“…make my arts compatible with the songs of the local birds.”

It's been far too long since there was some poetry here. So below is a brief prayer poem from Wendell Berry.

The past couple of days I've been trying to turn a mossy patch of green into a lawn where grass can grow. Scarified, aerated with the fork, watered and fed. It's been a long dry winter in Aberdeen – hardly any rain now for several weeks, and this is the growing season at the start of Spring. 

Last night, watering the plants out the back, a blackbird performed virtuoso voice changes and musical improvisations, accompanied by the glinting concerto of water, and the hose which became a conductor's baton in my hand, celebrating the the water performing its own liturgical dance, of praise, gratitude and peace descending like those gentle life releasing drops of grace.

Moments like that are captured in the memory in ways more permanent, more precise, and more accessible to the heart than any photo or video clip. And what remains is the sense of time as gift, the co-incidence of bird song, arcing water, glinting light, and my own subservience to that which is around me. Because that is what receiving a gift requires, the humility to accept, the gladness to be grateful, the prescience to be ready for grace that is always prevenient, there waiting for us long before we turn the corner and meet the Giver of Blessing. Not many moments are full of God. Those that are come unlooked for, the surprise visit of God who comes to renew and repair and sustain our sense of belonging in God's world.

Teach me work that honors Thy work,

the true economies of goods and words,

to make my arts compatible

with the songs of the local birds.

Teach me patience beyond work

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of Thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest.