espiritu

Sunday was- and always is- a full and tough day. I teach Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (it is supposed to be a calm, centering experience, so the irony of my frenetic Sundays is NOT lost on me). It starts early, we all leave the house together, plus what's for dinner, then what's for supper, and we all have projects to work on in the afternoon or things we want to do. This Sunday was no different from any other- and on the heels of a good sale-Saturday and a repeat early Sunday-morning sale that wiped out my "Delta Zen" line- I knew I would have a full day and a full week of catching up. We were winding down after our local supper (oh, yum!), going to pile up in the bed and read books before all of the getting-ready-for-bed began. The phone rang. Dear Gary was calling from the treehouse. "The Holy Spirit has descended into our fig tree." "What?" "Are white doves? pigeons? rare?" "What?"
Little boy and I headed out the door, corralled the dogs and saw this:



We quietly watched from the treehouse for a while, took pictures (really. 75 of them), and waited. He was not afraid of us. Over the weekend, little boy had picked some ripe wheat from a field at my parents' house. I got some of that to lure the little bird- he cautiously crept over and ate from my hand. I went back and got a handful of Kashi mixed-grain pilaf (delicious, by the way), and the dove came closer and ate from my hand. At one point, he was IN my hand.


It was magical. It was mystical. I am a member of what is both a practical and mystical church. The great mystics of history- the Catholic and Orthodox saints, Muslim and Jewish mystics have always fascinated me. I DO believe in the supernatural, and while I know that this dove was someone's pet, perhaps released at a funeral or a wedding, it was magical, spiritual to have him in my fig tree, in my hand, at the end of a long and sometimes-difficult day. After he'd eaten his fill, he hopped back up to a branch and went to sleep, lulled by a full belly and the darkening skies. This morning, of couse, he'd flown, but I'm keeping an eye out for my little espiritu dove.