear of the beauty of a simple summer day with sun warming meadow grasses and wildflowers. To the purring of my cat speaking peace and love and comfort. To the night song of the cricket, telling me I am not alone in the dark. To the call of a Loon echoing through early morning mist on a mountain lake, proclaiming that a new day is dawning.

These are the best words, the words that give understanding. I am listening.

House Finches and Goldfinches sing; a gray squirrel churrs in the silver maple tree; a Downy Woodpecker taps, finding life and hope in a dead tree; the brook babbles as it flows with renewed energy after yesterday’s rain; a cool breeze ruffles my hair, soothing my soul.

Sunlight dapples woods and grass with myriad shades of green, all signs of life, of spring’s hope fulfilled, yet not yet fulfilled, as seeds still silently grow, ripen, and mature—promise and hope for next year, for a new generation.

A male Robin searches the dappled grass for worms, feeds his fledglings over and over—a dad nurturing his young, while his mate warms the eggs of their second clutch, soon to hatch. Hope fulfilled yet not yet fulfilled.

Black walnuts, already round but still small, swell and grow with promise and hope. Some lie in the grass already, fallen too soon, now food for the churring squirrel’s furry young with their hope for a life of leaping through sun-dappled trees, feeding on walnuts large and small. Hope fulfilled yet not yet fulfilled.

The blue of the sky, the chorus of birds and burgeoning brook, sunlight and breeze, squirrels and walnuts—hope for today and promise for tomorrow. For all this I am grateful..

I’ve had one of those weeks when I’ve needed reminders that somehow God has me and this world in his loving care, despite the fact that it might seem otherwise at times. And God has given me the reminders I’ve needed, sometimes when I’ve least expected them and have (literally) almost stumbled over them.

Sunday morning I sat on my front deck with tea in hand, Milo snuggled beside me, and Petra and Ramble lounging nearby. I pulled out a healing prayer exercise a friend had emailed me and started to pray, but was immediately distracted by a repeated “cheeping” coming from the yard. When I looked, I saw a father Robin popping a worm into his young fledgling’s open beak. As I watched, the father searched the grass, his hungry youngster continuing to beg for food. Every time the father found a worm, he flew to the fledgling and fed it. After about half an hour I needed to leave, and I had scarcely looked at the prayer exercise, but I left with heart and soul soothed and filled by the gift of a visual prayer answer and the words of Jesus running through my mind: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good…” Matthew 7:11

The next morning I was walking in the yard, when I saw a doe standing in the middle of the yard where the dogs and I had just been, her neck stretched high as she watched us. A minute or two later she was again watching us, this time from one of the paths at the edge of the yard, and then from a third spot, all as we walked once around the house. I don’t know how she managed to get ahead of us through the woods so quietly, but I didn’t hear her and thankfully the dogs never noticed her. I was careful not to draw their attention to her, so they wouldn’t give chase, and we had just gotten back to the door so I could put the dogs inside, when I suddenly saw a tiny fawn curled up in the lilies (and abundant weeds), just a couple of feet from where the dogs had run when we had first gone outside! These little fawns lie so quietly and have so little odor that my alert dogs hadn’t noticed this little one, even when they ran right by it. The dogs and I spent the rest of the day inside to avoid disturbing the Mama and her beautiful fawn, while I watched through binoculars and reflected on the doe’s watchful care over her baby while it rested and slept, seemingly alone, but always under her eye.

I’ve been listening to some of my favorite nature hymns, and one that really strikes a chord today as I think about these reminders of God’s presence in the world around me is “This is My Father’s World,” by Maltbie D. Babcock. I especially like Fernando Ortega’s rendering of it– This is My Father’s World— Fernando Ortega’s rendering of this wonderful old hymn

This is My Father’s World, by Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

1. This is my Father’s world,
   And to my list’ning ears
   All nature sings, and round me rings
   The music of the spheres.
   This is my Father’s world:
   I rest me in the thought
   Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
   His hand the wonders wrought.
2. This is my Father’s world:
   The birds their carols raise,
   The morning light, the lily white,
   Declare their Maker’s praise.
   This is my Father’s world:
   He shines in all that’s fair;
   In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
   He speaks to me everywhere.
3. This is my Father’s world:
   Oh, let me ne’er forget
   That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
   God is the ruler yet.
   This is my Father’s world,
   The battle is not done:
   Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
   And earth and Heav’n be one.

Spring has finally made a long-awaited arrival, and I have been doing some quick watercolor studies of birds and flowers. Since I often don’t get around to posting here because it takes time to write out a post, I will from time to time just post pictures of my work without much description. These are all 5″ x 7″ done in my studio, the birds from photos and direct observation with the Bluebird and Goldfinch, the roses mostly from imagination, as I think about warm days to come with the fragrance of flowers mingling with birdsong.