I’m pondering on the porch swing this afternoon, the sky, so pretty in pale blue, is covered in line clouds where Father Sky has scratched his white pastel back and forth across his sky canvas. The songbirds are singing cheerfully and the wind chimes are adding background music to the songbird’s glorious symphony. The goldfinches, beginning to get dressed in their yellow sport coats, are enjoying the thistle seeds, chirping happily as they cling all over the thistle sock.

A Cooper’s hawk and his mate just circled my old oak scaring the songbirds away. The hawks didn’t get any lunch at my house today, thank goodness. They usually snatch a bird off the feeders. Glad they missed today. Hope the flock of goldfinches comes back. All the birds eventually came back and a flock of brown headed cow birds swooped in to join them. I had chickadees, cardinals, goldfinches, titmice, downy woodpeckers, a white breasted nuthatch, sparrows, pine siskin, doves, brown headed cowbirds, and my squirrels Fatty and Fatima. Everyone was feasting on sunflower seeds and suet.

After an early supper I sit outside and count the cardinals and their mates, 19 males paired with their simple but beautiful fawn brown mates. The sky is gorgeous. The clouds are layered, puffy and watercolored in shades of pale pink and aqua, resembling a thick fleece blanket pulled up high by Mother Nature to keep the sunset warm. I immediately think of God seated on a big porch in heaven. I see his suntanned sandled feet resting on the porch rails. He’s looking over the magnificence of the world he created, proud of the beauty of the day’s gleaming. I hope one of his angels standing near says to him, “Well done, my Lord.”

Watching the day bid goodbye to the day’s light is such a wondrous sight. The day’s gleaming just might be my favorite part of my day. Mother Nature paints a gloriously sunset as dusk creeps slowly up the street, dragging the darkness with it, making silhouettes of the leafless trees. The day is quiet and silence takes over the neighborhood, even the birds are without songs, slowly the light dims and night arrives, the night sky punctuated with the luminous moon and twinkling stars. In the spring and coming summer the night critters will begin their songs and symphonies soon as the daylight dims. I look forward to sleeping with the windows open listening to their arias, watching the earth’s yellow star flickers of the lightning bugs.

Scripture in Ecclesiastes 3:11 reads, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” How can you not believe in God when you see the intricate beauty of the world as the day ends and begins so gloriously with its sunsets and sunrises, his promised rainbows stretched across the heavens. God loved us so much he added color on everything his hands created. Rachel Carson said, “Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” I can be having a sorrowful moment and a few minutes in the porch swing looking out over this beautiful world brings joy back into my life. I feel God’s presence in nature and the earth’s beauty gives me strength and contentment.

As I compose this blog the words of the hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, are running through my mind. Read these beautiful words — “For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies. Christ, our Lord, to you we raise this, our hymn of grateful praise. For the wonder of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light, For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild, For yourself, best gift divine, to the world so freely given, agent of God’s grand design: peace on earth and joy in heaven. Christ, our Lord, to you we raise this, our hymn of grateful praise.”

Be thankful for this wondrous world we inhabit. Give thanks for the coming spring colored by God’s love.

“Nature’s beauty is an art of God. Let us feel the touch of God’s invisible hands in everything beautiful. By the first touch of His hand rivers throb and ripple. When He smiles the sun shines, the moon glimmers, the stars twinkle, the flowers bloom. By the first rays of the rising sun, the universe is stirred; the shining gold is sprinkled on the smiling buds of rose; the fragrant air is filled with sweet melodies of singing birds, the dawn is the dream of God’s creative fancy.” ― Rig Veda