  Spiritual
This week: Edited by: Sophy  
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Hi, I'm Sophy ~ your editor for this edition of the Spiritual Newsletter. This week we'll talk about patience.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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Patience
Wild Birds Unlimited, my source for information, feeders and feeding products to entice a variety of birds into my backyard, suggested that I hang my first hummingbird feeder outside in mid-April. Hummingbirds had already been spotted in Central Illinois by then, and although they tend to migrate up from the south via rivers and creeks, and prefer to spend their summers in woody areas around bodies of water – they eventually make their way into town. And the sooner they find your feeder, the sooner you have summer hummingbirds.
So we planted the flowers they like as extra enticement, and hung three hummingbird feeders in mid-April, and even though there was nary a hummingbird in sight, I refilled them all with fresh feeder nectar every 4-5 days throughout the summer so that when they did finally show up they would have a nice source of nourishment waiting for them. And we waited, and we waited, as friends who live at a nearby lake, and others living near a wooded trail, reported hummingbirds at their feeders by late June and July – but the only things our feeders seemed to attract were ants and wasps.
By mid-August we still had no hummingbirds, and I was getting ready to take the feeders down and clean them out, figuring that for whatever reason they had skipped our house this year. But instead of taking them down I filled them one last time, remembering that last year we didn’t get them until late August. And about a week later we spotted something darting in and out around the maple tree that shades our deck, where two of the feeders were hanging. At first I figured it was a bumble bee, but just in case I kept my eyes on the feeder for several moments, and sure enough, a hummingbird eventually swooped down to the feeder for a snack. I was thrilled!
But then the cool weather swept in, and our maple leaves started to turn red as the nights dipped into the low fifties. And then over 10 inches of rain got dumped on us a couple of weeks ago, along with more cool temperatures, and I figured that was it – a couple of days with one hummingbird for this season. But I was wrong, for as I type these words there are half a dozen or so hummingbirds buzzing around our deck, chasing each other away from the feeders because they don’t appear to be very good with the concept of sharing. And I have spend hours either sitting inside or at the table on our deck, watching them dart in and out, preparing for their trip back down south in a few weeks. We had more hummingbirds this year than ever before!
I am not a patient person – it's hard for me to be patient and wait for things in life. Whether it’s impatience about hummingbirds, or counting the days until a much anticipated vacation, patience is not a virtue that I have been blessed with. I also get impatient about other things as well. For instance, justice issues – I want everyone to have affordable access to quality healthcare RIGHT NOW, not in 5, 10, or 20 years. I want wars to end, and people all around the world to have enough food to eat and shelter to protect them from the elements and access to education and medical care. I want answers to questions, some of which are ultimately unanswerable. And when I don’t get the results or answers that I want, sooner than later, sometimes I tend to give up and walk away, thinking that whatever it is just isn’t going to happen – much like almost taking down and putting the hummingbird feeders away in the middle of August.
But what I learned from my tiny little friends is that sometimes, if I am patient, and if I keep cleaning and refilling the feeders and just wait a little bit longer, I may just be rewarded -- a valuable lesson that extends to other areas of my life as an excellent metaphor.
Sophy |
Below you'll find some offerings from other WDC members about patience. Please let the folks know if you read their piece by leaving a thoughtful comment or review.
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Now for a few comments about my last newsletter on hope:
From faithjourney
Thanks for the great newsletter on hope. I think the only difference between joy and despair is hope. It gives us the strength to move on if we can admit that while we don't understand everything, we can believe that God will work all things out for our good in the end.
I agree about hope being the difference between joy and despair. Glad you enjoyed the newsletter, thanks for writing in!
    
From Zeke 
Hope, in my opinion, is sort of like an optimistic forecast. Everybody forecasts even though they may deny it. Even animals forecast when they migrate. I do not believe that there is such a thing as true hopelessness. There may be some whose hopes are to avoid what they think may be coming, but nevertheless they have hope, however small. Of course, the best and only true hope lies in the promise of our Creator that untimately we are His children.
Zeke
I like your analogy of the optimistic forecast, that fits well. Thanks for the comment!
From njames51
Sophy, another moving commentary. Hope IS the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul....one cannot describe it; but when I hear folks giving up, I say.."where is your hope?" It is similar to Faith..."where is your faith"? Hope is neither tangible nor concrete, but lives within the soul, a God given means to relieve ourselves of crushing dispair, sorrow, loss. Look only to those whose homes were destroyed by tornadoes - when questioned, they shrug off the loss and say, "we'll rebuild, there's always hope and we'll keep going". Hope springs eternal. Where is MY hope? It's there somewhere, and when I am at my lowest, someone always reminds me that HOPE, FAITH, and LOVE exist, I must just dig deeper to release them......."the thing with feathers, that perches in my soul." My favorite poem by Dickenson. And the Shawshank Redemption - thanks for including that. God Bless.
Glad you enjoyed the newsletter, and thank you so much for your kind comments!
From Lauriemariepea 
hi, sophy--
all i can say is, "wow", after reading this newsletter about hope. so many inspiring thoughts and quotations! beautifully written, and moving, indeed. thank you!
i do agree with your thought that living in the present allows us to hope for the future, that allowing ourselves to sink, mired in the past, will only leave us stagnant. i'll be chewing on this for a while--great stuff!
Thank you so much!  I am glad it resonated with you and gave you something to chew on. Thank you for your comments.
From Lani
Timely newsletter. I recently posted a poem that I wrote when I was 16 about hope. It was connected to abuse issues but now I'm wondering if the poem is more about expectation. Thanks for the informative and thought starting newsletter Lani
Expectation and hope are twin sisters, aren't they? 
From peteranthony
Sophie,
Just a note to tell you two things - first your newsletter this month was one of the most insightful Spiritual Newsletters I have read in the 18 months I have been here at WdC. It is truly spiritual, and not a religious newsletter, and the message it sends with the insights, and quotes that you offer tell me that your spirit shines through.
Second, I want to thank you for posting two of my poems along with your words, and the words of the others you had chose to share. If there were two poems I could have picked for others to see it would definitely have been those ...
Thank you for your work, and a well written message of HOPE ...
Always,
Peter Anthony
Thank you for your comments and kind email -- and for the beautiful poetry I included last month. Glad you enjoyed the newsletter!
Please keep your comments and suggestions coming, they are greatly appreciated! And on behalf of myself and the other regular Spiritual Newsletter Editors larryp and kittiara -- thanks for reading!
Until next time! Sophy
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Spiritual: September 24, 2008 Issue [#2621]
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