Sing Over Me

On my way to my field in early morning, I pass an empty silent baseball field where a boy played years ago, always watching, waiting to see if his father would come just once.

Deer walk boldly down darkened streets, weaving in and out between this yard and that. Suddenly they will be upon you, their eyes glimmering brightly against the beam of the headlights.

They stand in the middle of the street, staring insolently as if to say, “It is still night. These streets are ours.”

(It’s quite lovely, until you wonder what else is in the dark that you cannot see.)

Some mornings are dark, cold, the fields covered with ice.

Sometimes only the moon peeps behind ghostly shrouded mists, the morning stars not easily visible, obscured by the reflection of distant highways.

As Spring grows closer, the sun rises earlier and the pink tinged sky turns to a fierce roaring orange.

The sun—he’s tricky in the morning, shaping clouds into animals, flowers, monsters as he casts his beams again their backs.

Streaks of white criss-cross the sky, some drawn by defenders of the homeland, some traced by the finger of God whose love you can hear, if you listen.

Behind the clouds—magnificent in shape, color and hue, is glory, inflaming the clouds of the misty morning.

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The light of the moon is a reflection of the sun. Planets themselves do not produce light, but merely reflect the light of the stars.

The sun emblazons itself into the brain like an eye, but the moon bears silent witness to our little universe.

Against the black velvet of a city night, stars seem indistinguishable from thousands of satellites that hang above our planet.

What minds we have here on earth to create mechanical satellites to beam images and information back to Earth.

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But my field is now marred with pieces of a new building, my place of peace interrupted.

An enormous cement structure blocks the sun; everything is black top and concrete and trucks of busy people.

Most of the building has no windows, no view of the sun as it rises and sets or the stars as they twinkle on early winter mornings.

The wildflowers are mowed; no cardinals flit from milkweed to the old stop sign.

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What is a life?

Do you begin counting the days when you are born? When you successfully survive the fever of the teenage years?

Or when the brain settles cool at the age of 25?

Should we begin counting at the age of 35, at one time considered the half point of the 70 years designated by nature?

Or do we count our lives from the age of 50, our elongated time spans granted by modern medicine, food sources and the ease with which we now conduct our lives?

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We have bodies and, most believe, souls, but at the core of the human being is the spirit.

The outer part of the human is the body—senses, hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling—but surely the soul longs for awareness, for eternity and for a divinity that binds together the universe.

What then is the spirit that is at the center of the entire human existence?

Is it not the voice through which the divinity—the Christ—speaks?

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The body is a mask that covers the spirit—an outer clothing.

An ancient philosopher suggested that most people see only the shadow of a play taking place deep underground, nowhere near the blue sky above ground. This play takes place behind a curtain; actors move to a script, silhouetted by a fire burning behind them.

The audience of watchers does not know that the real world (the place where God dwells) has to be reached by a climb outside the cave.

Culturally the masks we wear—our bodies— are not necessarily representative of who we are.

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The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. (Zeph. 3:17) ***************

Blue Bird of Happiness   acrylic on wood