Category: good for the soul

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a little lesson from Mother Nature

My daughter posted this hilarious link of ducklings getting blown away by a gust of wind and I have to say, honestly, that it cracked me up. I replayed it several times, laughing louder each time because it really tickled my funny bone.

It reminded me of that kids’ toy, Weebles, and their tagline, Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.  Then I thought to myself, Self, there’s something bigger going on here. Sure, it’s hilarious to watch the ducks get blown away and then scurry back to their momma duck, only to get blown away again. Epic!

And I thought, waitaminute, it IS epic.

It’s just like our lives, isn’t it? One minute we’re walking along with the pack, each of us intent on whatever path it is that we’re following, and then, out of the blue comes this wind that blows us off course. Maybe it’s an illness, or a lay-off, or an unexpected death, and we roll away, pushed by those forces and left far from the path, a little bruised, a little battered, probably a little disoriented.

This is when the video gets good. You see, the ducklings do two things. First, they get up and shake themselves off, then they seek each other. They look for the momma duck, and they get back in line to resume their path. Go watch that video again, and when you stop laughing watch the ducklings: they seek each other and they get right back in line to follow the leader.

Shouldn’t we do that, too?

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things that go bump…

I guess I am absolutely and utterly surrounded by noise. There’s all kinds of ambient noise in my house, and since I have other noise going on, I never really pay attention to the loud hum of the air-conditioning or the ticking of the cuckoo clock in the foyer (yes, from the Black Forest; yes it has a cuckoo bird that cuckoos on the hour and the half-hour — and yes, I will murder it one day).

There are ceiling fans on. The TV’s playing for the sake of it. Computers have fans that are too loud to be normal. A dog snores softly in a corner.

And because the weather has finally decided to change, a house that makes all manner of scary settling sounds.

I don’t suppose I am conscious of these sounds during the week because my head is filled with other kinds of noise…worries, responsibilities, distractions, chores…you name it. But on the weekend, when I slowly begin to release the noise in my head, I become aware of the not-silence in the house.

It’s a comforting cacophany, those ambient sounds. They speak of security, and the known, and the intimacy of the home front. When I get up in the early morning — before the sun comes up, those background sounds come to the forefront and keep me company in my prayers and my other morning routines even as I make my own noises, opening and shutting doors, running water, the random phrase or prayer uttered out loud in distraction.

I like the idea of being a heartbeat.

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