Helicopters

Helicopters.  The little seeds with wings that grow in clusters from my neighbor’s towering tree.  They don’t see the fence adjoining our properties, and around every Memorial Day we are buried in these little seed-bearing conveyances.  If we ignore them, hundred of them will sprout.  And, since the appearance of our patio several years ago, they make an awful mess just as they are.  So we are spending the better part of today capturing as many helicopters as we can contain.

But the helicopters had a different meaning in another season of our lives.  Mary had come to live with us for a couple of years—Mary Poppins, that is.  My son was a pre-schooler, I was going through the most difficult year of my life, and our very own Mary Poppins had come to live as our nanny.  An incredibly creative and competent soul, our nanny played with our son while I taught, fixed dinner multiple nights a week, and cared for all three of us in more ways than I could possibly name. 

One Memorial Day she and my son collected all the helicopters they could gather, put them in a large bag, took them to the top of a Wheaton College building and let them fly in the wind.  It was an act of glorious simplicity which long delighted the heart of a curious little boy, and, to be honest, the heart of his mother who had not the energy for that kind of creativity right then.

So today, in a moment when I am not particularly enthused about the prolific seed-bearing qualities of my neighbor’s helicopter tree, I find myself pondering this unlikely symbol of an extraordinary grace in a very different season.  It doesn’t make the work go away.  But it does help me taste gratitude again.  Responsive earth comes in unlikely forms, and a creative nanny holding good seed for a glorious purpose must surely be one of God's rich surprises.