I know this is a bit late for a weekday but first came the cats and then the deer family peering into my kitchen window, waiting for corn and apples. They have their winter coats now, the thick hair covering their bodies. One of the yearlings is less fearful than the other and doesn’t move away from me when I go to their feeding station.
The birds are all fluttering about trying to get at the seed in the feeders. This is the first winter I haven’t seen the cardinals that usually hover about the suet feeders. They do only live about three or four years but I know the parents had babies last spring.
Compared to birds, we humans do have longer life spans. The question for us is how we use our lives so they make the world a better place for our having lived in it. When we hear of someone’s death or see an obituary for a person younger than us, it does give us pause. Maybe the question is not the span but how well a person lived.
Prayer for the Day
As the winter cold chills us to the bone, we wonder how animals manage
For even with their winter coasts, the deer must huddle to sleep;
Fluttering about, the birds puff up to keep warm
And fly into the shelter of the evergreens and ivy along the fences,
Warm our hearts, O God, so we share your care with others
Those who have no winter coats or warm places.
In the name of the One who is your model of care,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.
- Rainier Maria Rilke, Austrian poet (1875-1926)
Frost grows on the window glass, forming whorl patterns of lovely translucent geometry.
- Vera Nazarian, from The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them.
And give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.
Psalm 115: 19-20