“Why did the bird die”,
Don Grier
asked my young daughter,,
the small bird with the fading yellow breast,
near our outside table.
Strange –
I never saw a dead bird in nature
without my cat lurking around
with a smirk on its face.
Why is that?
with the billions of birds that die
every day.
Where do they go?
Do they dissolve into the earth?
Or are the lifted up on the breath
of God.
I digress. So I answerd my daughter.
The birdie was flying home to its family
when it got caught in a storm and flew
into a tree and died.
She looked sadly at me,
much as for my weak answer as he lost bird.
“But why was Goldie,
away from her parents with a storm pressing
and the skies turing grey?”
Boy was I in trouble, now!
She had named the bird.
I should have know better,
with a precocious five-year,
and me not even knowing
where bird bones go.
So, I said that
Goldie was late from her
appointed time home after flitting
around with her friend Rocket Robin.
BIG MISTAKE!
Now she said, “Why did Mr. and Mrs. Chirpy let
Goldie fly to see Rocket when a storm
was coming?”
The parents were now involved.
I did not know what to do
with my wayward story as much as
I did not know where all birds
go when they die.
So I finally got smart,
Or seemingly so, and asked Kate
“What do you think was the reason,
poor Goldie died?”
She answered rightly and without hesitation.
“I don’t know everything!”
poetry
Lost, Then Found
We wander our lives,
Don Grier
With purpose unknown,
Our minds half-formed,
Our souls half-grown.
In a foreign place,
That is far from home,
We seek the forgotten,
Untethered, we roam.
God is watching us,
But we refuse to see,
The person and blessing,
We were meant to be.
We seek but are lost,
Oh, the games we play!
Where we’re going, what direction?
Not one of us can say.
So snatch us, Lord,
from the jaws of death,
Give us new life,
Give us new breath.
Help us to seek,
So we can be found,
Our sins all broken,
Our hearts unbound.
And with Your help,
It is not too late,
To find the good,
Forgo the great!
So Stop! Listen!
Forget the strife!
Find your purpose,
Breathe new life,
Find the person,
You were meant to be,
With soul unfettered,
With our spirit freed!
Unfettered Wings
There was rain in the forecast for Duluth,
the day after our glorious trek along the North Shore,
spying Lake Superior from a hill near Gooseberry Falls,
seabirds floating over the inland sea.
We decided to find an indoor attraction,
longing for rain, we still did not want to get wet,
since so much time had passed,
and we feared being soaked so far from home.
The aquarium was just this side of the Aerial Bridge,
where barges from around the world,
floated unrestricted into their temporary home.
The fish and aquatic life in the tanks mirrored those,
swimming freely in the depths of the Greatest Lake,
Lake Trout, Walleye, and Sturgeon, some that lived over 100 years.
We had finished the first floor and were moving to the second,
when something curious caught our eye.
There, in the gift shop,
was a solitary, plush Eagle.
My wife said, “Oh cute. Can we get it?”
But I thought, Eagles are majestic birds of prey,
Not to be sold as toys.
Eagles must fly!
We proceeded to the second floor
until, at the last corner,
a lone Eagle with a heavy beak and piercing eyes.
It perched on a miserable little limb,
staring wantonly through a screen at the wooded hills outside.
It never turned toward us but only looked dejectedly at its former home,
where we had roamed just the day before.
Eagles are meant to fly, to soar up toward the sun!
To carry us to freedom and spread the word.
What would St. John or Moses say
to see nature’s herald trapped behind such a paltry barrier?
You can’t put God in a box, nor an Eagle behind a screen.
Eagles are meant to fly!
Five Restorative Practices (and a Song!) to Heal Your Body and Soul
This is the first of two in a blog series on the importance of mindfulness. You can also hear this blog read and sung on Episode 17 of our Change Well Podcast
There is a definite connection between body and soul. Be happy, feel better. Share kindness, win friends, and feel good. On the other hand, when you are stressed or miss your workout, it is not always easy to turn the other cheek. Common sense confirms recent studies that caring for others improves the well-being of those you helped and your own!
I have struggled to learn this lesson. I am naturally an intense person and a bit of a curmudgeon—a person who is sometimes not kind to others, particularly myself. Driven to achieve, I occasionally drive other people out and beat myself up. This often led to regret, guilt, and, more often than not, an eating binge. A happy person is a healthy person, and vice versa.
That is why when I started on my weight loss journey, it was just as important to cleanse my soul as my body. I took several measures to help me improve my disposition and, correspondingly, my health. This is what I did.
- Write in my Kindness Journal – I journal six minutes daily in a Kindness Journal. It sets my daily goals for being a better person and helps me envision the person I want to become. It also provides me a place to recognize those items the day before for which I was most pleased (being kind to myself) and reflect on those who were kind to me. Lastly, I set my intention on one kind of beneficial act that I will do to make the world better for others. I use this particular journal, but you can use another Kindness Journal
- Record happy thoughts in HappyFeed – In addition to writing in my Kindness Journal, I record three things I am so glad about each day using the iOS application HappyFeed. You do not always have to write something earth-shattering. Sometimes, I write something like, “I got 8 hours of sleep last night!” The key is to dwell on what makes you happy rather than what makes you stressed.
- Pray, Meditate, and Give Thanks – There is no room for worry when thankful. You feel better about yourself and also those around you. Also, the Power of Thanksgiving can break through even the darkest hour. I spoke about this in the following blog. The Power of Thanksgiving
- Help Others – Helping others benefits those you help and others. First, when you allow others, you focus on them, not the issues you face. Also, you are so preoccupied with the task at hand, whether it is building a house for Habitat for Humanity or walking to raise funds to combat cancer, that you often do not have time to overeat.
- Smile – The simple act of smiling lightens your mood and that of others. Better yet, laugh; it is the best medicine, as they say.
Working on your heart and soul can make you a better person and help you lose weight – a double whammy (ok enough with the W’s). I have glorified this concept by establishing my most sacrosanct scheduled time of each day – Body and Soul Time. If you look at my calendar, you will see 6:00 – 8:00 AM each day, blocked out as Body and Soul time. This is when I do a weekly set of body and soul combos, combining mindfulness and prayer with exercise—more on next week’s blog.
But for now, let me close with, of all things, the importance of being third. A few weeks back, when thinking about Dr. King’s legacy and other selfless people like Gandhi and Mother Theresa, I tried to find the common thread that pulled them all together. And I realized it was because they were each Third – behind their religious beliefs and their care for others. I then thought about how hard it is to be Third in my life and thought of that classic song – “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” So, I decided to write this song/poem to the tune of It’s Not Easy Being Green. I hope you enjoy it, and my thanks to Kermit!
It’s Not Easy Being Third
It’s not easy being Third,
Putting yourself behind our human family and God’s word,
And people tend to pass you over,
cause you’re not in the latest fashion,
or have cool toys like some other guys.
But Third’s the purpose in your life,
And Third can help end earthly strife,
And Third can change the course of a nation,
Or build bridges to others, or define history.
When Third is what you are meant to be,
It could make you ponder why, but why ponder?
Why ponder, I am Third, it’s written on our Souls,
And it is where we are meant to be.