Copse and Spinney

This is episode one in a series of excerpts from a book that I’ve been working on. Everyone has their love story. This is the season in which ours began.

It was a golden evening in autumn of 1987.  The sun glistened through shaky, clapping oak leaves blown with a breeze that felt neither too cool nor too warm. The crisp air drew me outside, into the autumn leaves, to stroll along the well trod path that led from our modest Texas hill country home to the tall gated entrance of our property.  

It was on this path that I often spent my time in the evenings, singing and having time to think, and pray. Sometimes, I carried a portable stereo cassette player and set it on a wooden slatted swing under the old oak tree. The low branches holding the swing creaked steadily with the wind as I sang along with music that echoed through the tall Spanish oaks. At other times, I brought the guitar out to the swing, opened my old NIV Bible that I had had since the sixth grade, and expressed the book of Psalms aloud, singing the words of David to my own tune.  But this evening was different. There was no extra music stereo. I hungrily and spontaneously cried out with a flood of emotions as I walked. “Consume me, oh, God, consume me.” My soul was bursting out. I wanted to pour my heart in worship just like David did while watching sheep, before he was king. I danced and spun with my eyes open or closed, with no concern of tripping or turning my ankle on one of the protruding driveway stones. I continued, “Consume me, oh God, consume me… as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after You. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship You.” 

In those teenage years, it was not uncommon for me to meander around wearing some oversized nightgown, and through our forest of fifteen acres and circle about, with such fervor, talking aloud to God about anything and everything.  Once in such a way, not paying attention to where I was going, I nearly danced into a sleeping fawn. I stared at the soft, plush, creamy spotted fur for a minute as the fawn was huddled down, nestled in some dewy tall grass. But then out of respect and awe, made my way quietly back to the house, leaving the fawn undisturbed. Another time, while singing my way down the path that led to the barn, I came within just a few feet of a coiled rattler, who was camouflaged by the brown dry summer grass.  He was dealt with quickly and without much incident by my Dad, whom I called to as loudly as I could without disturbing the snake.

 But on this particular autumn evening, the sun began to fade behind the hills. The air chilled just a little. For a moment, I stopped in my tracks because I felt someone watching me. To my right, just a stone’s throw away, a bird had quieted its chirping and gently fluttered in a large oak near the bend in our road. Silently, I stared and pondered, “It would be neat if that bird flew to me and let me pet it!”  Right then, as if knowing my thoughts, the bird came to me and alighted next to my foot. Surprised, I stooped down and began to stroke its tiny back. Entranced by the surreal moment, I presumed that if I just sat down beside the bird, it would stay. I parked myself Indian style on the pebbled road. At once the bird quickly flew away just as it had come. I came out of the daze and muttered. “That bird just flew to me and let me pet it! Then my mind had a philosophical debate about which came first? Did God send the bird because I desired to pet it? Or did he put the desire in my heart to touch it so that I would believe Him. Was it my own thought that I voiced aloud, saying, “It would be neat if that bird flew to me and let me pet it.” or was it that God already knew what I wanted and thus, placed the desire in my heart for the bird. Either way, it felt pretty spectacular. Do these things happen to other people? I wondered, feeling quite special, pondering. “Was it my own desire to pet the bird and God just listened to me and answered my unspoken prayer? Or did he somehow cause me to have that desire…Oh, which came first, the prayer or the desire?” 

Just as a bird seemed to land as an answered prayer to a desire that I didn’t even know I could have until that moment, a lifelong heart song that would impact me forever, began to be written.