I am not a religious person.

Spiritual perhaps, but not religious.

I want to believe and belong but I get stuck somewhere between blind faith and the father who sporadically showed up on weekends, always reeking of scotch, leaving me disappointed and seeing his flaws.

Sunday was the day he would drop us off at our mother’s house, drive away in his big new car, to his big new life and his big new family; leaving us behind like so much dead weight and baggage; growing smaller in the rear view, until we and he, finally disappeared.

Sunday has a bitter taste, like choked back words and tears; Saturday cotton candy mixed with abandonment and bile. A lifetime of unworthiness and second guessing in exchange for a half hearted pat on the back.

Sunday is a day I struggle to find faith in.

But today is Saturday.

My neighbor has an estate sale every Saturday and I try to drop by when I can.

He has an amazing collection of this and that, but more importantly, he has the stories; the tidbits, the half truths the hand me down tales of a town as old as ours.

Today when I wandered over, after doing dishes, on my way to the grocery store; just to say “hi” and take a quick look around, I saw her propped up on a chair in the entryway.

An “angel” with magpie wings.

The wings are what get me.
Every single time.

The only piece of religious iconography I respond to on a visceral, primal level are wings.

The ability to rise above and see below.

The personification of the high road I so often struggle with.

This is what I seek when I seek “religion.”

My neighbor saw me studying the picture.
Holding it tight.

“I like her wings” I mumbled when I noticed him noticing me.

He told me to take her.

That we were neighbors and I could have her free of charge.

I balked and stuttered and stalled but never put her down.

I have no clue what the words coming out of her mouth translates to, but I feel, instinctively, the struggle between her heavy, earth bound garments and the freedom of flight.

I sense her struggling to find her place between the earth and the sky.

Her wings are feather, not gossamer; avian not angel.

Magpie are one of the only non-mammals to recognize themselves in a mirror.

This random fact collides around my head as my neighbor tells me he struggles with second chances and forgiveness.

I recognize myself in his statement; see myself mirrored in his words, know I can not forget, hear the rustle of wings behind my ears and vow to try and forgive.