City Flickers by Sharon Heagy

                                             Photo by Paul Crook on Unsplash

        RAT-A-TAT-TAT! My head snapped up and my eyes scanned the rooftops to my left. The reverie of my morning walk was broken and the culprit or culprits had to be on the roof of one of the buildings beside me but I saw nothing. A few steps more and RAT-A-TAT-TAT! Drawing a hand across my brow, eyes straining and squinting at the top of the buildings, I expected to see construction crews. Imagine my surprise when I realized the noise was caused by birds. And not just any birds, city Flickers! The Northern Flicker, well established in the city of Calgary, had made all that noise.

            “Crazy birds,” I called. “You won’t get any bugs for breakfast bashing your beak on that metal. Find a tree or a nice patch of grass.” Ignoring my sage advice they hammered on incessantly.  With a bit of a harumph, because I was quite obviously ignored, I shrugged my shoulders and carried on. 

            City Flickers. Down on the farm Flickers are too busy foraging for food to satisfy their enormous appetites to be bothered with such nonsense as pecking on metal. But maybe it’s just because we don’t have the multitudes of birds like the city. In Calgary, they are so plentiful that they once considered giving the Flicker the honour of official city bird. But I can see why they hesitated as these birds pursued such a seemingly useless endeavour as trying to get a big fat nourishing bug off the metal sheeting on the rooftops.

            Are we humans like Flickers? How often do we relentlessly ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ on some path, making an abundance of noise while God is trying to get us to head in another direction. Do we keep our heads down, exhausting ourselves in useless pursuits when all we have to do is take one lovely, long minute, look up and listen? It’s in the pause that the hands of God can reach down behind us and, as loving Father, gently guide His children to see the better way. 

            Writers can benefit from the same pause. We can get doggedly determined, head down trying to plod our way through the muck with Biblical persistence, which sounds like a good thing, and it can be, but only if it’s a God thing. Otherwise, we just spin our tires. Do we take time to look up from our work. To pause and take one lovely long minute to wrap ourselves in God’s presence and wait for His revelation and direction for the work being done in His name?

            And not only for the work but for directions in general. He is the guardian of our time and the breath to our life. Writing is a solitary endeavour and we tend to shut ourselves away. But if we listen, God may have other plans for our moments. He may want us to stop and hug a child or a spouse, call a friend who needs encouragement or visit a shut in. He may want us to take a walk outside with Him in His glorious creation to hear His voice and renew our perspective.

            From my perspective, the Flickers were absorbed in the absurd but further research exposed the reason for their bizarre behaviour. They are declaring their territory, keeping other Flickers away. Perhaps as writers we need to consider the prayer of Jabez, with which I am sure many of you are familiar. That little prayer in the middle of the family tree in 1 Chronicles 4 (verse 10). In the first line of the prayer, Jabez cries out to God and asks Him to bless him and increase his territory. Do we need to increase our territory as writers for God? It could mean we need to pause and write a letter to lift someone up. It could mean having the courage to allow others to read our sacred creations. Or, scarier still, to enter a contest or send a manuscript off to be considered for publication. Perhaps it would mean re-organizing our 24 hours to give more time to pursue the passion that He has instilled within. 

            I was wrong about the Flickers. I found they had a purpose in their noise other than to annoy people. Had I done the same with people I had met?  Making surface judgements instead of looking deeper, past the noise to see the hand of the Creator upon each and every beautiful soul? 

            City Flickers have taught me many lessons since the day I witnessed them drumming on the rooftop and I don’t think I am done learning what God wants to show me through these feathered creatures. All because one day He got my attention and made me look up for one long and lovely moment in time. 

            

Fun with Fiction by Steph Beth Nickel

 

I am in the process of writing a YA speculative fiction book, Rule and Reign. One of the characters my critique partner particularly likes in a young boy who is always running wherever he goes.

Below is the scene in which he's introduced. I hope you enjoy it!

After traveling almost as far as my old room, I’m still so focused on convincing myself that I have every right to explore the castle that I nearly fail to sidestep a young boy, no more than seven sun-cycles old, who comes dashing around the corner and almost collides with me. He pulls up short and his jaw drops. 

“I’m so sorry, Your Highness. I… I… Please don’t tell my ma. She’s always scolding me fer running in the halls. But then, she scolds me fer being late.” He exhales loudly and looks away. “I don’t understand.” He’s rocking back and forth. I doubt he’s used to standing still for any more than a few measures.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Todd, Your Highness.”

I smile widely. “It sounds a lot like my father’s name. His name was Trad.”

“Oh, I know.” He bounces up and down. “He was my hero. He was strong and brave and kind.” More quietly he adds, “And he never told Ma when he found me running through the halls.”

I laugh. Todd’s head snaps up. “You laughed. Ma says royals don’t do that—no one ’cept Prince Trad.” 

“It will be our secret. Okay?”

Todd nods his head vigorously. 

“So, Todd, where were you off to just now?”

“Ma said I could go t’ the stables. My best friend works there. He just cleans up after the horses, but sometimes, he gets to watch the soldiers train if he does an extra good job.”

“The stables, huh? Would you mind if I came along?”

The boy puts his still-chubby hands on his hips. “Princess, this is yer castle. The stable and horses are yers too. You can go anywhere ya want.”

“Well, Todd, I guess you’re right. Then, it’s off to the stables we go.”

“And you won’t tell my ma I was running?”

“If you won’t tell my grandmother I was laughing.”

“That’s easy. The Council Lead doesn’t know I ’xist.”

I sigh. That’s probably true. “Now, let’s go see some horses.”

“I don’t s’pose you want to run. Do you?” he adds, eyes wide.

I shake my head. “It’s probably best if the Princess of Betria isn’t seen running in the halls.”

He shrugs and sighs. “I guess.”

F is for Fortune ~ Guest Post by Elizabeth Danna

 

Peter turned and saw following them the disciple whom Jesus loved… When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” John 21:20–22 RSV

Fortune and Men’s Eyes

Of the 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, my favorite is Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” (published 1609). The second section of this poem reads, “Wishing me like to one more rich in hope/Featured like him, like him with friends possessed/Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope/With what I most enjoy contented least.” Simply put, the poet wants to be like men he knows who are better-looking or have more friends or more skills. In other words, he’s comparing himself with others, and this is leading him to be discontented. 

I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of comparing oneself with others. But it does us no good. If we compare ourselves with others when we’re doing well, we’re likely to compare ourselves with someone who isn’t doing as well as we are, and we’ll end up feeling superior; if we compare ourselves with others when we aren’t doing well, we’ll probably compare ourselves with someone who’s doing better than we are, and we’ll end up feeling even worse about ourselves than we already do. So the result of our comparison ends up depending on our mood – hardly a reliable standard! 

Comparison is the mistake that Peter made in his last conversation with the risen Jesus. When he asked what would happen to John, Jesus told Peter to focus on his own relationship with Jesus, not John’s. That kind of comparison isn’t what God wants. God made you, not someone else. He gave you a unique combination of characteristics and gifts which makes you uniquely suited to what God has called you to do. He loves you and values you as you are. His opinion of us matters more than anyone else’s. It’s a mistake to jealously want someone else’s characteristics, or to look down on ourselves because we have certain characteristics and not others. Let’s avoid I wish I were as smart as she is, or I wish I had as many friends as he does. This kind of thinking gets our focus onto ourselves instead of God. We honour our Maker when we accept ourselves and the gifts and characteristics that He’s given us. He loves us and values us as we are, so let’s not compare ourselves with others.

Elizabeth Danna, Ph.D., was born and raised near Toronto, where she still lives. She has worked for Crossroads, a large Canadian ministry, for many years. Her hobbies include music and needlework, but her main passion is the Word of God. She is trained in New Testament Studies, and has a desire to help people understand the Word so that they can grow spiritually. She recently published Through the Lens of Faith: Devotions on Life, the Universe, and Everything, from Resource Publications. She has also written two small-group Bible studies, From Gethsemane to Pentecost (2011) and The Stories of Jesus: A Study in the Parables of Jesus (2016) both from Wipf & Stock. 

Fresh Feed by Joylene M Bailey

 

I love spending time with children. They speak with the language they know, without the clichés and idioms common to us grownups. They have a fresh way of seeing, which makes their descriptions captivating and unique.

I once asked my four-year-old grandson what his best friend looked like. He has a long head, was his one and only descriptive reply. At once I imagined a faceless character with a long narrow head that kept him so off-balance he couldn't stop toppling over.

I find that when I've spent time with children, my mind percolates with ideas and dialogue for children's stories. Their way of thinking and speaking informs my child-character's point of view. I'm best at writing for children when I can draw from the bucket of child-interactions I've had. 

When I write for my blog, I often describe things in nature, which requires time spent outdoors, taking in the colours, smells, and sounds of my surroundings. My goal for the blog is to make it a sanctuary for the weary; a place of gentle encouragement; a small restoration of beauty and joy that they can take with them when they head back out into the world. In order to be true to that intention then, I listen to restoring and calming music, read beautiful words, take time to reflect on the beauty of God and His gift of beauty to us. 

It's important to feed the bucket from which I draw so that the writing is fresh and authentic.

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I heard an author of historical fiction once say that she spends the weeks and months it takes to write her book listening to the music from that era. While she is doing the non-writing things--cooking, cleaning house, out and about in her car--she immerses herself in the music of the period in which she is writing. That's how she finds fresh feed for her writing bucket.

Dear fellow writer, I realize that you probably already fill your writing bucket with the fresh feed you need for your work-in-progress. But if not, this is your gentle reminder.

As writers we're always looking for ways to keep our writing fresh, aren't we? Now it's your turn. What do you do to feed your writing bucket?

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Photo credits:

Child holding bucket - congerdesign from Pixabay

Apples - Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Tulips - Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay

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Joy looks forward to spending an extended period of time with her young grandchildren this summer. Ideas will be percolating! Meanwhile, she's happy to feed her writing bucket in other ways, like visiting with neighbours and guests who come through the country home she shares with The Cowboy, nurturing their fledgling gardens, playing with fabric, and reading beautiful words. Find her at Scraps of Joy.