Listening to Different Voices

My new habit at the new place is to grab a mug of coffee, slip through the door, and find a porch chair to settle into. Our little island is surrounded by cedars and oaks and hackberrys and elms and makes for secluded and private escape. The sun slowly creeps over the tree line to the east and lights the trees from the very tip top and slowly makes it way down to the ground. It is s peaceful, relaxing moment. Made especially nice because I leave the cell phone in the house and am shut off from the world and the intrusion it causes.

But I am not alone out there. The aviary apparently has a much earlier alarm than I would have guessed. It usually starts with the crows. Their morning conversation is loud and raucous. They jeer and squawk at each other at full volume. Caws are rusty and raspy and incessant.
Pretty soon the mourning doves kick in with their cooing. A subtle and amazing tune that at first earned them their name, but now I tend to think of it as morning note, not a mourning note. But I can see where they earned their name. Cooing through and under the crows loud noise.
Mockingbirds chime in about that time with a repeated three or four note call. Varying very little each time with the same note repeated four or five times at the end. With a little work I can get close to their call. Not sure what I am saying, but they keep coming back to me with the same tune.
And underneath it all is a soft tune I can't quite put my finger on. It is by far the sweetest, but almost lost in the cawing, the cooing, and the calling. And it is not there every morning. Some mornings it is early and chimes right in, other times it is absent. But I find myself listening for it. For some reason that song speaks to me more than the others and it is the rarest and hardest to hear. When it happens it creates a space of peace and calm.

One morning not too long ago it occurred to me that this symphony of bird calls is reflected in my life. The harsh, insistent call of work and demands and pressures caws and squawks and demands my attention. It is never ending, every day, all day. It presses my mind and heart and my soul.
And, as my bride will tell you, there is a small stream of sadness wending it's way through my life. Perhaps I have been wounded or have done the wounding and can't easily escape the scars. It is always there, sort of a mournful sound underlying all the other noise of the daily grind.
Also there, due to some life shift a few years ago is the need to have a repeated song in my life. Disciplines that lend a steadiness that would otherwise swallowed up by the restiveness and the bleakness.

But there is a another song. Not often heard. A song of peace and calm. A song of hope and joy. Straining to hear over the blaring world, the tattered heart, the dulling routine, is the song of tomorrow. When the old book tells us of the voice of God it usually comes in the form of a whisper. Not often heard. But sweetest in note.

My struggle is to be able to hear the best and sweetest song of all. Distraction pulls me away from the art of listening. But maybe if I spend more time on my porch with my coffee and my thoughts the song will get easier to hear. Maybe that is where the life of hope is headed.

Godspeed to everyone who can hear all the songs and realize that each is needed. But I hope that you and me can also hear the sweetest one yet. Above all the others.
Don