Beautiful blue sky, yellow sunshine on this day on planet Earth. “I see the moon and the moon sees me!” Mr. Moon has been staying up late the past few days. While walking Penelope each morning, I’ve been catching him awake, his luminously handsome self hung high in the deep blue sky. I wonder if he stays up to watch the sun rise? The earth, covered in a blanket of darkness, wakes each day to a magnificent rush of color and light from the sun’s rays, breaking day in a gentle coming of peace and tranquillity. It’s a glorious gift to watch the sun bloom on the horizon arousing the world from its slumber. I don’t blame Mr. Moon for staying awake. Wish I could get up early enough to watch it myself.

Last week when I was sleeping with the windows open, before summer rushed in again and pushed fall off its pedestal, I’d hear the sweetest bird song early every morning and when the singing stopped I’d hear an obnoxiously loud, “Fee bee, Fee, bee.” Didn’t realize till I looked out my window that morning the singing soloist was an Eastern Phoebe. Haven’t seen one of these little flycatcher birds in years. So pretty, small, grayish and brownish plumage, darker brown on their wings, bright white chest feathers tapering down to greenish brown on their stomachs, thin insect catching beaks. So happy to add a new bird species to my watch. Phoebes sit straight up on the branches, wag their tail feathers up and down. I always noticed their heads because they are a darker gray and seem flat, look too small for their fat little bodies. A group of phoebes is a zapper. He can zap all the flies in my yard he wants. He can have mosquitoes for dessert, too. Just hope he doesn’t zap the butterflies.

I’ve often wondered if we could translate a beautiful bird song into words would we be reading the beauteous verses of a lovely lyrical poem? A Chinese Proverb reads, “A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a a song.” I love these words of William Hazlitt from London’s journal The Yellow Dwarf, written in 1818. He wrote about the “divergent purposes of an opera star and a singing bird.” He captured the bird singing so perfectly — “…the thrush that awakes at day-break with its song, does not sing because it is paid to sing, or to please others, or to be admired or criticized. It sings because it is happy; it pours the thrilling sounds from its throat, to relieve the overflowings of its own heart — the liquid notes come from, and go to the heart, dropping balm into it, as the gushing spring revives the traveller’s parched and fainting lips.”

A songbird sings its song between 1,000 and 2,500 times a day. At dawn they all join together for a dawn chorus of songs, singing as soon as they wake. The birds don’t question singing, they are inspired to sing, looking for mates, defending their territory. Maybe the songbirds are singing their prayers to God first in the earliest of the mornings, thankful for another glorious day. We need to learn to celebrate life with a song in our hearts, too, grateful for the blessings of God’s love. Psalm 96: 1 reads, “Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth.” We can sing a song from our hearts in our morning prayers of thanksgiving.

The love of God can be the wind under our wings that propels us forward to our destiny. William Blake wrote, “No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.” We all fly with our wings but on our own we don’t fly too high, just high enough to still feel safe. God will teach us how to spiritually fly, how to soar on the promise of eternal life. “He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection,” Psalm 91:4.

If you’re on a cliff of difficulties about to fall, turn to God. He will catch you or teach you how to fly.

“If we trust God will hold us up, we can walk in faith and not stumble or fall but fly like an eagle.”— Unknown