World Wanting Peace

Phoebe and The Snake...a Story of Ultimate Victory

Charlsa came running into the kitchen, screaming, "David, it's a snake. Oh, David, it's a snake..."

We live in the woods. Snakes are not uncommon. Seldom is it more than a shock, and seldom does it cause us to get a little hysterical. Basically, we've learned to live together: Don't bother me, I won't bother you.

But this snake had brought a small tragedy into our lives.

Here's how it began...

Earth Day is not just any ol' day. . .or is it?

I never thought much about Earth Day. To me, it was just a day when a lot of people got together and cleaned up parks and roadsides. Not me. . .other people.

And that's cool. I like the Earth. How could a day celebrating it be bad?

But I wasn't really connected to it. In fact, I lived in the city for so long, I'd forgotten there was much of the Earth out there.

But a few years ago, my wife and I moved to the deep forest where we got wrapped up in the preservation of all life around us. Cutting downs trees to build our house. . .

Feeling a little lusty here in North Alabama . . .

We're in the midst of a Spring extravaganza as my wife says. Temperatures are rising and soon it will hot and humid.

But today, in the forest where we live, the trees have exploded into avalanches of green, and the stream is alive with the sounds of love. . .well, maybe it's lust.

What goes up doesn't necessarily come down!

Not long ago, our cat climbed the tall trees around our house and refused to come down.

We tried all the tricks:

• Opening a can of tuna and putting it at the base of the tree.
• Standing below and sweet talking it.
• Leaving it alone till it figured out how to come down on its own.

Nothing worked. She cried all day and all night.

It was pitiful.

The first time she did this, I was traveling for the week. My wife called and said, "What do I do?"

"She got herself up there. She'll come down when she's ready," I said.

That advice was filed in the "no-help" category. She called the volunteer fire department. They really didn't want to call out the boys to come drag the cat out of the tree either.

At the end of the second day, I called her back and told her that according to resources on the web, cat's (almost) always come down between the third and fifth day when they get hungry enough.

"FIVE DAYS!?" came roaring through the phone line. "I'm not waiting five days. She'll be dead!"

She was overreacting of course. The cat came down, hungry and tired, and extremely affectionate for an otherwise crabby cat.

"See," I said. "You just have to let nature take care of itself. We didn't have to worry about her. She knew how to solve her own problem."

Two weeks later, I was working from home. The cat went up another tree - all the way to the top! All day, while my wife was at school teaching and I was home, tapping my computer at the kitchen table, while the cat cried outside the window.

On the second day, I stood at the base of the tree and talked to the cat trying to coax her down. With her big eyes locked into mine, she talked back to me as if she were pleading for help. After breakfast I put the little bit of yogurt that remained my bowl under the tree and clanged the spoon against the side of the dish. That sound always draws her.

She looked at me crying even harder. If I could talk CAT, I'm sure she was saying, "Of course, I want that yogurt, you idiot. But do you see me - I'm 50 feet in the air in this huge tree!"

I was feeling pretty helpless.

After lunch, I dragged the 40-foot extension ladder to the tree and precariously positioned it on a slanting hillside so I could get a little higher in the tree. Then, donning a long sleeve shirt and leather gloves, up I went, one shaky step at a time.

The cat went higher.

I stepped on the top rung - right on the yellow sign warning me not to use the top rung as a step - and climbed another 7 or 8 feet up the tree.

As I looked down, I realized I'm a 52-year old seditary man, 20 pounds overweight (on a good day) and about 50 feet off the ground coaxing a scared cat to come a little closer so I can grab her - or worse - so she can grab me.

"This is a disaster in the making," I remember thinking.

Latching onto the cat by scruff of the neck, I held her at arm's length so that her horizontal paws, flailing at me like a small windmill with claws attached, couldn't get me. I shinnied down the big oak  leaving deposits of flesh from my one arm wrapped tightly around the bark while peeling the cat off of every limb within paw-reach.

Slowly, and sweating off most of that 20 pounds, we made it to the ground.

When my wife came home, she looked at the tree where the ladder still leaned and said, "Tell me you didn't climb that tree."

I confessed.

"I couldn't take it anymore. The cat needed our help and somebody had to rescue her. She gets scared of something, runs up the tree and can't come down by herself."

She thought for moment, looked at me, and said, "That's Ryan, too, you know."

My youngest son, scared for the moment, climbs a metaphorical tree and can't come down. So, for years I, or another member of his family, climbed up to rescue him.

I hate it when she's right!

The Four Forbiddens - Part 1:
Birds -- No Bees

About dusk, we hear him wailing across the stream -- in a desperate sexual frenzy. The Whip-Poor-Will starts his nightly hunt for a female to bed down with. A strictly nocturnal bird, he sleeps all day on the forest floor disguised as ground cover and comes alive as the sun goes down.

Sounds like some of my old friends.

Like them, I imagine the Whip-Poor-Will hanging out at the bird bath, Michelob in hand, chattin' up the chicks! He's using his best line -- a loud, shrill, distinct whistle.

And he doesn't let up! All night long, he circumnavigates our house chasing the birds! Unless he hears a girl off in the distance, he keeps talking -- showing off, bein' all sexy! And finally, little Whip-Poor-Willhimena, takes pity on him and he does a little Whip dance.

Obviously, I don't know much about Whip-Poor-Wills or other birds, so I make up the facts as I see them. (My apology to real birders.) I didn't know much about sex either, so I made up those facts too. When I think about sex (you may remember that was the first of our Four Forbiddens -- the other three topics that we don't dare speak about in polite company were Money, Religion and Politics), Whip-Poor-Will represents one segment of the population I knew briefly pretty well -- the prowlers.

The prowlers hang out wherever the action is, looking for the next sexual conquest, while stoking the ire of the righteous who are convinced that talking about sex in constructive ways only feeds the afflicted -- the sex maniacs as we use to call them when I was a kid. As children, we used to whisper about "sex maniacs," especially the female of the species, the "nymphomaniacs." In all my years of . . . Well, never mind. Just suffice it say, I never met one.

Unfortunately, the prowlers, maybe the poor Whip-Poor-Will too, have confused sex with love. Lonely people confused by peer pressure pursue the idea that if only someone would sleep with me, I'll feel less alone. I'll feel good. I'll find fulfillment in that other person. And, especially today, when sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise, Russian Roulette could be a similar, less deadly diversion.

Maybe I'm just old, but "sexy" has taken on new meaning. Beautiful younger women are cute, but give me an independent woman with a brain any day! I have to admit I wasn't always like that: When my daughter was 23, I embarrassed the bejeesus out of her by dating a woman who was near her age!

But I know that women my age see sex (and what's sexy) differently too. One day, when my wife was watching Oprah (whew! Almost admitted I was watching Oprah! Good catch!), I overheard her saying:

Yes, a woman thinks foreplay is when a man washes the dishes!

It's easy see why the world's confused about sex and love though. Sex sells -- everything! What were the most popular television series of the last couple of years? This year's Desperate Housewives picks up right where last year's Sex in the City leaves off - if the New York girls moved to suburbia.

How does that old song go? Looking for love in all the wrong places . . . That was code in my generation for idea of sex. We all knew it. Today, we don't need a code. It's just out there, but not in a constructive way. My beautiful wife teaches music to high school students. She ask them last week which radio stations they listened to for the popular music. She wanted to be in touch. Immediately, and many times after, she's heard a song by 50 Cent. (First, what kind of name is that?) Here are the lyrics - at least some of them:

Candy Shop (By 50 Cent)

(50 Cent)
I take you to the candy shop
I'll let you lick the lollypop
Go 'head girl, don't you stop
Keep going 'til you hit the spot (woah)

[Olivia]
I'll take you to the candy shop
Boy one taste of what I got
I'll have you spending all you got
Keep going 'til you hit the spot (woah) . . .

. . . Okay, enough already. I'm not posting the rest -- I'm blushing. But if you want to read it (it's way over the top -- makes Wake Up Little Suzy seem like a nursery rhyme,) go to this site.

I've got another bird story -- the antidote.

While Mr. Whip-Poor-Will is stumbling home from his nocturnal carousing, knocking over trashcans and just generally making way too much noise, before going to bed, Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, who mate for life by the way, have been flitting around the dogwood tree chirping merrily welcoming the day.

I was sitting in my favorite chair one morning this week when I saw a red streak flash by the window. I looked across the deck to see Mrs. Cardinal sitting on a branch near the bird feeder. Mr. Cardinal flew up, landing in the feeder bowl, and came back to the branch next to the little wife, gently nosing toward her as she turned to get the seed from his beak that he was offering. With a gentle kiss, he gave her the seed, then hopped up a branch to give her space as he watched her enjoy it from above.

That was love. And very sexy! The proof's in all the little Cardinals running around. What a peaceful and beautiful co-existence the Cardinals shared that day! Mr. Cardinal taught me two lessons that day:

1. Nothing is more sexy than a confident, happy, independent woman
2. True love is a lot less noisy than sex maniacs on the prowl

Rolling Thunder

As I sat on my covered porch this morning meditating (ever-so-briefly), I listened to the thunder roll in from the northwest. The birds ran for cover leaving only the soft rain on the roof as it gently lulled me into a deeper reality.

It's just 9:30 a.m. I've been on two conference calls since 8 a.m. and revised a deal presentation for a good friend and client. They are very important to me, both the deal and my client/friend. But the soft rain, like God's background music, and the rolling thunder that lasts for minutes at a time, like the Spirit's voice softly beckoning me to merge with creativity this morning -- that's really important.

Rain on the Porch

As I sat, eyes closed, breathing slowly, my mind wandered to the conference calls. I brought it back to the breath, the sustaining doorway to clarity and right thought. Focus on the breath. Breathe in -- deeply. Breathe out -- deeply. In. Out.

Client deals. There they are again. And before I know it, I'm thinking about work, but I'm thinking clearly. I see the future in that moment, and feel it now. I create a vision for my life in just a split second and realize that I'm actually already living it. Tomorrow, it may be different. Yesterday, it was complete. Now, I'm living the vision.

Come back. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Listen to the thunder calling me deeper. Still with my eyes closed, a lone cardinal flies to the rail and whispers approval.

Spring Greening

Suddenly, it became very green.

In the throws of winter doldrums, I long for spring. About January 15th, I begin watching expectantly each morning. Is it time? Show me a sign. Just a bud. Maybe a tick up on the thermometer. Show me something green, I beg.

Then, sleepily, I gaze out the window and -- boom -- there it is. Full-blown spring. The stream bed turns from sluggish, muddy brown to vibrant, screaming green. Not just the green of summer, the green that envelopes you in a dark, luxurious solitude, but a green that explodes out of the ground after a rejuvenating six-month nap.

It's the green that says, "I'm back, I'm bringing my friends, and we're ready to PART-TAY!"

And it does. The dogwood hanging over the deck gently opens, trying to dazzle its neighboring sweet gum tree with white medallions. Green slivers shoot from the end of the old bare limbs with a quickening rebirth. The first hummingbird flirts with the green shoots, coaxing them out to play with his brilliant ruby throat.

Spring rushes headlong into summer leaving us wanting more, knowing that it will be back ever so briefly just in time to pull us back from the precipice once again.

What a glorious process.

What a glorious spring.

What a glorious green.

Harmonic Convergence

This morning was special.

We've been waiting for nearly two years to see a beaver. We see evidence all around us -- chewed trees and dams that are engineering marvels. Today, as Charlsa was leaving for work, I looked over the deck, ever hopeful, and there he was swimming around in the stream. I called her back before she drove away and we stood watching, in awe. At first, I thought maybe it was a muskrat or an otter. We've seen those too, believing they were beavers, until they revealed their tales. But the beaver raised it's long flat tail and slapped the water, making the familiar sound we'd heard only at night when they do their construction work. The slap is an ominous warning, "I'm here and this is my territory."

I wondered, "Why now?"

After two years, all the wildlife are beginning to show themselves. The area around our deck which overlooks the stream is becoming a bird sanctuary: cardinals, chickadees, titmouse, blue jays, hummingbirds, hawks, red-breasted woodpeckers, snow-capped woodpeckers, gold and purple finches, and bluebirds are just a few of the birds we see -- and feed -- regularly.

On the water, this morning, staying safely away from the beaver, were the beautiful wood ducks and mallards chasing one another trying to impress the lone female. A confirmed bachelor, the big blue heron watched as he gingerly high-stepped through the water.

And the turtles; I've seen six large river cooters (that's a turtle species -- not a Dukes of Hazzards character,) sunning themselves on logs at once.

We're all getting along here at Yellow Wood Hollow (that's what we call our log house in Eva, AL.) I think I know why. It's trust. We don't harm living things. We live in harmony with them. One of our neighbors suggested shooting the beavers if you ever see them. Why? They eat privet -- it's a thick bushy weed -- and small saplings mostly. Somebody has to thin the underbrush to allow the larger trees to grow stronger. I'll let the beavers do that back-breaking work.

We're not a threat. They know it. Over time, we've built trust just as we do in our human relationships. It takes time. Trust is earned not given. Such a hard lesson to learn, but if we listen to nature, the teaching is everywhere.