Rediscovering "Nature"

In the city, I had little opportunity to notice the natural world. For most of the time that I lived there, I was in one apartment after another. Trees and grassy areas were little green dots scattered amidst concrete and bricks. If I went walking in the neighborhoods, I had opportunity sometimes to watch dogs or cats or even, briefly, peacocks. For a while, a horse grazed across the street from one of my apartments. Even when I lived in a house, the yard was small and bathed in summer sun, and the lone willow I planted did not thrive, and the only natural things I experienced were insects and weeds. Well, I did get addicted to the singing of mockingbirds, but that was about the limit of my enjoyment.

But my goodness! In my home town I have discovered another world! Or should I say I have rediscovered the original world? My backyard is large and shaded by maples. In the past year I have enjoyed the pageant that marches through this yard.

There are squirrels. I have always enjoyed watching squirrels chasing each other up, down, and around trees. How in the world can they dart along such narrow branches or even telephone and power cables? They never seem to fall.

There are rabbits. Small, brown, thin, quick rabbits. The nearby farms have been overrun by coyotes and deer, and the rabbits have come into town. I'm sure the gardeners hate to see them coming, but I haven't yet tired of watching them as, like the squirrels, they chase each other and dodge and just seem to enjoy the act of running.

Oh, yes, the deer. I haven't seen any of them in my backyard, of course, because they are out in the country. So is my sister. I don't remember the occasion now - maybe it was Christmas Eve - but I was driving over to my sister's home, and I got my first close look at deer. There were three of them heading through the field toward the road, and I knew they were going to cross in front of me. I hit the brakes and just sat there, fascinated, as they crossed the road; they would leap and hang frozen in the air for a second, then come down and leap again, and they were across the road in no time. I still see that picture of brown deer silhouetted against gray sky and white snow.

Not to mention the dash of color if a male cardinal happens to be sitting on a tree branch as you drive past.

Oh, yes, birds. Robins and starlings and wrens and woodpeckers and cardinals and I even saw a goldfinch once or twice. In fact, that is what made me want to write this post. We had a series of nasty storms blow through one day last week, dangerously high winds, lots of rain, you name it. A lot of sticks get blown off trees when that happens, and after the excitement was over I was outside starting to play my own version of Pick Up Sticks. I found a bird nest that had been blown out of a tree. I have watched the labor - the bird picking up a piece of grass, the wings straining to lift, the bird flying up to the nest site only to come back for another piece of grass . . . I stared at the little oval on the ground. I could see how the grasses and weeds had been stuck together with mud and formed into this oval. It was just a nest to the birds, but to me it was a marvel. How did the bird form such a neat and perfect shape? It must have sat on the branch and built the nest around itself. And there weren't any manuals; the bird just knew what to do. Isn't this world a marvel?

One of the things I've needed to do, this past year, was to slow down. Internally. Notice the small events of life again. It must be working. Our Creator is in everything, I believe, including that bird as well as the grasses it wove into that oval nest. And I can take the time to find Him (or Her, or It) there.