Nancy

Hummingbird Joy

July 25, 2012 by Nancy 15 Comments

After a summer marred by wildfires and the violent shooting incident in Colorado, it’s especially healing to have the hummingbirds return to bring us some unmitigated joy in the face of so much loss and grief. Few things in this earthly life can be considered pure joy. To the obvious list of kittens, puppies, and newborn babies, I always add hummingbirds—and I’m so glad they have returned.

By this time each summer we usually have six or eight at our feeder all the time and have to refill the nectar daily to keep them happy. But it’s worth it for the entertainment they bring!

One year I was on the phone when the first hummingbird of summer arrived. There I was, tilted back in the chair in my office at home having a long overdue chat with a friend, when I heard his frantic racket. I looked through the blinds to see him hovering at just the spot where I usually hang a feeder each year.

In the three seconds we made eye contact, the hummingbird seemed to clearly say to me, “Well, fine. I fly here all the way from Mexico, and you can’t even bother to get off the phone and put out the feeder!”

As much delight as they bring, and as much effort as they put into the trip, we really should greet these summer visitors with a bit more pomp and circumstance. Even if you aren’t much of a bird watcher, these birds will get your attention. They might suddenly appear just behind a paperback you’re reading out on the back deck only to dart off sideways as soon as you look up. Such antics are hard to ignore!

It’s also hard to ignore their gorgeous coloring. As with other birds, the males are the showiest. Interestingly, some of the most brilliant colors are not created by pigment in the feathers, but rather are iridescent reflections from the feathers themselves. One more sign of God’s amazing creativity.

There are 338 varieties of hummingbirds, 16 in the United States, and all of them are attracted to the color red. They prefer tubular red flowers and need to consume half their weight in sugar daily just to stay in the air!

If you succeed in attracting these interesting little hummers to your yard, remember they have incredible memories and high expectations. They will come back to the same feeders year after year, so once you become a destination point, be sure to keep the feeders up…and filled…well into the fall.

As difficult as this summer has been for those of us in Colorado, there’s still joy to be found. Given all that has happened, I’m keenly aware of the comforts of home, husband, and hummingbirds—and more determined than ever not to take any of them for granted.

Our Flag Still Waves

July 3, 2012 by Nancy 12 Comments

I’m not sure if I’m ready to write about the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs just yet, but this photo in today’s Gazette (by photographer Jerilee Bennett) inspires me to try.

Let there be no mistake, this was a disastrous, devastating blow to our community. Over 2,000 people remain out of their homes, and most of those residents returned recently to find a pile of rubble on the very spot where they used to fix supper, tuck kids into bed, water pots and feed hummingbirds. Complete rubble.

And yet, as the flag in the photo so clearly demonstrates, there is already beauty and hope coming from the ashes. The optimistic reactions of many of those who lost so much help the rest of us dry our eyes and jump in to do whatever we can to help. Their faith speaks to us. Our firefighters, police officers, and city officials have masterfully led our community through the worst disaster we have ever known, and their dedication will continue into our extended period of recovery. Above all, our flag still waves, saying as it has for over two centuries: Freedom will prevail. Good will overcome evil. Hope will outshine disaster. We will rise again!

I inherited my love for the flag from my dad, although I’m not sure I remembered to tell him I had finally caught his passion while he was still alive. It used to irritate me that he loved flags so much. Whenever our family visited a new city or national park, my dad would want us to pose for pictures at the base of a flagpole. To get the flag into the picture, he’d have to move to the other side of the street with the camera, so we have lots of vacation shots with my sisters and me barely discernible as we rallied ‘round the flagpole for dear old dad.

In the 8-millimeter home movies, we’re trying madly to out-wave the flag, along with occasionally pinching or shoving one another, but you have to look closely to see who’s who—because the flag is still the star.

The flag I put out on national holidays year after year, home after home, was a gift from my dad. Like old friends, old flags are best. But years ago, when it began to show signs of so much time in the Colorado wind, I retired it to a corner of the hall closet and got a brand new one.

This 4^th of July I plan on displaying both flags. I do so with a grateful heart. Grateful for all the service men and women who sacrifice so much to guarantee our freedom as a nation. Grateful for the public servants who protect and serve us. And grateful for God who was with us in the fire, and who can and will bring beauty from ashes (Isaiah 61:3). God bless us all.

On Holy Ground

June 20, 2012 by Nancy 9 Comments

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.—Psalm 32:7

On a recent trip to New York City with my granddaughter Amanda, we left the very moving 9-11 Memorial and took the short walk across the street to St. Paul’s Chapel. It was my third visit to Ground Zero since September 11, 2001, and each time it was this small chapel, even more than the tragic site of the World Trade Center, that brought me to tears. I said to Amanda, ‘It’s as if God placed his hand over this little church to protect it when all around it was being destroyed. He seemed to be saying to all those who suffered so much, ‘I will be with you in this. This is My house, and it will not be destroyed’.”

Walking through the quaint cemetery in front of St. Paul’s Chapel one feels a sense of peace. All the frantic noise and activity of the city seems distant as you enter the doors of the little church that immediately served as a sanctuary for survivors and rescue workers on Sept. 11. For nine months it provided a resting place for the weary and comfort for the distraught. Meals, hugs and prayers were the sustenance offered.

St. Paul’s had an impressive history even before Sept. 11, 2001. Completed in 1766, it is where George Washington worshiped on his Inauguration Day in 1789, and where he often attended services during the two years New York was our nation’s capital. Part of the parish of Trinity Episcopal Church in lower Manhattan, it is Manhattan’s oldest public building in continuous use and its remaining colonial church.

Yet each time I stand in that sanctuary that the Lord miraculously protected so it could be a solace to those who grieved, I know it is so much more than a wonderful old building. The postings of photographs of those lost or comforted remind me that the church does not consist of stone and mortar regardless of how beautiful its architecture might be. The church consists of us, the people who believe in the one true God and turn to Him for sanctuary in good times—and in bad. The Living God indwells us. We are the church as we go about ministering to the needs of people and welcoming others into the presence of the Lord. We are the church, and where we stand is holy ground.

Graduations Galore

June 2, 2012 by Nancy 2 Comments

We’ve had a lot of pomp in our family this graduation season—under all kinds of circumstances! Five of our twelve grandchildren celebrated graduation milestones recently, adding all their hopes and dreams to that cumulative pile formed by 2012 graduates everywhere.

Our granddaughter Amanda had the most significant graduation—she graduated from high school. It was wonderful to hear her give the invocation at her graduation ceremony, and so reassuring to know that in certain small towns in America it’s still acceptable to thank God and give Him the glory! She and I will celebrate by going to New York together, and I’m as excited as she is.

On the opposite end of the educational spectrum, our grandson Will graduated from kindergarten. Imagine, if you can, about 75 little five-and six-year olds proceeding into an auditorium with their faces framed by giant paper flowers! According to Will’s dad he wasn’t too keen on dressing up as a flower, but the effect on stage as they sang some precious songs like “Everything Grows” and “Each of Us is a Flower” was just darn cute.

Our other three graduates celebrated leaving eighth grade and moving on to high school, and that caught us more by surprise than the others. In 1998 I wrote a column titled “Baby, Baby, Baby” in which I mused about the excitement and preparation around welcoming three baby girls into our family within four months. That those three baby girls, Ellie, Riley and Morgan, are now young ladies who dressed up and did their hair for eighth-grade graduation dances and ceremonies absolutely blows our minds! Echoing the sentiment of every parent and grandparent of every graduate of the season, where did the time go?

We only got to attend two of these ceremonies, but we loved every minute. Even if you weren’t there, you’ve been there. Graduates grinning from ear to ear, cameras flashing, parents and grandparents beaming in that foolish way we do so well. And why shouldn’t we? Graduations are great milestones on this journey of life we celebrate.

Honoring Our Soldiers

May 29, 2012 by Nancy 6 Comments

To add to the Memorial Day tributes I am re-posting something I first wrote in October 2009, with a grateful heart for all the men and women who sacrifice so much for all of us.

The faces and stories on the news and in our local paper have appeared in a steady trickle over the last eight years. Another soldier lost, another family grieving. But the news this week that eight young men from the 4^th Brigade Combat Team at Fort Carson, CO, had lost their lives in a bloody firefight in Afghanistan—where they were horribly outnumbered by attacking insurgents—has hit me extremely hard.

You see, I can stand out on my deck and see part of Fort Carson. I drive by the Mountain Post often. At the shopping center just down the hill, I frequently encounter young GIs in their crisp, starched desert fatigues, going about all the ordinary activities of their lives that don’t put them in mortal danger.

As I watched the news accounts of the losses this week, I looked at each face intently. Is that the young man who held the door for me as I went into the cleaners carrying a pile of dirty clothes? Are those the guys who stood in line with me at Black Bear Coffee last summer, turning to say, “Have a good day, mam!” before they left?

One day my friend Pat and I were having lunch in the sushi restaurant down the hill in that same shopping center. We couldn’t help but notice a couple of young soldiers counting out their change to cover their lunch tab. “Never mind!” we called out to the waitperson. “We’ve got their lunch.”

“Oh, no mam,” one of them said, turning to look at me with his piercing blue eyes. “You shouldn’t do that. We’re here to serve you.”

“Well, you are serving us,” we said. “This is the least we can do.”

With a heavy heart one morning this week, I dug one of those rubber bracelets everyone wears to support their causes out of my jewelry box and stretched it over my hand. It’s camouflage green, and I got it when I gave blood in a drive for the soldiers a few years ago. I wanted to wear it as a reminder to pray for the eight families grieving.

As I went about the activities of my day—enjoying my protected, free life—I wanted to remember that we are still at war, that troops are still in danger, and that all of them need our prayers and deserve our deepest gratitude.

These were our boys who died this week—guys from our neighborhood. Remembering them with honor? Well, it’s the least I can do.

What I Learned from Two Old Women

May 21, 2012 by Nancy 3 Comments

Occasionally you read a book that stays with you long after you close the cover for the last time and place the book on the shelf (or delete it from your reader!). So it is with a small volume I read with my book group not too long ago, Two Old Women by Velma Wallis.

A poignant account of aging is found in this short but powerful book. Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, it’s the inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine. The chief regrets having to leave the old women behind, as do the families of the elders, but the decision is made that they must be abandoned so the others can move on.

What happens next should encourage all of us who aren’t as young and capable as we once were. “We have learned much during our long lives,” said one of the women named Sa’. “Yet there we were in our old age, thinking that we had done our share in life. So we stopped, just like that. No more working like we used to, even though our bodies are still healthy enough to do a little more than we expect of ourselves.”

Her slightly older friend, Ch’idzigyaak, listened carefully to her friend’s revelation as to why they were left behind.

“Two old women,” Sa’ continued. “They complain, never satisfied. We talk of no food, and of how good it was in our days when it really was no better. We think that we are too old. Now, because we have spent so many years convincing the younger people that we are hopeless, they believe that we are no longer of use to this world.” And then she lays down a challenge for herself and her friend: “If we are going to die anyway, let us die trying!”

By the end of the book, the two old friends have done more than try—they have survived and survived beautifully. So successful are they in employing all the wisdom and skills they accumulated over their many decades that, when they are eventually reunited with the tribe, they have pelts and food enough to share with those who walked off and left them to die in the cold!

The lesson is one we can apply to helping our elders. Without unmercifully nagging them into doing everything they once could do, we need to gently encourage them to do that which they still can. How often we hear of elders dying shortly after retiring simply because they felt their life was over. Likewise, older adults can simply give up once they move into an assisted living facility if those around them treat them as if they can’t do anything for themselves anymore. Better to err on the side of encouragement than discouragement. Wait until you are sure help is needed before jumping in to button a blouse, tie a shoe, or make a bed.

And the lesson for those of us who aren’t quite there yet? Stop moaning about what we can’t do as well anymore and keep doing everything we can! Then, like the characters in the Alaskan legend, we’ll do far more than survive–we’ll survive beautifully!