Monday, June 16, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Birds
Do not receive the grace of God in vain.
I nearly never see them, but all around in the more silent places where I light, their songs fill the air. One backyard in Geneva, a busy but still spot just a few miles south, under our own red umbrella outside the back door and down three steps and yesterday, on Fathers’ Day, sitting quiet and resting my eyes on a screened-in porch, there be birds. Mowers too, and bass notes from a block away, now and then a small plane cruising … opening my eyes my sight settles on two pots of purple petunias, blowing just slightly in the summer breeze. Nice spots to sit, nice way to listen, nice place to pray.
A Place to Pray
Is there a better place to pray than here,
wherever “here” happens to be?
Aren’t all places good places to pray?
And so is this one.
I am welcomed by water teeming with life…
flowering lilies, duckweed, minnows,
a rabbit (believing it is safely out of sight) nibbling clover,
ducks and sitting rocks,
a bird that I don’t recognize, large and beautiful,
singing of other feathered friends.
The sounds of water falling,
insects,
leaves in the gentlest of breezes
under a sky decorated with clouds,
white, blue, grey.
Artists painting landscapes.
The smell of cigarette smoke from visiting lovers.
Is there a better place to say thank you for this day,
this time,
the ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel,
the luxury of leisure that allows me
to simply sit and be in this place?
Surely, just to notice is prayer in itself,
accepting the invitation of revelation.
Oh God, you love me so, so much,
much more than I deserve,
yet I think I hear you inviting me
to enter more fully into life and joy with you,
and to join with you in inviting others to do the same. – Clarence Heller
Soon our family returned from church, where we just were, and amidst the sounds of lunch we asked questions, answered them, laughed and told a few stories. Chris preached three times yesterday morning, and his thoughts about how entertainment can turn subtly into escape deserved to be discussed.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
My mom had things to say about this fifty years ago, as she chided me for falling into the realism of Hemingway stories and turning away from literature ennobling. She smiled quietly from the corner of the kitchen as she spoke. In high school she put together a substantial scrapbook about her reading of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, especially his long poem “Evangeline.” Mom read a verse from Philippians 4 she had long kept in her heart, a verse also on Chris’ lips three times Sunday morning.
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.
Since then I too have memorized that verse, using a nonsense acronym that I’ll take to my grave: TNRPLAEP. When I say that “word,” Paul’s encouraging passage falls into place in the center of my mind, with verse 8 at its cornerstone.
Mom died when she was 99, in the fall of 2021 on November 10, while a hospice nurse was en route to Mom’s farmhouse home to get her started on the hospice experience. She left behind the Longfellow scrapbook, along with notebooks of her own poems written mostly when she was young, an elementary school teacher at age 17.
Our grandson Jack felt her loss deeply. He had hoped to help her celebrate her hundredth birthday. Just a few months more. Mom loved birds and sat on her own sunporch nearly every day, watching the birds fly and feed through her pretty nice binoculars that rested on a tripod. My brother John installed a feeding perch against the bedroom window, and in the spring Mom’s mama robin sat on her lovely blue eggs until they hatched and her baby birds, hungry beaks always open and waiting for worms, learned to sing.
I think of Mom’s forgetfulness and her apologetic smiles as she passed into her 90’s. I think of this because I wished Chris and Melissa a happy anniversary on Saturday as we walked into their home. Chris looked at me.
It’s May 15, you know. I spoke with authority.
Chris wasted no time laughing at me. In a long glazed moment I realized that Sunday would be June 15, that their 21st anniversary was a month ago. But Fathers’ Day, seventeen years ago on Sunday, June 15, 2008 is in fact the day they discovered that their son Jack was on the way. A very significant other anniversary. So we switched around the celebration, although Chris kept laughing. Later, I sent him this note, meaning every word:
Cards are sweet and thoughtful,
gifts appreciated.
Times with family always treasured.
But as the years accrue,
I realize more clearly that what I want most
is for you to be a better parent than me,
that you have learned from my mistakes
and you have forgiven yourself for yours.
Without you even knowing it
you have gifted me so very well. – Clarence Heller
(2 Corinthians 6, Psalm 98, Psalm 119, Matthew 5)
(posted at davesandel.net)
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