Note: Special thanks to Terry Chapman for offering this meaningful reflection

BIRD SPIRITUALITY!

Artist James Marsh

What can we learn from our winged friends? First, we can learn how to soar above everyday concerns and boredom by honoring our daily round.  Next, we can respect our bodies by fully exercising them in play and work.  But most of all, at the end of each day, when all has been said and done, we can let it be and go peacefully to sleep, knowing that tomorrow will be another new day, to greet with love, hope, and gratitude for all we have received.

This poem by Robert Frost calls forth a gentle spirituality and trust demonstrated by one single bird in Nature.  May we all accept each day’s end with thankfulness and a sense of wholeness. 

“When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.”

Reflection offered by Terry Chapman