Sitting in the porch swing today. The day is like a spring day instead of a fall day, the temperature warming up all afternoon. Penelope and I sat on the porch and pondered on life and watched the birds and squirrels frolic. The chipmunks seem to be gone. Hope raccoons don’t eat them. Yeah, they do, I looked it up, but maybe they have already gone underground for the their torpor hibernation, their long winter’s nap. Hope they all stockpiled their eight pounds of food they need. I read sunflowers are a great source of protein and they gathered plenty of them under the bird feeders. So maybe they are fine.

The sky was an overcast of melted white vanilla, layers of white and gray and purple and blue. I think Mother Nature dipped her watercolor brush in different colors and let them splash off her brush onto Father Sky’s overcast sky canvas, so many different colors melding together when I studied the sky. I missed Mother Nature’s watercolor painting of sunset, missed Father Sky kissing the sun goodnight at dusk, and missed the pageantry of his hanging the stars and moon. Just went outside and there are no jewels in the sky. Everyone is hunkered down under their overcast cloud covers.

Had lot of birds on the feeders today. They love rainy days. We just had a brief shower but the faithful cardinals just kept on eating. They didn’t even leave when the fighting finches got in an argument. I watched one of the female cardinals just sit on top of a little purple finch to get him off the feeder. Got a good laugh. Two little chickadees fussed and cussed all afternoon in the gardenia bush by the porch bannisters. Chief rooted that big bush from a bloom off the bush at St. Barbara’s Episcopal Church here in Roanoke.

I put a little feeder there by the bush for the smaller birds and the chickadees and titmice quickly claimed it. The cardinals can’t perch on it but hover to get a seed. The chickadees just kept at it all afternoon. I came in the house for about an hour to do some chores and when Penelope and I went back outside to the porch the little birds were still fussing and cussing. They’re loud when they get mad. They were sitting about three inches apart on a gardenia branch. They are beautiful little birds in their black caps and bibs. They pick up one sunflower seed and fly to a branch and beat the seed on the branch to open it. I just wonder how many trips they make in a day from the feeder.

Been reading quotes today about rain and wind. I think Winnie the Pooh has the right idea about a rainy day, “When life throws you a rainy day, play in the puddles.” That’s a good idea. If it’s raining in your life right now, tap dance around in the puddles, and let God serve as your umbrella. A smile is a good umbrella, too. Amy Miles says, “A rainy day is a special gift to readers.” Chief and I did lots of reading by the fire on rainy days like today but since he’s gone I haven’t been able to concentrate long enough to read a book. I used to read a novel every day. Guess those days are gone. I’m reading short daily devotionals, an occasional biography, and searching for quotes in various sources for inspiration.

The sunset give me inspiration but today I missed it. I have been cleaning up broken Christmas balls and Christmas decorations strewn all over the house. Don’t know how we decorated a cedar tree when we were children without breaking all the glass balls. I think I broke four yesterday and five today. Sounds like a bomb when the glass balls shatter but oh so pretty on the tree they are.

I think we can compare ourselves to glass Christmas tree ornaments. We’re all beautiful but we have to risk exposing ourselves by clinging on a branch of the tree of life. Some of us enjoy a long life, others like my daughter are broken just as they start blooming on their branch of life. I think we better anchor ourselves on the branch with God’s love and grace. We lose our faith, we’re gonna fall and shatter when the storm winds blow. We need to pray and hang on to our faith.

There are lot of beautiful quotes about the wind — the wind under your wings, the wind of grace, the winds of heaven. My favorite quote I scribbled on a piece of paper today is, “The wind is us — it gathers and remembers all our voices, then sends them talking and telling through the leaves and fields,” Truman Capote.

Chief used to say every word we’ve ever uttered is on the wind blowing some where and maybe one day we would learn to hear those words and could listen to Thomas Jefferson and William Faulkner. I’d love to hear Mark Twain’s and Carson McCuller’s voices.

In our lives we can move with the wind or move against the wind. The wind can lift a little leaf and set it to flying and help the birds fly in the heavens. We can choose to use a gentle wind to lift up those around us or we can bring the storm winds of unhappiness by our words and actions. Milkhail Lermontov said, “Happiness comes the way the wind blows.” That’s so true with the winds that blow across the years of our lives. We can accept the wind gusts and know that God will trim our sails and set us right again. Or we can fight them, constantly frustrated when life doesn’t go our way. We can dance in the winds of heaven or give up and become stagnant.

“The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do is set our sails.” — Ramikrishna