Creation and Reboots

For Christmas this past year, my wife gave me a “squirrel-proof hanger for my bird feeders.” It’s deluxe! In fact, it is so nice that I decided I had to buy new feeders to use, the old ones looked too tired and worn. It really works – squirrels are yet to find a way to the feeders.

Since late December when I installed it and filled the new feeders with really good bird seed, I have seen all sorts of birds. I’m writing this is mid-August and I am still putting seed in the feeders and seeing an impressive gathering of God’s original orchestra and choir: birds!

I can step out of the garage onto the drive way and quietly stand and watch. There is a kind of rhythm to their eating that is impressive. Certain birds prefer certain feeders. The murder of crows (yes, a “flock of crows” is a “murder of crows.”) are too big for the feeders so they are around the feeder on the ground eating what the smaller birds scatter as they eat. Two different species of Woodpeckers have visited us during the summer.

If you go out just before sunrise, the music is amazing.  Little wonder Psalm 19 begins with “the heavens are recounting God’s splendor, . . .day by day it points out speech.”

Another early morning practice for me is Scripture reading. I am striving to be very disciplined about this. If Scripture really is what God says it is, then there is no reason I should ignore it. The more I pay attention to creation and Scripture, the more convinced I am that I should be doing at least some reading outside – in creation. When I do that, I am hearing the heavens (creation, even birds!) declare God’s glory as I read His Word, which this same Psalm (19) says “The Lord’s instruction has integrity, bringing life back . . . is trustworthy, making the naïve smart.”

I love that phrase “bringing life back.” That sounds like a worthwhile kind of reboot. What I have finally learned is that when I pay attention to the world God made and take time to engage His word that the Spirit gave – that can “bring life back.” It is the kind of daily reboot that makes life worthy living and allows us to experience a kind of significance that beats achievement any day of the week.

Not surprisingly, Psalm 19 ends with “May the sayings of my mouth be acceptable to you, and the murmur of my mind before you, Yahweh, my crag and my restorer.” That is from The First Testament a new translation of the Old Testament I’ve read through this summer. In more familiar terms, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.”

What if the reboot moments in our lives at Point this year brought us to next May where our every word and every thought honored God?

                                                Best of any song

                                                is bird song

                                                in the quiet, but first

                                                you must have the quiet.

                                                                Wendell Berry