Look, the winter is past, and the rains are over and gone. The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air. The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming. Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one!”
This morning I laughed as I sat on the back steps of the church building making a to-do list and watching a pair of lovesick squirrels. And the birds! Oh, they are jubulant, singing and chirping and tweeting and cawing and warbling! A beautiful cardinal sat in a small maple tree nearby, calling his tweee tweeeeee to all. Translation: "Hey you, get offa my tree!"
Tonight I heard the annual early frog choir as I sat outside.
The tiny little frog in the picture sounds like a cross between a cricket and the noise one makes by dragging fingernails on the teeth of a fine-toothed comb. It's aptly named the "chorus frog" and it's cheerful song is one of the earliest sounds of spring in Wisconsin. (You can hear it here.) It is closely followed in a few weeks by another singing little frog known as a "Peeper."Why the nature lesson? I don't know. Maybe because we are having record-breaking warmth up north and it is a special sort of unexpected lovliness to sit on my deck in March and listen to the night sounds of the season.
Often March is one of the dreariest months of the year, but this year it has been not so bad...just one big snowstorm so far. ;-) The grass is tinged with green, the snow is melted, and the tulips are pushing their green shoots up through the soil. A few purple crocus turn their faces to the sun.
It was more like June than March today. As I sat and looked at the silvery moon and listened to the frogs I was reminded of Bible passages that speak of mountains and hills breaking into song. The little chorus frog, the acrobatic squirrels, the birds and the grass and the flowers bring glory to God by being what they were created to be, singing the songs they were created to sing, growing, sharing life and bringing joy and change.
The same is true for you and me! Are we singing the song we were created to sing, growing in season, pushing up and out when it is time, resting when it is time--bringing joy to our Creator in the process?
One other sure indicator of winter's passing is evident too. Our unpaved church parking lot is mucky.
1 comment:
Such beauty beside an unpaved church parking lot. Sounds like one pastor is blooming where she's planted.
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