Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear?

Each morning, pouring rain or sun shiny day, Honey and I go for a walk.  It’s usually a half hour, sometimes more but never less.

I try to use these times to do something productive, like pray or just be quiet.

That rarely happens, though.  Sometimes, I talk on the phone to my mom in Vermont or my sister in Turkey.  That’s nice, but most often, I spend my walks just running through all the things I have to do in a day or trying to find an answer to something that is just unsolvable at the moment.  The end result is that I wind up at home frustrated, unthankful, or unhappy.  What a horrible way to start the day!  What a waste of a beautiful walk!

I noticed myself doing this the other day.  My mind was going at a hundred miles a minute as I worried about my job hunt, my resume, and money.  It was exhausting.  Instead of letting myself go down the rabbit hole, I decided to stop.  Someone recently told me that your thoughts are just that; they aren’t necessarily based in reality.  Instead of getting bogged down in what goes on up there, we can change our focus to what is real- that is, what is around you and happening at that moment.

I know, I know.  That sounds REALLY Californian-y.  And while I don’t really understand it all or even necessarily agree with it all, I don’t need to keep listening to the noise going on in my brain.  Especially when God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10a)

So I just stopped the whirling, and I got quiet.  And I heard birds singing.  Lots of birds.  I am not joking or exaggerating when I say this, I promise!  Beautiful songs came from the trees on each side of the street.  It had been going on all around me, and I had been so absorbed in my own self that I was missing a wonderful, joyous occurrence.  I continued on my walk, watching the depth of the sunlight, enjoying Honey as she engaged in the scents and sights of the neighborhood (meaning peeing on and chasing everything she could), and experiencing what was happening in the real world.

It’s amazing what I saw when I finally decided to look.