Discovering Perfect Peace

I hope that you are able to visualize the scene that is before me.

It is a warm summer afternoon. The sun is bathing everything in the yard as sunbeams dance through the branches of the big old tree. The light breeze is just enough to keep everything fresh. In among the flowers zooms bugs of all sorts – each doing his own thing.

There is a quiet hum to the life in the summer garden that is magic. The poor people of the city and its din of noise will never witness the magic of the wonderful yard.

Oh but there is noise here – lots of it. An incessant crow keeps everyone awake with his call to his friends from far away. He is in the far side of the field that runs close by and sits on an ancient fence post that my Grandpa had fastened in solid to that prairie dirt.

Can you feel what I feel? It is perfect peace… wonderful peace… that can only be felt as you are still… very still… and when you are it washes over you with soothing waves.

Once in a while the humour of the yard enters – the crazy chicken that was pecking in the yard near the flower bed suddenly runs like an Olympian for about the length of the branch of the old tree. It seems the silly thing has done this for no apparent reason… but no… it had a reason… it stopped as suddenly as it started… and bingo… a bug met its end. Again cocking its head to the side it looked for more of the bugs friends… and bingo another one was dispatched.

Then with the same very funny run the fat bottomed chicken flew across the yard in another direction and bingo another bug met its demise. The chicken was amazing as it ate mosquito after mosquito….bug after bug. It is a regular pest control officer.

Then the humour quieted down as the lazy chicken found its dust bath and rolled with glee at the edge of the path…fluffed its feathers and walked over to begin eating again.

Then stillness came again… no crow… no chicken running… just a small rustle of the ancient branches of the old weathered tree.

Perfect stillness.

That was fifty five years ago on the Kirkpatrick Farm a few miles west of Truax and at the base of the Missouri Range of dirt hills that extends up from Montana into Saskatchewan. It was where time stopped for a 10 year old boy to listen to the Peace that surrounded him so completely.

Yesterday…
Yesterday… as a 65 year old man… and a grandpa… moving slower than when I was back as a boy… I walked into my back yard and leaned against the deck rail… and listened… there was that sound again… Perfect Peace…

A Crow was calling his friends from neighbouring trees… the sunlight bathed the yard with its dancing sunbeams. The bugs were flying around in lazy patterns across the yard and there was a slight breeze.

And there was the humour again… our crazy chicken,Thunder, was doing its Olympian thing… running as hard as it could to catch a bug… bingo… it was gone… and then with head cocked sideways… another bug appeared… and it met its demise too.

I cannot really tell you of the wonderful rush and gentle dream world that came close around me. From somewhere deep within my 65 year old brain came these memories of Grandma Kirk and Grandpa Kirk and a farm of long ago… a memory that included me chasing grasshoppers and pouncing at just the right moment to say, “Gothca!”.

Then after the fun of grasshopper chasing slowed… I wondered down to the dam at the bottom of the hill… slipped off my running shoes & socks…. then stepped into the mud to look for frogs…

Later to dry my feet I laid down on the soft grass that covered the hill and ran my feet through the grass to get the mud off… looked up at the clear blue sky and wondered if it would ever end.

Yesterday I discovered with glee that it never ended… only became better with its age.

I slipped off my shoes and stood barefoot in the grass and listened to the Perfect Peace.

55 years later the Perfect Peace is still the same… and I have to just stop and listen to how wonderful it really is.

Thank you Lord for memories and the time now to savour them. Thank you so much….
~ Murray Lincoln ~
www.murraylincoln.com