The Clumsy Flamingo

There was once an aviary in the zoo that was filled with parrots, parakeets and doves. As they floated and sang above peacocks and peahens dragged their shimmery cobalt and green tails along the ground.

Across the lawn and through the windows stood a flamingo. Alone in it’s kind, disconnected from the other birds, awkwardly tall with knobbly knees. The pigeons that sat on lions’ heads at the entrance of the zoo would cackle and laugh at each glance of the steps the flamingos wobbled through. The morning doves would coo with sympathy at the hardly noticeable height the flamingos would jump to with wings aimlessly flapping. All in all they were a mocked bunch of birds and so unsurprisingly most of the flamingos were distant, shamed and very unconfident.

Except for one.

There was one overly pink and preppy flamingo that, though most likely the klutziest that ever lived, was happy and confident. She ignored the stares of the pigeons and the pity of the doves; She delighted in the peacocks’ tails and always offered her compliments.

One morning a fellow flamingo stopped by the rock she was standing on and gazing up with a black beaked grimace asked,

“Why do you bother being nice to the other winged ones when they’ve never bothered being nice to us? Don’t you realize they think you’re ugly compared to them and clumsy and disgraceful?”

“I’m not ugly compared to them,” she said defensively. “Marv, I’m just a different kind of beauty. And I’m not disgraceful, I elegantly kind. And I’m not clum- oh. Okay, so I am clumsy but that’s not too bad. There are worst things to be.”

“Such as … ?” Marv rolled his eyes.

“Such as overly- sensitive, divided and rude. Perhaps too self-conscious to admire the beauty of those around me, or too bitter to let the sunshine be the thing I am most grateful for. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say.”

Marv sulked off towards the flock, dragging his large webbed feet through the mud, contemplating and simultaneously pouting.

But the clumsy flamingo paid him no mind, and turned to squawk her daily greeting to the peahens through the window, across the yard.

“Good morning beautiful friends! Isn’t it lovely today?”

“Of course it is.” They muttered back, “Of course it is for you.” They continued on with their grooming and grumbling, ignoring the observant stares of their flamingo “friend”.

The clumsy flamingo sighed and turned to step off her boulder, slipping and falling into the wade around her.

Yet, with a chuckle, she shook off the droplets of green water and stood back up, continuing her odd little strut back to the flock.

Eventually Marv would join her on the rock she claimed each sunrise. Because her view of the world, small and caged as it had been, was forever filled with a wonder she longed to share; that she loved to share. 

Justify Work, Beauty Becomes

I used to know

my art-  a place where

work

and

beauty collide

in the eye

and I

becomes

me and you,

people

of a hopeful group.

I want to

justify

my artwork.

I want to

work

as an artist.

But if

beauty

is in the eye of the beholder,

What

becomes

of the people whose eyes’ don’t

see like mine.

An Invitation to be Beautiful

“Sin is a serious business. But so is grace. I cannot say which is greater, but my preference is grace.” – Calvin Miller

There was once a statue, in the great land of Stone, who was the soft marble carving of a beautiful young woman, draped in a solid toga of white, touched with streams of gray. She always posed in a happy way, not with the solemnity that graced others of Stone.

She seemed almost airy, ethereal though set in hard rock, and her neighboring statue could not comprehend this appearance. Sculpted to be beautiful and eye-catching as well, the neighboring marble mass was also posed in welcoming way. With long white arms stretching outward as though eternally inviting a hug, and smiling faintly. Confidently open to any passerbyer, with veiny toga overlaying her kneeling stance. Yet, unlike her counterpart, this young woman of stone seemed…. More hard. More stoney.

Though the same material coated them, the inside of the first was filled with love and forgiveness and it’s mixture, which we call grace.

The second was also filled with love, she was alive after all, but not as much forgiveness, in fact a lot of bitterness, and anger, and therefore, a misunderstood grace.

To the crowds walking past the land of Stone and it’s occupants, the two otherwise similar sculptures, seemed unequal. For the first radiated from the inside out, while the next’s beauty caved from the outside in.

“What is this grace that makes you so beautiful?” The saddened statute asked, in her hollow, echoing voice.

“Grace is the daily forgiveness of every grievance, it is the mercy ever poured out for us and from us,” The young maiden replied with a soft rounded and full voice.

“I know that!” Snapped the kneeling stone, “but I cannot seem to achieve it. I know what grace is, but I don’t know how it is. How can it be that I should gain and interest in our Artist’s glory? I know I don’t deserve it. I know I cannot earn it. The problem is that I don’t know how it makes one beautiful.”

“But that is grace, an invitation to be beautiful,” her sweet speech answered.

The second statue had to let that phrase fester inside her, I wish I could stay overnight, but that is rarely how epiphanies work; it worked it’s way through every ounce of marble, behind every streak of gray between the white, under every hardened angst, over every worrisome memory, and eventually, it broke down the record of wrongs she had kept- not of others- but of herself.

And one dull and cloudy afternoon, the kind suggesting spring’s arrival, the Artist made his rounds through his treasured collections.

“How full of grace you are looking today,” He smiled admiringly and leaned down to hug her ever open arms. “How beautiful you are becoming.”

“Thank you,” She sighed, still only barely smiling through her marble face. “I am learning about grace everyday, and it is making my heavy heart not quite so rocky,” she admitted, in a tone no longer echoing.  

“So you’ve accepted My ongoing invitation,” He concluded cheerfully.

“Yes!” She exclaimed, with a solid and full sound, “though I do not even understand why grace is beauty- inducing.”

The Artist chuckled as He walked on, “I am grace, and you are becoming more like me…”

And that thought procured another long, daily shaping change for her as well. For she had always admired the creativity and power, and ability to move and walk, and to see all and know all the Artist did.

And all those changes, the daily, sometimes hourly, hardly distinguished alterations, began because she decided to forgive herself and be beautiful as her Maker was grace-filled and beautiful.   

 

“Friend of sinners, I missed the turn I needed. I should have apologized, worked more diligently, enjoyed my time there more, mended that relationship, said something when I saw her crying, initiated that friendship, spent more time with them, walked down that gravel road and admired the sunset more often.

You do not have time to stop and agonize over regrets. You must accept My forgiveness and the grace I give you to continue on. My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

(excerpt from a personal favorite blog: https://irestmeinthethought.wordpress.com/)

Take, Eat (This is my body broken for you)

Once upon a time in a distant city full of shamrock fields and aching old trees, down the curving streets of weathered flagstone, there sat a row of shops. Golden streams of morning light fell down the oaken shingles and lit up signs. One round one was for a bakery. And no sooner had the baker waddled over to unlock the door, then a young maiden walked in with an empty basket and coins in her hands.

“Good mornin’ ma’am,” the baker said cheerfully. “What ‘ere you lookin’ for this fine ‘un sunny morn?”

The maiden blushed the same sweet pink as her muddied frock and replied,

“Just a loaf of forgiveness please.”

“Ah!,” said the baker, motioning towards the curved glass display. “Freshly made this mornin’.”

“Good,” she sighed, in a calm yet tired voice. “I seem to keep needing more. It never lasts as long as I think it should.”

“That’s the ‘ting about forgiveness.” he sighed deeply in return. “We need it ‘erey hour.”

“Every hour?!” she gasped in surprise. “What must it cost! To partake in some every hour of every day, I cannot imagine.” As if in defeat, she added, “How much for your largest plumpest loaf?”

The baker spoke gently above the clinking as she rearranged the coins in her palm.

“A lot of patience,” he started, and she pulled two silver pieces aside. “A solid amount of graciousness,” and again the young woman set silver aside. “And all the love you own.”

Her piercing blue eyes looked sharply, yet sadly into the round face of the baker. There were no wrinkles of a teasing smile, nor any dimples suggesting a joke.

“All of it?” She questioned, knowing the answer but not wanting to admit the cost. “But he hurt me!” and with tears pouring out she mumbled through a story the dear baker had already heard. But he listened, not commenting or correcting. Nor mentioning her age, her lifestyle, or that she too deserved forgiveness. And when his ears had taken in all the anger, he brought them back to peace by humming.

A slow melody echoed through the tiny storefront, out the display windows and into the street. And children on their way to school joined in the tune. And women running morning errands began to hum too, till the whole city was filled with the underlying rumble of a song.

Tears still softly escaping, the maiden took out of her hand a large golden coin, with ornate engravings and the lyrics of the song the baker was humming.

“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”, she said, and placed the heavy money inside the baker’s hand.

He, in return, placed a grand loaf of steaming warm bread inside her shallow basket.  The scent of wood from it’s oven and buttery rosemary followed her back through the streets, up the pebbles of her drive and past the grasses of her lawn. She walked in through a back kitchen door and without hesitating, took one corner of her purchase to her mouth and ate her fill.  

The Shallows

She tipped toed into the icy water, and shivered as the liquid surrounded her skin. The rocky sand beneath her slid lightly forward and back with the rocking of the current. Peering, she looked for lovely stones and pebbles to add to her collection. A blue gray one here, a smooth red one there, and as she went to lift them up she discovered that they were exceedingly heavy. Looking at a smaller rough one she dipped her hand into the shallow water to lift to her basket, but again found that it was unmovable. Though it swayed lightly with its surroundings she was unable to carry it from the river to her container. She then set her basket down and with both hands strained to carry on with a different rock, but it refused to leave the shallows. Getting down on her hands and knees she pulled and tugged, frustrated at the lack of life around her, and at the beauty the river would not share.

Slowly, determined and hopeful, she laid out, bracing her feet on the shore, and digging her hands into the shoal she clawed at the stones.

This is a tragedy, so I hope you did not hope too much with her, because there she died; Drowned in determination, suffocated- not by the depth, nor the current, but in the safe place of the bay. Her last breath a mere bubble among the rocks.

And there her body remains, too exhausted to gasp for a breath, too cold to move out of the water. Feet still grounded to the shore, yet unable to leave the shallows.