Category Archives: Outdoor world

Hip Hop

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I used to have a green thumb. Mom was an enthusiastic gardener who’s skill at tending things made it all grow, and she tutored me. For decades my Illinois gardens were happy.

Since moving to Michigan, however, I haven’t done as well. I thought my yellow cottage could resemble a Thomas Kincaid painting if I hung flowering window boxes, so I bought 3 of them. Their northern exposure meant 100% shade, but I figured impatiens or begonias would work.

I tried both over 2 consecutive summers, but the boxes never looked good. Last year I purchased new groups of plants 3 times over, but saw the demise of all 3 sets. This year, though, I have a fool proof plan. Blossoms are guaranteed, because the flowers I planted are… artificial. Their label bragged they could fool anyone, so yesterday, the day before my Sunday brunch for 14, I brought the 3 window boxes into the house to set them up with white flowers and beautiful plastic asparagus fern.

While I assembled gardening tools, the 3 window boxes (full of last year’s moist potting soil) sat on my dining room table, and when I came back, I got a big surprise. The table was alive with critters who’d been living in the window boxes while it wintered behind the evergreens.

There were roly-poly bugs, ants, spiders, and several earth worms making their way across my table, exploring their new surroundings. I knew my brunch guests wouldn’t appreciate critters crawling over their feet or (gulp) their coffee cake, so had to move fast.

In keeping with my policy of never harming an outdoor creature when it’s outside but signing its death warrant inside, I started with the spiders, then finished off everything else except the worms. They received grace and were relocated in the yard.

After that, the plastic planting proceeded without a hitch except when a frog suddenly jumped out of the third window box. About the size of a plum, he startled me but quickly hopped to the table, chair, and floor, ultimately finding shelter next to a table leg. After making several unsuccessful grabs, I laced myself through the chairs trying to put a hand over him, but he always stayed one hop ahead of me.

In a way his moves imitated what I sometimes do when I hop away from God’s plans to carry me out of one of the messes I’ve made, favoring my own route out. He has every intention of liberating me, but when I pray for his direction and he responds with a protective hand over me, I jump right out from under it. Then when I get into trouble a few hops later, I beg him for rescue.

The frog didn’t know I had a good plan to carry him back outdoors. And because he wouldn’t let me hold him, he might have signed his own death warrant. Although I kept trying to catch him, in the end he completely disappeared.

Thirty-six hours later, I still haven’t found him.

“Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” (Proverbs 19:20)

One Way

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All of us look for road signs telling us the right way to go, especially while driving. We also watch for signs warning us not to go the wrong way. Turning down a one way street facing oncoming traffic, for example, isn’t something I’d recommend, though I’ve done it many times.

In my neighborhood there are several “signs” that were “posted” 300 years ago when a Potawatomi Indian tribe lived here. Padding single file through the dense woods on moccasin-shod feet, they needed markers to let each other know where the good fishing and hunting was, or which paths led to good portage points for their canoes, or where to find mineral resources.

To accomplish this, they bent young saplings at right angles to the ground, strapping them down with vines or handmade ropes. As the young trees grew, they assumed the sharp angles, and when native eyes scanned the forests, horizontal lines of bent trunks stood out among the vertical trees. The tree elbow, then, was the pointing “arrow” of these unusual signs, and I’ve heard tell we have a couple of them left in our neighborhood.

Yesterday I found one. I think.

As I stood and looked at that tree trying to visualize these same woods 300 years ago, I couldn’t help but think of what the Indians must have looked like walking along the wooded dunes just like I was. I wanted to step back in time to see how they lived. Research says they wore buckskin clothes and feathers in their long hair. They killed game with bows/arrows and used spears to catch fish.

The women “wore” their babies and did most of the farming of grains and vegetables. It sounds like they all worked hard, and if I could live with them for a week, no doubt I’d learn a great deal about my neighborhood and how to exist in it without the benefit of stores, cars, or computers.

Of course I can’t travel back 300 years, but it’s a pleasant thought to remember that God lived in my neighborhood back then, loving the Potawatomi when they were here, just as he loves those of us currently in the neighborhood. He’s no respecter of persons, in that he longs to gather all of us into his family, regardless of where we sit on history’s time line.

I’m not sure what the Potawatomi knew about the “one way” signpost to heaven being Jesus Christ, but I’m confident God had custom-made signs in nature that showed any seekers the way.

I only have one question: would I look ok in buckskin?

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 John 3:1)

An Eight-legged Reminder

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Today, despite brisk winds and 55 degrees, I decided to take a break from tax stuff, writing work, and errands, to spend an hour at the beach. After packing a bag, I leashed Jack, and off we went.

Just as I plunked my back pack on the sand and was reaching inside for a Coke Zero, a hopping black spider scurried up next to me. I didn’t want to share my patch of sand with him, but when I moved left, he did, too. When I went right, he followed. We were playing chicken over one square yard on a massive, empty beach.

“Really?” I said, looking down at him. “Can’t you go someplace else?”

As if mocking me, he jumped straight up and into my open back pack. Because its contents were a jumble of beachy things, finding him was going to be difficult. I unzipped the bag, laying it as far open as it would go, and spotted him nestled between my sun glasses and a granola bar.

“See the sun?” I said, holding the bag open. “This way out.”

He began climbing over pens, paper, and a chapstick heading for freedom, but as he stood perched on the zipper’s edge, he took a flying leap and landed on my hand. I flinched, and wouldn’t you know it, he jumped right back into the bag.

I decided to repeat my strategy but this time face the back pack away from me. Sure enough, in less than a minute he had again crawled as far out as the zipper, hopping to the sand from there. Then he made an about-face, ran toward me, and dashed up my pant leg.

I shook my leg, and watched him fall to the sand, where he stayed. Using both hands to scoop him up along with the sand he was sitting on, I tried to fling him away, but he hopped out first and landed at my feet. One quick stomp would have done him in, but I opted instead for a swift kick, sending him sailing toward the dune. When he landed, he headed back my way, but I bombarded him with sand until he was buried.

It occurred to me that God pursues us much like that spider, relentlessly wanting a relationship with us. He tracks us out of a pure love that wants what’s best for us, which of course is him. Sadly, just as I worked to get rid of the spider, we can work to push God away, too. And if we do it long enough, he lets us go-it-alone until we’re buried in troubles. Digging out after that is difficult, but when we do, he’s still there waiting, offering himself and his love once again.

Eventually my beach spider reappeared and scampered over to “love” Jack instead of me, which didn’t seem to bother him and was fine with me.

“God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (Romans 1:20)