Quiet Gifts in a Loud World

by Claire Carey Deering

When the rain is falling and the wind is stirring up the remnants of leaves across my window, I can hear it.

For a moment.

The hoarse whisper of nature, echoing her Maker’s lips.

And then it is gone; or, rather, I am gone.

The car on my bumper.

The items on my list.

The cards I should write, and the papers that need grades.

All of this mental scurrying.

For whom?

For what?

I couldn’t say.

It was painful to wake this morning, already anxious. For you cannot marvel at what you are too impatient to see.

This afternoon, though, when the car behind me loomed in my rear view mirror, I pulled off the road onto the muddy shoulder and waited for it to pass.

For several long moments the resentment swelled, the injustice of this car’s hurry intruding on my already preoccupied mind and the strange shame of inconveniencing a stranger, and then it was gone, receeding as quickly as the red glow of tail lights.

I sat for longer than was reasonable, hearing only the rain. The drops coming without pretense, like my boy bouncing into our room each morning.

While I sat, I thought of my son, and the little girl in my Sunday School class who runs to give me a hug each week, and the friend who told me her story even though it was risky to say it out loud, and the countless other gift moments that are laid at my feet each day, quietly and softly. So soft, in fact, we often let them pass through us without registry.

Oh, trees, I want to say, looking up at the canopy above my head, why did I not bother to watch you?

Wind, why did I not listen?

You, who understand seasons better than any of us.

You, who embrace your calling and not another’s, who aren’t afraid to fall or fade. Forgive me for not heeding your voice, it was awfully foolish.

CLAIRE CAREY DEERING believes less is more, in writing and in life.