March 8, 2007
Blood is good, eye is fantastic, and spring is coming! The red-winged blackbirds have sent their scouts, and since their appearance at the bird feeders indicates that they find the accommodations to be acceptable, the rest will be here soon. Meadow larks and finches have joined the cardinal’s morning songs and for just a little while, Sanctuary will be as fine as any tourist destination. (Post snow and ice, pre ticks and mosquitoes) Alphie runs through the pasture and every corner of the forest tail up, nose down, and radiating delight. When he can make a pheasant fly from its hiding spot, or chase a rabbit out from under an Austrian pine his morning is sublime. The walks are ever new and interesting in his company.
Time goes so quickly when it is lived in this peculiar frame of eight weeks; in just eleven days, the cycle begins again. Usually by this time I have almost forgotten the reality of living with cancer, and the necessary procedures that keep it at bay. The terribly wounded veterans that have returned from the Iraq war are on my mind a lot because I think that I am whole in ways that they will never be again, and they have many years before them. God’s gifts of a sound body and mind are so fine and doing life from within them is such a blessing – the prayers go on that somehow we can figure out how to celebrate this without destroying it for so many. I am repeatedly thankful that I am given new mornings and days to enjoy all the good things that are mine – to springtime, to Sanctuary, to LIFE!