Month: May 2020

We got up earlier than usual that morning. After my husband left for work and our daughter left for school, I went about my daily chores. When the meter man came to read the meter, I heard a lot of gobbling and feather flapping and the man yelling, “Go away. Shoo!” I opened the door and sure enough the turkey was standing his ground about to fly at the fellow. “Go on. Leave him alone. Go.” The turkey seemed to listen to me and again he disappeared around the corner of the house. The man seemed relieved and laughed out loud. “Look’s like you have a new pet protecting you. What happened to him?” “I don’t know. He showed up yesterday looking like this,” I told him.After the meter man left, things went on as usual. Around three I heard my daughter outside the door talking to someone. “Well don’t you think you are good- looking? I think I’ll call you Tom Cruise,” she said laughing. Opening the door I saw our newly named turkey looking at himself in the basement window next to our front door. “That’s so funny, Christine. He must think there’s another turkey in that window.” That night when Tom came home from work, I asked, “Did you see Tom Cruise outside?” “What?” he said looking a little bewildered until I explained how the turkey got the name. Tom Cruise remained with us that week and the next and a month went by and another. He kept guarding our door when anyone but our family came up the walk. I’d go out and rescue the intruder and so it went. Twice we asked our neighbor, Bob, to bring his dog, Wolf, over to chase Tom Cruise away, but each time the dauntless turkey returned.

Then one Saturday I implored my husband to take that turkey away. My Tom (TS) somehow lassoed him by the foot and got him into the back of his pickup truck. But Tom (TC) tried to fly with his foot caught. With his wings flapping and profuse gobbling, it appeared he was going to injure himself. That’s why Tom (TS) managed to untie Tom Cruise’s foot. Of course TC used the opportunity to jump/ fly out of the truck and escape deportation. After that we gave up. He was an annoyance but what could we do? We got used to waking up to our turkey gobbling and he never attacked or injured anyone. We’d just live and let live. Our daughter loved animals but her beloved house bunny, Wiggy, was her sole pet. Now she had an outdoor pet turkey.

Then one morning as the days were growing shorter and cooler we heard our now familiar early wake-up gobbling as we lay in bed. But suddenly we heard a whole lot of gobbling getting louder and reaching a peak. Soon the gobbling got softer and eventually faded into the distance. I looked at Tom (TS) and we both said, “Tom Cruise is gone.” And he was He was picked up by his own ’people’.

And I wondered. How did Tom Cruise fit into my story? Of course only God knew. But my own thoughts though incomplete were: Tom (TC) was a real annoyance while he was with us. Yet he had enviable perseverance sticking by us whatever we did to drive him away. We learned to love him or at least tolerate him. We missed him when he left. He gave us a family story to tell to future generations. And God must have looked upon the visitation of our guest, and laughed heartily!

The End

{This is a true story, Creative in the sense that dialog is of course not word for word. Also my own take on the event is my own. Each of the events happened as recorded here, on the whole, a touch of the divine in our lives. Hope this made you smile.}

Surprised? Well, so was I, when one summer day thirty years ago a bedraggled, male turkey showed up at our front door. We often had a flock of wild turkeys come through our yard. We live in a rural area, in the sticks one might say. When I saw him, I thought he must have had some sort of ‘fowl’ mishap. He was missing a few feathers and some of them were standing out straight not nice and together. In fact he looked pitiful. He didn’t run away when I opened the door; right then I should have known, he meant to stay. “Christine, come here a minute,” I called to my then teenage daughter.She appeared next to me and peered out the door. “A turkey? Why is he just standing there looking at us?” she questioned.

For some reason this turkey seemed of a different breed. Not afraid of us at all. I shut the door. My daughter went back to her room and resumed her cleaning. She was the last one in our nest. Her brother was in college studying Mechanical Engineering. As I resumed making dinner, there was a racket outside the front door. It sounded like gobbling and fluttering feathers. I heard our neighbor’s voice calling, “Hey, you have a guard turkey out here. I brought the paper but that odd turkey won’t let me come by the front door.”Bounding down the steps and opening the door, I yelled, “Git, go on, shoo!” With that our feathered friend slinked around the corner of the house. Bob chuckled handing me the paper.

Now in his seventies, Bob remained obsessive about almost everything including the exact time he brought us the newspaper, what meals he ate and when, what part of a trail he walked each day, etc. You could say we were the only disruptions in his schedule. It seemed to me he welcomed the occasional meal he had with us at no set time and often by last minute invitation. I’ll have to bring Wolf over next time. Look’s like your friend is protecting you. He’s liable to attack me,” he said as he as he strode across our yard clad in his well worn blue sweater and brown cap.

When my husband got home that night we told him about the turkey. “Sounds like the flock abandoned him. Survival of the fittest you know,” was his only comment, But at five am the next morning we realized our new friend was still around. He had evidently nested for the night next to the pickup cap which sat on the ground below the sliding glass door of our bedroom. He awoke with the sunrise and began gobbling loudly to greet the day. My husband, who is definitely not a morning person, woke up and sat up. Still sleepy, he asked, “What’s the racket?” “Sounds like that turkey. I guess he spent the night here,” I said not knowing this was the first of many for our uninvited guest.

(The end is near!)

Ever read a book but have little recall of its content, except for one sentence or thought that finds a permanent place in your mind and heart? I’ve read a book like that; I read it twice in fact. The book was titled The Spirituality of Imperfection; it’s really a number of stories with an introduction. The one thought that impressed me was in the introduction. The author said, ‘God must love stories because each of us has one’. How true of us humans. There are innumerable autobiographies & biographies, each one a story.

One of the most read and most loved is St Theresa the Little Flower’s, The Story of a Soul. I’ve also read that one twice and remember mostly the whole story. Although she passed on to eternity so young and lived her adult years behind the walls of a Carmelite convent in France, her story is known the world over. The story I am about to tell you is a minute piece of my story, not my autobiography. How it fits into the whole of my life, I haven’t figured out, but I believe it will be revealed to me here or in the hereafter. It’s about a turkey.

(On the light side; Stay tuned for the rest of the story!)

This Thursday we celebrate the joyous feast of the Ascension. For His Apostles it was also awesome yet in a way frightening. They were now left without their teacher and for the next nine days must await word from Him accompanied by the Blessed Mother cloistered in The Upper Room. Below is a short excerpt from my novel followed by a poem.

Excerpt from Ch. 45 of Daybreak:   

 {Jonathan and his friends Simon and Abraham are returning to Jerusalem after spending the night at the home of Lazarus,  While walking on the Mount of olives they happen to meet  the eleven Apostles of Jesus who just witnessed a miraculous event.}

“Peter, what happened today?” Simon asked, unable to wait any longer.

“We eleven were in the upper room in Jerusalem south of the Temple where we had observed Passover together. He appeared to us and then brought us here to the mountain overlooking the town of Bethany. He told us we would not see Him again until He comes in glory and He would prepare a place for us in the mansions of heaven. Elijah and Moses joined the Messiah, one on each side of Him. A cloud suddenly covered them and they were gone,” Peter said.

“Two beings, arrayed in white garments that shone with an unusual light, appeared at once beside us,” John continued. “They asked, why are you staring after Him for He will return as he left.”

Peter said, “He told us to go back to Jerusalem with His mother and await the Spirit of truth. The Spirit would give us the courage we needed to spread the good news of His teaching. We are on the way to His Mother and ours, and then to the upper room where we celebrated Passover.”

( Poem written in 2003 )

LORD LET ME BE READY

They stretched their necks and gazed in wonder as their Master was taken from them.  They were not ready  to lose Him; they were not prepared. They cowered to be alone.  But their Lord knew they needed Him. He allowed them to grieve in prayer. They had their mother to console them.; He was merciful to His friends. This Novena would bring them to readiness to receive a powerful gift. Will I be ready, Lord? Will your face knock me from my feet; prostrate my body and my soul? In grief I wait. Prepare me as they were prepared. Lord let me be ready. Keep me close to You through Her; open my soul to receive your gift. Bend my heart that I may look up and see you coming in the clouds with the angel beside me saying: He is coming back just as He left.

Greet Him. You are ready. His Spirit is in you. Alleluia!

When growing up as one of  seven children, I don’t remember appreciating what my mother did. There are countless memories that illustrate her great love of family and each of us, her children; while finding time to care for others: a dear Uncle who had a stroke, add to that a baby girl whose mother died in childbirth, our dad through years of cancer, and her own mother who passed on at 103.. These she cared for in her home over the years.

How did she manage this and find time for countless friends and relatives who stopped by unannounced and various children often dropped off for the day. I think this great capacity to serve and be there for so many souls began with her bringing up raised in a Christian home. She continued the practice of her own mother of spending the first hour of the day reading her Bible and praying. She followed the example of her father in generosity of time and possessions for the asking.

We wonder why Jesus bequeathed to friends, like us, His own Mother who can and will help us in every way just for the asking. This ability of the Blessed Mother to render unfailing help is exemplified by the supernatural ability of my mother, only on an even larger scale. Happy Mothers’ Day, Moms!

 

The Swings Hang Vacant Waiting

The frame stands, reinforced, rusty bolts replaced, repainted sky blue
The swings hang vacant waiting for the grand children

From the first the son helped his father
Eager as he held the hundred bolts & nuts
As one by one the metal pipes connected rose
Gifted by grand parents, the box contained glee and motion, flight and wonder
The child grew, joined by a sister and the two flew to lands beyond sight
A few years of togetherness

Abandoned, the blue faded and surface rust marred the magic
Swings sat waiting until the day a  son of our son and his brothers
Caused a grand father to refurbish and rebirth the flying machine
Powered by the energy of little legs and grand imaginings
Flying higher than the sky.

We had a few years as we flew to heights beyond
But one day look to land as grand children in that long awaited time and place
Together, never ending, always waiting wonders ever new
Flights beyond, soaring skyward.

The swings hang vacant, waiting.

DJ Pasternak April 1, 2020