The Photo in Hinterhaus

There is a photo that hangs in Hinterhaus. I had it made large and put it in a frame so when I sit on the long chase lawn chair with Teddy (my dog) I can see it. My computer screen, the navy clock I was carrying around in my car at the time, a single rose, a geranium, a boxwood shaped like a cone, a diary, some hydrangea flowers in a vase are all gathered in front of large window with a blurred oak tree beyond. In the photo there is, amazingly, a delicate Carolina wren sitting atop my open computer screen as if this was her everyday perch, as if she is in a state of complete repose. How can this be? We cannot control the wild birds!

It happened last May, possibly the sweetest month of them all. My friend (I’m grinning just thinking of her) and her dear husband own this entire scene. I was only housesitting for them. I had swung by the big Victorian to feed the fluffy bunnies living it up in the cool basement, to sit a spell with my thoughts and look out that big window onto the Arkansas River below this high perch.

It had happened twice before (but in years past) when entering the house, I’m surprised by a panicked wren fluttering about. I enter into its desperation and work quickly to set it free. Should I catch it with a blanket? Do I chase it out an open door with a broom? But it had been awhile since I had bunny duties, and since I’d found a bird who had discovered an open window and come inside. My open computer sat with my journal on the mostly bare table and the bird, completely missing the now open back door, was trying to escape through the massive pane of glass. I grabbed my camera wondering if I could snag a quick photo before the bird was gone for good. I needed to feed rabbits, I wanted to sit for minute, but leave soon. I had other things to do. Then I heard HIS voice (The one I know to be the Lord) speak inside my mind to say, “You are always in such a hurry. Let’s have fun with this.” I paused and in my slightly dull, half-awareness, as if His Voice is not like a miracle happening every time, added my thoughts, “Yes, this wren isn’t going anywhere.”

It wasn’t easy, though. He spoke a truth I had never once realized— that I am always in such an inward hurry. Maybe you know what I mean. But I’m beginning to get that there is an infinite flow of wisdom coming from Him, so I tried. I moved against the flow of my normal, habitual ways to take my time instead, to heed His voice and explore this purposeful pause in my activity.

I sat my camera on the antique bar, went out into the rose garden and clipped a long stemmed rose. There were many rose bushes to choose from. This is one of the reasons I smile when I think of my friend who lives here. She takes her time and out of her life comes beauty wherever she sets her eyes for long. I walked through the paths, smelling one variety and then another until I clipped just the right one. I made my way to one of the many hydrangea bushes, this one growing before an old stone wall and clipped a creamy cluster to plop in a vase. I arranged the table with these beautiful things and more items I gathered from the kitchen, and when it all seemed right, I typed at the computer keys to light up the dark screen. Now I had a most beautiful scene. Stepping back to the hall, I raised my camera with a most assured knowing and waited for only moments more when the wren landed for only a second and then flew away, but before she flew…. “SNAP!”

When I look at the photo this morning, (and every time) I feel the tension go, like an unravelling that brings some slack to my tight strings. I feel the slowing down. “A photo speaks a thousand words”… this one speaks to me. It is like a most intriguing question or like an eternal invitation to come inside His viewpoint, to let Him show me, to allow Him time to guide my eye, to allow an intimacy I habitually rush past. It’s an invitation to listen, to smell, to search and to find what is on His mind and to create a moment with the Lord. As the world was yelling at one another about masks, and some yearning for a shot that would save lives, He wanted to talk about a beauty that could be ours if I could slow down and be in His presence for awhile. This photo speaks so sweetly to me.

What does Jesus wish to share? What a buoyant question! Oh, I wonder of the things He can show us once he has our hand in His. I can only imagine with you. And I wonder what things we can create together once He owns our hearts…once we love to entrust it to Him in our perfect freedom to choose this. I think that a wild bird would never wish to pose for me, not a bird frantic to escape its accidental imprisonment. But for Jesus, she will do it and for Him, I too, will slow down. He does own the birds. 😉

“You are always in such a hurry.”

I see the daily invitation in the photo. I feel the delight of intimacy that I just barely understand drawing me in. I timidly step forward at first. I step a little bolder as I go along. It feels lazy and exciting to wait instead of hustle forward with my thoughts, to linger instead of leap, to dream instead of dart away, to create instead of accumulate the list of to-dos done. In times past, I heard his voice alive in a verse, highlighted in the words of another, or found in a new book, and I snapped them up in the sudden thrill. Hearing it made me feel God sees me! He knows me! Here is some proof for me! Yes, it was always true, but I wasn’t always so assured. Instead of holding the word to gaze at it, ponder it and absorb it, I ran with it like I had stolen it and it might get away. I held it like I had taken the Regent diamond or been given it by accident…I thrust it into my file, tucked into my hiding spot as a keepsake and locked the door. “MINE! MINE!”

What will I gain when I slow down into a morning or along the day’s path just waiting with my thoughts, just reflecting, just thinking slowly of His presence in my life, just rehearsing it all, just reading His word with no agenda at all but to know who He is and what He has said? What if I act as if there is an endless stream for me that I don’t have to steal and hide, that I don’t need to grasp as if it is the only time I will hear it? I may finally know intimacy I didn’t know I needed–I didn’t know I wanted. In the slow down I think of Mary who seemed captivated by Him. She sat to listen when the women should have been working and serving. She lingered at His feet, under His approving eye and disengaged from her hurry and even from the powerful cultural norms that said she didn’t belong there. Martha was frustrated with Mary’s pausing. Was she annoyed with her rapture in Him? She only saw what needed to be done next. Maybe this was how she expected to earn His approval. Martha would have missed my Carolina wren, but it may well have lit on Mary’s shoulder. Next time maybe it will light on mine!