First Revelation

This was originally written as a Prayer Note for Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development https://www.oasismin.org/

When I got up this morning, I had the idea

to spend part of the day in

Serious Study.

Perhaps I would read the mystics,

or some accessible theologian,

or the Scriptures, themselves.

But the toads were trilling
and the white throats were singing,

and the redbud was bursting into bloom,

and my feet were itchy
and my spirit restless and I forgot

my high-minded intentions,

and went out to seek God.

I walked the woods, gazing at 

the expanses of skunk cabbage
and bowed low to examine the dwarf ginseng
and the emerging tips of mayapples.

I listened to hymns sung by robins

and titmice
and song sparrows
and peered at leaf buds
and spicebush flowers

and the trout lilies thriving under

as-yet-unclothed trees.

I sat at the feet of a yellow birch

on a bank above the rushing creek

and inhaled the scent of spring,

of new growth,

of life, 

and wonder,

and gloried in the arrival 
of the year's first Louisiana waterthrush.

God's First Revelation enfolded
and drew me into the Presence of

The One who imagined and then

breathed us all

into life.

I don't think I need to be reading

the mystics today,

after all.

How Many Springs?

 

I am of the age when I have begun to wonder 

how many years might be left to me, 

particularly, how many springs will I yet live

to experience.

How many more seasons to savor the beauty of 

redbuds softening the forest edges, 

or to smile at the hilltops, clothed in their pale green furriness 

that lasts only a few days?

How many more April hikes up the mountain where I strain to

distinguish pine warblers from juncos by their calls, or

early mornings of jumping out of bed to welcome

the first warblers of the spring migration, 

or to marvel at the zillions of tiny toad tadpoles

hatching in the pond?
How many more years to watch the spicebush's early color

wash through the woodlands, or

the red maple flowers blazing crimson across the landscape,

or the subdued trailing tassels of the oaks,

or the olive haze of new leaves on the
creek-side stand of sycamores?

How many more days will I delight in the fragrance of lilacs 
and apple blossoms and 
wild mint in the empty fields, 
of newly mown grass,
or the scent of a soft spring rain?

How many more opportunities to stroke the 
pussy willow's fuzzy buds,

or the hazelnuts' dangling catkins,

or to reverently reach out to the one trout lily flower

amid the sweeping colony of leaves?

How many more springtime walks to suddenly stand still,

and wonder at the exuberant song of the ruby-crowned kinglet,

who has just broken into my melancholy musings?
And how many more times will the catbird's song,

or the peeper's call,

or the newly noticed bank of rue anemone

call me back from such pensive questioning into

the moment, 

this moment,

the only moment of the only spring

I am sure to witness,

to hug to myself in unrestrained gladness

and gratitude.

At the Opening of the Day

Jubilant are the robins' songs
in the dark
before the dawn,
greeting the day from as far away as I can hear,
waves of music drifting through the sleepy landscape,
as if every robin in the world were singing.

Suddenly, 
as if the conductor has lowered his baton,
some mysterious cue quiets them and,
as their song subsides,
their attention turns to
matters of survival.
And nest building.

The towhees are back,
and the thrashers,
and the chipping sparrows,
all self-importantly announcing their arrival amid
the melodies of white-throats and titmice,
Carolina wrens and both chickadees,
cardinals and a downy woodpecker,
a cacophony of sound,
like an orchestra tuning up,
voices almost
indistinguishable.

How can a person think with all this noise?
Perhaps that is just the point.
What if all the busy humans stopped,
and listened,
and accepted this moment,
and its invitation
to noticing,
to reverence,
to caring,
to stillness
at the opening of this day?