Chickadees

A dear friend of mine who is going through a very hard time right now told me about a chickadee who sings to her every morning. (The very sad rendering above, scribbled on Paintbrush, is for her with love.)

I've been thinking about the chickadee, about the way it perches outside my friend's room and awakens her to a new morning with its repetitive, insistent call.

So I looked it up and listened to it here and felt as though I was in my own garden. How many bird calls I hear every day, especially in spring time--a whole chorus of avian voices that form the background of my seeing and movement outside.

This lent I keep on coming around corners and hearing bird calls. In winter I followed the birds, bright feathers of hope and promises of spring, and now that spring is here I delight in the absolute noise they make outside. I'm tempted to write that the bird songs are full of joy and gladness, but I don't really think that's true. A bird sings the way she sings because she is a specific type of bird. Of course, in the case of the chickadee, there are aggressive calls and mating calls but the chickadee still sings in a chickadee's voice, not a blue-jay's voice or a robin's voice. A chickadee is perfectly content being a chickadee.

This lent I have been reminded by bird calls and other voices to be content to be who I am. I wish this were as simple for me as it is for the chickadee. Most of us have to struggle to find our voices in the first place, and when we finally do it is hard to sing our calls contentedly and loudly all the time. It is easiest for me to sing when others are appreciating my voice, but it is hardest to sing when I feel slighted or alone, and it is near impossible to sing when my voice sounds ugly or ordinary.

The other day at our Mennonite Church I came into the little room filled with four-year-olds and I was in a bit of a huff. Why did I have to be here with kids when I am with kids all week? I thought. Why doesn't anyone else volunteer to do this job? Do they think that because I chose to be with my girls more or less full-time that I love being with kids more than anything else? Well, they are completely deluded. Etc. You get the drift.

I was rather surprised and encouraged when the four-year olds seemed to love the story I was telling--Samuel, almost asleep, has to push back his covers and plod down the hallway to ask Eli again and again why in the world he keeps calling him out of his bed. They ate it up, especially the part at the end where Samuel sits up in his covers and says, "Here I am! I'm listening!"

In the end I was shaken by the story myself. Here I was, in that warm room with three four-year-olds who were hanging on the words of the story, and I was so full of complaints and noise that I couldn't listen myself.

And now I've got my metaphors crossed. So I'm supposed to be still and listen and also sing like a maniac in my own voice, whether others are irritated or happy or bored or could care less when they hear it. Or maybe I listen to receive the grace and direction to sing like a chickadee.

It all has something to do with my daily life, which is sometimes misunderstood and brushed over by professionals, though it is as much based on my own choices as their lives are. Here's the other thing I realize as I flip through journal after journal of stories and poems: my voice is my own voice. It does not change whether or not I am rejected or accepted by editors. It has, I hope, with practice and discomfort, become stronger, but it is still particularly mine, and I have it for a reason, and I have to keep on keeping on.

Through the years I have found that it is a grave mistake to find my sense of worth from any one source, whether that be from parents, my spouse, my children, editors, colleagues, or friends. I must not look to others to solely define whether I am worthy my singing is any good. My mother always said, "Never apologize for your voice before you sing," which proves to be one of the best pieces of advice she ever gave me. A chickadee is a chickadee, designed especially to sing like a chickadee. A chickadee has innate worth because it is a chickadee, and that's it.

So that's been my Lenten lesson this year, and I have almost made myself nauseous with this entry; it so borders on being didactic I can hardly keep typing. I hate lessons. I suppose it is good to think on them occasionally though not so often that we become unbearable, and that is one reason why I love fiction and poetry and not devotional books.

I had a dream the other night that I was standing in the back of our church singing at the top of my lungs. And my voice as I let it sail up out of my lungs felt like freedom; it felt like I was standing on the edge of a pier with a salty wind full in my face. When I'm not plodding through the morass of a story but I'm near a peak, I get the same feeling: this sense that I'm wide open. Maybe it is the same for birds in spring, diving into trees like crazy things and spanning their wings and waking people with their loud voices.