I am resposting my children’s stories this week in case you missed them in the busy-ness of Merry Christmas!
Where the Wild Winds Blow: Part 1
One spring day when the little winds
danced and dipped
and made mischief
in the sunny shine,
a little boywind
blew along
the great sky path
with his father,
the great North wind.
It was time
for the little wind
to see
what a wind does.
“What’ll we do today, Papa?”
the little wind,asked
his great, burly-winded father.
“Will we roll the world ‘round, Papa?”
The great North Wind laughed,
and the wild winds whirled,
“Listen and hear
Watch and See,
What the wild winds of the world be.”
Holding a list of chores,
the father took
his son’s hand
to do Big and little things
Little and big
at the Fall corner of the world
where green tree leaves flamed
red, yellow, orange.
Marking his list,
the great North Wind
bent and picked
s e e d s
tree seeds, flower seeds,
apple and green bean seeds
from the earth’s floor.
The little boywind watched,
then smiling,
held out his hands
for filling
with windfalls of seeds.
palms filled,
he blew
seeds
while the wild winds
covered them
with dirt and decomposing
leaves
“Now we must water them
with rain,” said the papa wind,
shaking rain onto
tiny seeds that slept and burrowed
deep
The little boywind
watched
his father roll
bales of rain
into the cloud fields
great, gusty cloud bales
rolled
rumbled
flushing birdly feathers
from beneath fiery boughs of
autumn leaves.
“cackle cackle,” cried the geese.
buzzards angrily circled
and cranes whooped away
for there was little to eat.
even mallards ducked
Some Other Where.
Some birds stayed,
Red Robin, Sally Sparrow,
Mr. Crow,
but even their calls
and songs
hushed.
Finding themselves in the Winter corner of the World,
Father and Son blew
Winter
with huffing, blowing puffs of gusts
at
a lone little boyman
building a snowman.
swirling gently down
they rubbed red into cheeks and tousle hair
on many a day
and for many a coldly week.
Hurley, burley winds
breathed a bare stick beat
against window pane drums:
clackity, clackity, clack
cold North Winds go back
clackity, clackity, clack
take with you your great
chill and snow clouds black
clackity, clackity, clack
The world sighed and slept
as father and son wind walked quietly,
sometimes loudly,
whistling, groaning,
tucking the world
beneath blankets of snow
“See my breath, Papa,
see it roll
over the valley floor?”
the little wind laughed,
puffing, blowing,
rolling mists and fogs
through mountain hollows and tops.
“Is it for the boyman, we do this?”
he puffed.
His father stopped and thought,
“We walk with man.
We talk with man,
and sometimes
he hears us
as we do him.
By our noise,
he recognizes the seasons:
Spring by our thunder, bark, clap, kiss.
He knows to plant
after we blow grass
to grasscicles
one last time.”
Rounding up their mists and fog,
they flew
home
to a sycamore treetop
where motherwind brewed warmness
as gentle, southerly winds do.
I remember meeting my mom and step-dad for dinner at Boone Tavern in Berea, Ky quite a few years ago. My husband wasn’t allowed to enter the restaurant without a jacket. Fortunately, they had a ready supply for their male guests.
How many times in our daily life do we set up “Keep Out” signs in our lives with others because they don’t use the right language, wear jeans without holes, have hair the right length, have the right life plans – and, like the jacket, without the “jacket” we don’t allow them entrance into our conversations, our activities, our lives, our hearts.
These jacket-less people who aren’t allowed in are kind of like Jesus – He wasn’t born in the right place, raised by the right people, and didn’t have the right job. The world didn’t know He was anybody – but God knew him, knew what was on the inside, knew the Word within him – knew this young man was created to save the world.
How many times do we judge by the jacket of a person’s life?
How many time do we judge ourselves that way? Hide our gifts because we don’t have the world’s stamp of approval?
How many times do we have gifts to offer others that we hold back – hold back because we worry they are not good enough? How often I have looked at my gifts as paltry while the Father looks at them with delight? And, because they seem paltry, I hold the gift back.
I’m trying to look at my gifts this season as God sees them. Gifts, little and Big, big and Little are meant to be shared – no matter how imperfect or perfect they are – and I am going out on a limb and sharing a gift I created to be given. It spent 22 years being held back – but, today, I am releasing that gift to you.
Where the Wild Wind Blows is a jacket-less storybook. It’s a picture book without pictures. But it belongs to me – and I love it whether it has a jacket or not. Can you love it without a jacket? Are you ready for a little wind in the blogahood?
