I’m perched in the porch swing enjoying the day. The sky is so beautiful. The clouds are color washed on their bottoms in shades of grays and blues and purples, the sky a study of cigar smoke overcast clouds. The sun occasionally breaks through and lets me see a spot of blue sky before the clouds quickly clasp their hands and gather to block the sun again. Late afternoon the sun beat the overcast cloud covers back and burst her yellow rays through setting the blue heavens loose swimming with white bleached clouds. So beautiful. I can imagine the joy Noah and his family felt when they gazed out the windows of the ark, saw God’s promised rainbow in the bright sunshine of a blue sky, the forty days and nights of rain finally ended.

Mother Nature tried to paint a beautiful backdrop for her sunset pageant this afternoon but the sun rolled quickly down the horizon on the coattails of Father Sky. All I saw was a brief sight of the train of her tangerine orange gown as she hurried down the horizon in a brief blaze of dark orange. She must have plans for the evening with Father Sky.

The clouds were in cahoots with the sun and managed to thwart Mother Nature’s watercolor painting. But I know the clouds didn’t dampen Mother Nature’s spirit when she pulled her brushes and watercolor palette out. She paints for God’s glory and honestly doesn’t care if we watch or not. I try to watch everyday and I’m amazed at the beauty that turns the day to night. Just think, no two sunsets are ever alike, the symphony of colors that shade the horizon, gifts from above to let us know the end is just as beautiful as the beginning.

Been thinking about the night sky, the velvet purple sky canopy that Father Sky decorates elegantly when he wakes the night. I think this quote by Willa Cather describes the night sky exquisitely. “The sky was a midnight blue, like warm deep blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water lily, floating forward with an invisible current.” She paints an alluring picture with her words. Here’s another night quote I love. “The sky slowly pulled up its blue dress to reveal night,” Jonathan Safran Foer. I always think the sun turns out the day’s light when she rolls down the horizon and wakes the night with Father Sky pinning the moon and stars on the night sky canvas. I think she’d be embarrassed to pull her dress up to reveal the night. But who knows…

Shakespeare wrote, “The earth has music for those who listen.” I hear the earth’s music today, rustling of leaves when the breeze gets heavy, songs and calls of the songbirds, knocks on the bare branches as the birds land on the slender limbs and crack open their sunflower seeds, chattering of the squirrels, meows of Kat and Churchill, barks and woofs of Penelope and the neighborhood dogs, steady drops of water from my clogged gutter. Nature is full of sounds if we sit quietly and pay attention. Nature’s music inspires me and carries the truth of God’s words.

Psalm 13:6 reads, “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” The Bible is full of verses about music that impact our spiritual lives. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God,” Colossians 3:16.

Looked up the lyrics to the children’s song, Jesus Loves Me, and discovered the song had five stanzas. We all learned the first stanza as children. I think we can read the other four stanzas as a prayer. “Jesus loves me! This I know, as he loved so long ago, taking children on his knee, saying, ‘Let them come to me.’ Jesus loves me still today, walking with me on my way, wanting as a friend to give light and love to all who live. Jesus loves me! He who died heaven’s gate to open wide; he will wash away my sin, let his little child come in. Jesus loves me! He will stay close beside me all the way; thou hast bled and died for me, I will henceforth live for thee.”

“By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” — Psalm 42:8