Just Write: Enter

I used to write songs, and the best ones were like a current of wind passing by that I opened my sails to and jumped in the thick of.  It's the same with story.  The best kind of story, like the truest kind of song, is always the one that we enter into.

And that's how today, on my walk home from physical therapy, I passed by the park that I love, and I looped back around and crossed the street and entered into its sanctuary.  This, the park of my summer, of early mornings, leisurely afternoons, or farewells to the day, is where I found myself in a season of healing.  In the water.

But this late afternoon, the leaves were on the ground in piles of brittle, rust-colored carpet; the day eeking out a final breath of sunlight; the air turning my fingers purple.  Black feathered bodies filled the empty spaces among the tree branches and geese covered the grass of the lower beach.  Were it not for my walk, to and fro in pursuit of healing my leg, where I emptied the toxic bitterness of a stressful day, all this would have been lost on me, too full to hear it at all.  Too full to enter in.

But I paused, at the water's edge, emptied.

The weight of a thousand cares rolling off into the sand, the rustle of wind and feathers swept my eyes up.  One crow, flying straight up into the air, paused, then spiraled downward, slow and elegant, again and again.  Others called to each other from tree top to tree top.  A woman walked in, dog on a leash, and the flock of geese beat wings into wind into song and skidded across the water.  

I watched, with tears rolling down, as birds bathed and drank and played in the lake, no cares for tomorrow.  How I wished to be like them.  And I felt it, this hush of the sacred, here in this place empty of humans.  There's glory here, at the edge of a day, among the birds, between the trees, across the water, carried in the wind.  It's a curtain, pulled back, a song passing through.

 I opened my mouth, and the words of an old song my Papa loved tumbled out,

We are standing on holy ground

For I know that there are angels all around

Let us praise Jesus now

For we are standing in his presence on holy ground.

And I entered in.

*Joining up with Just Write a day later than usual, with Heather King's blog.