Bide a Wee, Bully

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From between two of the steel rails in the gate, a rich brown orb placidly observed the crowd. The animal was tightly wedged in the box, but even if he had had more room, he wouldn’t have moved.

“Bide a wee, bully,” his Scottish ancestors would have said. So he’d waited. There was no use wasting his energy at this point. He contented himself with looking, listening, and feeling.

The stands were full of Stetsons, blue jeans, checkered shirts, and leather vests adorned with glitter and glitz—an eclectic mix of real cowboys and wannabes.

He knew the spectators were watching him. He looked back at the crowd with the one eye at his disposal. From somewhere beyond him and above them, he heard the voice of an announcer, made raucous by the public address system in the arena.

“Ladies and gentlemen, cowgirls and cowboys, next up we have Scooter Martin. Scooter is a three-time champion bull rider, so he’s no stranger to us here on the circuit. Scoot hails from Edson, Alberta, Canada, and so far has earned himself fifty-seven thousand, sixty-nine dollars, and change on this pro tour. He’s a winner, folks and so far, he’s the cowboy to beat.”

The crowd roared its approval.

“Scoot has drawn himself a new bull, a Red Angus that we haven’t seen on the circuit before. Goes by the name of Butterscotch, and comes to us from the Samuel Jackson farm out near Horsehead Lake in North Dakota. Butterscotch seems to be taking his first appearance mighty calmly as he waits for Scooter to get himself ready.”

The announcer seemed to take delight in pronouncing Butterscotch’s name with more than just a hint of derision. The crowd got the message, and laughed. What kind of bull was a Butterscotch? The bull flicked an ear in mild annoyance.

Bide a wee, bully, bide a wee.

Butterscotch felt the weight of the rider on his back. It was slightly bothersome and Butterscotch wiggled, banging his back end against the rails. He also felt the chaffing of the bull rope around his middle, and the weight of the bell that hung underneath him and kept the rope in place.

Bide a wee, bully, dinna fash yersel.

He settled himself once more, allowing the cowboy to tighten his grip on the leather handle braided into the rope and double-wrap the loose end around his gloved hand. The pulling and pounding on the glove, to make sure the hand was well anchored, furthered annoyed Butterscotch and he tossed his head. The blunted tip of one horn tagged a cowboy sitting on the rails beside the rider. The man drew back quickly.

“Looks like Butterscotch is getting anxious for the show to start, folks,” chortled the announcer, to the delight of a crowd too far away to see the action in the box. The bull relaxed again, conscious that he needed to wait, to be patient.

Guid lad, bully, bide a wee.

“Get ready for what could be the championship ride, folks. Scoot’s settled, and my money’s on the veteran rider over the novice bull. It only takes eight seconds, friends, and Scooter Martin will be collecting another cheque.”

Butterscotch saw, and heard, hand meeting hand as the crowd clapped and roared its agreement. He felt the digging in of the rider’s knees. His time was coming.

If a bull could smile, this one would have done exactly that.

Puir foolish creatures, they give tae ye a name o’ their choosing—‘Butterscotch’— for the colour o’ yoor hide; but they’ve seen naithin’ o’ the colour o’ yoor heart.

The gate swung open and Butterscotch launched himself out of the box with a brutal hind-end swivel followed by a wicked mid-air twist. It only took four seconds to send a shocked and frustrated Scooter scrambling for the protection of the rails as the novice bull took his victory lap around the ring to the howls of the disappointed crowd.

He heard his ancestors, voices ripe with approval:

Bide a wee, Bully—till next time. ‘Tis the heart no the hide that’ll be markin’ the difference twixt guid an bad—be it bairn o’ beastie.*




With apologies to all Scots out there, and any Red Angus bulls who might read this.

Bide a wee = rest/stay a little
Dinna fash yerself = don’t worry yourself
Guid = good
Puir = poor
Tae = too
Ye = you
Yoor = your
Naithin’ = nothing
No = not
Twixt = between
Bairn = child

One Bad Breakfast

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Susan LaFrance wiped her face with a wet towel. The sour acid taste of vomit lingered in her mouth. She had just lost her breakfast in the ladies’ room outside Courtroom B in the Hall of Justice. Getting to the bathroom in time had been touch-and-go. Luckily, lawyers, especially newly created junior partners, always hurried, so her somewhat frantic rush to the restroom had not been commented on.

“Rabbit up and keeled over dead did he, sweetie?”

Susan jumped. Lost in thought, she hadn’t heard anyone enter the washroom. The old woman now facing her was dressed in faded blue overalls and trailing a rather grungy looking mop.

“No,” responded the younger woman, “just a little disagreement with breakfast. And do I know you?”

Old eyes took in the ring-less hand.

“I doubt you’d think so, sweetie, but you sure look to me like you could use a friend. A friend indeed is a friend in need. Somethin’ like that. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Need a Kleenex? I got one of those minty, freeze-your-tongue things if you want, How about an aspirin? No, forgit the aspirin. Shouldn’t take that stuff when you’re pregnant, sweetie.”

“People get sick for any variety of reasons. I don’t mean to be rude, but it really isn’t any of your business. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me, ‘sweetie’.”

“Sorry, honey. Don’t mind me. Just can’t help helpin’ out, you know what I mean? There’s a vending machine outside. Supposed to be loaded with pure spring water. Hey, I got to remember that one—loaded with spring. Get you a drink if you want. Should drink lots of water when you’re havin’ a baby.”

“No, thank you, I’m fine. I don’t need any water. And I am not having a baby.”

“Whatever you say, sweetie.”

Susan took a deep breath, struggling to hold her temper in check and to recover her lawyer persona.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, that I was sick to my stomach because I am pregnant—which I’m not. Here we are, two perfect strangers in a public washroom. You’ll never see me again and I’ll never see you again. Why should you care?”

“Why not? People go in and out of this washroom all day and half the night. They all got trouble—why else would they end up in the courthouse in the first place? A little carin’ goes a long way I always say. Can’t have enough carin’ in the world, sweetie.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Why do you care?”

“Hypo-whatever speakin’? Make a short story shorter than short. Found a baby on the floor of one of those stalls once. Good thing it wasn’t flushed. Didn’t get here soon enough though. Couldn’t do anythin’. In a better place now but still, a real shame. Don’t want somethin’ like that to happen again is all. No siree.”

“Well obviously I didn’t vomit up a baby.”

“You can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Vomit up a baby. Are you sure I can’t get you somethin’, sweetie?”

“I told you, I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me except an upset stomach.”

“Yah, I know, you’re tryin’ hard to convince yourself. And you got it wrong.”

Susan was getting confused, and just a bit frustrated.

“Excuse me? Wrong about what?”

“About me knowin’ you. I see you everyday goin’ in an’ out of the courtroom doin’ all that lawyer stuff. You just never noticed me until today. I guess that proves it.”

“Proves what?”

“Always figured, sweetie, that trouble makes people see things different than they ever did before. Now that’s a fact, ain’t it?”

Yesterday it was fame, fortune, and a future partnership with the firm of Barnes and Sutherland. Today … No, today will be the same as yesterday. I am not having a baby. I will not have a baby. I just need some Maalox.

“I have to go.” Susan headed for the door, turning her back on the old woman.

“Sure you do, sweetie. Gotta go save some criminals. That’s a good thing, everyone needs savin’, but …”

“But what?”

“Don’t forgit that baby’s worth savin’. Maybe she needs some good defense lawyerin’ too.”

She?

Susan opened her mouth to protest again that she wasn’t pregnant but shut it before the words formed. Reality overtook pretense and wrestled it to the ground.

Time to stop kidding myself. One bad breakfast could be explained, but six in a row?

Susan turned to acknowledge her unlikely mentor’s advice.

The woman was gone.

I am Maranta

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Twilight descends as heavenward I bend
to embrace its portals.
Evening skies, chameleon as I, rainbow hues reveal:
Blue to orange, pink to mauve, purple to black.
I too am transformed, an aberration
like the human kind who follow my lead.
By day I stretch, verdant greens, spots and lines
in graceful combination,
a tribute to a creative Master.
Designed to delight and inspire,
I reach out to the light, to the Son, to heaven’s gleaming,
soak in its deepest sense;
then give back, exchanging one blessing for another.

I am Maranta.
I caress the light, hiding from its burning
yet seeking its warmth.
As night enfolds the day and holds it close
I retreat into myself, from reaching out
to pulling in.
Beneath the greens of light and dark, the veins and spots
hide another side,
another story.

I am Maranta.
Green turns to purple, the veins marked wine,
the spots of reddish-blue
blood-red against the darkening sky.
A curiosity to the uninformed who view my nature
as strange as that of those who lift
holy hands toward the sky.
I raise my “hands,” though they are not,
toward the One who made me thus.
Why, I ask, am I to be
so different from the rest?
I think He made me to reflect that bitter night,
the twilight of His life when, His prayer released,
He bled.
And vibrant life to death itself committed,

I am Maranta.
At twilight, the green of my life
to purple turns, the blood-red old as death
as to my Master I give myself in prayerful stance
as once He did with committed, dependent heart.
For those who echo my example,
who labour as He, with earnest voice;
be warned.

I am Maranta, an aberration,
as you will be to those who, without understanding,
fail to see that the greening of the soul
requires a purple twilight,
a garden of waiting,
of urgent pleading,
of heartfelt praise,
sometimes suffering,
always committed,
ever faithful
even to the death,
in prayerful pose.

I am Maranta.
Follow me.


The Maranta, more popularly known as the prayer plant, folds itself up at night revealing an undersurface of rosy-purple.

Shift Change

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6:59 a.m.
The call came in just before the shift changed. The dispatcher pushed his brain from neutral to first gear. It had been a quiet night—until now.

7:11 a.m.
Two cruisers roared around the corner of First Avenue and Cedar Street, coming to a teeth-rattling stop in front of a dilapidated house. Four policemen tumbled out, hitting the pavement at a crouch. Two raced toward the back while the other two headed for the front door.

10:22 a.m.
Bitsy Miller and Kevin Donnelly sat defiantly in their respective interrogation rooms. Outside, two detectives wondered who would be the first to blame the other for the bullet-ridden body of the man found crumbled at the bottom of stairs in the old house.

11:00 a.m.
The captain briefed the officers under his command about a little girl who had been reported missing. Her mother had called her daughter’s best friend to ask when to pick Ally up after a sleep-over, only to discover that there had been no sleep-over. Ally had been gone since leaving for school.

12:40 p.m.
Donnelly demanded a lawyer while, next door, a street-smart detective worked on charming Miller into fingering her boyfriend for the murder of his stepfather.

1:00 p.m.
On the steps of the police station the cameras rolled as the teary-eyed parents of Allison Henry asked the public for any information about the whereabouts of their ten-year-old daughter. Officers were already out canvassing the school, the neighbourhood, and a nearby park looking for anyone who had seen the little girl.

3:34 p.m.
Two of the ‘boys-in-blue” stopped for coffee at Hot ‘n’ Sweet. Just as they walked through the door, a boy pushed past them clutching two loaves of bread and accompanied by shouts of “Stop, you little thief!” from the annoyed shopkeeper, Sammy the Greek. The kid was literally “collared” by one of the officers as he slipped out the door.

4:10 p.m.
A nanny walking her charge in the park near Allison’s school told police that she had seen the child in the playground waiting by the swings. She hadn’t seen anyone approach her. When the woman returned that way ten minutes later, the girl was gone.

6:00 p.m.
Kevin Donnelly’s public defender arrived at the station with a thin folder outlining the forensic evidence in the case. Everybody’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon, including those of the victim.

6:32 p.m.
The two officers walked through the dingy hallway of a rundown apartment block. With Jimmy Jackson in tow, they stopped at 5-C and knocked loudly. The place smelled of mold, sour cabbage, and the sweet odor of illegality. On their third knock, the door opened as far as the cheap chain would allow. A half-face, grey, lined with pain, and tinged with fear, looked out at them.

8:47 p.m.
Allison Henry’s schoolbag was recovered in a dumpster on the opposite side of the city from which she had last been seen. Police again canvassed a neighbourhood. No one had seen anything.

10:05 p.m.
Sandy Jackson rested on a gurney in the emergency room of a local hospital while a doctor examined tests and x-rays taken since her admission.

11:58 p.m.
A tired Bitsy suggested that the shooting was accidental. The old man had tried to kill her. He and Kevin had struggled for possession of the gun. It didn’t explain her prints and four bullet holes in the body.

1:35 a.m.
The shopkeeper lingered at a discrete distance as a worried and exhausted Jimmy waited with his mother. Sammy refused to press charges once he discovered why the boy had tried to steal the bread. He hung around, keeping an eagle eye on the situation just in case he was needed.

4:13 a.m.
A car crept slowly along a back road several miles outside of the city. The driver reached across and gently touched his passenger.

5:48 a.m.
An exhausted lab technician called to tell detectives who had last touched the trigger of the murder weapon.

7:00 a.m.
The day shift dumped their ongoing case files on the desks in the squad room, collected their messages, and settled in. Another 24 hours and hope was fading for Allison.

No Light, No Tunnel, No End

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I linger in the blackness, seemingly invisible to passersby. My night is cold and lonely, devoid of the warmth of human touch. There is only God, and though He speaks, I do not hear from Him what I desperately want to hear. He begs me to trust His will, but that will lies heavily upon me, like a shroud. His will is solitary. His will is hard. He bids me to be patient, but the fruitless, empty, years pass me by, heaping their rewards on others.

Shared laughter mocks me, as groups of two, three, and four, walk by. Their eyes seem to meet mine, but then slide past unseeing. I follow them, heading toward the open doors ahead that they are passing through. I long to cry out after them: Look at me. See me. Hear me. I don't. They are busy with better, more productive, things. I bless the Lord for all their successes even as I envy them those blessings. Like a swift running current, they flow past my stagnant pool. It seems pointless to call out to them. Even if they saw and heard, there is nothing they can do. My path is beyond their reach. Only God can change the unchangeable.

My present darkness is His will, so I cannot pass through the doors that are open for others. At least I can press up against the windows and watch. The room they have entered is ablaze with light and resounds with music. It is crowded with people, laughing and chatting, making contact, sharing information, planting the seeds of ideas; a mutual admiration society. My aloneness deepens.

I should walk away. Why punish myself by remaining so close, but never close enough? Like the starving child with nose and palms pressed against the bakery window, I still need the crumbs that occasionally are tossed my way, even though they create in me a greater awareness of my deep hunger. So I linger.

How long, O Lord?

God says wait. He is carefully putting all the pieces of my life together. This solitary, shadowy corner is coming together just as He planned. Patience is not my strongest character trait. Sometimes, during the darkest moments of my night, I rail against Him and weep bitter tears. As quickly, I repent of the failure of my frail faith. Trust is, at times, an Everest that defies my best efforts to reach its summit. I know He makes no mistakes. I understand He has reasons and good ones for leaving me here. Like Job, I present my case and cry out for God to explain His.

Chattering voices and the chinking of glasses reach my ears. Toasts are being offered in celebration. A persistent voice whispers: And who celebrates for you? I push the thought away. I know it will return the next time some small victory comes my way and there is no one to share my happiness.

I shiver. There it is again, that subtle rejection of God's will and presence. How often I have prayed that He would take away this desire for what isn't part of His plan for me. He neither takes me from this darkness, nor does He remove my desire to be taken from it. That too is part of the plan.

I am ashamed. I turn back from the lighted window and look out into the darkness. As the Spirit of God adjusts my spiritual night vision, I weep again. The music from inside the room fades, replaced by the hoot of a nearby owl, the chirp of crickets, and the soft rustle of wind through barely visible trees. The air is heavy with the fragrance of lilac and gardenia. A million stars gleam overhead. I missed them in the glare of the light streaming from the windows. There is such beauty in the darkness. My shroud, whose folds hide the arms of God, embraces me. He is always good, and never as good as He is right now. I weep over my sins. Not content with the bounty of my night, I wanted more, even when He has given me so much. Thoughtless and unappreciative, I threw it back at Him.

Someone once said: "Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light." Not one promise He has made me has failed. Though they don't disappear, the voices are muted, overtaken by the sounds of the night. The grass stirs at my feet. God walks here in the dark.

Two Minutes Before Dawn

Dad

We all knew it was only a matter of time before night fell. The signs were unmistakable.
“His arteries are like lead pipes,” said the doctor. I had never seen the inside of a well-used lead pipe, so I could only imagine.

Everyone slows down with age, but the first time I noticed life was taking an irrevocable twist was when I caught him staring at me as though I were a perfect stranger.

Who are you, and what are you doing in my living room? He didn’t say it, but I could read it in his eyes, distant and puzzled.

In the beginning, the changes were subtle, causing concern but not panic. Later those changes would become more marked, sometimes frightening. Moments of madness when hours twisted. Morning became night. Night turned into afternoon. Anger and aggression kindled in his eyes. Some other person had taken possession of a man once irritatingly mild and meek. He would not have recognized himself, known himself. He would not have liked what he saw. I was glad he didn’t know.

In the early days and later, in those moments when dad returned to visit himself, he appreciated the humour of the situation. One afternoon he came home from his walk with his face all battered and bruised.

“What happened to you?” is a silly question to ask a man who doesn’t remember those seconds when the mind turns off. We asked anyway, to which he replied with the classic: “You should see the other guy!” He didn’t always collapse from those mini-strokes. Usually he’d simply stand there, a blank look on his face as though he were far, far, away. Perhaps he was.

One Sunday, still dressed in his Sunday best, dad left the dinner table to go to the bathroom. He hadn’t been there long when we heard a loud thump and crash. I jumped up and ran. Dad was sitting sideways, rear in the bathtub, head resting against the wall, and feet waving in the air. He was laughing uproariously. He’d missed every sharp and potentially damaging object in our small bathroom—certainly a miracle in anyone’s book.

Public Health sent nurses in regularly to check on seniors still living alone in their own homes. I was visiting on one such occasion when the nurse came in to check blood pressures and to cut dad’s toenails. It was summer. The light was much better in the porch so they went out there. I followed. Something clicked in dad’s mind as the nurse worked on those yellowed, thickened, nails. He turned to me and smiled that impish smile that was a characteristic precursor to some quip.

“I’m tough,” he said proudly.

Yes you are, dad, I thought.

When he was growing up, everyone had to be tough. He’d had to leave school before finishing the eighth grade to help out on the family farm. He’d worked in an asbestos mine, fixed cars, and looked after his now growing family on the meager income of a unlicensed mechanic. There were no extras. We wore hand-me-downs, and didn’t have a car until dad managed to pick a cheap one up at a police auction—one he drove for the next twenty years. He loved us in his own quiet way, provided for us, disciplined us when we needed it, and was a faithful husband. For a man who had worked all his life, retirement was punishment. He soon returned to work, pumping gas in freezing cold weather until he was seventy-five years old.

However, it was back to his roots that dad returned during his last years. When it was no longer possible to look after him at home, he went to live in a nursing home. By then the lights of his mind were very dim, like the kerosene lamps of his childhood.

I found him fingering the hospital bracelet that he carried on his wrist.

“What’s that, Dad?” I asked.

He looked up with that same quirky smile that time never seemed to fade.

“Pa made it for me,” he said, fondness and pride lifting his voice. He was back on the homestead, surrounded by brothers and sister, mom and dad, rather than doctors, nurses, and strangers. He smelled freshly cut hay, not the odor of disinfectant and stale age. His mind was free even though it was confined to another time and another place.

It was twilight, the grayness before the night, and only two moments before eternal dawn.

The Potter

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The cart lurched, throwing Abel off his stride. He stumbled but kept his grip on the shafts between which he walked. He pulled to the right, willing his shallow crate on wheels to slide as easily out of the rut as it had sliding in.

Romans tax us to death and they can’t even fix the roads. How often had Abel heard his father mutter that complaint under his breath as he had carted earth back to their hovel? Well, the old man was gone and now it was his son’s turn to haul the rusty-red dirt.

With the cart now securely back on the track Abel paused to adjust his garment, tightening it around his waist. His torso glistened with sweat. Putting his hands back on the handles of the cart, he inhaled deeply and pulled. The wheels protested but yielded to the man’s persistent and stubborn resolve.

It fell to his brother, Benjamin, to transform this plain dirt into the pots and pitchers used every day here in Palestine. Some were quite beautiful, others very ordinary, but they all had their purposes.* He carted dirt as his father once had. Ben created beauty from dirt as, well, as only he could.

Not two miles away, another man bent down to pick up a handful of red earth. Benjamin, returning home from the marketplace, craned his neck to see what was happening. Who was this uncouth stranger who would pick up the dirt he had just spit on?

They said he was a Rabbi, but surely he’s made himself ceremonially now? I can see it on the faces of the Pharisees.

The itinerant teacher, still hunched back on his heels, mixed the two ingredients together in the palm of his hand. He got back onto his feet, reached out and gently applied the red clay to the eyes of a younger man who had been standing close by.

Ben shuddered, his sensitive, creative spirit at once horrified and fascinated.

Someone muttered to his left. He cocked his head and caught the tail end of the conversation.

“…the fellow was born blind. Must’ve done something wrong for God to punish him. A lotta good dirt in ‘is eye’ll do ‘im.”

Days later the rumours reached the outer limits of Jerusalem where Ben and Abel lived. They told of a blind man who could see. Not only that, Ben confirmed, suddenly the center of attention in his small world, but he had been thrown out of the synagogue for becoming a follower of this so-called Rabbi.**

Some time later Benjamin and his brother visited the field where Abel was accustomed to collecting the clay. Pots had been the last thing on their minds in recent weeks. The city was abuzz with all kinds of strange events, some of which revolved around the itinerant teacher whose actions had so disgusted and then amazed Ben. But there was more to come.

“What the—?” said Abel, as he stared at the two scruffy figures digging in the field.

“I’d say you’ve lost your exclusive rights to this patch of ground,” teased his brother.

The two men they were watching ignored their approach until Abel called out: “Hey, what are you two doing? If you’re working for some potter, no need to dig a hole that deep.”

At that moment the two potters noticed the bundle tossed on the ground beside the hole. The dirty-white cloth was rusty with some kind of stain.

Benjamin nudged Abel. “That’s a shroud,” he whispered.

“And that’s why the hole is this deep,” called back one the sharp-eared gravediggers.

“Who is it?” asked Abel. “Why are you burying him here?”

“Man hung himself, and nobody else wants what’s left of the mess. The priests told us to put him here. Seems he turned in that Galilean Rabbi to the authorities and then got to feeling bad about it.”***

One of the men had turned toward the potters and caught the horrified look they exchanged. He laughed: “Don’t worry, we’ll mark the grave so you don’t dig him up by accident.”

On a hill not far away, drops of blood dripped to the ground at the foot of a rough cross. Red mingled with red as the earth from which all men come and to which all men return received the Master Potter’s offering.

In a potter’s field, two men heard the sound.


* Romans 9:21
** John 9; 2 Corinthians 4:7
*** 2 Timothy 2:20