mountains

One Is Enough

August 28, 2017 by Nancy 18 Comments

Readers who follow my blog posts know that I wrote one in late June titled “Where Have All the Hummers Gone?” Except for one reader who joked that she thought I meant the behemoth, gas-guzzling vehicles, most wrote with sympathetic sentiments about my dearth of hummingbirds and sent helpful suggestions about how to attract some.

In this my last word on the hummingbird (well, for this season anyway), I’m happy to report that I have one! For three months I faithfully watched that forlorn feeder, changing the nectar often. I even tried different varieties of feeders, but no visitors arrived. Finally I saw the familiar, precious silhouette of a hummer early one morning in mid-July. I’m delighted to say that he (and I’m just assuming it’s a he) now visits in the first light of dawn each day. And I have learned to be ever so grateful.

Those of you who enjoy a plethora of hummers dipping, diving, and buzzing around your feeders may wonder how I could seem so content with just one, but it’s all a matter of perspective. Because he always arrives during my morning quiet time, it’s as if the Lord sends him as a special blessing on my day. One is enough to deliver this blessing. One is enough to bring me joy. One is enough.

And there are other lessons to be heard from hummingbirds. I had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago, a friend who lives in a canyon south of town by the mountains and has to fill her feeders several times a day. She commented that the rufous always comes around to chase all the other birds away from the feeder, but then never drinks himself! “Isn’t that just like people?” she mused. “We think we want what somebody else has, but we really don’t need it!”

Another friend texted to tell me her feeder on the west side was buzzing with nine hummers at once. I was pleasantly surprised by my reaction when I realized I wasn’t the least bit jealous! I could have been, but I wasn’t. Instead I was truly happy for her and relieved to know that at least hummingbirds were alive and well somewhere. Anyway, I have one. And one is enough.

Maybe part of my contentment comes because we had the opportunity to go up to the mountains twice this summer and I got to enjoy the hummingbirds there. Or maybe it’s just the old adage that “you don’t miss what you have until it’s gone” at play. I really missed having a lot of hummingbirds, so now I’m content with my one little buddy.

So drink deeply, tiny friend. My offering of nectar is all for you, and I’ll see you in the morning.

On Becoming a Mountain Mama

August 14, 2017 by Nancy 18 Comments

As of this month I’ve been a resident of Colorado for 40 years. As I thought about writing a blog about my transformation from a Tennessee girl to a Colorado mountain mama, I remembered a column I wrote for the Gazette on the occasion of my 20th Anniversary as a Coloradoan! So here it is again.

This month I’ve been a resident of Colorado for twenty years. Twenty falls gilded in aspen leaves. Twenty winters gazing at snow-covered mountains resembling pink cotton candy in the early morning light. Twenty summers of hot days under bright blue skies, and cool nights under a canopy of stars.

Although there’s nothing magical about the number twenty, it forces me to reconsider my status as a Tennessean just passing through. Tennessee will always be home. It only takes an instant to transport myself back to steamy Southern summers where the air is heady with honeysuckle as I sit on the back porch watching for the first lightning bugs to reveal their flight paths. Racing barefooted across the dewy grass to catch one of them in tiny, cupped hands is a memory every child should have.

Those are the summers of my youth, and I’ll always be able to recall them. But more and more frequently I find myself contemplating all I would miss if I couldn’t spend summer here in Colorado.

The Summer of ‘77, I didn’t care. I thought this was the most desolate place I had ever seen, and I couldn’t imagine being exiled here forever. The hot August winds blew through the house and threatened to blow the drapes right off their rods, so I closed the windows. Then, since there was no air-conditioning, I was just sure we would all suffocate.

But soon the fields around our house were full of Black-eyed Susans as far as I could see. I remember walking the dog through those fields and feeling like I was part of a movie set. Just that simply, the twenty-year courtship began.

As if to entice me into declaring Colorado my home state, the Summer of ’97 is especially enchanting. Due to generous spring snows, the roadsides are greener than I’ve ever seen them. On a June road trip, we saw fields of yucca so plush it looked like a marching band in plumed hats was parading toward us. We drove past newborn foals frolicking behind their mothers and sheep lounging in beds of wildflowers.

I think we all come to love what we know. It occurs to me that I know Colorado. I know things like where to buy night crawlers in Cotapaxi or copper pots in Frisco. I know where the picnic tables are on our favorite ski slopes, and due to Colorado’s coquettish, unpredictable weather, I know I’m as likely to be able to picnic there in February as in July.

More than anything, I’ve come to know and love these ever-changing mountains. I’ve seen the “purple mountain majesties” Katharine Lee Bates immortalized when she penned “America the Beautiful” from Pikes Peak. I’ve seen it “raining fire in the sky” in the Western sunset John Denver sings about in “Rocky Mountain High.”

Recently a young buck with fuzzy antlers chose to laze away his afternoon in our back yard. On assignment at an office building on the north end of Colorado Springs, I gazed out the window as a baby fawn on wobbly legs cavorted behind her mother. As I write this, two hummingbirds are vying for position at the feeder at my office window.

Great show, Colorado! It’s taken twenty years, but I’m ready to profess my love for you. Now I officially have two home states. If home is where your heart is, then this feels a lot like home.

May I just add, this is how much I love you, Colorado—times two now that we’ve been together 40 years!

Lifting Our Eyes

December 6, 2016 by Nancy 15 Comments

Have you noticed that we have become a society of people looking down? And we’re not looking down at beloved small children or pets as much as we are looking down at smartphones. Looking down to check Facebook, email, Twitter, Instagram or our GPS.

Technology can be helpful and crucial, no doubt about it. But looking down all the time can not only give us a neck ache, it can even be hazardous. Who can forget the YouTube video of the woman falling into the fountain at the mall while looking down at her smartphone? And no telling how many shoppers this season will be bumped into or knocked down by another shopper walking while looking at his or her phone.

What if we all spend more time looking up this Advent season, and less time looking down? What if we shift our gaze to the angel on top of the Christmas tree, the stars that shone over Bethlehem fields, or snow-crested peaks like those of the majestic mountains all around us here in Colorado? Do we really want to miss all that glory because we are looking down?

The Psalms of Ascent in the Bible give us examples of God’s people looking up instead of down as they sought Him with all their hearts. I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? says Psalm 121:1. I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven, reads Psalm 123:1.

If ever there was a time for us to lift both our eyes and our hands in praise to our Lord and Savior, it’s at Christmas time. And the Lord is happy to help us do that. But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head, we read in Psalm 3:3

Once we are looking up again, we can share a smile with a harried store clerk. We can notice when someone needs help getting through the door or into her car. We can enjoy the birds at the feeder, the deer in the fields, sunrises, and sunsets as all heaven and nature sing. Don’t those sound like wonderful reasons to lift our eyes this Christmas?

First published by Fellowship of the Rockies, Christmas 2014.

Consider the Lilies

September 6, 2013 by Nancy 18 Comments

Each week I have the pleasure of walking around this lake with two good friends. Recently our vistas have been brightened by the appearance of wild Black-eyed Susans. I haven’t been in Israel when the wild lilies of the field are in bloom, but I can’t imagine they could be more beautiful than this, our Colorado version.

When those yellow faces start appearing in August, I’m always reminded of August, 1977, when I first moved to Colorado. We lived just to the right of this lake, but none of the area behind the lake was developed then so there were open fields near our house. I took a whole roll of film (remember film?) of my two boys and our golden retriever running through the Black-eyed Susans in those fields.

Of course, I also thought we were all going to die in Colorado that August, because, coming from Tennessee, I didn’t know about the way the wind swept across the plains. One day the wind was blowing so hard that it was lifting my drapes straight out and off the hooks. I closed all the windows to keep the wind out, but it was hot and we didn’t have air-conditioning. That’s when I was just sure we were all going to suffocate! But I’ve adapted well to the creative Colorado weather in 36 years, and would miss it if I lived anywhere else.

The appearance of the Black-eyed Susans also always reminds me of Jesus’ teaching on simplifying life. In Matthew 6:28-29 (KJV) we read His words: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” I love this so much I used it as the theme verse for a chapter titled “Simply Consider” in the book I wrote about my own simplification journey, Simply the Savior.

When our hearts yearn for a simpler way of life than the one the world seems to demand that we live, there is perhaps no better way for us to begin the simplification process than to consider the lilies. Author and theologian Richard J. Foster, in his book Freedom of Simplicity, refers to Matthew 6 as “the most radiant passage on Christian simplicity in all the Bible.” It’s impossible to overstate the effect that taking these verses in Matthew’s Gospel to heart can have on our ability to simplify our lives.

If we simply consider the lilies, suddenly we feel the pressure to attain and achieve being lifted from our shoulders and our hearts. If they don’t toil and spin, why should we? It’s easier to draw lines through many of the tasks on our to-do lists after we consider the lilies. And it’s easier to exchange worrying for trusting.

So simply consider the lilies. And if you live in Colorado, get out and walk among them!