One definition Merriam-Webster gives for GRACEFUL is “displaying grace in form or action.” I sometimes joke that I while I may not always be graceful, I am full of grace. What I mean is that while I may not move with fluid, smooth motion that appears attractive to another, I am convinced that God fills my mind and heart with what I need to see beauty and elegance all around me. Actually, I know my whole being it touched by God’s unmerited gifts every day if I am open to receiving them.
Take this little blue jay. I heard it long before I saw it on an early March afternoon. Its song was familiar, yet unlike anything I remembered hearing before. I looked up to see if I could identify the source of the urgent cry as I pulled my camera from my purse. It was a consistent call, sounding almost frantic. A flash of blue streaked from the top of a nearby building into a stand of trees. My head turned toward where my ears knew the feathered songster must be now. Then I saw it. A small blue jay sat in a tree about 20 feet from me. I raised my camera to capture its image and it took off flying from branch to branch, tree to tree, stopping only long enough to sing out and cock it’s head before moving on. Finally the blue jay song I was used to hearing came far-off. That’s when this little bird’s song changed. It echoed the typical blue jay song. The little bird suddenly darted above the trees and flew in the direction of its far-off kin.
I had two thoughts about the song that gave rise to my encounter with the bird. My first thought was the little bird got separated from a migrating flock and was calling out “Where are you? Where are you?” My second thought was the bird was scouting for nesting sites and was sending out the warning “It’s not safe, stay away! It’s not safe,stay away!” It is also possible that the distant blue jay call and my bird flying off right afterward were merely coincidental. It is highly probable that little bird was singing as it did that afternoon simply because it could.
A discovered grace in this ordinary encounter was pausing, like the bird, to listen for a response within myself. In doing so, I realized I happened upon an extraordinary example of external signs that could be labelled as followership or.leadership depending on the details not readily verifiable by me. I stumbled upon a story I could use in conflict response training to illustrate taking care in assuming why someone acts in a particular way, that relationship and context matter in discerning a situation accurately.
Graceful Intersections 