Author: Phoebe Dishman

Psalm 65     For the lead player, a psalm. For David, a song.

To You silence is praise, God, in Zion,

   and to You a vow will be paid.

O, listener to prayer,

   unto You all flesh shall come.

My deeds of mischief are too much for me.

   Our crimes but You atone.

Happy whom You choose to draw close,

   he will dwell in Your courts.

May we be sated with Your house’s bounty,

   the holiness of Your Temple.

With fearsome acts justly You answer us,

   our rescuing God,

refuge of all the earth’s ends

   and the far-flung sea,

Who sets mountains firm in His power

   —He is girded in might—

Who quiets the roar of the seas,

   the roar of their waves and the tumult of the nations.

And those who dwell at earth’s ends will fear Your signs.

   The portals of morning and evening You gladden.

You pay mind to the earth and soak it.

   You greatly enrich it.

God’s stream is filled with water.

   You ready their grain, for so You ready it,

quench the thirst of its furrows, smooth out its hillocks,

   melt it with showers, its growth You will bless.

You crown Your bountiful year,

and Your pathways drip with ripeness.

The wilderness meadows do drip,

   and with joy the hills are girded.

The pastures are clothed with flocks

   and the valleys are mantled with grain.

      They shout for joy, they even sing.

Be Still and Know –

A Response to Psalm 65

If

I do my work

Of stilling my being

Of training my mind

And tending my body

And opening my heart

Then God will be free

To do God’s work

Of gladdening

Grace-ing

Melting

Maturing

Ripening

Restoring

Satisfying

Smoothing

Quieting

Quenching

Crowning and robing

Filling me so full

That I will shout for joy, even sing

I will be a stream, a fountain

Flowing from the throne of God

If I do my work

Of silence

And song

And you do yours

And we gather to tell about it

Then God will be free

Refrigerator humming.

Steady traffic on Major.

Me breathing as I edit a newsletter.

Occasional outbursts of:

Light showers.

Torrential downpours.

Buzzing chickadees.

Chirping cardinals.

Rollicking wren.

Furious blue jays, high-pitched “Help meeee” of broad-winged hawk.

Motorcycle on Major: whine ascending to b’dowdowdow.

Grinding gears of large item pick-up.

Squirrel munching seeds under the birdfeeder. Okay, I can’t hear him. But I see his jaw moving.

A thrill for me all summer has been the pre-dawn planets: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. For weeks my adult Sunday school class has patiently watched as I sketch the latest sighting on the blackboard. They can’t fathom that I get up at 5:30.  Me either. This Sunday just past, I came in from my planet gazing, sat down with my coffee, opened my email, and behold! My friend Jim had circulated a poem, “Star House,” in which he expressed how experiencing stars and planets in the night sky calls him to awareness and connections and creativity.  And so it was that later that morning my class got to hear my own planet report AND a poem! One of my classmates liked it so well she asked how to join his circulation list.

After church I got in my car, un-silenced my phone, and behold, a text had come in. It was a thank-you from a colleague for a card I sent his wife, who is ill. He said her bed was now positioned so she could watch the birds at their feeder. He had opened my card for her, and she said the bird on the cover was pretty.  I re-read the text, then drove home. I will leave it to you to imagine my state of heart.

Home, where I took up a poem I’ve been crafting. Subject: Prothonotary Warbler. A light verse about a little ray of sunshine I saw on a tree at the edge of the Neches River.  People call them Swamp Canaries, for their color, and their custom of belting out incredibly loud song from the hot humid depths of thickets. I’ve seen and heard three or four in my time, always in the woods, or at river’s edge.

After a while I lay down the poem and moved to the sun porch, where I took up the Sunday paper, then Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. Presently I saw movement outside – not the swoopings and bathings and feedings of the usual crew.  No, it was more like the erratic flutterings of a big yellow butterfly.  Swallowtail?  No, too all-yellow for that. Whatever it was seemed to be taking the measure of our backyard, in a kind of hyperactive way.  I sped for the binoculars, tore off one eyepiece in my excitement, finally got them to my eyes, and there he was in a tree. Prothonotary warbler. In 38 years, first one I’ve seen in this suburban yard. There he was, briefly, and then, oh my, he flew straight to the window where I was, and hovered. We took the measure of each other.  Then he was gone. All I can do is report my findings.

Mark Twain wrote, “There’s no accounting for human beings.” I, for instance, when mildly perplexed, go earring shopping. Somehow it steadies me. Another quirk: I had my Big Thicket Association editor’s earrings on today, figuratively speaking, and was enjoying a sprightly email conversation with someone about the pitfalls of getting people’s names right, in person and print. Eventually I turned from that to another task, only to find a poem about name-confusion struggling to organize itself in the rhyming room of my brain. I tried in vain to ignore the shouting and scuffling. Finally I caved, and entered that well-beloved room, and took charge. I mean, like new earrings, why not?

Once upon a cruise

Upon the open sea

I chanced to hear some news

It was a novelty!

“At sundown in the Book Room

A Sabbath group will meet

For prayer and fellowship”

Well, this gave wings to my feet!

I’m Methodist not Jewish

But research is my game

To pass on this, far be it from me,

When it clearly bears my name!

I got there early and took my post

With a view of the setting sun

And just when I was wondering

If I’d be the only one

Six Jewish people entered

And confusion soon ensued

Are you the rabbi? quoth they,

And I didn’t want to be rude

So I explained my presence

My full name gave to them

And then confusion swirled some more

Till it overflowed the brim

Fishman! Fishman! they cried out

We know your family well!

But are you the New York Fishmans?

Or the ones from Phila-del?

Well, we finally got things straight

And no harm at all was done

Of all the stories of that cruise

This is my favorite one.

Super Bowl Sunday and cold outside

Warm greetings I do send

In the form of a poem and please forgive

The rhyming rules I bend

In writing this brief account

Of a week not according to plan

But could have been worse and I’m grateful for that –

Here’s how it all began:

Across my path a zooming speck

Its aim was all too clear

It sensed my human warmth and O!

It took a little veer

Like the pretty snake of old

Twas looking for a home

It lodged within my cells and then

I fell into the gloam

Not very sick but ostracized

From healthy company

To ‘not very sick’ I lift my glass:

Moderna! One two three!

Ostracized? Or Sabbath rest?

What shall we call this week?

Some shows I watched, some books I read

Some deskwork I did seek

A travelog I did create

Of a recent expedition

Sat in the sun, turned off my brain

And reveled in no obligation

Except to bask one day at a time

Beloved and on the mend

And smile at the gift this morning brought

Zooming around the bend

No speck this time but an elegant bird

Chestnut brown her wing

Streaks on her breast and golden eye

Doing her breakfast thing

Turning the leaves at the edge of the hedge

A vigorous thrashing she made

My mouth turned up in simple delight

At the angel in my glade

And so this frosty Sunday

I send you from my home

Smiles and joy and gratitude

And from my heart: Shalom.

I’ve been gathering examples of resilience — people rising from languishing to new confidence and energy. One would think this would fortify me, and it has. But then my iPod conked out at the gym. One trivial setback, and I hardly had the energy to continue. On the other hand, neither did I have the energy to leave. So, I smiled at my feeble self, and kept going. One reward (?) was a song on the communal sound system that went something like this: “I see your lipstick / Whoop! / I want to kiss it / Whoop!”

The clock crept along. Finally reaching “good enough” on the workout meter, I departed. The gym, not my life. Trudging out to my car, I beheld a miracle from heaven, parked beside me.

I texted the image to certain ones in my circle of care. Merriment ensued.

Which brings to mind a quote from St. Paul, a resilient fellow if ever there was one: “May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech.”

Amen!

Clear morning, 28 degrees. Sun pouring through my kitchen window. Running water indicates pipes okay. What will I do with the next few hours of my “wild and precious life”?

As I drink coffee in the quiet, I’ll remember and give thanks for our granddaughter’s visit yesterday. Amelia, such good company, so adorable, so wise for one new to the world. She misses nothing. Looking up at the bead board ceiling of our kitchen, she wondered why the “top of this room” looked “scraped.” So I got to teach (and wonder about) the word ceiling, and talk about narrow strips of wood laid close together then painted white, as I glowed in new appreciation for this good house.

I’ll remember and give thanks for opening night of Beaumont Community Players’ “Pride and Prejudice,” its sprightly casting and delightful antics. My husband had to be coached a little on exactly what was going on, and why. But the voluptuous Miss Bingley’s low-cut gown needed no explaining!

I’ll look forward to the mail. 50-year high school class reunion is afoot. Save-the-date cards went out this week. Returns will come to my house. You have moved, you have remarried, you’re in hiding … we still want you to have a card. All the more that my son designed it.

I will practice yoga, and maybe brave the cold to the gym. And drip the water again tonight.

Praise That Which Is, from whom all blessings flow.

Bless all dear creatures here below.

It’s forty-eight degrees this January morning in Southeast Texas. Wind chimes thrumming, sky of leaden gray. Supposed to freeze the next three nights. I’m grateful for a warm house, and words to write. The words that want to be said are about color. Specifically, red. Red is warm and full of cheer. Hurray for red in January!

Two friends gave me amaryllis bulbs for Christmas. Up sprang the promise: Happy vermillion, and wine-dark sea. Since this picture the velvety wine blooms have turned dark indeed, in places almost black. Two faces of red. Enchanting!

More red: When I put away Christmas January 6, I left the small red ornaments in the biscuit barrel. I call it my sparkle jar. To warm the rest of winter, to welcome spring, to smile at summer, to rejoice in autumn …. And I thank the sister who during a pre-Christmas bridal shower whirl of decorating added the sparkle, which I would have never thought to do.

Blessings, and stay warm.

January 7, 2022

Warning to the sensitive: Mother Nature in a gory mood

Early this morning, on the grass at the curb, I saw a red-shouldered hawk crouched over its freshly killed prey. By the evidence of the feather-pile, the prey was a white-winged dove. For the hawk, breakfast. For me, no tragedy.

Re this rather strange-looking crouching: As a hawk tears into its victim, it tries to hide the process with dome-like spread of tail and wings. This shielding of the meal is the hawk’s version of a private dining room.

As soon as the hawk spied me, it gave me a fierce ‘you’re not getting this’ look, and carried the carcass to a yard across the street. As it re-domed and resumed its meal, it gave me a grim-jawed nasty glare. Later I told this tale to my husband, who asserted that hawks don’t have expressions. Just beaks, and eyes, which are permanently set. However, I know what I know.

Hawk to Phoebe: “Read my lips. Stand back. Oh wait, I don’t have lips…”