Flakes

Recess! I was in first grade. We were standing in the playground. I was wearing my treasured dragon mittens hand-knit by Mom. They were friendly dragon mittens; the yarn inside their mouths was bright red, they had little white teeth and enormous floppy grey ears. A long strand of yarn running through the sleeves of my little coat joined the mittens to each other to prevent loss. Security. We had our heads tipped backwards, mouths open, tongues hanging out. Flurries had just begun. “Let’s see how many flakes we can catch on our tongues,” a classmate challenged. I wasn’t terribly competitive, but I loved snow so I joined the fun.

That was the age when we all learned the truth about snowflakes. No two are exactly alike. We learned how to fold paper and cut snowflakes using our blunt-end school scissors. Outside, we pretended each flake had a different flavor. Of course, most of mine were strawberry. Life was sweet. The worst thing I could imagine happening would be losing a mitten. Actually I did lose a bright red snow boot in a pile of snow that year. I never saw it again, in spite of my certainty that it would be visible after the spring thaw.

Loss is a terrible thing to endure. In one of my childhood winters, I wrapped a freshly made snowball in aluminum foil and secretly buried it deep in the bottom of the freezer. Months later when I checked on it, it had turned into a clear ball of ice. By June, the snowflakes had merged hopelessly together and I wouldn’t be able to playfully throw a fluffy ball of flakes at one of my unsuspecting older brothers. I’ve realized that when true tragic loss occurs in life’s storms, the sweet times I’ve had will help carry me through. So I’m gonna eat all the strawberry snowflakes I can while the flurries are falling instead of squirreling them away for another time.

This week I taught twenty-seven middle and high school art students how to cut paper snowflakes. Truth is, you are never too old to enjoy this activity. Delightful. Remember learning that each person has a fingerprint like no other, just like snowflakes? Sometimes I compare myself to others and end up feeling unimportant and insignificant. What a flake! In my intelligent designer’s eyes, I’m precious.

Life is short. At the end we will melt away and move on. Our lives can’t be preserved by wrapping them in foil and hiding them away. If you are in a blizzard, you were created with stronger crystals and you’ll endure. If you’re in the flurries of life, enjoy the ride. The wind can change when you least expect it. So from one uniquely faceted flake to the others, I hope you catch some wildly fun updrafts.

Pellets

Most people imagine lambs to be cute and cuddly, like those baby toys made out of fluffy stuff. The truth is: lambs are bony and stiff. Unless they are bathed and groomed, their wool is coarse, smelly, and sometimes has bugs in it. Lambs are not too fond of being cuddled either. When you look into their eyes, you see a blank stare much like peering into a dark cat’s eye marble. You wonder if anyone’s home in there. Is the animal returning your affectionate gaze or staring sideways into space like a simple flounder? Young sheep are not tiny lap animals either. A powerful yearling lamb had enough muscle and body mass to drag my thirteen-year-old daughter across a livestock show ring. Let me give you a bit more detail.

We live in southwest Florida, the absolute worst place to live if you are a sheep, or a lamb for that matter. The sub-tropical summer rains bring hoof rot, parasitic insects, intestinal problems, and intense heat to the heavily coated critters. Nevertheless, thrilled with the dreamy prospect of having a cuddly lamb to care for, we bought one of the first three lambs ever entered into our county’s livestock shows. My daughter raised the animal for market. Our dear Australian friend coached us through the feeding, care, and shearing for show. Speaking of feeding, I suspect more pellets come out of the back end of a lamb than are put into the front end as feed. More on that later, I promise.

When it’s time for show, lambs are not haltered as steer or goats would be. The handler simply uses his or her hands to direct the yearling for the judge to see. At that climactic moment after months of feeding, grooming, and attempted affection when our dear lamb and his handler were released into the ring for their debut, the lamb spooked. The girl, clad in black and bright white show clothes, instinctively grabbed the animal’s neck and dug her heels into the show ring mulch. I’m amazed you couldn’t hear screeching similar to tires on a wet road as those two feet carved a trough like a high speed snow plow through thirty feet of show ring dust. The animal wouldn’t stop and the handler wouldn’t let go. The audience collectively held it’s breath as we watched the spectacle. At the end of the ring the lamb gave in and stood still; the audience stood and cheered for that kid who held on to the confused animal. When it was over, I wonder if the blankly staring lamb thought anything at all. He never made a sound through the whole event. By the way, after the market auction a few days later I’m certain all three lambs went silently to slaughter.

We humans are a lot like sheep. We often fail to accurately perceive the depth of feelings surrounding us. We really need guidance too or we get into awful messes. An amazing thing about sheep is those pellets. I promised I’d come back to this. Sheep instinctively climb to high ground where they eat all kinds of grass and weeds, then they drop their pellets replenishing the high rocky places with nourishment gained from grazing on lush lowland grasses. Sheep can have such a beneficial impact on the land that they have been called the animals on golden hooves. Under good guidance they remove weeds and drop fertilizer even in the remotest rocky areas transforming tired land into productive beautiful pastures. Conversely, if left unmanaged, sheep can ravage the land by failing to move on before every green plant has been consumed. They have to be willing to cooperate, move around, and obey their master or they could wander off into predators’ mouths like witless renegades.

When the psalmist wrote, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” (Psalm 23:6) he described sheep who are tenderly cared for even when they might stray from the flock. The loving shepherd of scripture would leave ninety-nine sheep to find one who was lost. The psalmist also knew sheep leave things behind. It’s all part of the plan for cycling grace and mercy. After reading Phillip Keller's book, I wonder if Psalm 23:6 might also refer to the mark we make on this landscape of souls as we graze through life.

Whether our heels cut ruts on high speed adrenaline rushes or randomly trample while we graze obliviously in high grass, what droppings will follow us? What will we make out of the good food provided for us? As Mr. Keller suggests, I’d like to continue under my shepherd’s direction to devour turmoil and leave peace behind. I'd like contentment to follow me. I choose forgiveness over thistles of bitterness. Instead of spreading frustration, I want to plant joy even in the rocky high ground. So finally, hopefully, I’ll leave behind more than a pile of stinky pellets and some ruts for others to fall into. This way, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

I recommend reading A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller.

Two Nickels

A lot of people have shared my desk, not my computer desktop, but my old fashioned knee-hole desk like everybody's dad had. My dad's desk seemed huge when I was a kid. It reminded me of Dad's faithfulness and security. He frequently worked at his desk. I would sneak up to a corner and rest my chin on it watching him crunch numbers and ruminate on new ideas for his clients. I admired his organized workspace and his creativity.

Recently I've started feeling greater ownership of my desk space because my kids have moved away and my husband only uses my desk on Sundays. So I have six-sevenths ownership right now. My favorite part of the desk is the top center drawer where all the pens and stuff are stashed away. I've always loved little cubby compartments with neatly arranged office supplies in desk drawers. You're not really set up for business until you have cubbies in your drawer with neat little piles of post-it notes and paper clips.

Someone dropped two coins in my desk. I don't know who did this or why. Yet, over the past year I have often opened my desk drawer searching for some specific office supply that hasn't yet been neatly ordered in one of my plastic cubby organizers. Then, my eye catches two shiny nickels in the front right compartment. "What are they doing there?" I ask myself. Immediately I think of that phrase people use to exaggerate their depleted funds, "I don't have two nickels to rub together." My next grateful thought is always, "Ha, I do have two nickels to rub together. They're right here in my desk drawer!"

My mind then wanders to the lists of riches in my life. In spite of my shortcomings I have great kids and a treasured marriage that has risen above the struggles. It's taken me fifty years to overcome the angst of money management and finally approach the subject in faith. See the sparrows? They don't worry about their two nickels and neither do I. They're safe in my knee-hole desk drawer cubby: safe like I've always been while admiring my dad working to keep me fed, warm, protected, and loved. My father in heaven does the same thing now. He reminds me with two little nickels tucked away in a big old knee-hole desk drawer.