Is it me or does anyone else feel like their delight in creation is on steroids these days? Since the pandemic started, and outdoors was the new “in”, I’m noticing so much more about this good world God has made. Morning prayer and Bible reading on the couch with coffee has been replaced with coffee and Bible in the backyard, often now with blanket. I pray the Psalms to blue skies. Stark green grass and trees. Sun, majestic, rising in the sky. Towering oak next door. Dainty hummingbird sipping sugar water. Bird songs. Lots of them. Where are they coming from? Have there always been this many of them? Was I just too busy to notice? What else have I missed? 

This carries over in my walks with friends. Bunnies pouncing, noses twitching. Green leaves  and yellow finch. Mama duck leading her young across wavy waters. Playful retriever doing what he was born to do, yet again. Eagle at south beach Lake Harriet, watching kingly from on high his perch. And that was just summer. Now comes the turn of the leaves.

And the air! Have you really breathed it in lately? Fresh. Crisp. Rejuvenating. I’m aware it’s not fresh everywhere. I remember wild fires in my prayers. All creation is groaning.  

But all creation is also testifying. Bearing witness to our God. His power. His faithfulness. His beauty. His tender care. And not just creation in landscapes, but the crown of creation: human beings. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs. (Psalm 8:2 Msg) 

As the old hymn says This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears, all nature sings and round me rings, the music of the spheres…This is my Father's world, He shines in all that's fare, In the rustling grass I hear him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.  

What difference does a bird make in a pandemic and heated election year? Do not worry about your life…Look at the birds of the air; your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26) I think what matters is how that hymn ends. If God is indeed the Creator over all, then this world isn’t spinning out of control: This is my Father's world: O let me ne'er forget; That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.

I suppose I’m not saying anything new. Psalm 19 captures this sentiment best: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.  

May we be quiet enough to hear their songs.