A Twosday Birthday

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My grandson is four years old today, this very special Twosday, and he is buoyant and bright and a bit of a blur as he dashes past me en route to the bouncy house with his cousins. His imagination and expectations and energy are boundless.

His mother, my daughter, has a very light complexion, naturally strawberry blonde hair, and clear blue eyes. His father is of Nigerian descent, with very dark skin, dark hair, and dark deep eyes.

My grandson doesn’t yet notice the occasional sidelong glance from a passer by. He doesn’t yet take note of the fact that most of his friends have matching parents. He doesn’t yet know that there used to be – and still are – people within a day’s drive who think he is an abomination, who would harass and even harm his parents just for being who they are, and together.

He has never yet been afraid.

Life for my Child Is Simple
     by Gwendolyn Brooks

Life for my child is simple, and it is good.
He knows his wish. Yes, but that is not all.
Because I know mine too.

And we both want joy of undeep and unabiding things,
Like kicking over a chair or throwing blocks out of a window
Or tipping over an icebox pan
Or snatching down curtains or fingering an electric outlet
Or a journey or a friend or an illegal kiss.

No. There is more to it than that.
It is that he has never been afraid.

Rather, he reaches out and the chair falls with a beautiful crash.
And the blocks fall, down on the people's heads,
And the water comes slooshing sloppily across the floor.
And so forth.

Not that success, for him, is sure, infallible.
But never has he been afraid to reach.
His lesions are legion,
But reaching is his rule.

The thing with feathers…

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I saw a sparrow in my backyard this morning, and if I tried to tell you how much hope the little bird excited in my heart, you might think I was unreasonable, maybe even a little mad. A sparrow – one of the commonest feathered creatures on earth – awakening a spark of joy?

But you see, I spend the greater part of every day working at my kitchen table/studio facing the wall of windows into my backyard, from which vantage point I can see all the bird feeders I’ve set up outdoors. And among the myriad strangenesses of this distressing year, I’ve been troubled by the fact that, although they’ve been here in flocks in previous times, I had not seen one single sparrow in all these long months.

I won’t go so far as to call it an omen. I don’t believe the world is miraculously going to return to ‘normal’ next week. I think this winter will be difficult in distinctly 2020 ways. I’m sure we will all have to continue to adapt, to make adjustments we may never have imagined, and that whatever ‘normal’ finally emerges will not look like the one we remember.

But neither will I dismiss my morning visitor as a commonplace, a coincidence. I will hold on to this reminder of hope, this assurance that the One whose eye is on the sparrow is also watching me.


Reflection on Psalm 143

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Mornings with chronic illness are hard. I rise slowly, no less tired than I was when I climbed into bed nine hours ago, taking a moment here to flex ankles and elbows, another there to try to work the kinks out of my neck, all the while assessing which muscles are most sore, which joints most stiff and painful this day. Depression sits on the edge of the mattress beside me, observing that I have a progressive disease – one that won’t be cured but will, in fact, worsen the longer I live with it.

But there is a husband, a teenager, a grandchild who requires my attention, so I push myself up and face the day, thankful that at least the heat of Texas summer is finally ending and it will be pleasant to sit on the patio for a while.

Psalms. Coffee. Porch swing time. Somehow, breathing outside in the relative quiet, reading the well-worn words, nourishes me enough to go on with a small modicum of grace.

I’ve been reading the Psalms for nearly fifty years now, never dwelling long on the ones about battles and vengeance; they seem far removed from my modern, mostly suburban American life.

But as I read Psalm 143 this morning, my foggy brain gradually came to realize that David was not necessarily talking about a human foe here: “For the enemy has pursued my soul;” “he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead;” “my spirit faints within me.” These sentiments feel true in my own despondency. Is the man after God’s own heart, perhaps, praying these words in his own time of overwhelming weariness and sadness?

He goes on to declare, “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done.” And I do. I know that God has acted on my behalf in the past, that he has previously rescued me not only from physical dangers, but from blinding black sorrows and feelings of despair. I know, but I can’t feel it right now. “Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails!”

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,” please, just a wisp of hope somewhere in the breeze, a reminder of joy in the chickadees’ chatter, “for in you I trust,” because it has been the pattern of my years, because I don’t know what else to do, because in spite of everything, I do still believe you hold me in your hands.