God & Grace in the Garden & Coop

"Hen Party"

I try to make it a habit to walk around our yard most days after work.  I circle the house, then head down to the garden where yellow and red Zinnias occupy one row and red-and-white striped ones form another. The heads of the sunflowers hang heavy, drooping and brown, and the yellow finches are happy to pilfer their drying seeds.  Our tomatoes grow nearby, dark and dense as a forest, with heavy fruit twice the size of my hand hanging like red water balloons on nearly every vine.

Our garden is a riot, an explosion of weedy chaos that cannot, in our current tropical conditions, be tamed. But, we try. We summon strength and courage to weed one bed, then another. Hidden, we find the small watermelons the grew from last year's seeds, the pale winter squash growing in inexplicable abundance.

This year, with our hens no longer free-ranging, we're freed the alarm of their endless infiltration of the garden gate. No more pecked-at tomatoes. No more chasing five, six harried hens, trying to shuttle them out through the narrow gate.

This year, the hens are confined to a large fenced yard attached to their coop and they've managed to peck the ground there bare of any sign of life. Noticing their sparse conditions this summer,  it dawned on me that our garden’s endless supply of weeds might be a welcome addition to their otherwise bleak landscape.

We started taking weeds to them by wheelbarrow and wagon-load, tossing the leggy green plants over the fence handfuls at a time.  The hens were elated.  They ran, pushing and shoving, to scour the windfall of succulent greens.  Our rooster, Joker, puffed out his chest, making several announcements to his girls, waiting until they set-in before taking his own. Within minutes, the stems were bare, stripped to frail, skeletal forms. 

What a grace this is, what a miracle: our chickens take our garden’s accidents and turn them into eggs.

There’s more, though.  Standing in the kitchen, on any given night, I’m frequently confronted with routine kitchen scraps (the peels, the cores, the wilted ends) as well as bowls of mystery food left too long in the refrigerator.  These too, the hens down enthusiastically, clucking and tutting.  When I feel weighted by the guilt of chili left too long in the back of the fridge, the knowledge that this too can feed to hens gives me solace.  These hens are teaching me grace again, reminding of the power of redemption, the truth that our mistakes are never the dead end we imagine them to be. 

Richard Rohr sums it up this way: God writes with crooked lines.  By which he means, God connects all the dots of our lives, the much-intended ones AND the ink blots that splatter accidentally on nearly every page.  God writes the story of our lives with a view so broad, so imaginative, even hens turning old tomatoes into eggs ought not to come as a surprise.

Lament over Jerusalem: FREE Prayer Resource

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often have I longed to gather your children as a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.  Matthew 23:37

Not long after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus' conflict with the religious leaders intensifies dramatically.  The closer he comes to the cross, the separation between those who Jesus has gathered and those who refuse to be gathered becomes markedly clear.  As tensions mount, Jesus reveals, again, the deepest longing of his heart - to gather us to himself in love.  

As a mother, I know what it is to spread my arms wide and gather my children in - in moments of joy, fear, or comfort.  I also know the bittersweet moments when new-found independence, willfulness, or hurt feelings cause my children to resist being gathered.  

As a chicken farmer, I know the way a mother hen spreads her breast feathers wide over a nest.  I have seen a newborn chick burrow into its mother's feathered cocoon, have felt with my own hands the warmth beneath her wings, the close, dark hidden-ness.  

When I read this verse, I wonder what it means to be gathered.  I think of the intimacy - the safety, calm, and rest.  I imagine, even the darkness of that hidden place would feel welcome.  There is, in all of us, sometimes buried deep, a longing to be gathered.

Yet, still, we often resist.  And even when we do allow ourselves to be gathered we are still painfully aware of the desperate, aching world just beyond our sheltered rest.  Gathered to God, resting against God's very breast, we cannot help but be shaped by the heartbeat we hear.  Gathered, we become gatherers; loved, we long to be lovers.  We become the kind of flock that follows God to the cross, through the cross, and into the kind of life that multiplies and makes manifest the longing love of God. 

God's longing love seeks to gather us ALL in.  Sit with that for a moment.  

One strange fact about hens is that, when brooding, the mothering impulse is so strong that they will mother almost anything they can find - puppies, kittens, piglets.  It seems, with hens, the longing and love are wide enough to gather all who are willing.  The same is true, of God. 

As we wait and prepare for Easter morning, I want to invite you to spend some time with this verse: 

What do you imagine it would be like to be gathered by God?  

Who do you long to see gathered into God's longing love?  

What parts of you resist gathering?  

To help you along, I'm including a simple coloring page/prayer activity I created just for you.  All you need to do is clink on the link: Gathering Love Prayer Resource and hit print, then follow the prompts on the page.  Jesus' words paired with prayer and coloring make a simple activity for you to enjoy alone or with a small group of individuals - kids will love it too. (If you do download the page, leave a me a comment below.)

The Wandering Hen

She stood still, and silent as stone, under the garage’s small overhang.  I had to look twice to even tell it was a hen.  Her gray coloring and curved outline made her look more like a bowling pin.  The yard and driveway were coated in a layer of February’s mixed snow and ice.  The eaves protected her from a steady rain as she stared out across the driveway.

“Is that Brownie?” I asked my husband, while peering out the kitchen window.

“Yeah,” he said, “earlier, she was perfectly centered between the two trash cans.”

“She’s so strange,” I said in a tone of awe and admiration.

Since we fenced in our flock of chickens a few months back, Brownie has been one of the only birds to persistently escape.  She’s one of our oldest hens, one of the handful of chicks we bought in 2015.  A gray, speckled, Araucana (easter-egger), she lived in our small, a-frame coop for two and a half years before being forced to integrate with our much larger garage flock.  She’s also the only hen we have who sports a real and genuine beard of feathers. 

I don’t know how much a chicken thinks, but her persistent solitude and wandering captivate my imagination.  I like to think of her as something like a Desert Mother or a John the Baptist type, led by an unrelenting urge to be alone, exposed, in the wilds of our two-acre yard.

Outside of the flock, she has no protection, no direct access to food or water.  She scrounges for seeds under the wild bird feeder and drinks from the driveway puddles.  When the garage is open, she wanders it too, but I wonder if she doesn’t sometimes sleep in the old a-frame coop where she was raised.  The other day, I found her sitting, happily feasting in the open corn bin in the garage.  Clearly, she has developed a certain level of ‘street smarts.’

My oldest son and I have put her back in the pen time and time again.  Solomon corners and herds her in through the wide fence gate.  I have done the same, but the other day I lured her close with a pretzel, then bent and grabbed her by the tail feathers.  She squawked and lunged immediately, and a few seconds of battle ensued while I struggled to get my hands around her wings.  Once her wings were tucked, she calmed, and I carried her under my arm and deposited her unceremoniously in the coop.  I was surprised by the fierceness of her fight.  She was out again the next day.

I don’t know what that hen has to tell me, to teach me, but I continue to watch her with admiration as she persists in holding steady, defining her own way of being in this large and lovely world.   

Open Heart : A Sneak Peak and a Giveaway (#SmallWonder link-up)

This is it, friends, Monday, Nov. 7 "Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry" officially launches into the world.  It's exciting and a little bit scary and so, in honor of that, I want to share an excerpt from the book - a story about love and risk, pain and joy.  Enjoy and when you're done reading scroll down to see my free launch-day giveaways.

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Cold winds and thunderstorms settled into the area over the weekend.  Saturday came and went in a fog of post-birthday-party exhaustion, and the sunny morning turned dark and windy by late afternoon.  In the morning, our sleepy kids stayed inside playing on the Wii, and I walked down to the fence, hoping to talk awhile with our neighbor Ann. 

I spotted her husband, Don, in the yard first, closer to the fence.  Based on two years of over-the-fence observation, I’ve reached the conclusion that Ann and Don’s yard is governed by a neat division of labor – Ann tends her teaming flowerbeds and Don putters in his vegetable garden.  Both the beds and the garden put ours to shame, but John and I comfort ourselves by remembering that the Ann and Don are retired and not raising four young children. 

I’ve noticed a similar division of labor in their approach to the neighborly business of fence-side small-talk – Ann engages freely in extended conversation over a wide range of topics, and Don does not.  Drawing Don to the fence to even ask a question is like pulling teeth.  Attempt more and he’s clearly uncomfortable.  

One day last summer, when we were integrating our second round of chicks into our well established flock, the twins discovered one of the chicks named America, trapped tight in the far corner of the run.  “She’s dead!  America’s dead!” they cried, running into the house and pulling me out into the yard.  Bending down to examine the chick I discovered a large bloody gash in her neck.  It looked, in fact, like she’d been decapitated.  I wasn’t sure what to do, and, more importantly, I didn’t want to deal with the dead bird alone while Isaiah and Levi ran enthusiastic circles around me. 

Standing up, I looked down toward Ann and Don’s yard hoping for help.  I caught a glimpse of Don and approached casually under the guise of commiserating but seriously hoping to convince him to take care of the dead bird.  Don, however, proved resilient in the face of my woman-in-distress ploy. 

“Oh,” he said, “that’s too bad.”  He didn’t offer to help, and, knowing it wasn’t his responsibility, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.  I would deal with the bird myself. 

When I got back to the chicken tractor I bent down again for a closer examination.  The twins, bored already with death, had wandered off and in their absence, I noticed the rise and fall the chick’s fluffy feathers.  She was still breathing, a clear sign she had not, in fact, been decapitated.  I walked into the run and reached into the far back corner where she was huddled.  Pulling her out and tucking her to my chest, I realized she was pecked up pretty badly but likely to survive.  After a few days of isolation and over-the-counter antibiotic ointment, she was on the mend, and I had learned not to expect Don to play the Knight in Shining Armor.   

So I wasn’t looking to talk to Don Saturday morning, I was looking for Ann.  I spotted her on the far side of their yard wearing shorts and tall black polka-dotted rain boots.  Easily forgetting she’s close to 70 years old, I watched as she pushed a wheelbarrow full of mulch around to her flower beds.  Seeing my approach, she made a bee-line to the fence, and we chatted about summer and the gigantic addition being added to a house on the hill behind our house.  While we talked, Isaiah and Levi ran over yelling, “Miss. Ann!  Miss. Ann!”  They climbed briefly up and down the fence, lapping up her attention, then trotted off to play again. 

The reason I walked down to the fence was that I needed someone to talk to.  The night before John and I had found out that dear friends of ours were separating, and our hearts were broken.  When our chit-chat wound down, I told Ann about it.  She affirmed the real pain of a marriage ending and how sad it is for everyone involved, sharing stories from her experience with the divorces of people she knows. 

So many of the married friends John and I share got married at the same time we did.  We knew, even then, that the odds were high that many of us would not stay married.  And yet now, some 15 years later, it still seemed impossible that some of our friends were entering into a post-marriage stage of life.

“Maybe we’re naïve,” I said, “I’m almost 40.  I don’t understand how these things still catch me by surprise.”  What I really couldn’t understand was why it hurt so badly – hurt to see our friends in such complete and utter pain, hurt to be unable to fix it for them, to only be able to stand by watching, listening, and praying. 

Turning back to face our yard, I noticed the Polish hens and asked Ann if she’d seen them.  She said she had but couldn’t really tell much about them since they were penned up in the run on the far side of our yard.   “Do you see the fluff-headed ones?” I asked, my eyes following the Polish hens as they pecked along the perimeter of the netting. 

“Yeah, kinda,” she said, “but not very well.” 

I described them for her in detail, painting a picture of their fluffy white pom-pom heads and lacy gray-black feathers.  As I talked, I felt love for them rise in my chest despite the distance between us. 

Later in the day, I told John about my conversation with Ann, about how I thought maybe we were just naive.  But I also told him something I had realized while standing at the fence watching those baby hens from a distance.  “I loved them,” I said, “even from all the way across the yard, and I guess if you’re the kind of person who can fall in love with a Polish hen, then life’s gonna hurt.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“There’s no separating the two,” I said.  “It’s like the words on that painting hanging in the upstairs hallway, “Love wide; make your way with an open heart.”  Loving a Polish hen is loving with an open heart, and an open heart’s gonna get hurt.  But an open heart also has access to the kind of joy that helps in the middle of the hurt.”

Some days, I think that’s the most we can hope for – enough joy to carry us through the hurt.  Maybe also, if we’re lucky, we might find a sturdy fence to lean on and a neighbor willing to listen for a few minutes or more.

(Like this story?  Want to read more?  Pop over now to order a copy!)

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Today, I'm giving away two Prize Packages.  Two lucky winners will receive a signed copy of "Chicken Scratch" AND a "Chicken Poop" lip balm.  (For the record, the lip balm contains NO poop and only natural ingredients like avocado oil, beeswax and jojoba oil.)  Check out the Rafflecopter below to enter to win.  Winners will be announced next Sunday.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

Chicken Scratch (The Cat's Out of the Bag!)

(Note the water fountain.  Yes, we have an old school water fountain in our kitchen.)

I know the image is blurry, but this is our cat, Perfect, exploring one of our kitchen cupboards for the first time.  We've had Perfect for about two years now and, for much of that time - ever since we got a dog - she's lived in my bedroom.  Well, when the dog first came, she lived beneath our upstairs floorboards for a few months, but after that, she took to living in my bedroom.  

Perfect was terrified of the dog and willing to do anything to avoid her so we tried to make things less stressful by adding another litter box upstairs and moving the cat food and water.  Life went on and Perfect stayed in her comfort zone, occasionally making daring excursions down the hall to my daughter's room which was also quiet and dog-free.  Then one day, discovering a broken window screen, Perfect expanded her territory exponentially by venturing out onto the roof of our wrap around porch.  There, she napped on the sun-warmed shingles, watched birds and chased insects.    

Months later she started sneaking downstairs at night with our male cat Blackie standing guard against the dog's unwitting approach.   Sometimes she followed Blackie's lead, slipping silently out the back door, only to get terrified and end up hiding on top of the open garage door.  On those days I grabbed a wooden folding ladder and pulled her down, then carried her into the house while she hissed and growled on full alert.  

Perfect's choice to live in confinement fascinates me.  I like to think of her as a feline Emily Dickinson - self-confined, but longing to communicate in some way with the outside world.  

Now that all four kids are in school the house is much quieter and Perfect often follows me cautiously from room to room, which is awkward because Coco (the dog) also follows me and yet they prefer not to come in contact with each other. They orbit me, like planets orbiting the sun.

One day last week I propped the screen door open in the back room, hoping Perfect might venture outside while I worked inside.  Walking past the back door, I was greeted by this sight - Perfect interacting (for the first time) with a chicken.  She didn't seem one bit alarmed by it.  

(Note the crooked door handle - someday I will write a post about that.)

Grabbing my phone, I snapped a picture before the moment passed - evidence of Perfect's bravery to show my daughter later that day.  I love this picture because it reminds me - things change, time passes, and brave wears a new face every day.  

Today I'm putting on my own brave face to share some BIG NEWS . . . I wrote a book!  It started last spring with the purchase of our new flock of chickens.  I set an intention to write about my experience with the birds as often as possible during the month of May.  By the time school was out, I had over twenty very rough pieces to work with and I set a new goal of rewriting and then revising those by the end of summer vacation.  

By the grace of God and with a lot of support from a dear friend who helped care for my children this summer - I did it.  

Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk and Poultry is launching November 7th - a month from tomorrow.  It's filled with over twenty of the same style of fun, thoughtful, compassionate and laugh out loud stories that you've enjoyed here on the blog for the past four years.  

Right now Chicken Scratch is in the process of being edited and while I wait to hear back on final revisions, I'm continuing to work on all of the behind-the-scenes aspects of self-publishing.  Right now that includes growing my email list (Newsletter), creating a launch team, and working on cover design and media images for sharing.  

I want to thank all of you who've walked with me on the journey of discovering my writing life - your presence keeps me going.  And I want to invite you to consider helping to spread the word about Chicken Scratch in the circles you're in.  Here are some ways to do that:

1. I need committed readers and sharers to read the book and post a review online on the day of (or week of) the launch.  Preferably on Amazon, but also other places where you share about books you love.  If you're interested in this opportunity, comment below or shoot me an email at kchripczuk at yahoo.com.  I will probably need to "friend" you first on Facebook to add you to the launch team.  

2.  Closer to the launch date, I will post some graphics you can share online to help spread the word.

3. If you're a blogger, consider posting a review of the book on your blog or contact me for an interview or other content.  

4. Pray for me.  About once a day I get a little panicky and think "I have no idea what I'm doing."  And, you know what?  It's true!  I don't! (insert maniacal laughter) But, that's ok, right?  My biggest hope for this book is to have fun - to share fun and joy with others and to enjoy as much of the process as possible.  Writing a book is incredibly hard work.  Self publishing is hard work.  But it doesn't mean it can't also be fun.  

This blog has been, for four years, my open window.  During the days and weeks of raising young children, when leaving the house was a rare treat, this space offered me a little room to breathe and an opportunity to stay connected to the parts of me that often felt unused in the endless task of caring for young children.  Now I'm stepping out again into a new adventure.  

It will be fun.

It will be scary.

And even if I end up like Perfect, hiding on the roof of the open garage door from time-to-time, I know for sure, there are plenty of people who'll set up an old wooden ladder and rescue me.  

Thanks being with me on the journey.  

A New Season (#SmallWonder Link-up)

(an example of a chicken with feathered legs and feet)

This past spring I caught a bad case of Chicken Fever.  Not to be confused with bird flue, Chicken Fever causes its victim, usually already a chicken owner, to desperately desire more chickens.  One friend, eager to aide me in my distress, told me that her neighbor, an Amish farmer, would be happy to hatch some eggs for me for free.  

The price was right, but the timing did nothing to satisfy my urgent need.  It would take about a month for the eggs to hatch, then it would be another four months before the hens started laying.  Deep in the throes of fever as I was, I couldn’t possibly wait that long. 

A few days later we found a flock of twelve laying hens for sale and within a week they were ours.  My Chicken Fever broke as I faced the demands of the new flock, but in the early days of recovery I still sent a secret text to my friend who knows the Amish farmer. 

“I still want some chicks,” I typed.

“How many?” she asked.

“Four or five?” I suggested.

That was back in May.  Time passed.  We lost the matriarch of our flock to a predator and our baby Polish hens grew up.  Then one day last week, my friend pulled into our driveway and popped open the trunk of her SUV.  I ran out of the Little House like a child on Christmas morning as she lifted a small cage to the ground.

I was happy to see three white birds.  Then, as I walked closer, I got a better look.  “They’re the chickens with pants!” I cried. 

Inside the cage, three petite, fluffy white birds walked in circles.  Each had feathers running down their legs, sticking out on either side, giving them the appearance of wearing cowboy chaps.  

I carried the cage down to our smaller coop and lifted the hens out one-by-one.  Their feathers were soft as silk and they rested gently in my hands.  When the kids got home that day, I surprised them as they came off the bus, holding a white chicken in my arms.  “They’re the ones with pants!” I proclaimed and we oohed and aahed over them. 

I had no idea what kind of chickens we might get from the anonymous Amish farmer, but I never expected these fancy girls.   Now we have a total of seventeen hens and one rooster roaming the yard.

New things around the farm are pretty common - new pets, new plants, new equipment and work to be done, but this week I also have some big writing news to share with you.  First, I'm starting a monthly newsletter which will contain exclusive content (essays and poems not appearing here on the blog), links to great content around the web and information about upcoming resources and events.   

And the second piece of news is even bigger and more exciting . . . but you'll have to sign up for my newsletter to be one of the first to find out more.  Thanks for being part of the #SmallWonder community! 

Just enter your address here to sign up!  

*Email Address

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Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

How to Find Hidden Treasure (#SmallWonder Link-up)

(photo credit)

Our giant black chicken stood outside the open kitchen window clucking with vigor yesterday afternoon.  Despite the high heat and humidity, she marched back and forth in the green grass busily squawking with an air of self-importance, a clear sign she’d just laid an egg. 

I dropped what I was doing and rushed outside.  “A-ha!” I thought.  The day before I’d gathered a measly four eggs. I knew the hens were holding out on me and I walked slow searching circles around the yard in the afternoon and early the next morning hunting for their secret nest. 

Our sixteen hens have a total of seven nesting boxes spread between two coops and one “alternative” nest tucked in a pile of hay on the garage floor.  They have plenty of good places to lay their eggs.  But once a month or so first one, then three or four find a new place to lay. 

The first secret nest we found was tucked under a piece of abandoned plywood lying at the base of our largest pine tree.  In the sheltering shade of the old wood, resting in a shallow depression between two roots, lay a clutch of eighteen eggs.  Since then we’ve found clutches on wooden shelves in my husband’s wood shop, in dark corners of the garage, and in the middle of a much-trampled flowerbed.  The nests are cleverly hidden and nearly impossible to find, although they have hens sitting in them and coming and going for most of the day.   

When I suspect the hens are hoarding eggs, I prowl the yard looking around the base of shrubs and trees, I roam the garage looking for secret corners and shadowed shelves.  Most importantly, I start listening to the chatter among the birds.

 

Every chicken we have, save perhaps for the shy Polish hen, announces her freshly laid egg with a puffed chest and wide-spread wings, her beak opening to pronounce pride with a voluminous round of “bawk-bawk-bigawk.”  This announcement can go on for a good five or ten minutes as the hen boasts and elates over her own great deed.  If I’m paying attention, then I notice this cackle of delight and quickly head toward the loud-mouth hoping to catch her red-handed at the scene of the crime. 

Yesterday when I heard “Thunder Storm” (as my daughter calls her) or “Darth Vader” (as the boys call her) clucking up a storm I ran outside and checked closely in the weedy flowerbed beneath the window, pushing aside leggy Cone Flowers and Daisy stems that refuse to yield more buds.  I scanned the base of the overgrown shrubs that need trimming but found nothing.  Lately I've noticed the hens hanging out around the old well-house just beside the kitchen window but I’ve checked the ancient trellis there with its climbing vines and knew, just knew, there was nothing there.

 

Still, I paused and scanned low again while the black hen with her feathers that shimmer iridescent blue and green chattered on.  Then my eyes caught it, just a glimpse of brown tucked in below the trellis, behind winding vines hidden in shadow.  Kneeling, I tenderly pulled back vine to reveal a sheepish brown hen who, startled by my abrupt arrival, decided she had sat for long enough.  Tottering off, she too began to boast about the egg just laid and I stared at the pile of eggs, treasure revealed.

 

I called the kids outside to witness my discovery and we started counting the brown, white and blue eggs I pulled out of their secret shade.  “Eleven eggs!” I shouted, delighted with my find. Then I ferried the eggs into the house in the upturned hem of my shirt.

 

In the kitchen, I eased the eggs gently onto the counter and sent my husband a text, “I found the secret nest!”  Then I washed the eggs, checked for freshness and slid each into its own slot in a new carton.  

  

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I don’t know why the hens change their laying habits, why they refuse to utilize the seven perfectly good nesting boxes.  I suppose it has something to do with hiding from predators and other ancient longings they could not quite articulate even if given the gift of human language.  I want those eggs, though, as much as any fox or raccoon in the wild might, because they’re of value to me and since I feed and shelter the birds (as much as they’re willing to comply) I feel entitled, you might say, to certain benefits.

 

I find it tempting, then, to accuse my birds of hoarding their gifts and from there it would be an easy leap to turn this into a reflection on hiding one’s talents under a bushel basket and the likes.  Some of us do hide the gifts we’ve been given and hoard them to the detriment of ourselves and those around us.  But the truth is, many of us have a hard time finding and claiming our own nest of gifts.  Many of us spend weeks and months circling our lives waiting to discover what it is we have to offer a needy world.

I could tell you not to hide your talents, but I bet most of us know that’s a no-no already.  Instead I want to offer this to those who are hunting and seeking for the hidden nests among us, the places of fertility and fruitfulness, the places of hidden treasure: 

I never found a hidden nest by shaming a bird.  

I’ve never sat a chicken down and had a stern talk eye-to-eye and told them they really should be more compliant.  (But I have a hunch the effort would be wasted.)   

What I do, when hunting hidden treasure, like a nest or a talent or a sense of true vocation in this world, is listen for the song.  Look for the place where joy and pleasure abound, splitting the air on even the hottest of days, the place where you sing loud enough that you can be found.  

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Author, Shawn Smucker and I are offering a one-day retreat this coming October 15 in Carlisle, PA.  Titled, Writing As Witness, we will explore the ways writing can position us to witness the presence of God in our own lives and in the world.  Visit link to learn more.  

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Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!