The Spirit Needs a Forrest

"The Spirit needs places where Nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man."

Recently, I chanced upon this quote. I do not know who wrote it, but it spoke to me and set me to thinking.

When I was growing up, I had the good forture to live next to a forrest - Lee's Woods - and a Daddy and Aunts who were at home in the woods.  We thought nothing of tromping through those woods for hours at a time. I never saw them as dark or forbidding or scary, but rather I felt at home among the towering trees,  sunlight filtering through the leaves.  With my active imagination, I found that place  to be magnificent and magical, full of surprises and treasures.

When I was no more than 10 or 11, I discovered the poem, "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant and, while I did not comprehend the poem was about death, I did understand the opening lines...

     "To him, who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various lauguage." I had heard that voice of gladness and felt the 'smile and eloquence of beauty.'  I had experienced the mild and healing sympathy of Nature.  I "felt" Nature. I understood her language.

Mu soul - my spirit - needs the quiet, soothing communing with Nature.  There have been many times throughout my lifetime that I have felt God's presence in a church.  I have never failed to find Him in Nature - especially those 'places where Nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.'  I can't help but think how much better this world would be if folks just spent a little more time communing with Nature.

I am reminded of that old Dial soap commercial... it could be .....

"Aren't you glad you love Nature?  Don't you wish everybody did?"

This Little Piggy Stayed Home

Back in the mountains when your Grandparents were young, life on the farm was hard.  There was no electricity, no running water or indoor plumbing, and no nearby grocery store.  Farms had to be self-sufficient. Farm folk raised their food, made their clothes, repaired what was broken and made do with what they had. 

Crops of cotton and corn were grown to support the farm. Most farmers kept a few cows for milk and a mule or two for plowing.  Hogs, and chickens were allowed to range free and forage in the woods for food.  They, along with wild game provided meat for the family.  The farm wife kept a vegetable garden and canned, or put by, fruits and vegetables to feed the family throughout the year. 

Fannie Lee had lived her whole life on a farm.  She accepted the hard work without question and gained pleasure from little things. The flash of a hummingbird or song of  a red bird, the satisfied hum of the chickens as they pecked about the yard, the soft fur of the kittens rubbing against her ankles.  She would pause while sweeping off the porch to watch fluffy white clouds drift across the blue sky. She admired the muted colors of the hens and chicks growing in rusting pails on the front porch, the only plant she had time to tend.  She had a soft spot in her heart for all young, growing things, for all God’s creatures.

While she could pluck a hen and fry it up to golden, delicious crispness, she could not bring herself to kill it.  On a day she planned to have chicken for dinner, she let Wheeler know before he headed to the fields.  He was the one to capture the unfortunate fowl, chop its head off and hang it on the clothesline. Fannie Lee took it from there and proudly piled the crisply fried breasts and legs on her Blue Willow platter and set it on the table.

Each fall, Wheeler would take one or two hogs and pen them up. For the next month or two these hogs would be fed on corn. The corn diet fattened them up quickly and made the meat tender and tasty. The butchered hogs would provide bacon, sausage, hams, chops, ribs and lard enough to feed the family for the coming year.

Fannie Lee knew this. She knew they needed the meat.  Still, just as she could not bring herself to kill a chicken for Sunday dinner, she couldn’t stand the thought that the pigs penned up down at the barn would soon be hanging in the smokehouse.

One sleepless night, as she wrestled with her thoughts, a plan began to form.  Quietly she slipped from the bed and in her nightdress, crept through the darkness to the barn.

The hogs, hearing her soft footsteps, inched to the fence to eye her suspiciously.  Fannie Lee hesitated only briefly, then stepped forward and lifted the heavy bar that secured the  gate. The hogs, sensing freedom, rushed through the opening and disappeared into the night.

Fannie Lee smiled. She knew Wheeler would round them up again tomorrow and soon enough they would be reduced to bacon and hams. Tonight though – tonight they were free.

Lesson 4 - Find Your Voice