A Route of Evanescence - Micha Boyett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last Thursday morning, after the Office of Vigils and before Morning Praise at the monastery, I joined the community in a personal time of Lectio Divina.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/07\/a-route-of-evanescence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Route of Evanescence - Micha Boyett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last Thursday morning, after the Office of Vigils and before Morning Praise at the monastery, I joined the community in a personal time of Lectio Divina.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/07\/a-route-of-evanescence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Micha Boyett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-23T14:54:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"michaboyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"michaboyett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/07\/a-route-of-evanescence\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/07\/a-route-of-evanescence\/\",\"name\":\"A Route of Evanescence - 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{"id":636,"date":"2010-07-23T07:54:28","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T14:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mamamonk.com\/?p=636"},"modified":"2010-07-23T07:54:28","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T14:54:28","slug":"a-route-of-evanescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/07\/a-route-of-evanescence\/","title":{"rendered":"A Route of Evanescence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last Thursday morning, after the Office of Vigils and before Morning Praise at the monastery, I joined the community in a personal time of Lectio Divina<\/a>. The Benedictines have been practicing this act of deliberate scripture study for 1500 years.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful morning\u2014bright, barely crisp, just cool enough in the mountains to require a sweatshirt. I\u2019d borrowed my mom\u2019s bright pink Young Life sweatshirt for the trip. It was big. It was cozy.<\/p>\n

We had thirty minutes for prayer before the morning worship service would begin. So I hadn\u2019t gone far, just out the side door to a porch swing. It was the fifteenth, so I followed my secret five Psalms a day rule<\/a> and opened to Psalm 15: \u201cO Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?\u201d I laughed. Of course, this was the same Psalm I wrote to you about last month<\/a>, how it had spoken to me about sojourning versus dwelling, and what it could mean to faithfully dwell on God\u2019s hill and sometimes sojourn up to his tent.<\/p>\n

While I meditated on those words, I closed my eyes. I must have been sitting still as plant life, because at some point into my praying moment, I felt a vibrating sensation near my cheek. I opened my eyes from prayer to find a hummingbird\u2019s beady eyes gazing lovingly in my face. The moment was surreal. I remember it in slow motion: its beak coming in for some human nectar, my scream in reaction, how my arms flailed in an attempt to save myself from becoming hummingbird food.<\/p>\n

It was only after my scream that I (still in slow motion) could turn and watch that hummingbird fly away, that I could even register in my mind how I had looked a hummingbird (what has always been one my favorite creatures to catch sight of) in the eye, that I had a moment of savoring what bird lovers everywhere would dream of experiencing. If only I had been more Snow White and less me, I would have held out my hand and sung it a calming song. It would have perched with me and whispered secrets of scripture into my ear.<\/p>\n

Instead, I was a disappointment, a bright pink flower with a scream attached.<\/p>\n

So, hummingbird wherever you went that day, I hope you had success. I hope you found a flower that didn\u2019t have a human brain, and I hope you know that I loved you, even if I didn\u2019t get to say so in the midst of my nose-protecting.<\/p>\n

In honor of my hummingbird, I\u2019ll end with Emily Dickinson\u2019s poem about her. I won\u2019t comment on the poem. I find that anything I think is worthy of saying about my girl Dickinson adds nothing to her beauty. (Micha talking about Dickinson is like screaming in a hummingbird\u2019s face.)<\/p>\n

A Route of Evanescence<\/em><\/p>\n

With a revolving Wheel\u2014<\/p>\n

A Resonance of Emerald\u2014<\/p>\n

A Rush of Cochineal\u2014<\/p>\n

And every Blossom on the Bush<\/p>\n

Adjusts its tumbled Head\u2014<\/p>\n

The Mail from Tunis, probably,<\/p>\n

An easy Morning\u2019s Ride\u2014<\/p>\n

(circa 1879)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"