Birdsong

I’ve finally found a way to identify all the lovely birdsong I hear around my garden; the singers aren’t always visible since they’re often hidden by bushes. A website, birdjam.com has fairly long selections of various bird songs. I found my avian friends by clicking on the picture that is labeled “City Birds”. The song I’ve often written of sounding like a swing screeching as it turns on its bar turns out to be the signature of the tiny black-capped chickadee. The “cheer-up” singer is the American Robin; robins also seem to have a “swing-screeching” call.

To some this may seem fundamental—why would a gardener and general lover of creation not know these things? We had cats while I was growing up. The more stalwart blue jays weren’t thwarted though and occasionally swooped down and pecked the cats’ heads just to make sure they knew who was boss.

Desperate for Sunshine

I looked out the window this morning and saw what looked like a large ball of tan fur in the high bushes. What was I seeing up in the air like that? Was it a paper bag? No, it moved in a living way. I watched, then grabbed the camera and ran out to the garden for a better view, as I saw that it was a cat! First it preened, then settled in to bask in that lately rare feature of the earth—sunshine! I didn’t hear a peep out of the birds… Now, the crickets, frog and train make an interesting symphony punctuated with a few car horn blasts.

Rain once again poured over us last night—off and on all night. The forecasters said the earlier storm would be it. Wrong. We seem to be stuck in a pattern of “all or nothing”. I’d prefer to spread it out more.

But the “rain” of the Holy Spirit I’ll gladly stand in, dance in—in buckets, in torrents, indefinitely. I don’t ever want to go back to the way I felt before this revival came upon me! Today, on this tenth day of revival, the Holy Spirit has made very real to me—inside and out, that Jesus “carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4)so that we don’t have to!!! When painful memories come up as those little darts tend to do, I can say, “Jesus carried that sorrow, he took the pain for me. It is finished!” The deep understanding of this lightens my load so much that I’ve been laughing for joy all morning! It’s like having rain and sunshine at the same time—in the best possible way!