So Much to See

Beloved:

          Birdy is always beside herself to get outside first thing in the morning.  Partly to take care of her business but mostly to greet the walkers.  Not a few stop to love on her and she knows who has treats in their pockets.  But one early morning last week a new friend was waiting at the end of our driveway.  A mallard drake – standing still and looking around.  I pulled up a chair to watch him do positively nothing for ten minutes but look around and take a step or two in this or that direction.  No cars came by the whole time.  Birdy, named such because she is a golden retriever bred for retrieving waterfowl by the by, took zero notice of A DUCK in the middle of the street not twenty feet from where she lay.  Eventually a mallard hen waddled out of my neighbor’s shrubs and the two of them waddled a few yards down the street before taking wing over the rooftops.  They haven’t returned as far as I know and there’s no nest across the street.  Maybe they were house hunting.  Maybe she needed time to herself after an argument.  Clearly he was waiting for her, patiently.

          There’s always something to see, said my friend Jon, when I told him about the duck visit.  We were talking about nature and the blessing it is to go outside and just look.  When I visit him we usually sit in the same spot where there’s always something new to see:  something blooming, something fading, car windows down in the pouring rain, a cardinal in the lilac bushes, a woman working circles around the men on a roofing crew, a lady riding her personal mobility scooter in the street waving at folks like she’s in a parade.  All for free to anyone and everyone willing to slow down even for a minute; slow down and take in the offerings extended to us as we pass through time and space.
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          We get this one trip through this world – sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years.  The days are long and the years are short is one of the truest phrases I know.  There is so much I will never see, I certainly don’t want to miss what is right in front of me, the lovely and the hurtful.  Each sharpens the other and we are better people for the sharpening.  As you move through these sweltering days, I pray you stay safe and that, whatever comes your way, you face it with the hope and courage given us by this faith we claim. 

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette