Another day full of God’s blue cloudless sky and Mother Nature’s kite flying wind. The sun is bright and the greens of all the tree foliage are highlighted by the sun. So pretty. The birds are singing, the trees are rustling with their new leaves. I am thinking this might have been the kind of day Noah and his family greeted when the rains ended, the sun’s promise of another day of living. Reminds me of the scripture from Song of Solomon 2:11-12 that reads, “For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”

The magnolias are beginning to bloom on my street. I love to put a few stems of magnolias in a crystal bowl in the dining room but none are blooming low enough now for me to reach and pick them. Always had a bowl of magnolia blossoms on the piano at my children’s piano recitals. Someone down the street just cut their two twigs of grass with a riding mower and sent a red dust cloud up the street. Penelope and I watched it float by. We could smell the dirt in the air. We really need a good soaking rain. We need to welcome the rain like we welcome the sun and let God’s words cover us like a heavy spring rain, helping us grow and flourish in your faith.

Learned two new words today, biophony and geophony and when you put those words together, they make a beautiful yard symphony. A biophony is a sound from living things such as frogs and birds and other animals. A geophony is a non biological sound like wind in the trees or waves at the ocean. There is a soft yard symphony going on now highlighted by the melodies of the wind chimes’ tintinnabulations. Now the purple finches are fighting and chirping so loudly I’ve got an angry sounding yard symphony. I can hear this loud bird chirping in the side yard and its saying what sounds just like, “Listen to me, listen to me!” I am listening and I hear you, birdie! “Without birds, where would we have learned that there can be song in the heart,” Sarah J. Maas

Been watching this huge buzzard, glossy black when the sun touches his wings, floating high up in the sky, winding up the wind current curved stairwell. His shadow is dancing across my yard and sidewalk and the brick wall across the street. He’s really up high, surveying his domain, king of the sky. He lit on the ball on top of the cupola on the roof across the street. Sat up there for a good while. He was chased earlier by two mocking birds but he just kept soaring in his circle ignoring their pestering. Buzzards fly their own course and choose to ignore the interference of other birds.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all just flew our own road map and didn’t worry about all the interferences that stop us along the way. We’d just be our true selves, not worrying about what people think, all marching to the beat of our own drums. We’d be flexible in our life’s path yet we’d be able to change directions. We’d learn to listen to our own voice. Marching to your own drum is courageous. Deep inside us is a faithful voice that guides us like a compass. The hardest part is really listening to that voice and following a Christian path. God wants us to march with a community of believers, guided by the Holy Spirit, to the drum beats of Jesus Christ.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” —Henry David Thoreau