“I remember the way my father once looked at a bird lying on its side against the curb near our house. It was Shabbos and we were on our way back from the synagogue.
‘Is it dead, Papa?’ I was six and could not bring myself to look at it.
‘Yes,’ I heard him say in a sad and distant way.
‘Why did it die?’
‘Everything that lives must die.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘You, too, Papa? And Mama?’
‘Yes.’
‘And me?’
‘Yes,’ he said. Then he added in Yiddish, ‘But may it be only after you live a long and good life, my Asher.’
I couldn’t grasp it. I forced myself to look at the bird. Everything alive would one day be as still as that bird?
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘That’s the way the Ribbono Shel Olom made this world, Asher.’
‘Why?’
‘So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever is never precious.’”

— Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev

It happened on a dry, brittle morning in late August. The roses had curled from heat, their blooms pulled in like fists. Our three young oaks—barely taller than a kneeling child—stood bravely in their circle of bricks, trying to take root in the stubborn Oregon earth.

Trixie tugged at the leash as we walked along the back fence. And that’s when I saw him.

Mr. Bunny.
Still. Soft. Gone.

There was no sign of struggle. No feathers or fur scattered. Just the weight of his small, broken body, resting near one of the oaks. My husband would later say—and I believe him—that a hawk must have taken him from the woods. That it was fast. That it was instinct. That there was mercy in it.

But still, I turned Trixie away. Shielded her. Protected her from the sight. Even as something cracked in me.

That ache again—sharp and sacred—the twin grief of protecting others while quietly falling apart yourself. It’s been two years since I lost my mother, and some days it feels like I haven’t yet exhaled. I’ve smiled. Prayed. Cried. Walked. Written.

But grieved? Grieved all the way down? That grief waits for moments like this—at the fence line, by the oaks, when no one is watching but God.

Later, after the leash was unhooked and the kitchen bowl refilled, I returned alone.

The ground was too hard to dig. There would be no grave so, a brief prayer in hand for all God’s good creation, I asked my dear husband to return him to the woods.

And that, somehow, was the real surrender.

One Thing You Lack…

This week’s Gospel gives us the Rich Young Man (Matthew 19:16–26). He’s earnest. Good. Faithful. He wants eternal life and thinks he’s ready. But Jesus looks at him—and loves him—and says: “One thing you lack. Go, sell what you have… and come, follow Me.”

He walks away, not able to let go of what he thought would save him.

If I’m honest, I see myself in him. Not because I’m wealthy, but because I’m attached. To order. To protection. To certainty. To the illusion that I can out-love and out-plan sorrow.

But faith is not a contract.
It is a falling.

Still, I’m not the Rich Young Man entirely. Not anymore. Because I’m beginning—slowly—to long for the life of the children, the ones Jesus blesses just verses earlier, saying: “To such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Children know they can’t protect themselves.

They know they need hands to hold.
They trust—because they have no other choice.

I’m not there yet. But I’m turning. Letting go. Step by step, into surrender.

Among Oaks and Small Returns

There’s something poetic—maybe even providential—that Mr. Bunny’s body came to rest near one of our baby oaks.

New roots reaching down. A small life returned to the dust. And somewhere in between: me.

Feet crunching on dry soil.

Heart raw and open.

Grieving. Hoping.

Learning to entrust.

++

September 1 marks the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year. It doesn’t come with resolutions or noise, but with blessing. A quiet consecration of the seasons. A reminder that every creature, every hour, every sorrow belongs to God.

Even the hawk.
Even Mr. Bunny.
Even me.

The Gospel of Small Things

We have been reading Orthodox children’s books in our home lately—simple stories, luminous illustrations, holy truths. They move us in ways dense tomes do not. Because they remind me what all my striving forgets: That God is near. That I am His. That even this—grief, letting go, death by the fence—is being folded into the Kingdom.

Perhaps what the Rich Young Man lacked was not wealth, but smallness. Not goodness, but trust.
Not devotion, but dependence.

And maybe, just maybe, I am learning that now—not through theories, but through tiny deaths, soft goodbyes, and stories written for children that are quietly healing the child in me.

Letting Go at the Threshold

Here we are again—on the cusp of the Church’s year.

We walk the dog.

We water the trees.
We return the bunny to the woods.
We lift what we cannot carry.
We entrust what we cannot mend.

Not with answers, but with faith. Not like the Rich Young Man, who walked away. But not yet like the children, either.

Still — I turn toward Him. Step by faltering step, heart half-broken, half-beautiful, held in His hands.

And thanks be to God, the Church meets me here, with words older and deeper than mine:

“I weep and I lament when I think upon death, and behold our beauty, fashioned after the image of God, lying in the tomb disfigured, dishonored, bereft of form. O marvel! What is this mystery which befalls us?”
— From the Orthodox Funeral Service

And then she whispers this:

“Do not seek peace apart from God. Peace is only with God. Seek Him—and you shall find peace. All else is a mirage that evaporates with the heat of day.”
— St. Nikolai of Zhicha

And finally, this quiet courage:

“The heart must be broken, like a ploughed field, so that the Word of God may be sown in it.
Do not fear this breaking. For only the broken heart is made new;
only the emptied soul can be filled;
only what is surrendered can be transfigured.”
— St. Theophan the Recluse

This is the road I walk into the New Year: not paved, but held.

Glory to God for all things.

Perpetua