Spent the day in LaGrange with oldest sister-in-law, getting a hair cut and grocery shopping at Kroger. I love to go to the larger grocery stores shopping for cheeses and a variety of groceries we don’t have here in Roanoke. So many choices! Was determined to stick to my list but I fell off the wagon and bought two logs of blueberry goat cheese. Lectured myself that chores had to be done before I had tea party with the cheese. Also bought two bags of Nerds gummy clusters. My granddaughter and I ate a bag while I was visiting. I love them! I was flipping through a daily quote book and this quote just struck me on how it was perfect for today. “Happy days never end, they live on as pleasant memories in the heart,” Unknown.

Oldest sister-in-law and I drove down the highway under a cool overcast sky. Father Sky had sketched a melted vanilla ice cream sky canvas covered with layers of clouds colored in shades of cigar smoke gray. Two sluggish buzzards, eating a road kill opossum, slowly moved to let my car pass. They are serious scavengers. The buzzards can’t call or caw, they can only grunt and hiss which makes them even more scary. These two buzzards had the largest feet I’ve ever seen, slowly walking away from the opossum, not running from my approaching car. Made me think of my children walking around in their daddy’s Sunday wingtip shoes, slowly clomping, slapping their shoes down one at a time, trying to make it to the sofa before their feet slipped out of the wingtips. I looked back in my rear view window and could see the buzzards slap, slap, slapping on their flat pink feet back to finish their delicious road kill breakfast. I laughed when I thought about the buzzards urinating on their pink feet to cool down and sanitize their legs to kill bacteria and parasites from the clarion. Bless their hearts.

Now I have buzzard thoughts on my mind the rest of the day searching for something that makes them a beautiful creature. The are wondrous in flight, soaring to heights that make them look small in the heavens. I love to watch them climb the morning wing currents, watching their brownish-black feathers of their wing strokes turn to silver-gray with the sunshine’s kisses. I always think they are cousins to the bobbing head doves sharing their pink legs and pink feet. Maybe the dove and buzzards shop at the same shoe store.

I love to watch the buzzards when I’m pondering in the porch swing. The buzzards are magnificent in flight, their large wings undulating and capturing the wind, their feet tucked tight and symmetrical against their bodies. When the sun hits just right you can see their beautiful silver tipped wing feathers. The feathers look like fingers to me, making me remember putting my hand out the car window as a child, my hand riding the wind like a wave. Actually, I still do that occasionally. Once I counted 12 buzzards, watching them till my neck hurt. Next time I looked upward they were gone. Couldn’t help but wonder if they were so high I could not see them. Buzzards and vultures soar at heights between 2,000 and 10,000 feet.

Found this quote about buzzards by William Faulkner. “If I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.” Love it but don’t want to eat what buzzards eat!

Sat in the swing late afternoon thinking about God and the buzzards, trying to find a similarity between them. Buzzards are symbols of death and rebirth, a positive omen of new beginnings. The buzzards clean decay, cleaning God’s creation of dead things. God cleans the earth of sin, making a way for a new life, bringing renewal to our hearts.

I’m always writing we need to thank God for breath each day we wake. Giovanni Papini said, “Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life.” Breathing is life. God gives us breath for another day each day we wake. Breath is not promised. It’s a gift from a loving God. Genesis 2:7 reads, “God formed humans from dust and breathed life into them.” Bible scripture says breath is a gift from God that connects us to life’s source. Job 33:4 states, “The breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

God wants us to use our breath to praise him. Psalms 150:6 advises, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” Breath is the life-giving spirit of all the living things God created. Each breath of life is precious and each day is a gift. We need to live each day thanking God by being a witness for his love and grace, bringing others to Jesus through our witness.

“Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life.” — Giovanni Papini