The Gift
At eight years of age I was given a kite made of balsa wood and colorful paper with a big ball of twine.
I couldn’t wait to take it outside into a large school playground so that it could soar among the clouds.
We had just moved from Moultrie to another town in southwest Georgia in the summer of ’55, and I was missing my friends.
I walked across the street and out into the center of the grassy field far from the trees and tossed it into the air.
As it sank to the ground I decided to run with it, and I was so excited to watch it climb into the sky.
However, as fast as it climbed it just as quickly fell when I grew tired and stopped to admire its’ flight.
This time I ran as fast as I could, rising the kite above the treetops hoping my speed would do the trick.
You guessed it once I stopped, the kite dived straight for the ground taking my spirits with it.
That night I waited for Jake, my dad, to arrive home from traveling his territory peddling hardware to all the stores.
I told him about my day and he said to watch for the rustling in the tops of the trees as a kite flying day.
One day while digging a hole to China I heard a sound in the tops of the trees coming from over the hill.
I ran inside and grabbed my kite and burst across the street to the large open field of grass almost out of breath.
As I stood there holding the kite the wind took it out of my hand and I ran chasing it across the field.
As I caught the ball of twine I let it roll in my hands as the kite soared and took out twine so fast it burned my hands.
When all the string was gone I found a stick, tying the end around it so that I would have something to grip.
Soon I had some new friends who were admiring my kite giving me all kinds of advice like, “It must have a tail.”
Off I ran to the house shouting to my mother, “I must have a tail, I must have a tail for my kite!”
Before I knew it, she produced the widest, brightest tie. My mother said, “Your aunt gave your dad this ugly thing that he has never worn.”
I thanked her over the slam of the screen door and I went running across the playground with the tie flying behind me.
My new friends gave their blessing to the new addition to our flying machine as we brought her down for a christening.
As we swapped Lou Burdette and Warren Spann stories
I couldn’t believe that these guys knew of baseball.
Amy chimed in that Mickey was her favorite as she produced a small cage with a cricket inside.
“Want to give your beast a ride to see if they’ll let him into the pearly gates”, asked Bert?
“That’s why I brought him, Jack rode a kite into the sky last week over on Willis Still Road,” replied Amy.
Amy hooked the tiny little cage on with a paper clip and I couldn’t believe my eyes as Jack blew up the string.
We all watched in amazement as Jack went clear out of sight as if we were watching Jesus himself rising into the heavens.
We were laughing so hard that I dropped the stick, Amy screamed and we all went chasing after the loose kite clear across the playground.
Amy finally caught it in time to save Jack’s life and keep my kite from finding a permanent home in the top of a huge oak tree.
Now that was a great day. I have good days now. But that was a great day, because I had fun with new friends.
That was the beginning of good times playing baseball, going fishing, and throwing water balloons at hayrides.
That fall we all got bussed out to Okapilco School in the middle of a group of farms in Omega, Georgia.
I remember our gang sliding a group of piglets down a sliding board one day at recess after a chicken flew threw the window.
I asked my dad that day where the wind came from that made the kite fly.
As was often the case he gave a haunting response.
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”
He had a far away look in his eyes as he said those words; I just sat there as they flowed over me.
Years after his death I was reading about a man called Nicodemus who couldn’t understand how a man could be born twice.
Jesus told him once by water of your mother and again by spirit through God’s Spirit.
God’s Spirit is like the wind, it blows wherever it pleases, you hear its sound, but cannot tell where it came from or where it is going.
So it is everyone born of the Spirit, it is truly a gift, a gracious gift of the Spirit.
Just as my kite couldn’t take flight into the heavens without the gift of the wind, my soul cannot take flight without the gift of the Spirit.
I have often wondered how my dad knew these words, for you see he didn’t “walk the aisle” until after I did at age 13.
My mother was the faithful one who took us to church twice on Sunday and on Wednesday night for prayer meeting.
My dad was the leader of the family but his Spirit came through his body as we moved through the woods.
I think back to a time when his mom, Ma Robby, woke me up one night talking in a language I had never heard.
I went running in my parents room and my mother said, “Oh go back to sleep child, your grandmother’s just talkin’ to the good Lord in her special way.”
She took me once to her church and I watched as people danced around filled with the Spirit and I could feel its wonderful energy moving in myself.
I can just imagine that as my dad grew up he must have heard Ma Robby singing as she watched the tree tops swaying in Mississippi,
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear the sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
John 3:1-8
Spiritual Direction
Questions
1. How do you experience a gift?
2. What were some of the gifts you heard or felt in the story?
3. Have you ever missed your friends?
4. Did you talk with God about it?
5. What does running with a kite and having it fall remind you of?
6. What does it feel like to stand still and watch the kite fly effortlessly?
7. Why do kids want crickets to fly?
8. What if more people had Amy’s attitude?
9. The children seemed to enjoy themselves without understanding where the wind came from; what freedom does that bring up in you?
10. Why do we think we need to understand where the Spirit comes from for us to enjoy just sitting in the porch swing with God?
11. So where do you think this book blew in from?
12. What sort of things make your soul go to flying and singing?
13. At what age did you first notice the back screen door slam as someone left the gift of flying on the front porch of your soul?
14. What was going on then?
