ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603040080
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
IN MY collection, I have one small bright yellow feather, edged with black. My nephew found it last summer, as we were walking through the graveyard, and casually offered it to me.
I thought, at the time, that it was a goldfinch feather. What else yellow do I see in the sky in summer? But now I think it must be from an evening grosbeak. Those stunning, impolite, beautiful birds that visit my feeder every now and then in winter. Their shrill shrieks announce their arrival unmistakably.
And, yes, they're here again, surprising gifts, eating me out of house and home, delighting me with their unequalled beauty.
So this is what I've been thinking on this week: surprising gifts. Boons from out of the blue. Unexpected, undeserved pleasures, that might conceal an edge.
Like the grosbeaks. So beautiful, so bright, so haughtily auspicious, but so noisy and greedy, too.
Like an extra day - a ``leap'' day - added into a month no one wants in the first place.
Like the gift of an exquisite feather; a gift that perhaps should not be accepted because it comes from a child too young to fully recognize its worth.
And like the feather itself, lying in a graveyard, invisible to practically everyone through months of winter and spring and even a withering summer, and then, suddenly, visible to a little boy who's either much too casual or much too generous. Or both.
Gifts are burdens, too.
Last week I spent some time with a group of people that included teachers, artists, social workers and a preacher. We talked about a lot of things, including ``feedback.'' You know, that quality of hearing from others how you're doing; that quality of seeing results.
Are we making any difference in the world? That's what we wanted to know. We send our work out - our efforts, our thoughts, our blood, sweat and tears - and ... that's the end of that. Where does it go? What does it do?
``Look,'' one teacher said, ``I'm dealing in lives. I make no product, nothing that can be quantified.''
And yet, we agreed, quantification might be nice sometimes.
Lacking that, though, we wait for the bright yellow feathers that might (or might not) be handed us. The unexpected affirmations. The compliments that come, right out of the blue, for something we don't even remember doing. Commendations that, oftentimes, conceal an edge:
``Usually, I don't like your sermons at all, but that one you preached today ... ''
``Boy, this piece of work is really different from your usual stuff, isn't it? I love it!''
``You raked me over the coals for that, didn't you? It really turned me around. I have to say, you changed my life.''
Less and less do I see black-and-white distinctions in the world. More and more does every issue, every question, every answer, shade itself to gray.
I continue watching for feathers in the grass, but I don't see many. Not nearly as many as there are. And when I do spot one, it's always a surprise.
As surprising as the off-handed, sharp-eyed, generous children who find them all. And as the birds that lost them.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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