Hidden in Plain View

Waking that morning, the change was palpable. Cooler, yes, but more than that there was a muffled stillness, as if a downy comforter had settled over the entire neighborhood. Rising, I went to the window and folded back the fabric shutters to peer out. Thick fog had drifted up silently from the canal, bunching up between trees and obscuring the road. Across our driveway, deep mahogany leaves littered the ground beneath the maple. While the plum was just beginning to turn, the snowball bush was aflame with color, though not yet willing to let go of its leaves. As I scanned the scene, something strange caught my eye - unusual white leaves scattered evenly about on the ground between the Snowball and a large Rhodie. Curious, I pulled on a robe, stepped into my fleece slippers, and went down to the kitchen. Grabbing a cup of coffee, I told my husband there was something I needed to see and headed outside. This is not unusual for me. During the summer, I often begin the day strolling the yard in my robe, coffee in hand, for I love to watch things grow. This moody fall morning, I had a date with those white leaves.

On closer examination, I discovered that they were not leaves at all, but finely-spun webs of the funnel weavers. The morning’s dew had settled on them, making them stand out conspicuously from the darker grass they were stretched upon. Deep inside, at the narrow end of each funnel, I knew that a small spider was hiding. On feeling the vibration of an insect crossing the web, the spider dashes out, bites the insect, and carries it down into the funnel. I wondered at the number of webs, as I hadn’t remembered seeing any of them before. When had they been spun and how long had they been there?

Patrick Edwin Moran

Cupping the steaming mug in my hands, I lifted my eyes to the surrounding trees and stood in wonderment. Stretched before me, between every conceivable branch and twig throughout the woods were a myriad of dewy webs. These, the work of orb weavers, were the typical spider webs that everyone recognizes. But that morning, they were far from typical. Each one, and they were of all different sizes and at various heights, stood out as glistening beadwork against the dark woods. Each bush, tree, and clump of tall grass as far as I could see was bedecked with more tiny strings of jewels, woven back and forth, as if some tiny beings had carefully decorated them. Was it really possible they had been there all along, revealed only with the combination of heavy dew and early sunlight? There must have been a million! I was humbled by the beauty of it all.

Just imagine how much exists in this world - right under our noses - that we never see. There is that old saying of not being able to see the forest for the trees. How many other mysterious wonders may be “hidden in plain view”? That magical morning I had a glimpse of the possibilities.

“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever,
      wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons;
      he sets up Kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise
      and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals deep and hidden things;
      he knows what lies in darkness,
      and light dwells with him.”
Daniel 2:20-22

The secret things belong to the Lord our God,
but the things revealed belong to us
and to our children forever...
Deuteronomy 29:29

Funnel Web Spider

picture file from Wikimedia Commons

The River Running Through Us

As I stare at the computer screen, I am mesmerized by the view, totally lost in the vast terrain. Before me spreads the incredible - surreal, really - Canyonlands of southeastern Utah. Upstream and one state removed from the better-known Grand Canyon, they are nevertheless equally impressive.

That we can instantly view these images with the click of a mouse is no less amazing to me. Captured by a small digital camera, the pictures were instantly available to view, delete, edit, and/or print. Labeled and viewed as a slide show, they can now be revisited any time we wish. We’ve viewed them often since that trip, studying the images carefully, turning them over and over in our minds in some feeble attempt to grasp their true size and significance. It is a daunting task for human brains.

Shimmering on the far-off edge of the horizon, dusky blue mountains fade into insignificance compared to the massive landscape before them. Here, through countless eons and numerous inundations of both fresh and salt water, layer upon thick layer of sand and gravel deposits were laid down. The most recent, topmost, layer is mostly flat, arid, and devoid of any large vegetation. The land here has been twisted, bent, stretched, and intruded upon volcanically. Most significantly, running water and wind have been ever-present - scouring and eroding through the layers of rock. The Colorado and Green rivers snake their way through this wild land, carving magnificent, deep canyons, leaving huge plateaus and colorful mesas above. Eventually merging southwest of here, they rush on to sculpt the mighty Grand Canyon.

The beauty of this raw land is awesome, but so are the dangers. One should not venture out into it alone or unprepared. In the rain shadow of the mountains to the west, it is barren and dry. Thunderstorms bring dangerous lightening and flash floods. Strong, sudden windstorms whip up thick clouds of dust. Without shelter or shade, the sun burns and dehydrates. With clear skies and high altitude, the air thins and freezes. Poisonous creatures lurk about. Viewed from above, the Canyonlands are an intricate maze. Without a good map, compass, and knowledge of the land, one could easily get hopelessly lost.

The two rivers meander slowly through this area, twisting and turning in giant, lazy loops. Their flat, silty bottom lands are lush with vegetation; wildlife abounds here. Overhangs and steep canyon walls offer shelter and shade, some measure of protection. There is life-giving water.

Our lives might be compared to these Canyonlands: multi layered, twisted, turned, stretched, intruded upon. We may struggle with grief, loneliness, betrayal, addiction, mental and physical illnesses, violence, poverty or disasters. We may feel that we’re been carved up, hollowed out, worn down, and carried away. But beneath the rugged landscape of our lives, flowing silently and steady as a river, the mighty Sculptor is at work - offering sustenance, shelter, protection. Creating beauty.

There is a river whose streams
make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the most High Dwells.

Psalm 46:4

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,

as clear as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

down the middle of the great street of the city.

Revelation 22:1-2

http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/canyonlands.htm

Wondrous Wetness

We had just arrived at the small fair in the tiny community of Utica - slap-dab in the middle of Montana - when it began. All morning we’d driven beneath cloudy skies, surrounded by miles of harvested grain fields in every direction. It was no surprise when large drops began to fall; what did surprise me was the reaction of the people who scurried frantically around donning rain bonnets and yellow slickers, popping open a few umbrellas.

It wasn’t that the rain was unwelcome; this region of the country had been suffering the 3rd cycle of drought since the dust bowl days of the 1930s. I could see the heavy, black clouds on the horizon, feel the wind pick up and remembered what these high prairie storms could be like. Still, a realization hit me as strongly as the wet gusts - I’d grown used to rain. So used to it in fact, that I rarely bundled up against it or altered activities because of it.

Before moving to western Washington, we’d always lived in dry climates. That rainy morning in Utica brought back a flood of memories. The sweet smell of rain against dry grasses and dust carried me back to hot, dry, summers and bright, crisp falls where rain was a rare occurrence.

Dark, brooding clouds and sudden, heavy winds usually came first and often moved through without a drop of rain. We, too, would dash about to secure or bring inside whatever might be harmed. When the rain did come, it poured, accompanied by deafening cracks of thunder and brilliant lightening flashes. Tucked away safely inside, we’d shout to be heard over the din and avoid touching anything metal until the storm was over.

Afterwards, there’d be standing puddles and miniature streams running along the street curbs. Children would wade and splash, floating small chunks of wood from one corner to the next, pretending they were boats. Adults would relax a little if no hail had fallen. Gardens would not need to be watered and farmers would be happy - for hail could ruin both.

Water has been here since the beginning. It helps to shape the land and determine what plants and animals live in any given place.

Although around 75% of the earth is covered with water, only about 3% of that is fresh. Over half of this fresh water is tied up in ice caps and glaciers, and much of the rain that falls seeps into streams and rivers.

These flow into the ocean and ultimately evaporate to return to the clouds. The small amount of water used by living things is recycled through respiration and wastes.

Imagine where the water - that you and I bathe in, brush our teeth with, and drink - has been before it got to us! And where will it go after it leaves our bodies? Since we are made up of 80% water, it is a vital part of us and we must have it to survive. It is a precious and finite gift.

Living here, rain becomes a part of everyday life. It is often the gentle, misting kind that goes on and on, day after day, sometimes month after month. We may complain about it or simply accept it and easily take for granted. We should not.

As this rainy season sets in, here in our little corner of the world, carefully consider the value of this wondrous wetness. Watch it fall from the sky, listen for its patter, inhale the musky fragrance as it seeps into the earth. Walk in it - let it dampen your hair, skin, and clothes - until it seeps into your very soul. We are indeed fortunate to have it - many others are not so lucky.

...’I will sprinkle clean water on you,

and you will be clean;...’

Ezekiel 36:25

He said to me: “It is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega,

 the Beginning and the End.

To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost

  from the spring of the water of life.

Revelation 21:6

Connections to David

Two small pieces of coal sit on our kitchen window sill. Gleaming black ebony, they're a good reminder of our past, present and future search for energy - difficult labor, lives, and decisions. They have an even more personal meaning for me.

Dad's Parents

Never knowing any of my grandparents - my father’s parents died before I was born; my mother’s died within a week of each other the year I was seven - I grew up hearing about each of them. I must have perked up my ears back then, as stories of them still swirl in my brain. A few details I remember came in handy when I began researching my family’s history a few years ago.

Mom's Parents

Some years after both my parents were gone, I discovered a small slip of paper in Mom’s handwriting among some of their paperwork which pointed the way. On it she’d listed her parents’ and grandparents’ names, birth dates and places. For her grandfather on her mother’s side she'd added: “Timberline, Mont, family moved - train, 1880 (David buried)?” Thus began an interesting journey for me. Searching genealogical web sites, talking with my two sisters, and communicating with distant relatives, I learned much that I had not known about this mysterious David Johnson. Today, I even correspond with one of his (and my) shirttail relatives in England!

My great-grandfather, David Johnson, was born in the coal mining area of Warwick, England in 1850. One of 13 children, he was born into a family of coal miners, silk spinners, and weavers. Probably beginning work at a young age, as was common back then, he also became a coal miner. In 1873, he married my great-grandmother, Elizabeth, and together they pursued the “Great American Dream”.

A Boarding House near Timberline

1880 Census records show them in Belleville, Illinois with their two young daughters, the oldest of which was my grandmother. A coal company train took them west to the small coal mining community of Timberline, Montana. During its heyday, Timberline, and other nearby mining communities, supplied tons of bituminous coal to fuel householders’ stoves, expanding railroads, and smelters for the emerging copper industry in Butte and Anaconda. Both David and Elizabeth toiled long and hard there. After he died, Elizabeth supported herself and daughters by working in a boarding house. By 1900, she and the girls had moved to Helena, where they remained for the rest of their lives. There seems to be no record of where, when, or how David died. My mother’s note leads me to believe he was buried in Timberline.

Old Coal Mining Community Near Timberline

Today, Timberline no longer exists and there is no trace of its cemetery. Several summers ago we visited the area and connected with a niece who lives near there. She graciously consented to drive me out to the site of the former mining community, so I do believe I’ve walked where my great-grandparents once lived. Old photos from the mining era show a ramshackle town strewn across barren, denuded hills. Today, it is lush and green with vacation homes scattered throughout the acreage. We drove down a gravel road where the old railroad once traversed and to the site of the former cemetery, now private property. Nothing of the "old days" remains there, except for the aura I felt in my bones and my soul. Although my goal had been to visit David’s grave site, I felt a peace simply being there. As we passed coal tailings on our way back, my niece thoughtfully jumped out and grabbed a piece of coal as a remembrance for me. When I got out of her car at our motel I accidentally dropped the coal and it broke cleanly into two pieces. Quite appropriately I think - for then and now; for past and present generations; for what they gave and for what we received.

I look at that coal in my window and remember - we are where we are today because of those who came before.

Then I realized that it is good and proper to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him - for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work - this is a gift from God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.

Ecclesiastes 5:18 - 19

All photographs of Timberline mining area from the book

 Photo History of Livingston - Bozeman Coal Country

By Bill and Doris Whithorn - Pray, Montana

http://www.friendsofygm.org/

Caterpillar Summer

So there it was: two alive, three dead, and eight nowhere in sight. I began to be hopeful...

It all began innocently enough. At camp this year, as always, I told the kids to look for bugs - to observe and gently capture any that we could learn something about during the week. On one of the first evenings, Jessica and her Grandma found and caught a huge moth they discovered resting on a tree. Dull grey and brown, with plump, furry body and wingspan of around 4 inches, it sported two bright blue eyespots on the bottom edge of each lower wing. Into a large, clean peanut butter jar it went and thus began our first "creature feature" of the week.

As surprised as this moth might have been to find itself entrapped, it held a bigger surprise for us - tiny yellow eggs began appearing on the sides and bottom of its container! The kids were enthralled; I found myself needing to explain the life cycle of a moth and the fact that it would soon die. By the end of the week my prediction had come true. The kids wanted to know what would happen to the eggs. Reluctantly, I told them that removing the eggs from the jar would probably destroy them and I doubted that they would hatch outside of their normal environment. I'd take them home and we'd see. Little did I know...

At home a week later, camp stuff still on the porch where I'd left it, a strange movement caught my eye. All around the lid of the jar crawled a myriad of tiny worms. I'd written the eggs off and forgotten about them, but now sprang into action. Where to put them? How to care for them? What were they, anyway??

Small enough to easily crawl through window screening, they were put in a cheesecloth-covered jar. Quick research identified them as Single-Eyed Sphinx moth larvae which would eat willow or poplar leaves only. Luckily, we have an abundance of native willows around, so my daily routine began to include picking fresh twigs for them. Smaller than the lead of a pencil to begin with, weeks of voracious eating ultimately led them to become plump, green caterpillars as big around as a pencil, each with a short, sharp "horn" at its rear end. Of course, I shared their progress with the kids!

Over a month had passed, and we were soon to leave town for a few weeks' vacation. I debated whether to turn the caterpillars loose to fend for themselves (and consider my efforts all in vain) or leave them well-stocked with willow twigs and hope for the best. I decided to risk leaving them - knowing full well that we might return to a bunch of dead worms.

Returning home, I approached their container with trepidation. They were not all dead, but where were those unaccounted for? Carefully digging down into the brown forest soil I'd left in the bottom, I discovered what I'd hoped for. There were all the missing ones; now inert and encased in brown, shiny skins, they'd done as they were meant to do - crawled underground and become pupae.

Mystery solved.

So ends the "summer of the caterpillars." Now there is nothing left to do, but wait...

I will wait for the LORD,

my soul waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

Psalm 130:5

To see what happened after the waiting, please click here:
Caterpillar Summer - The Sequel
 

Dem Bones

If intrigued with skeletons, closets are not the only place to look. I know of at least one that’s been hanging around  for some time - several years, at least. No, I’m not talking about our beloved cemetery.

Deeply attuned to the natural world, I consider myself to be fairly observant and regularly notice the comings and goings of any wild critter that happens to cross my path. For as long as I can remember, starlings have found wonderful (for them!) nesting places in the vicinity of our church’s roof. This is not a rare event - these birds are extremely opportunistic and readily make use of any niche that suits them, including that of another bird.

Lee Karney - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

 I must admit, I have a bone to pick with starlings. In short - I don’t like them. They are too adaptable, belligerent, numerous, noisy, messy, pesky, cannibalistic, push-everyone-else-out-of-the-way, take-over-the-world for my blood. Introduced from Europe in the late 1800s, they were part of one man’s scheme to put every one of the birds mentioned by Shakespeare into the New World. I think this man succeeded beyond his wildest expectations with the starlings. I have nothing against Shakespeare - he was a keen enough observer to note that starlings do have a wonderful gift of vocal mimicry. And, to their credit, they devour huge numbers of insects, spiders, and worms. In the early spring, their iridescent color rivals that of many other birds of beauty. Still, they are one of the few types of birds that we won’t allow in our yard - run them off every chance we get. If we didn’t, they’d simply take over this territory and claim it as their own - real bully birds.

For quite a few years, one of their favored nesting places at the church was a small hole under the eaves, left over from some sort of pipe. Totally protected, accessible only from the underside, with no branches or other perches outside the opening for potential predators to use, this seemed a perfect spot. Being as adaptable and agile as they are, the parent starlings had no trouble at all building a nest, laying and brooding a clutch of eggs, feeding and caring for the noisy offspring. Noisy they were - and very messy!

But one year something happened. I did not witness it, was not even aware of it until long after the fact. One day I thought to look up into that small hole - in the corner just above and to the right of the main door - and saw a complete bird skeleton peering out. Did the bird get caught in some way, suffer from an illness, too high temperature, or lack of water? Did something happen to the parent birds, leaving the too-young birds alone? Are there other skeletons wedged behind this one? I have no answers, but one thing is clear - the starlings have never again nested in that particular hole.

Even they, it appears, are afraid of skeletons ...

(The starling is mentioned only once by Shakespeare, in a passage which shows that in his time this bird, which has so remarkable a power of imitation, was taught to say some words. The fiery Hotspur declares that although the King had forbidden him to speak of Mortimer he would find his Majesty:
“When he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll holla ‘Mortimer!’
Nay,
I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.”
1st Henry IV – I, 3)

... “As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all came from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

     Now all has been heard;

          here is the conclusion of the matter

     Fear God and keep his commandments,

          for this is the whole duty of man.

     For God will bring every deed into judgment.

          including every hidden thing,

     whether it is good or evil.

Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 and 12:13-14