Eagles - Written February 2011

And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand….

The last few weeks I’ve felt like I was in a holding pattern. Just kind of waiting for something…not sure what just something.

Now, here’s where the above part comes in…I’ve been spending any time I’m not out walking or picking the boys up from school sitting in the same place in the same room for the last said amount of weeks.  From this vantage point I have a clear view of the sky and the trees that reach up to it from the gully in the back of the monster house.  Notice I did not refer to this as a back yard as there is none.  But the good part about all this is that we do have a gully and since there is a marshy area, wildlife abounds out back. Not only the two-legged little boy kind that loves the adventures out there, but wildlife in the gully is an awesome example of the food chain.  In the backyard are various types of squirrels and other rodentia and just as wide a variety of birds.  The birds that eat the rodentia have a veritable feast below the canopy in our gully.

 As I was sitting, wasting away and occasionally breaking out in tears of boredom and gluttony and self-pity, towards the end of last week I saw a huge bird swoop down and perch on one of the branches of one of the trees out back.  Out of the corner of my eye, or maybe during a commercial or maybe even as I prayed that I would feel more whole instead of life less, it launched itself off the branch and into the air so fast I scarcely could see it. It dove into the gully and as it did I leaped off my perch and watched to see if I could see where it went and what squirrel mcnugget it was going to call lunch.  It disappeared.  Over the course of the past week I kept watch for my newfound bird intrigue.

 Then one day, I saw it.  Up high in a tree against a bright sunny winter sky. The White head and yellow beak of a picture perfect bald eagle. Now you really don’t normally associate Michigan as home to our national bird, but I’ve seen them out at the park that I had been planning on perching at in my spare time but had never seem to get to in the past couple of weeks. Maybe God sent them this way to the gulley just for that reason.  If the mountain won’t go to Mohammad…

Anyway, this particular day, I saw the eagle. It started in one of our windows and flew across the width of the gully just like in one of those endangered species commercials! It was awe-inspiring!  I couldn’t believe it. Over the course of the next week or so I would see it’s flash as it went after some tasty treat in the gully.

 A few days later, I realized I hadn’t seen it in a while. I looked out the window every now and then and saw a flock of nasty blue jays and an occasional gold finch, of course lots of squirrels but the eagle hadn’t been around lately.

 Then it happened. Luck seemed to turn just as the calender turned to the new month.  I went out for one reason or another and came home to find a sub job open. I needed it. I grabbed it.  Then I checked my messages. A job I had applied for three weeks ago had called me for an interview.  On my son’s birthday no less!  Another day went by and I had to take my son to the doctor and was getting close to a deadline that I had missed the week before.  The deadline had been extended by a week, so I hurriedly tried to get them done when I hit a computer glitch. I e-mailed the woman in charge then took a breath and tried again, this time with success.  I got 3 of my 4 applications completed. I took the little guy to the dr. and got home to find an e-mail form the woman asking me to call her, that they had gotten though but she wanted to make sure the glitch  wasn’t keeping other people from applying as well.  I called her and was telling her about something I had done in the past and she is very excited about running a similar program here in my hometown.  She’d like me to run it. 

The Eagle flew away and I guess God decided that was it was time for me to fly. Time for me to feel my spirit regain strength in the palm of his hand.