Two tired boys with mononucleosis and a sniffling mama… I am slowing down. And seeing. A memory I’m revisiting as the snow melts and spring pushes through:
I close the mailbox with a snap and head into the house with a stack of junk mail and bills, rifling through them as I walk…chicken breasts on sale for $1.97 lb…telephone bill due again. A flicker of blazing gold flashes, once, twice, on the periphery of my vision and I blink, waking. Lowering the stack of mail, I pause.
I catch again the lighting of the monarch’s golden wings…then another streak of brilliance. Captivated, drawn, I lean in…only to find the beauty wrapped in chains. Treacherously woven between the purple coneflower and the blooming lavatera, a spider’s web ensnares this queen of the skies. The butterfly flails, exhausted, flashing its wings for rescue.
I reach my hand slowly, imperceptibly, into the snare and snap her bonds. In a flutter, the regal brilliance thrashes and flounders about my feet, snagged still in the spider’s sticky lace. Do I dare touch her wings? But I must…and she stills, trembling.
I wait, hanging, hoping.
Intherushoflife,inthestreamofcommonandordinary,Ihadpausedandallowedtheretobespace.
And in the space, real seeing came. Paradoxically, seeing the seamlessness, the oneness, of the hallowedness and the everyday, I need to make space. Spaces around the moments. Without the spaces, I seem to lose sense of all meaning. Pausing, I look and really see: mailbox, bills, monarch, web, life —
“No distinction was made between the sacred the everday…their life was all one piece. It was all sacred and all ordinary.” ~Sue Bender
It is all sacred, all ordinary, all one piece.
Then she, quivering, unfolded her wings into the space, knew freedom…
and flew.
Lord, how can I slow down today, make s p a c e and really see? To be still… still… and see You who wants us to soar?
Related:
A One-Piece Life
Supermarket Poetry
(From the archives)
