Thursday, September 24, 2009

Twenty Two Turkeys

Twenty two turkeys wash into my yard like a wave.
A few of them keep their heads up – watching, aware.
The rest focus on the hunt for food.
Then their time is up – they know - and wash away again as one.

Fall is grapes becoming wine, apples to applesauce, pumpkins to pie,

A baby becomes a student, a child becomes a high school tough, a young man leaves home, a man becomes a husband, a long time sustainer begins to follow his heart instead of his cares, an old man lets go of the sword and picks up a pen,

The ripening is over. The fruit is plucked and can’t go back to the vine. Maturing has happened. The snake has shed its skin. A new adventure, new challenges will pluck unexpected lessons on the road west - still ahead, unseen and unknown.

This is the spiritual domain of fall.

A season of turning. The leaves turn. A page is turned. A new consciousness has arrived. We are not who we were. We travel into a new land. Strangely familiar – like dream territory. Our hearts follow the sun’s pull west stepping through the cobwebs of fear. Courage is the first new discovery across the threshold.

Looking back, we see the turf we’ve trod with new eyes. What once sustained us now seems foreign, artificial. We wonder at how it held us for so long?

The playground has lots its appeal. The fear of teachers fades as we fashion our own masks to wear. The fear of GOD becomes a joke. The all-powerful OZ we’ve been praying to loses that awe and wonder. We see the economist at the controls behind the curtain maintaining the status quo. We know God waits outside the Emerald City. Waiting for hearts broken open – to enter in at the silence of sunsets.

Our parents answers get lost in the forest of cares and we see they too are wandering souls on the path ahead. We strike off in a different direction (not realizing the earth is round and all paths lead back home)
World weary mothers spot a sparkle in the empty sandbox and unearth forgotten buried dreams. Grandma’s learn to play and dance without music again. Dancing, they discover a music emerging among them only heard by those who kick free.

The fall is for prophets. For turkeys with their heads up. Who see the signs. Who feel the shift in season. Who tell those too busy feeding.

The fall is for prophets. The first to say what others know. The emperor has no clothes. The bank has no gold. God is on holyday. Security isn’t behind the wall but beyond it. The Wealth we enjoy is at the expense of the weak and voiceless. Justice has left the camp of the strong and wanders away with those in search of a promised land.




In our hearts the old tired hope is transplanted and a new energy carries it across the river. In some place before the sun sets we’ll find a way to feed our souls and not just our bodies. A place where GOD dwells free from religion’s need to be right. Where GOD, of course, cares little about maintaining order and splashes paint on imaginations wiped clean of expectation. GOD is free to act however GOD does - nourishing the part of us that makes sure the stranger is fed first.

Exodus 15: (a song sung from the other side of the river)
1Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD:

11 “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in splendor, doing wonders?
13 “In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed;
you guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
17 You brought them in and planted them on the mountain of your own possession,
the place, O LORD, that you made your abode,
the sanctuary, O LORD, that your hands have established.
18 The LORD will reign forever and ever.”

20Then the prophet Miriam took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. 21And Miriam sang to them:
“Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;
Egypt’s horse and rider he has been washed away.”

1 comment:

corrie said...

Hi Allan,

I don't think the turmoil in me has anything to do with the fall, yet the words you wrote sound so familiar at this time of searching for miracles and keeping up hope. God does that for us, the confusion comes out of being so helpless to the situation, yet the task is to bring this to a fulfilment that satifies and is good. God is good, steadfast and full of love, can I be any less? The last word is with him and will be wonderful! I keep on dreaming and hoping, and try to be one with God and his beautiful creation, it is well with my soul.